Twenty-four-year-old American Ivory Williams—one of the fastest 100-meter sprinters in the world—will not be allowed to compete on the U.S. Team for this year’s World Indoor Championships.

His offense? He tested positive for marijuana. Now Williams, who just last month ran the fastest 60 meters in the world, will be ineligible to compete for the next three months and will have to complete an anti-doping educational program.

It’s simply maddening to see a 24-year-old world-class athlete get sidelined from his sport just because he used a substance that is safer than alcohol and isn’t exactly what you’d call a performance-enhancing drug.  To add insult to injury, his manager felt compelled to issue a token apology, saying Williams exhibited “poor judgment.”

In a related, possibly even more frustrating story, the defending champion in the Iditarod—where dogs do the racing, not humans—might now be disqualified because he uses medical marijuana to treat the effects of throat cancer.

Of course, these are just the most recent examples of athletes being reprimanded and forced to apologize for using marijuana. (How can anyone forget the faux-outrages over Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps and Cy Young Award Winner Tim Lincecum?)

It’s one thing for law enforcement to issue penalties to athletes for breaking the law, but it’s quite another for sporting organizations to take it upon themselves to suspend athletes for doing something that isn’t affecting their performance and is actually safer than many of the substances they could be using legally. The fact that these successful, healthy athletes sometimes use marijuana helps to defy inaccurate lazy stoner stereotypes, but the harsh penalties handed down by sporting officials in response simply furthers the baseless notion that marijuana is a particularly harmful drug that consenting adults should be ashamed of using.

Talk about seeing the error of his ways.

John J. Dilulio, Jr., the man who once co-authored a book with two former drug czars that described America’s drug war as “the most successful attack on a serious social problem in the last quarter-century,” has now reversed course, writing in the journal Democracy that it is “insane” to “expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging ‘war’ against [marijuana] users.”

Specifically, Dilulio, who served for eight months in 2001 as director of President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, listed making medical marijuana legal as one of “six steps to zero prison growth,” along with removing all federal mandatory-minimum drug sentencing policies. He also said the United States should “seriously consider decriminalizing [marijuana] altogether” because marijuana arrests have “close to zero” effect on crime rates and there is “almost no scientific evidence” showing marijuana to be more harmful than alcohol or legal narcotics.

This is coming from the same guy who in 1996 co-authored a (now out-of-print) book that was subtitled “How to Win America’s War Against Crime and Drugs,” with former directors of the Office of National Control Policy Bill Bennett and John Walters.

I would love to know what got Dilulio to change his views of drug policy—and how we could make other former prohibitionists see the light as well.

Here is the complete excerpt of Dilulio’s article that discusses marijuana policy:

“Sixth, legalize marijuana for medically prescribed uses, and seriously consider decriminalizing it altogether. Last year there were more than 800,000 marijuana-related arrests. The impact of these arrests on crime rates was likely close to zero. There is almost no scientific evidence showing that pot is more harmful to its users’ health, more of a "gateway drug," or more crime-causing in its effects than alcohol or other legal narcotic or mind-altering substances. Our post-2000 legal drug culture has untold millions of Americans, from the very young to the very old, consuming drugs in unprecedented and untested combinations and quantities. Prime-time commercial television is now a virtual medicine cabinet ("just ask your doctor if this drug is right for you"). Big pharmaceutical companies function as all-purpose drug pushers. And yet we expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging "war" against pot users. That is insane.”

Bringing you all the latest developments in marijuana policy reform!

In a fantastic example of how much the times have changed, the front-page, above-the-fold story in this morning’s USA Today, the “nation’s newspaper,” is about the “growing national movement” to reform marijuana laws.

Quoting numerous voices from within the marijuana policy reform movement, including MPP’s Kurt Gardinier, the piece highlights the growing public support for ending marijuana prohibition, paying particular attention to the many states that have passed or proposed legislation to allow medical marijuana, eliminate criminal penalties for possession, and even tax and regulate the nation’s largest cash crop like alcohol.

Years ago, such a huge splash in the mainstream media would have been hard to fathom. Hopefully it will serve to further sway public opinion in favor of much-needed reform.

Since 1965 over 20 million Americans have been arrested for a marijuana related charge, and that number grows by two about every minute. You heard me right. Someone in this country is arrested on a marijuana charge every 36 seconds--clearly marijuana prohibition isn’t working. But we can’t relent. We need to keep letting our government know how we feel.

For the second year in a row we have an opportunity to let the Obama administration know what ideas are most important to us. Last year ending marijuana prohibition was the number one idea on change.org’s top 10 “ideas for change in America” list, but it currently sits out of the money in fourth place. Let your voice be heard and vote to end marijuana prohibition once and for all (voting ends March 12).

When U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last year that the federal Department of Justice would no longer prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers complying with state law, reform advocates cheered it as the greatest victory in over a decade.

The shift in federal policy was indeed a breakthrough for the medical marijuana movement, but did little good for Bryan Epis of Chico, California.

Last week, a federal judge ordered Bryan to prison for a 2002 conviction involving 100 marijuana plants he maintained for several state-legal patients. Under the current administration’s policy, Bryan would likely be left alone by the feds, but the problem is that his arrest and conviction occurred well before the new policy was implemented.

Bryan was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and has already served two years behind bars, but has been out on various appeals since 2004. Today he’s sitting in the Sacramento County jail awaiting transfer back to a federal penitentiary.

Friends and family are hoping President Obama pardons Bryan so that he isn’t forced to waste more of his life locked in a cage because of his compassion towards sick and suffering patients.

Bryan’s partner is circulating a petition urging President Obama to grant a pardon and she requests your help. A printable petition form can be downloaded here. Please help Bryan by collecting as many signatures as you can and mailing the petition back to the address at the bottom of the page.

In the latest sign of a growing embrace of medical marijuana by the business community in this country, a California-based insurer said this week that it will now offer medical marijuana-related coverage in all 50 states.

A spokesman for Statewide Insurance Services said the new program will include operations related to medical marijuana dispensaries and growers, including workers’ compensation, general liability, auto insurance, equipment breakdown and damage, and property or product loss—including marijuana spoilage.

As the cultivation and distribution of state-sanctioned medical marijuana proliferates in 14 states (and counting), it is only right that such establishments receive the same protections as other legitimate businesses. By taking this much-needed step, Statewide is helping to send a strong message to the rest of the country that this nearly untapped-market is not just credible, but ripe for new business opportunities, and here to stay.

The total amount of marijuana seized by the DEA nearly doubled from 1,539 metric tons in 2008 to 2,980 metric tons in 2009, according to numbers disclosed by the DEA as part of their budget request for 2011.

Meanwhile, the cultivation of marijuana in Mexico rose 35% in 2008 to nearly 30,000 acres, according to a report released by the U.S. State Department.

These latest numbers confirm that the only thing an increase in the amount of marijuana seizures by the DEA will do is force more marijuana to be grown by gangs in Mexico, lining the pockets of drug cartels, and further fueling the bloodshed along our border and in our respective countries.

When is the U.S. government going to realize that they will never eliminate the demand for marijuana? There is only one real solution to this crisis: tax and regulate marijuana.

A report released today by the Partnership for a Drug Free America shows that the number of American teenagers who use marijuana has increased for the first time in 10 years, with 25 percent of teens in grades 9 through 12 saying they’ve used marijuana in the past month, up from 19 percent.

What these numbers show—despite what organizations like PDFA might twist them to say—is that our current marijuana policies have clearly failed to reduce teen marijuana use, and a different approach is necessary. Right now, teens have easy access to marijuana because it is unregulated and controlled exclusively by drug dealers who do not check IDs.

The solution, therefore—as readers of this blog have heard time and again—is quite simple: Tax and regulate marijuana, so that it can be sold only by licensed merchants who would be required to check IDs and would face harsh penalties if they failed to do so. A similar approach has enabled this country to drastically reduce teen cigarette smoking over the past two decades. It’s also worked overseas. In the Netherlands, for example, marijuana is sold in regulated establishments to adults who must show proof of age. As a result, according to a 2008 World Health Organization survey, the overall rate of marijuana use in the Netherlands is less than half what it is in the United States. Additionally, only 7% of Dutch teens have tried marijuana by age 15. In the U.S., as many as 20.2% of teens have tried marijuana by age 15, according to government estimates.

If this country is serious about keeping marijuana out of the hands of teenagers, we need to accept the simple fact that prohibition does not work. Regulation does.

Since 1992, MTV has aired the true story of seven strangers, picked to live in a house, have their lives taped after drinking massive of amounts of alcohol while we find out over and over again that drinking alcohol often leads to reckless, violent, and oftentimes illegal behavior. Last night’s episode was no different. Extremely drunken cast member Ty got a little too real after a night of drinking and shoved his roommate Andrew over a tall concrete staircase, resulting in Andrew being carried off on a backboard by the paramedics.

I don’t think “The Real World” could survive on TV without alcohol. There wouldn’t be enough drama. But, why is that we have never seen any of these real worlders making the safer choice by using marijuana instead of alcohol? MPP does not encourage anyone to use any substance (legal or otherwise), but we certainly know which substance is safer: Marijuana.

Is it MTV policy to never show marijuana use? If that is the case, I feel duped, because in the real world people use marijuana all the time. In fact, more than 100 million Americans have used marijuana, and more than 15 million use it at least monthly.

The organization SAFER (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation) is asking the public to sign their petition calling on MTV to stop driving its cast members to drink and “start getting real.” We encourage you to do the same.