In the latest development in the quest for justice in Columbia, Missouri, Jonathan Whitworth and family are suing the officers responsible for a botched February SWAT raid that endangered their lives and resulted in the death of one of their dogs. This story received national attention when a video was released showing the police entering the home in what they call a “dynamic entry” and immediately opening fire, killing one dog and injuring another. After enormous pressure from the media and activist…

SAFER executive director Mason Tvert calls out an anti-Prop 19 spokesman  -- "what this gentleman's job is here is to raise doubt, and to scare people, and he's again being paid by the alcohol industry" -- on CNN. I'd say more, but the clip speaks for itself. Enjoy!

One of the most encouraging signs of change for the movement to end marijuana prohibition has been the vastly increased level of mainstream media coverage it has received in the last year or so. Last week was no exception. When U.S. officials released new data showing the number of Americans both using and being arrested for marijuana had increased, MPP was there to put those findings in context, and mainstream media outlets all over the world helped to spread our message about the failure of prohibition…

I've just returned to my home in Washington, D.C. from a trip to the "other Washington" -- specifically, Seattle. My two visits to Seattle in the past month have convinced me that Washington state will probably be one of the first two states to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol. In mid-August, I attended Seattle's Hempfest for the sixth time in seven years. For those who don't know, Hempfest isn't your run-of-the-mill marijuana rally. In fact, if it were, I wouldn't attend. This year's Hempfest,…

We’ve all heard the rhetoric, trotted out again and again by law enforcement and paranoid city officials, that dispensaries and other marijuana facilities cause crime wherever they are. They focus on a horror story and blame the dispensary regardless of the facts at hand. They point to media coverage of similar incidents and say that all dispensaries are blights on the community. Now, the media and the authorities are very good at using scare tactics, but what they consistently lack are statistical…

Marijuana arrests accounted for more than half of all U.S. drug arrests in 2009, while its use among Americans increased by 8 percent, according to two reports released this week by government officials. According to the FBI’s 2009 Uniform Crime Report released yesterday, U.S. law enforcement made 858,408 arrests on marijuana charges — 88 percent of which were for possession, not sale or manufacture.  Marijuana arrests peaked in 2007 at more than 872,000, and witnessed a slight dip in 2008 at 847,863. In…

On September 7, a major new front opened up in the campaign for Proposition 19, the ballot measure to tax and regulate marijuana in California. On that day, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors made a $10,000 contribution to a committee opposing Proposition 19. In response, MPP issued the following statement by Steve Fox, director of government relations for the MPP and co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?: “Unless the beer distributors in California have…

Over on our state overview for Missouri, I mentioned the case of Kenneth Wells, a 57 year-old St. Charles man with no criminal record who was facing 5-15 years in prison for felony marijuana cultivation charges. Mr. Wells suffers from chronic seizures and had been using marijuana to treat his symptoms. As his doctor, whose testimony was ruled inadmissible because Missouri has no medical marijuana law, would have said: "Marijuana is safe and effective in the treatment of seizure disorder as manifest…