MPP-TV just released this excellent video highlighting the need to tax and regulate marijuana. This piece is especially relevant now that California is considering groundbreaking reform legislation that has triggered a national discussion about the wisdom of marijuana prohibition.
President Obama addressed the idea of taxing and regulating marijuana at an online town hall event today. His words: “No, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.”
Clearly, he got that wrong. But that isn’t everything.
The president himself, not the moderator who was reading questions submitted via whitehouse.gov, raised the topic. His answer was prefaced with the recognition that this was a “fairly popular question.”
Actually, it was the most popular question, by far. Yet the president…
Yesterday, Bruce pointed out that the latest government data indicate that over the past 15 years teen cigarette use has declined and marijuana use increased to the point where teens use them pretty much equally now.
At his press conference announcing the annual report, Monitoring the Future, I asked White House drug czar John Walters to explain his insistence that marijuana must be prohibited for adults in order to protect children when the data suggest the exact opposite.
I don't have a transcript…
With over 600,000 votes cast and thousands of questions posted, Barack Obama’s “Open for Questions” tool has closed its first round of questioning. Topping the list is the following:
"Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?" (link)
This is a clear indication that visitors to Obama’s transition Web site want to see a change in America’s…
A follow up to yesterday's post:
An astute reader in Texas sent an interesting link today: a court docket from Amarillo, Texas in which eight people were sentenced to jail for simple possession of marijuana (listed below). Texas law has a specific provision for repeat marijuana offenders that makes jail time a likely sentence, so these might not be the first offender unicorns John Walters was after, but these cases reveal two things.
First, people go to jail for having small amounts of marijuana…
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.