Mothers who support Proposition 19 held a press conference in California yesterday to make the case for regulating marijuana and removing it from an illicit market that makes it readily available to young people. (Video below) “When I think of what kind of world I’d like my children to grow up in, [I’d like] that they grow up in a world with marijuana being legal and controlled, and not this out of control system that we have today,” said Hannah Liebman Dershowitz, an attorney and mother of two kids,…

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly bet guest John Stossel $10,000 (to a charity of the winner’s choice) that Proposition 19, the California ballot measure that would make marijuana legal for all adults, will fail. Stossel, who supports Prop 19, said that it’s time to end marijuana prohibition because “it’s a war on our own people.” “A war on our own people?” asked a bewildered and defiant O’Reilly. “What does that mean? They’re breaking people’s doors down?” Yes, Mr. O’Reilly,…

About one-third of “unlikely” voters in Oregon said they were more enthusiastic and more likely to vote after learning that a medical marijuana initiative was on their state’s ballot this year, according to a new survey released today by the measure’s campaign. Measure 74 – which has been endorsed by the Oregon state Democratic Party – would add state-licensed dispensaries to Oregon’s existing medical marijuana law. According to the survey, which polled a random sampling of under-40, Democratic and…

Former U.S. Surgeon General -- and MPP VIP Advisory Board member -- Joycelyn Elders appeared on CNN yesterday to argue against the criminalization of marijuana users. "Marijuana has never caused anybody directly to die," she said. "It's not a toxic substance ... We can use our resources so much better. I think we need to legalize marijuana for adults, and tax it so we can use the money for much better things." Elders is just one of the countless other esteemed medical, legal, civil rights, law enforcement,…

According to the Associated Press, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter earlier this week to former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration in which he promised that the Justice Department would continue to enforce federal marijuana laws in California even if the state’s voters approve Proposition 19, which would make marijuana legal for all adults 21 and older and allow localities to tax and regulate marijuana’s sale. In response, Steve Fox, director of government relations for the…

If you believe most headline writers, yesterday the RAND Corporation released a study that said ending marijuana prohibition in California would do little to take away profits from Mexican drug cartels. But if you take the time to actually read the study, you’ll learn that Mexican cartels make billions of dollars from exporting marijuana to the United States (not including profits from the marijuana they grow within our borders), that a statistic originally put forward by the U.S. drug czar’s office…

There’s been a great deal of chatter recently about what the federal government can or will do if Californians wisely pass Proposition 19 in a few weeks (read up here and here for example). President Obama has several choices, but the one I want address here is the one recently urged by nine former DEA heads (pdf):  for the feds to sue California in an attempt to declare the law null and void under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution because it violates the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). I…

Ever since California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill decriminalizing possession of up to one ounce of marijuana in the Golden State, opponents of Prop 19 have latched onto this development as their latest (bogus) talking point for why voters should reject the ballot measure on Nov. 2. Their argument goes something like this: By making possession a civil infraction rather than a misdemeanor, people will no longer be arrested for marijuana possession in California; therefore, one of the main…

This weekend, Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, joined a growing number of Latin American leaders, academics, and artists in calling for an end to failed prohibition policies: “[Legalization] is the only solution," said the author. "Drug trafficking can not be defeated by military means.” It seems strange that such well-respected members of Latin American society are more and more willing to come out in favor of reform, while here in the States, most public officials…