The New Jersey man who was sentenced to five years in prison last month for growing marijuana plants to treat his multiple sclerosis will now remain jailed while he appeals his conviction.

John Wilson has maintained that he grew marijuana for personal use only to treat his illness. Throughout most of his trial, a judge prevented Wilson from mentioning his condition, even after New Jersey became the 14^th state in the nation to pass a medical marijuana law. On Friday, that same judge—State Superior Court Judge Robert Reed—ruled that Wilson cannot go free on bail until his appeal is decided.

Two state senators are asking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to pardon Wilson, calling the decision to bring charges against the 37-year-old “cruel, unusual and unnecessary.”

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The campaign to end marijuana prohibition received a noteworthy endorsement last week, when the head of the second-largest teachers union in the country said that she supports this year’s ballot initiative in California to regulate marijuana.

Randi Weingarten, president of the 856,000-member American Federation of Teachers, told HBO’s “Real Time” host, Bill Maher, that “everything in moderation is pretty much fine.”

“When something becomes a forbidden fruit,” the 52-year-old told Maher, “you have to spend a whole lot of time making sure that, when you say no, people don’t think you mean yes.”

In another encouraging sign of the growing support for improving our nation’s marijuana laws, last week more than 90 percent of readers at the progressive political blog FireDogLake said they wanted to see that site “get involved” in marijuana policy reform.

Writes FDL editor Jane Hamsher:

“Our audience overwhelmingly believes that the [m]arijuana legalization initiatives are very important, and I think FDL can play a role in helping people to understand what’s at stake, and push back against the false arguments being advanced to perpetuate a [dysfunctional] status quo.”

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For those of you who missed it last night, or haven’t seen it yet on MPP TV or MPP’s YouTube channel, here’s the clip of MPP director of campaigns Steve Fox that aired on Fox News last night. Enjoy!

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Legislative analyst Dan Riffle joins Insider host Mike Meno to discuss medical marijuana legislation in D.C., Maryland, and New York. Also, get updates on Wal-Mart, California's TaxCannibas 2010 initiative, and news on the Veteran's Administration refusal to allow medical marijuana treatments.

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MPP director of state campaigns Steve Fox appears on the O'Reilly Factor with host Laura Ingraham to discuss the benefits of taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol. This came just after Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws offered Sarah Palin $25000 to speak at a pro-marijuana reform event and admit that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol. Palin spoke at the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers convention on Tuesday. 04/08/10

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MPP spokesperson Sarah Lovering appears on KTLA to explain the benefits of a taxed and regulated marijuana market proposed by the Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative in California. 03/24/2010

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MPP director of state campaigns Steve Fox will be interviewed on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor” tonight about the recent offer that an MPP-backed Nevada group made to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Following Palin’s speech in Las Vegas this week to the national convention of Wine & Spirits Wholesalers, Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws offered the possible 2012 G.O.P. presidential contender $25,000 to make a similar speech to supporters of a regulated marijuana market. “Such a speech would convey a simple message,” Steve wrote this week on Alternet. “If we can defend and even celebrate the individual freedom to use alcohol, we should certainly allow individuals the freedom to use marijuana, a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol.”

Steve will discuss the offer, as well as the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol, with guest host Laura Ingraham at 8 p.m. ET tonight. Keep in mind that TV schedules are often subject to last-minute changes if there’s breaking news.

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Encouraging news from the City of Brotherly Love today: Philadelphia’s new district attorney and members of the state Supreme Court are taking steps to remove criminal penalties for people arrested with up to 30 grams (or a little more than an ounce) of marijuana. Under the new approach, those caught with marijuana would face a possible fine, but receive no criminal conviction.

“The goal,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “is to sweep about 3,000 small-time marijuana cases annually out of the main court system, freeing prosecutors and judges to devote time to more serious crimes. The diverted cases amount to about 5 percent of the caseload in criminal court.”

But in a frustrating case of two steps forward, one step back, a Philly police spokesman tells the paper, “We’re not going to stop locking people up … our officers are trained to do that. Whether or not they make it through the charging process, that’s up to the D.A. We can’t control that. Until they legalize it, we’re not going to stop.”

What a nuanced view.

Maybe someone should tell that guy how police in Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, and more than a dozen other cities have followed orders to make marijuana a “lowest law enforcement priority” with few complications or adverse consequences. Except, you know, for police having to focus their efforts on more serious crimes.

In any case, decriminalizing marijuana in Philadelphia—the sixth most populous city in the United States—would be a major boon for marijuana policy reform efforts in cities all across the country. Let’s hope it happens.

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Prohibitionists continue to shout whatever they can to frighten voters. As more and more U.S. citizens realize that current marijuana laws do more harm than good, the misinformation is going to get stranger and stranger. Just watch.

One classic cry is that marijuana might cause cancer. Recent work out of Brown University actually reveals quite the opposite. Researchers gathered hundreds of people from Massachusetts who had head or neck cancers and compared them to similar people from the same neighborhoods who had no cancer. Despite the reefer-madness rants, those who had used marijuana for a decade or two were significantly less likely to develop these cancers than those who did not use marijuana.  In fact, their rates of cancer were less than half the rate among non-users. Anything else that cut the rates of cancer in half would be hailed as the newest wonder drug for tumor prevention.

As Dr. Bob Melamede explained almost five years ago in a delightful article from Harm Reduction Journal, cannabinoids inhibit tumor growth, so marijuana can’t cause cancer. Cannabinoids show promise for battling cancer, not creating it.

So the next time you meet another misinformed prohibitionist squealing about marijuana causing cancer, feel free to spread the word.

Dr. Mitch Earleywine is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he teaches drugs and human behavior, substance abuse treatment and clinical research methods. He is the author of more than 100 publications on drug use and abuse, including “Understanding Marijuana” and “The Parents’ Guide to Marijuana.” He is the only person to publish with both Oxford University and High Times.

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Today, on more than 80 college campuses across the country, students organized by MPP-grantee Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) are calling for changes in campus policies that steer students toward the use of alcohol instead of marijuana. Although the national day of action was timed to coincide with the first day of Alcohol Awareness Month, the organizers played off the April Fool’s Day theme by emphasizing that the health and safety of students is not a joke.

[Disclosure: I am one of the co-founders of SAFER. But I will try to be objective while discussing today’s brilliant, aggressive, and well-coordinated events. ;-) ]

There is no doubt that many Americans who read about this effort will initially dismiss it as the actions of a bunch of students who “just want to get high.” But that would be missing the point entirely. What these students are trying to say is that they and the vast majority of their fellow students are going to do something to get intoxicated at parties. And for most of these students, the choice is between one of two substances – alcohol and marijuana.

The conundrum though is that on almost every campus in the country, the penalties for being caught with the less harmful substance, marijuana, are far greater than the penalties for being caught with alcohol. The students are trying to raise awareness about this widespread irrational disparity. It is a disparity that steers students toward alcohol and the more harmful effects – both in terms of health and campus safety – associated with its use.

Let me be clear here: Neither I nor MPP are promoting or encouraging marijuana use by students. The point here is that university administrators, as well as our elected officials, need to examine their policies and regulations and determine whether they are really protecting the health and welfare of community members. By punishing individuals more harshly for using the less harmful of the two recreational substances, it doesn’t appear that current policies do.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, the publication of record for university administrators, posted a solid article today about SAFER’s efforts. And if you want to read more about the movement to educate the public about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol, check out Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving to drink?, a book I co-authored with SAFER’s executive director Mason Tvert and Paul Armentano of NORML.

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