UPDATED: Shocking. That's the only word that comes to mind when seeing the video of Todd Blair, 45, gunned down by armed police storming his home on a no-knock raid in Utah last September. Blair, no doubt surprised by the sound of yelling and having his door kicked in, emerges from an interior doorway holding a golf club over his head. Before Blair can react, Sgt. Troy Burnett shoots him three times and Blair slumps to the floor dead. No "drop the weapon," no "get down on the ground," just bang!,…

Intense media interest in proposals to tax and regulate marijuana continues, given a big boost by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's statement Tuesday that the issue is worthy of debate. MPP executive director Rob Kampia discussed the issue earlier today on MSNBC (we hope to have video posted soon) and will debate a to-be-named prohibitionist tonight on CNBC's "CNBC Reports." The program airs from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time, and we're told the marijuana segment will be around 8:30, barring…

There are a lot of colorful characters who, for fun and profit, devote their lives to prolonging the war on marijuana users, no matter how much damage it causes to society or how little it does to stem drug trade violence. Many of these drug warriors are clearly unhinged, their views informed more by blind zealotry than by sober policy analysis. That's why I hesitate to post this video of longtime anti-drug culture warrior Joyce Nalepka attempting to disrupt a recent MPP-sponsored press conference…

After MPP passed the medical marijuana ballot initiative in Michigan and the marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative in Massachusetts -- both on November 4 -- I thought the MPP staff might get a little downtime to regroup for the 2009-2010 election cycle. Not so. In the last four months, the MPP staff and our allies have been working almost nonstop to respond to -- and take advantage of -- the many opportunities that have been presenting themselves across the country. I've never seen so much…

You wouldn't know it from their Web site, but it turns out the White House drug czar's office is legally required to provide the public with facts that are, well, factual. Under the Data Quality act, all government agencies, including the Office of National Drug Control Policy, are responsible for "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information." You could print out the material on ONDCP's site, throw a dart at the printout, and probably hit an assertion that's…

Funny Bruce should mention White House drug czar John Walters' taxpayer-funded boondoggle to Michigan to throw his political weight against the state's medical marijuana voter initiative yesterday. It just so happens the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released its report on White House abuses of the Hatch Act, which governs executive branch employees' participation in partisan political events, the very same day. The report singles Walters' office out for its audacity, saying,…

On Wednesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives endorsed nearly all of MPP's arguments for regulating and taxing marijuana as we now regulate beer, wine, and liquor. But don't get your hopes up too much: The word "marijuana" never appears in the resolution hailing 75 years of successful alcohol regulation and the end of Prohibition. Nevertheless, try reading the following excerpts and mentally substituting the word "marijuana" for "alcohol": Whereas passage of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited…

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.…

A common source of frustration for MPP – and for most folks in the marijuana policy reform movement – is being mischaracterized as "pro-pot" or "pro-drug" by the press. Not only are these labels misleading and politically charged, they're completely inaccurate. Most of us who wish to end marijuana prohibition do so because we see the policy's utter futility and its legacy of failure and waste. Our argument isn't that marijuana is fun; it's that marijuana prohibition is a disaster, and that perpetuating…