The Obama administration calls prescription drug abuse the nation’s most pressing drug problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription drug deaths are at an all time high and account for more deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. than any other drug. Advocates of affordable health care are decrying the exorbitant price of prescriptions and the toll such costs take on them and their families. Well, guess what non-toxic and inexpensive medicine patients use as a…

The Marijuana Policy Project and a coalition of advocacy and labor groups staged a demonstration today to protest the federal government's escalated attack on California's medical marijuana laws. A rally of medical marijuana patients and supporters took place in front of the Sacramento Federal Building and features state legislators, advocates, labor unions, and dispensary operators impacted by the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) crackdown in California. Since the beginning of October, U.S. attorneys…

Yesterday, voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Tacoma, Washington directed local law enforcement to make marijuana possession the lowest enforcement priority. The measures passed by 2:1 margins, garnering nearly 65% of the vote in Tacoma and 66% in Kalamazoo. With only 61-66% of homicide cases in this country cleared every year, and only 12% of burglaries cleared, it’s not surprising that voters think police should have more important things to do than arresting individuals who possess a substance…

Since the beginning of the White House’s “We the People” petition program, questions and requests about marijuana policy have dominated the site. Last week, the Obama administration lumped all of those detailed, nuanced questions together and answered them all by parroting the same old rhetoric. Very little in the way of an actual response was given to the questions, other than this: marijuana is dangerous and should remain illegal, but more research should be done on its medical properties. This…

The Coalition to End Marijuana Prohibition, the MPP-backed issue committee paying for the signature drive in Colorado for the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol, has hit a major milestone. As of today, the campaign has 100,000 signatures in hand! This puts us more than two-thirds of the way toward our goal of collecting 145,000 raw signatures by January 6, with 86,105 valid signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the November 2012 ballot. There are some amazing volunteers helping…

After the recent federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California, advocates are understandably upset and want to show it. This week, they took their complaints right to the top, with hundreds of people turning out to protest President Obama in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Shortly after this, however, the U.S. Attorneys in charge of the California crackdown said that the Obama administration had nothing to do with it. According to a statement made by California Eastern District spokesperson…

Research continues to show cannabinoids are remarkably helpful for symptomatic as well as therapeutic treatment in cancers. Inhaled cannabis has a long history of use by some patients to mitigate pain without the sedating side effects of opiates. THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, has been shown to restrict metastases and growth in a variety of tumor cell lines. THC as Marinol, FDA approved, has been used in humans to mitigate nausea and vomiting side effects of chemotherapeutic agents…

If you’ve been following news in the drug policy world, you know that Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is sponsoring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. The bill would create a blue-ribbon panel that, according to Webb, would “take the long-overdue step of undertaking a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, producing recommendations for changes in oversight, policies, practices, and laws designed to prevent, deter, and reduce crime and violence, improve cost-effectiveness, and ensure…

In late September, I wrote about the letter sent by the ATF to all federally licensed firearms dealers, explaining that it was illegal to sell guns or ammunition to state-licensed medical marijuana users. The reasoning behind this was a clause in the Federal Firearms Act that states that a person cannot purchase or possess a gun if they are “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.” The ATF reminded gun dealers…

One of the most often-heard arguments against marijuana reform can basically be summed up as follows: “But what about the children?” Prohibitionists are quick to trot this one out whenever their other arguments have failed because it’s an easy way to elicit a strong emotional response. They claim that marijuana reform will lead to increased rates of use, developmental damage, and easier access to marijuana. Even talking about the issue will lead to higher rates of use, according to their arguments.…