[caption id="attachment_7103" align="alignright" width="160"] Del. Heather Mizeur[/caption] This week, Maryland gubernatorial candidate Heather Mizeur (D) released a plan to regulate marijuana like alcohol. "Marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco," she told the Baltimore Sun. "It has been a failed policy for us as a nation to criminalize the use of this substance." Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) — who is leading in the polls — has not said he supports legalization. However, he appears to understand…

Central City, the original site of the 1859 Colorado gold rush, is now the first city in Colorado to have a store licensed to sell marijuana to adults! The store, called Annie’s, is a medical marijuana dispensary that will begin selling marijuana to adults on January 1st, pursuant to Amendment 64. Annie’s is the first store to receive a license, but it won’t be alone for long. The state is considering hundreds of other applications and is expected to issue many more licenses in the coming weeks and…

[caption id="attachment_7097" align="alignright" width="219"] Jennifer, Zander, and Jacob Welton[/caption] Jacob and Jennifer Welton have filed a suit against the state of Arizona to allow their five-year-old son to be allowed to take marijuana extracts for his seizures disorder. Arizona has already passed a medical marijuana law, which permits qualifying patients to use any preparation of marijuana in their treatment. However, local providers have ceased carrying his medicine after warnings from…

A guest column from MPP's Mason Tvert appeared today in the Providence Journal in Rhode Island. An excerpt is below, and you can click here to read the entire piece. Few social movements have advanced as far and as fast over the past decade as marriage equality and marijuana policy reform. An October Gallup poll found a record-high 58 percent of Americans think it is time to make marijuana legal — a far cry from the 25 percent support when the same question was asked in 1995. In July, the pollster…

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association announced that while they still consider marijuana a dangerous drug and a public health concern, federal efforts to curb marijuana use are ineffective. The organization recommended continuing the criminalization of marijuana sales but suggested that marijuana use be treated with a public health approach rather than incarceration. The AMA also stated that they would be paying close attention to Colorado and Washington as they begin to implement regulated…

MPP’s Executive Director, Rob Kampia, wrote an article for the Huffington Post this week discrediting three common myths about the marijuana lobby most often spread by prohibitionists. It's important for all of us to keep our eye on the prize by agreeing that marijuana should be legal for people 21 and older; we'll put cartels and gangs out of business, and we'll have reasonable restrictions on advertising. None of this is new. Anyone who believes that alcohol should be legal should also agree that…

[caption id="attachment_7087" align="alignright" width="114"] Sen. Mike Folmer[/caption] A new medical marijuana bill has been proposed in the Pennsylvania Senate by a longtime medical marijuana advocate, Senator Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery), and a socially conservative senator, Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon). Sen. Folmer’s conservative history makes him an unlikely supporter of the bill, however, after a battle with cancer and meeting potential medical marijuana patients, he has a new perspective. We're…

On January 30, 2013, the Senate of the Czech Republic approved a bill by a vote of 67-2 to allow medical marijuana throughout the country. Although support for the bill was high, the law does little to support patients who need medical marijuana. That is the frustration of Zdenek Majzlik, a 67-year-old man who grows marijuana to treat his 46-year-old daughter’s multiple sclerosis. Majzlik was a strong supporter of the bill and fought for lawmakers to allow medical marijuana; but he is still fighting…

[caption id="attachment_7073" align="alignright" width="141"] Anthony Kelly, sentenced to life without parole, with his mother[/caption] Many recent victories towards ending marijuana prohibition give hope that our justice system will stop incarcerating nonviolent adults who choose to use a substance safer than alcohol. However, even though there are now fewer people serving long prison terms for marijuana, our justice system still permits these sentences, and there are many being victimized by these…

On November 5, Colorado passed Prop AA, a measure that outlines the specific taxes to be imposed on the sale of recreational marijuana. The measure works in conjunction with Amendment 64, the ballot measure passed last year that taxes and regulates marijuana for adult use. Prop AA is an important step to establish taxes to fund the regulation of the marijuana industry.  Although Colorado has ended their prohibition of marijuana, it is still illegal under federal law. The DOJ announced in July that…