A study recently published in Scientific Reports compared the risk of death associated with a number of drugs, including marijuana. The results added even more evidence proving that marijuana is far safer than legal alcohol. The Washington Post reports: Researchers sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly-used substances. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine. And all the way…

Uruguay and its President, Jose Mujica, have been making headlines recently for legislation to regulate the marijuana market. President Mujica has been determined to pass the law, supporting the movement throughout the legislative process and defending the policy to opponents both in his own country and abroad. Now that the law has passed, Uruguay is facing pressure from the U.N., which accuses the legislature of violating an international convention. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961…

Regular marijuana use does not increase one’s chances of developing lung cancer, reported UCLA’s Dr. Li Rita Zhang during the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research. Dr. Zhang dually analyzed data from six case-control studies conducted from 1999 to 2012 in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, which, when combined, tallied a subject pool of 2,159 lung cancer cases and 2,985 controls. Dr. Zhang’s examination found that when compared with marijuana…

The Center for Disease Control just released their latest data on youth attitudes and behaviors, and it showed that more teens are using marijuana than cigarettes. While minors should not be using either substance, it is certainly indisputable that tobacco is far more dangerous than marijuana, with tobacco causing 443,000 deaths every year and marijuana causing … well, zero. What is more important is that this study shows the need to regulate marijuana in order to keep it away from minors. Since…

We are all used to the federal government offering only limited deference to states when it comes to medical marijuana. And we are certainly used to it refusing to admit that patients have a legal right to use marijuana for medical purposes, or even that marijuana has medical value at all. Apparently, it also thinks that those who are abiding by state law and using medical marijuana do not have certain constitutional rights, either. In a memo issued last week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,…

The federal government just released the latest ‘Monitoring the Future’ survey of teen drug use, and the results do not bode well for current policies. More high school seniors report smoking marijuana in the past 30 days than smoked cigarettes: 20.6 percent vs. 20.1 percent. And marijuana use is up (albeit in the same general range it’s been in for several years) while teen cigarette smoking continues to decline, and has dropped markedly since the early ‘90s. Regulation of tobacco, combined with…

British scientists warn increasing hostility toward scientific evidence that contradicts political agendas could hinder the collaborative relationship policy and science enjoys in Britain, the Guardian reported yesterday. Last November, the British government ignored the advice of its Scientific Advisory Board and moved marijuana into a more dangerous class of drugs, a move described by top scientists at the time as "a sad departure from the welcome trend … of public policy following expert scientific…

While I was in the green room waiting to debate Calvina Fay on Fox Business News today (we're working on getting the video posted), former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sat down next to me to wait for his interview on the sister Fox News Channel. After exchanging some small talk, he asked me what I was going to be talking about on TV.  After telling him that MPP was the organization that ran those ads in California last week that touted how taxing marijuana could help some of the California government's…

The question of why some kids start using alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and other drugs at a young age remains a source of controversy. How much of a role do genes play? The environment -- peers, parents, educational efforts? What about the "gateway theory," the idea that one drug -- marijuana is the most likely to be blamed -- leads to use of others? A new study of twins recently published online by the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence suggests that genes may play a large role, but to some…

In its December issue, the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry published an essay by psychiatrist Stephen Kisely, who divides his time between Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, titled, "The Case for Policy Reform in Cannabis Control." Kisely's essay is so full of logic and common sense that the best thing to do is just quote it at length: "The lack of evidence for prohibition is highlighted by the fact that penalties bear little relation to…