Since this is the season for year-end reviews, "best of" lists and the like, it seems like a good time  to take note of why 2008 was one of the most successful years ever for marijuana policy reform. 2008 saw major progress on legal reforms plus a raft of new data that validated reformers' critiques of current marijuana laws. Some highlights:      MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZED IN MASSACHUSETTS: A measure to replace criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana with a $100 fine similar…

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Well, the federal government's National Drug Threat Assessment for 2009 is out, and -- who'dda thunk it? -- "Marijuana availability is high throughout the United States." This is despite record seizures of marijuana plants in 2007, as well as an all-time record number of marijuana arrests, over 872,000. Indoor cultivation -- often in converted homes and other dubious locations -- has increased "because of high profit margins and seemingly reduced risk of law enforcement detection." This year's Monitoring…

Yesterday, Bruce pointed out that the latest government data indicate that over the past 15 years teen cigarette use has declined and marijuana use increased to the point where teens use them pretty much equally now. At his press conference announcing the annual report, Monitoring the Future, I asked White House drug czar John Walters to explain his insistence that marijuana must be prohibited for adults in order to protect children when the data suggest the exact opposite. I don't have a transcript…

With over 600,000 votes cast and thousands of questions posted, Barack Obama’s “Open for Questions” tool has closed its first round of questioning.  Topping the list is the following: "Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?" (link) This is a clear indication that visitors to Obama’s transition Web site want to see a change in America’s…

U.S. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) penned a letter to the DEA requesting answers about the agency's raids of and threats to California’s state-legal medical marijuana facilities. The letter, sent in April at the request of several concerned public officials in California, asked the DEA pointed questions regarding the cost of these raids and whether attacking medical marijuana providers was a sensible use of scarce resources. The DEA has finally replied. And, as expected, the 17-page…

The Obama transition team unveiled a new feature on its Web site yesterday that allows visitors to submit and vote on questions for the president-elect.  Called “Open for Questions,” the new tool presents a good opportunity to ask Obama if he will support marijuana policy reforms. If you have a moment, head over to change.gov and ask a question or vote on one of the many marijuana policy questions that have already been posted.

That's the astonishing finding from the latest Monitoring the Future survey, but strangely, it wasn't mentioned by White House drug czar John Walters or in the initial news reports. 13.8 percent of 10th graders reported smoking marijuana in the past 30 days, while just 12.3 percent smoked cigarettes. For 8th and 12th grades, cigarette use still narrowly exceeded marijuana, but the gap narrowed to insignificance. The Associated Press reported, "[T]he White House says the sustained trendline is the…

Okay, I'm a bit behind in my reading, but a study published last month in the journal Addiction casts an interesting light on the so-called "gateway effect" -- the idea that use of one drug, usually marijuana, somehow leads to use of others. Gateway associations have regularly been found between tobacco and marijuana: Young people who use one are pretty consistently more likely to use the other as well. But does tobacco cause kids to smoke marijuana, marijuana cause kids to use tobacco, or are both…

An editorial calling on President-elect Obama to stop DEA raids on California’s medical marijuana patients and providers ran in today’s Sacramento Bee – the state government’s paper of record. California voters overwhelmingly support their 12-year-old medical marijuana law and vehemently oppose federal attempts to undermine it. It’s about time we had a presidential administration that respected the wishes of this important constituency (and the 55 electoral votes they control).