On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union officially announced its endorsement of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol in Colorado, which is currently collecting signatures to be on the ballot in 2012. Among the reasons cited for the endorsement are the disproportionately high arrest rates of minorities for simple possession of marijuana and the unjustifiable expense of public funds. According to a statement from the ACLU: “The war on drugs has failed. Prohibition is not a sensible…

In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would no longer spend scarce resources going after medical marijuana patients or providers. The “Ogden memo” clearly established that federal enforcement actions would not be taken against individuals or groups that act in clear and unambiguous compliance with state laws regarding medical marijuana. For the most part, the DOJ has followed this policy. Now, after a series of letters to various state officials from U.S.…

From today's press release: The National Cannabis Industry Association, the first national organization dedicated to advancing the interests of cannabis-related businesses, today discussed the federal legislative needs of the industry at an event at National Press Club. Prominent leaders in the industry joined Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), as well as the manager of See Change Strategy, an independent firm that, on March 23, released the first-ever financial analysis of the legal medical cannabis…

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” - Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1932 On Thursday, March 3, Rhode Island State Representatives Edith Ajello, Christopher Blazejewski, Peter Martin, Larry Valencia, and Donna Walsh introduced HB 5591, a bill that would tax and regulate the sale and distribution of marijuana within…

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…

More than 2,000 people in Colorado applied for licenses to run state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries, growing facilities or related businesses before this weekend’s application deadline, according to state officials. In total, the state made $7.34 million from application fees alone. More than 700 applied specifically for dispensary licenses, far exceeding the number expected by state officials, who estimated that only half of the state’s roughly 1,100 pre-existing dispensaries would apply…

Colorado medical marijuana advocates and a group of local veterans filed a petition with the state health department yesterday that would add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Colorado. The petition was formally filed by Army veteran and double amputee Kevin Grimsinger, who lost parts of both legs and suffered other injuries after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan in 2001. That episode has also left him stricken with PTSD. From Denver…

For those of you who don't regularly see our video features, I present to you the MPP Insider #009.  You can access the HD version by right-clicking and viewing on YouTube, or by viewing the video in fullscreen mode.

Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed two bills that will regulate the state’s booming medical marijuana industry and bring definitive legal status to about half of Colorado’s estimated 1,100 dispensaries. The new law will make Colorado home to the largest number of state-licensed dispensaries anywhere in the United States. A state-regulated medical marijuana program is up and running in New Mexico and similar programs will soon be operational in Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey,…