Today, the New Hampshire General Court narrowly failed to override Gov. John Lynch’s veto of HB 648, which would have made the Granite State the 14th in the nation to have an effective medical marijuana law. Two-thirds majorities were needed in both the state House and Senate to override Lynch’s veto. The override passed in the House by a vote of 240-115, but came two votes shy in the Senate, which voted 14-10. This result is particularly disappointing because an overwhelmingly majority of New Hampshire…

Today the California state Assembly will hold a historic hearing looking at whether marijuana prohibition should be replaced with a system of regulation and taxation. The growing push for change in California – which also includes a handful of ballot initiatives in circulation -- was covered by this morning’s New York Times in an article that perhaps unintentionally reveals the feebleness of opponents’ arguments. The story quotes John Lovell, lobbyist for several California police groups and the…

Congressman Sam Farr (D-Calif.) introduced the Truth In Trials Act of 2009 today (H.R. 3939), a bill that would give medical marijuana patients and providers the ability to argue in federal court that their actions were legal under state law. Currently, a federal judge cannot consider state-level legality during a medical marijuana case. For example, Charles Lynch, a California resident who was on trial for operating a medical marijuana clinic that by all accounts operated in compliance with state…

In news coverage of last week’s Department of Justice memo, there was a lot of confusion over exactly how many states have medical marijuana laws. Some outlets reported that 14 states have such laws. Others said 13 states. So which is it? And why the confusion? The answer is 13. They are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. But many media—as well as some government sources—incorrectly counted Maryland as…

“The best gardeners of my generation are not hybridizing roses, are not working with orchids. They are working with this incredibly valuable and incredibly interesting plant called cannabis.” --Michael Pollan Before Michael Pollan’s best-selling books about food and the food industry, he wrote a fascinating volume about humanity’s symbiotic relationship with plants, called “The Botany of Desire.” That book is now a PBS special, airing for the first time this week, on October 28 at 8 p.m. If you have…

Congressman Barney Frank, author of two important marijuana policy reform bills (H.R. 2835 and H.R. 2943), responded to a question about the direction of marijuana policy reform today on the Web site reddit.com. See the video below for his take on where the movement is headed.

Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that bong water can be considered a controlled substance, and that people caught in possession of said water can be prosecuted for possession of a drug mixture. Note: I am not making this up. The ruling stemmed from a 2007 home search in which authorities seized, among other items, a glass bong containing about two-and-a-half tablespoons of water that tested positive for the presence of methamphetamine. So what does this mean? According to Judge Paul Anderson,…

About the same time as I was posting about the Washington Post's refusal to run  MPP's response to Charles Lane's preposterous anti-medical-marijuana diatribe, the Post allowed Lane to strike again, with yet another online column filled with distortions and misstatements. I'm old enough to remember when the Post was a great newspaper. Yesterday I was angry; now I'm just sad.

On Oct. 20, the Washington Post published an inaccurate and arguably libelous anti-medical marijuana diatribe by Charles Lane on its Web site. After a deluge of complaints, the version now posted is cleaned up slightly: shorn of an offensive reference to Supreme Court medical marijuana plaintiff Angel Raich as a hypochondriac and with a feeble "clarification" appended. But it's still a cascade of distortions and inaccuracies. Since the Post declined to print MPP's reply, we thought we'd share it…

Monday’s Gallup poll showing that a record 44% of Americans favor making marijuana legal has brought increased attention to the need for an open, national debate on marijuana policy. The fact that 44% percent of people favor taxing and regulating marijuana is even more impressive because—in stark contrast to many other public policy issues—for once, a substantial number of Americans actually view an issue favorably. After all, Americans are a finicky bunch. We don’t like much these days, and in 2009…