Remember who's helping to fund the campaign against Prop 19.

The Marijuana Policy Project has largely sat out the campaign to end marijuana prohibition in California this election cycle, but the recent escalation of infighting among allies who claim to support marijuana legalization has inspired me to speak out, and firmly. The best way to explain is to tell a true story about something that happened just across the border, in Nevada, in 2006. MPP was in the midst of campaigning for our ballot initiative to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol in Nevada.…

For the second time this week, a poll of likely California voters shows Proposition 19, the measure to make marijuana legal for all adults, ahead – this time by more than 50 percent. In a just-released survey of 2,004 adult residents throughout the state, the Public Policy Institute of California shows Prop 19 leading by a margin of 52 to 41 percent. Earlier this week, the California Field Poll found Prop 19 up 49 to 42. Some details from the PPI poll: Among California’s likely voters, 52 percent…

Check out this great video from LEAP, in which executive director Neill Franklin explains how prohibition has destroyed the relationship between law enforcement officers and the communities they police. "When I talk to young people, they say the only reason you come into our neighborhood is to search us for drugs," says Franklin, a 33-year law enforcement veteran. "I want us -- cops -- to be the ones that kids can come up to in the streets when they have an issue or a problem. Not run in the other…

The United States could improve its national budget by nearly $18 billion annually if we taxed and regulated marijuana like alcohol, according to a newly released study from the Cato Institute. “The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition,” by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron and Katherine Waldock, a doctoral candidate at the Stern School of Business at New York University, estimates the amount of money state and federal governments could both save from reduced expenditures and make from tax…

If California voters pass Prop 19 this November, Oregon state Rep. Peter Buckley (D) says he will introduce a similar measure in the Oregon legislature in 2011 to tax and regulate marijuana for adults. From the Mail Tribune: In addition to raising revenue, Buckley said, it would dramatically reduce criminal activity now associated with it, including the illegal pot gardens now frequently found on area federal forestlands. "But what happens in California is the key," said Buckley, who is co-chairman…

With only about five weeks left until Election Day, a new Field Poll of likely voters shows California’s Proposition 19 leading 49 to 42 percent, fueled by large majorities of voters younger than 40 and those who live in the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. That’s an extremely promising increase from the last Field Poll taken in June, which showed the initiative losing 48 to 44. Another poll last week released by PPP also found the initiative leading 47 to 38. These numbers indicate…

Perhaps as early as next week, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to sign a series of bills that would outlaw K2 -- one of several names given to synthetic cannabinoids ("fake marijuana") that are sprayed onto different herbs and sold legally in smoke shops across the country. Such products are labeled "not for human consumption," but people use them anyway, because, when smoked, they can mimic the effects of marijuana, but they don't show up on drug tests. More importantly, unlike marijuana,…

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!