The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to prevent the federal government from interfering with state laws regulating marijuana for all purposes, including adult use. "Today's vote is the most significant step Congress has ever taken toward ending federal marijuana prohibition." - Steven Hawkins, MPP Executive Director Yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives, an extraordinary milestone was achieved when the body approved a measure by a 267-165 vote to prevent the Department of…

If you live in Pennsylvanis, let your lawmakers know it’s time to stop jailing marijuana consumers. With Pennsylvania’s legislative session just getting underway, it’s already clear that marijuana policy reform is going to be a hot topic of discussion. At least two legalization bills will be introduced, and Gov. Tom Wolf (D) now says the state should take a “serious and honest look” at ending marijuana prohibition. However, significant obstacles remain, not least of which is opposition from legislative…

If you live in Maryland, let your lawmakers know you want them to pass a bill to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana in 2019! The Maryland General Assembly convenes today, and discussion of legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana in the state has already begun. Just last week, House Speaker Mike Busch and Senate President Mike Miller announced plans to create a work group to study how to best implement the legalization of marijuana. Please ask your lawmakers to support ending marijuana prohibition…

If you live in Delaware, please contact your lawmakers today and urge them to pass a bill to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana in 2019! The Delaware General Assembly convened to kick off its 2019 legislative session today! Several new lawmakers were elected on Election Day, and popular support for legalization continues to grow. Let your state lawmakers know you want them to make legalizing marijuana for adult use a priority this year. Ending prohibition in 2019 would put an end to the underground…

The walls of marijuana prohibition have crumbled all around New Hampshire. It is now legal for adults in all three neighboring states to grow and possess cannabis, and retail sales will soon become a reality in Massachusetts, Maine, and Canada. Sadly, Gov. Chris Sununu continues to oppose legalization, in part because he continues to rely on terrible advice from New Hampshire’s so-called “drug czar,” former Manchester police chief David Mara. Last week, during an appearance at Dartmouth-Hitchcock…

It’s a big day. July 1, 2018 will go down in Vermont’s history as the day the state officially stopped punishing adults for consuming marijuana. Residents of Vermont are seeing the fruits of our movement’s tireless efforts to reform harmful and ill-conceived marijuana laws. Adults can now legally possess, consume, and grow limited amounts of marijuana. Read our summary of the law here. MPP was a primary driving force behind this victory – and we’re currently on the front lines of legalizing marijuana…

New Jersey lawmakers and Gov. Phil Murphy agree that the state needs revenue to fund important priorities, such as improving the transit system, but disagree on how to get it. One thing leaders do agree on, however, is taxing the sale of cannabis: The Assembly and Senate budgets contain $69 million from marijuana taxes. That figure is more than could realistically be earned from medical cannabis sales tax alone, but is a small amount compared to what the state will eventually earn from taxing and…

Canada moved another step closer to ending its prohibition of marijuana on Thursday when the Senate approved legislation to legalize and regulate marijuana for adult use. Bill C-45 will now head back to the House of Commons, which has already approved a previous version. Once approved in the House, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is expected to move quickly to implement the legislation, with legal adult sales beginning as soon as August. Canada will be just the second country — and the…

Earlier today, Sens. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced bipartisan legislation to end the federal government’s war on marijuana and protect states’ rights to enact their own marijuana policies. Call your members of Congress RIGHT NOW and urge them to support this landmark bill. The STATES Act is the most significant piece of marijuana-related legislation ever introduced in Congress. With its bipartisan backing in the Senate, it symbolically signals the eventual end of marijuana…

In August, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators adopted a resolution calling for national marijuana policy reform. The resolution delves deeply into the history of marijuana prohibition, recognizing the racist foundations of the earliest marijuana laws being used to discriminate against people of color, through the racial disparity that exists in marijuana enforcement to this day. The Caucus called on Congress to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, and for state lawmakers to…