Kudos to New Mexico Governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson who has signed the state legislature's medical marijuana bill into law.

New Mexico now joins Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington in protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest. Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, actively lobbied for the bill's passage.

"Governor Richardson's action is the clearest sign yet that the politicians are finally catching up with the people on the issue of medical marijuana," said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C. "Support for medical marijuana is overwhelming -- 78 percent in a national Gallup poll -- and backing from the medical community is solidifying as new research continues to document marijuana's medical benefits. Support in Congress keeps growing, and this could be the year the federal government finally ends its cruel attacks on the sick in states where medical marijuana is legal."

As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws, and they will, thanks to the great work of Marijuana Policy Project,NORML and patients' rights groups, it's time for a change in federal enforcement policies.