After his recent marijuana arrest, legendary musician Willie Nelson said it was time for an increased political focus on changing our nation's failed marijuana laws. "Tax it, regulate it and legalize it," he said, "and stop the border wars over drugs. Why should the drug lords make all the money? Thousands of lives will be saved." With that in mind, MPP has teamed up with the folks at Change.org to ask Willie to help the cause in a way that only he can: [I]f Nelson wants to help end pot prohibition,…

The New Jersey Senate passed a resolution yesterday that will give state health officials 30 days to come up with revised regulations for the state’s medical marijuana law – essentially rejecting a proposal Gov. Chris Christie (R) had put forward that was deemed too restrictive by patient advocates. After the vote, state Sen. Nicholas Scutari called upon the Christie administration to work toward "a real compromise so people who want to be in the business, and sick people who desperately need this…

Marijuana use by 8th, 10th and 12th grade students increased in 2010, with more American teenagers now using marijuana than cigarettes for the second year in a row, according to numbers released today by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan as part of the annual Monitoring the Future survey. In 2010, 21.4 percent of high school seniors used marijuana in the last 30 days, while 19.2 had used cigarettes. “It’s really no surprise that more American teenagers are using…

A Vermont representative unveiled new data yesterday showing that the Green Mountain state spends more than $700,000 annually to prosecute small-time marijuana offenders. Calling such expenditures wasteful and ineffective, Rep. Jason P. Lorber (D-Burlington) said he plans to introduce legislation that would decriminalize the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, meaning it would no longer be a criminal misdemeanor requiring prosecution, but rather a civil infraction similar to a parking ticket.…

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a resolution today declaring illegal marijuana cultivation on federal lands to be an “unacceptable threat to the safety of law enforcement and the public,” and calling upon the nation’s drug czar “to work in conjunction with Federal and State agencies to develop a comprehensive and coordinated strategy to permanently dismantle Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating on Federal lands.” Speaking on the House floor yesterday, Rep. Jared…

Some reassuring words of wisdom from Washington state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D), who tells The Stranger that she intends to introduce a bill to tax and regulate marijuana in next year's legislature: “We would legalize it, regulate it, and tax it,” she says. “I am serious. We have been wasting scores of millions of dollars on arresting and jailing people who have done nothing more than smoke marijuana recreationally. That has ended up harming people and costing taxpayers tremendously. So it’s a…

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has spent much of the last year trying to weaken the medical marijuana law signed by his predecessor, announced new regulations Friday that made several concessions to patient advocates, but in many respects remain unjustly prohibitive. In either case, the latest proposal may finally allow for the first medical marijuana sales in New Jersey to take place as soon as this summer. Under the new rules: New Jersey will become home to six legal growing sites and…

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) will put a hold on the nomination of Michele Leonhart to be the next administrator of the DEA. Kohl's beef with Leonhart has nothing to do with her views on marijuana issues, but rather the DEA's work in restricting access to certain prescription pain medications in nursing homes. Still, this represents the strongest opposition to date against Leonhart, who is currently interim DEA head and has played a crucial role in overseeing…