Ever find yourself at a party filled with smart, interesting folks, except the loudest, most boorish person there keeps dominating conversation? When it comes to shaping international drug policy, the U.S. is that guy. Check out this account of the United Nation's Forum on International Drug Control Policy – a gathering of drug policy experts from nongovernmental organizations around the world – by the ACLU's Graham Boyd: In all but one region of the world, the NGOs found an appalling over-reliance…

A new Associated Press analysis finds that 157 young people age 18-23 died from alcohol poisoning from 1999 to 2005 (the most recent figures available). Alarmingly, the 2005 total of 35 alcohol deaths was the highest in the period, nearly double the 18 deaths in 1999. Not mentioned by AP but worth noting: The number of marijuana overdose deaths during that same period was zero. As noted in a recent British Medical Journal editorial, no medically documented marijuana overdose deaths have been reported…

The anti-marijuana ads coming out of the White House drug czar's office just keep getting stranger. Their latest TV commercial may be the oddest yet. Apparently, the message is that if you smoke marijuana while you're young, eventually you'll end up middle-aged. Or something.

The final installment of Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation.

In the marijuana reform movement, one of the comments I often overhear in conversations, see posted in online message forums, or read in blog comments relates to the Netherlands and their treatment of marijuana. "Treat marijuana like the Netherlands does" seems to be the rallying cry for lots of misinformed people. Jeffrey Stinson recently did a short piece on how marijuana is treated in the Netherlands for USA Today. Though brief, the story zeroes in on one important fact: Marijuana in the Netherlands…

Could marijuana be helpful for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? The possibility is raised by a newly published case report in Cannabinoids, the journal of the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine. Doctors from the Heidelberg University Medical Center in Heidelberg, Germany, report on an adult ADHD sufferer who exhibited classic ADHD behavior -- pushy, impatient, having trouble focusing or responding to questions appropriately -- and who had not been helped by Ritalin,…

Here's part two of the Rick Steves and ACLU venture, Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation.

A New York cable station, Regional News Network, will air a half-hour discussion on medical marijuana in the state tonight at 8 p.m. EST. The show, which streams live at www.rnntv.com, will feature advocate Glenn Amandola, a medically retired New York City police officer who suffers from chronic pain after being injured on the job, and Rep. Richard Gottfried, who sponsored a medical marijuana bill that passed the Assembly this year, 89-52. The show will also feature a discussion that allows phone…

Those of us working to reform marijuana laws often criticize government officials and the news media for using inaccurate or misleading terminology, but occasionally we pick up some of those bad habits ourselves. I just fell into this trap myself, in a column I just wrote for AlterNet about a recent WHO study and its implications for our drug laws. I used the phrase "whenever a state considers liberalizing its marijuana laws," to refer to proposals to tax and regulate marijuana like alcoholic beverages. But,…

Recently, the ACLU, with the help of travel guru Rick Steves, began airing a 30-minute television program in Washington state to address the issue of marijuana in America. The program, titled Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation, briefly covers some of the history of marijuana's legal status in America, the problems associated with our treatment of it, and the reasons why we should reconsider how we approach marijuana. Today we present part one of that video, and later this week we'll have parts…