One of the arguments raised regularly by opponents of marijuana law reform is the claim that any lessening of penalties will lead to higher rates of marijuana use, and from that all sorts of terrible consequences will flow. This argument has already been raised against Question 2 in Massachusetts. It's one of those claims that makes intuitive sense, but research suggests it's simply not true. That's not just my opinion. A few years ago the White House asked the National Research Council to look at…

The latest Crime in the United States report from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program is out, and the news is disturbing. Marijuana arrests set another all-time record in 2007, totaling 872,720 -- that's a marijuana arrest every 36 seconds. Arrests for marijuana possession totaled 775,138, greatly exceeding arrests for all violent crimes combined, which totaled 597,447. Bizarrely, at his recent press conference announcing new drug use survey data, White House drug czar John Walters stated,…

Today's Los Angeles Times has a story on the rise of prescription drug abuse based on stats from the just-released National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The Times story expresses alarm at the rise in recreational use of prescription drugs, and understandably so, but misses a key point: In recent years, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has spent well over a billion dollars on broadcast and print ads which have overwhelmingly emphasized the dangers of marijuana as compared with prescription…

Join MPP-TV's Noah Brozinsky as he reviews five of the 2008 presidential candidates' positions on marijuana policy.

Scott Day, a friend of MPP and a Montana medical marijuana patient who suffered from a rare, painful degenerative disease, died Tuesday at 34. Scott and his wife Summer were raided in February and charged with possession, manufacturing, and distributing marijuana. Summer believes the stress of prosecution had a great deal to do with the deterioration of Scott's health this year. Legally, prosecutors may have been justified in pursuing the couple under state law. The two were not registered medical…

MPP-TV has released a Marijuana Policy Presidential Video Voter Guide.  Want to see and hear what the candidates' positions on marijuana policy are?  Here's your chance.  Head on over to MPP-TV and check it out.

Drug czar John Walters isn't really a free-exchange-of-ideas kind of public servant, so MPP's Aaron Houston and I took the opportunity to ask him a couple questions last week at his press conference announcing the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In Walters' mind it's bad that kids perceive marijuana as less harmful than methamphetamine, his disreputable anti-marijuana ads work like a charm, and the latest statistics prove that the only way to reduce drug use is by prohibiting marijuana.…

Fresno County's Board of Supervisors yesterday voted to become the 41st county to implement the medical marijuana I.D. card system required by a 2003 state law, making it easier for police to verify valid medical marijuana patients. The board was waiting for the results of San Diego and San Bernardino counties' second legal challenge to the program, which the 4th District Court of Appeals tossed in a unanimous decision last month. In contrast to the Fresno boards' sensible acknowledgement of the…

It was probably inevitable: Lacking actual facts to make their case, opponents of Question 2 in Massachusetts have begun spinning fictional scare stories in order to frighten voters out of reforming that state's marijuana laws. Question 2 would replace the current criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults with a civil fine. Marijuana would still be illegal, but simple possession of a small amount wouldn't require arrest, booking, and all the time and expense that…

It's been known for a while that some cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, have antibacterial properties (one of many useful facts you won't find on ONDCP's Web site). Now, as noted by stories in the New York Times and Web MD, five cannabinoids, including THC, have been shown to be active against a particularly worrisome form of staph infection that's resistant to conventional antibiotics. It took these major media outlets a while to catch up with the study, published August 6 in the…