So police discover a package of marijuana apparently shipped to the mayor of a small town in Prince George's County and respond by sending a SWAT team to pounce on the unarmed man as he returns from work, killing his two Labradors for good measure. The police then handcuff him and his mother-in-law next to their pets and interrogate them for hours as blood pools on the floor. And a PG police spokesman says the raid was carried out properly according to their policies. I'm sure it was. Does anybody…

 We distributed MPP Foundation's new radio public service announcements today to stations nationwide, aiming to educate the public about the effects of U.S. marijuana laws, and about recent developments regarding medical marijuana. The ads feature Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, and California Superior Court Judge Jim Gray. You can listen to the new spots here. And if you happen to work at a radio station, you're welcome to download and air them anytime.             The…

This morning's press conference, at which MPP and other marijuana policy reformers joined U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) to call for an end to federal criminal penalties for marijuana possession, was a rousing success, as this CNN story shows. And apparently it got under the skin of our overlords at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Having not gotten much media pickup on their preemptive press release issued yesterday --…

A new study just published in Archives of Internal Medicine shows a 360.5% increase in the death rate from fatal medication errors (FMEs) from 1983 to 2004, vastly outstripping most other causes of death. Notably, most of the increase in deaths took place at home, not in medical settings or other locations. FMEs are defined as deaths from mistakes involving medications: accidental overdoses, the wrong drug being taken, etc. They do not include deaths from "adverse reactions" (side effects) involving…

MPP-TV recently had a chance to sit down with travel guru and author Rick Steves to discuss marijuana policy both here and abroad. Here's what he had to say...

ABC's "20/20" aired this story Friday about Rachel Hoffman, a young Florida woman who was murdered by drug dealers after Tallahassee police pressured her into acting as an informant to avoid minor marijuana charges. It would be easy to blame this on the extraordinary cowardice and ineptitude of the Tallahassee Police Department, but cowardice and ineptitude are inherent in our country's war on marijuana users. Tragedies like this one will remain routine, hideous occurrences as long as we treat innocent…

Saturday's Los Angeles Times does a pretty good story on this unfolding medical marijuana case, focusing on the bizarre dance defense attorneys must do to help the jury understand what's really going on, having been barred from using the phrase "medical marijuana" -- which is, of course, a nonexistent concept under federal law. 

This video, from the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, has Dr. George Wagoner describing the relief his wife found from marijuana in her battle against ovarian cancer.

I promise, we will not do a new post every time an ONDCP official lies. We'd never get any work done. But the falsehoods uttered by deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns in this interview in the Arcata Eye, a small northern California paper, are so blatant that they deserve mention. To avoid having to write a War and Peace-length tome, I'll focus on just two: LIE #1:  Tough laws and enforcement are reducing marijuana use: Burns says, "drug use is down in the United States dramatically since 2001 ... So we…

MPP just released a new documentary examining the effects of marijuana prohibition on people's lives.  The piece looks at four stories (including our own Rob Kampia's) as examples of how marijuana prohibition and its consequences impact the lives of a diverse group of Americans and their families. We've split the video up into two parts, which are available on the MPP-TV video blog: Part 1 and Part 2. This is powerful stuff, and we hope you'll watch and share it with friends.