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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…