Last week a City Hall staffer told Seattle Weekly that the mayor’s office is backing away from a plan to regulate the city’s proliferating, unregulated medical-marijuana businesses after questions about the city’s authority to do so were raised. Our readers responded: “Mayor Murray is a coward. He should be protecting medical marijuana patients not attacking them.” —Dom • “Shut down the illegal MMJ operations! These are criminals masquerading as patient advocates! There are no laws allowing huge collectives or hundreds of dispensaries. It’s all a sham.” —James007 • “The only sham here is continuing to criminalize people for a plant.” —John Novak