Marijuana use increases while arrests approach record levels

Marijuana prohibition has once again been proven to be a failure by our own government with the release of two reports this week.  While the FBI's Uniform Crime Report showed marijuana arrests rising to 858,408 in 2009, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicated an eight percent rise in marijuana use among Americans.  Given this kind of clear evidence that marijuana prohibition is not stopping marijuana use, why does our government want to continue to enforce policies aimed at arresting marijuana users?  Read more...

Alcohol lobby teams with law enforcement to fund anti-marijuana campaign

In what some may argue is a telling sign of their fear, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors made a $10,000 contribution to a committee opposing California's Prop. 19, a ballot initiative to tax and regulate marijuana in California.  The alcohol lobby joins a large part of the state's law enforcement in opposing the bill, which could bring in more than $1 billion in revenue for the state. It would seem that having a safe alternative to alcohol and preventing the arrests of thousands of Californians each year just doesn't seem to be a priority for these groups. Read more...

Charges dropped against medical marijuana patient in Missouri

Kenneth Wells, a 57-year-old St. Charles man with no criminal record who was facing 5-15 years in prison for felony marijuana cultivation charges, has had the charges against him dropped. Mr. Wells suffers from chronic seizures and had been using marijuana to treat his symptoms with his doctor's recommendation. Although it was ruled that his doctor could not testify on his behalf, the charges were dropped when the prosecution determined it would be difficult to keep the details of his condition from the jury.  Read more...

Rhode Island patients rally for compassion centers

In what can only be described as a step back for patients in Rhode Island, the health department there announced that it had rejected all 15 applications to open the state's first medical marijuana compassion centers.  Among reasons cited for the rejections were that some applications had exceeded the allowable page limit.  Setting and following guidelines can certainly be important in a process such as this, but should Rhode Island really be disqualifying applicants for being thorough?  Read more...

Reducing penalties for crack and peyote ... but when marijuana?

Marijuana Policy Project executive director Rob Kampia recently wrote a piece featured in the Huffington Post looking at how we frame the issue of medical marijuana policy reform in America.  Rob points out that we have been successful not by promoting marijuana's safety or efficacy as medicine to many people, but rather because we've focused on what this issue is really about: compassion for people. Read more...

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