MPP Releases New Public Service Announcements

MPP just released its latest series of public service announcements -- featuring former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and California Superior Court Judge Jim Gray -- to radio stations across the country. Click here to listen to the new PSAs.

Marijuana Media Minute: Death by Marijuana
Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and MPP Discuss Legislation to Remove Federal Marijuana Penalties
Profiles in Marijuana Reform: Milton Friedman, Part 1
Profiles in Marijuana Reform: Milton Friedman, Part 2
Profiles in Marijuana Reform: Rick Steves
Profiles in Marijuana Reform: John Newmeyer
The Human Cost of Marijuana Prohibition, Part 2

In the News

Judge Refuses Feds Request to Dismiss Medical Marijuana Lawsuit
A federal judge breathed new life Wednesday into medical marijuana advocates' effort to ward off the federal crackdown on medical pot in California, saying enforcement of U.S. drug laws can go too far if it seeks to interfere with state authority. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose denied a Bush administration request to dismiss a lawsuit by Santa Cruz city and county officials and members of a medical marijuana collective whose drugs were seized by federal agents in a 2002 raid. (August 21, 2008)

LA Times Quotes MPP on the Need for Safe, Legal Access to Medical Marijuana
In recent decades, medical researchers have investigated marijuana's effects on various kinds of pain -- from damaged nerves in people with HIV, diabetes and spinal cord injury; from cancer; and from multiple sclerosis. Marijuana has also been hypothesized to help with nausea induced by chemotherapy and antiretroviral therapy, and with severe loss of appetite as seen in people with the AIDS wasting syndrome. ... Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project -- a group that lobbies for the decriminalization of marijuana -- says he is all for research on the chemical components in marijuana with the goal of making more-purified and perhaps more-targeted drugs that do not deliver a "high," but does not see "criminalizing use of that plant by people who are ill when you are making its main psychoactive ingredient legal in the form of a very expensive pill." (August 18, 2008)

Poll: 71% of Massachusetts Residents Support Decriminalization of Marijuana Possession
An overwhelming number of Bay Staters replying to a Suffolk University/WHDH Ch. 7 poll say the state’s marijuana laws should go up in smoke. The poll regarding questions set to appear on the Nov. 4 ballot shows that 72 percent of Greater Boston residents favor snuffing out criminal penalties for suspects carrying less than an ounce of pot, and replacing them with civil fines. Under the measure, a person stopped with marijuana would be given a $100 ticket and forced to forfeit the drug. “The public may be signaling that pursuing small-time marijuana users is a waste of taxpayer resources,” said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Bureau at Suffolk University. (August 14, 2008)

Seattle Oped on "Hempfest" Endorses Ending Marijuana Prohibition
Speakers at the Seattle festival [Hempfest] will try mightily to pull the weed from darkness. I agree with them that it makes sense to decriminalize marijuana use. ... Bring it out into the light, regulate it, tax it, put trafficking gangs out of business and let police and courts do more important work. ... Think of what we could do with the taxes on legal marijuana. And we'd save the $7.5 billion a year the nation spends enforcing pot laws. (August 11, 2008)

Editorial Calls for "Honest Debate" Over Effectiveness of Marijuana Prohibition
Why this country allows its citizens to consume alcohol, but not marijuana, is a bit of a mystery. ... both substances can be used responsibly and moderately, according to Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat. ... Frank announced recently that he would introduce a bill that would decriminalize the possession of less than a quarter-pound of marijuana. ... It would be nice if Frank's proposal sparked an honest debate about the effectiveness of the war on pot ... (August 10, 2008)

MPP Blog

Case Closed: Marijuana and Neuropathic Pain

While some medical uses of marijuana remain controversial, a new study of marijuana and HIV-related neuropathy published online in early August by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology closes the case regarding one important indication: neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain — pain from damage to the nerves — can be caused by any number of conditions, including HIV (as in this [...]

Published: Aug 20, 2008 04:50 PM CDT

Booze Kills, Marijuana Doesn’t — But Maybe the War on Marijuana Does

Today’s Associated Press story on a group of college presidents proposing reconsideration of the legal drinking age is accompanied in some outlets by a fascinating graph, reproduced here. Two things are striking: 1) The number of alcohol poisoning deaths in the U.S. each year is shockingly high, consistently between 300 and 400. The number of annual deaths [...]

Published: Aug 19, 2008 12:06 PM CDT

L.A. Times Gets It Right on Medical Marijuana

For a press guy, there’s nothing like returning from vacation to find yourself quoted in a major newspaper. It’s even better when the story — in this case actually a set of articles examining medical marijuana in today’s Los Angeles Times — does a clear, thorough, and informative job. Reporter Jill Adams looks at the latest [...]

Published: Aug 18, 2008 01:22 PM CDT

The War on Drugs in 100 Seconds

It’s here, it’s hot, it’s new, it’s fresh: the latest video from MPP-TV, The War on Drugs in 100 Seconds. This video takes a look at the war on drugs through a couple of quotes by author Michael Pollan from his book The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. Check it out, enjoy, [...]

Published: Aug 14, 2008 03:39 PM CDT

Brace Yourself: Kids Know Where to Find Marijuana

No real surprises in the latest National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse, the annual National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse survey of teens’ and parents’ attitudes on drug use. But it does confirm what we’ve long known about the availability of illicit drugs for kids – including marijuana – compared to that [...]

Published: Aug 14, 2008 12:33 PM CDT

Fair-Weather Federalists

Jacob Sullum at Reason.com published an interesting piece today on medical marijuana and federalism. Sullum points out the irony in conservative presidential candidate John McCain’s opposition to state medical marijuana laws and his liberal opponent, Senator Barack Obama’s, acceptance of them. Waving the flag of federalism as a political tool – rather than a firm ideological [...]

Published: Aug 13, 2008 04:51 PM CDT

A Little Sanity From a Former Drug Warrior

A comment posted to a BBC blog by the former director of Britain’s anti-drug unit (scroll down, it’s comment #73) criticizing the drug war as pointless and harmful has gotten some attention lately across the pond. In it, Julian Critchley dismisses the tough-on-drug policies he once promoted as “wishing drug use away,” saying many of [...]

Published: Aug 13, 2008 11:30 AM CDT

Get Local

MPP tracks marijuana policy in all 50 states and at the federal level.

Member Center

Victims

Bernie Ellis

Bernie Ellis spent 18 months in a halfway house and continues to fight to save his farm from federal seizure - all because he grew medical marijuana to treat his degenerative joint disease and provided it for free to terminal patients.

The Naulls Family

Ronald Naulls already had two successful careers when he established the Healing Nations Collective in Corona in 2006 to save fellow patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine. Although it was widely considered a model medical marijuana dispensary, DEA agents invaded the Naulls family's home and businesses on July 17, 2007. They arrested Ronald and turned his three young daughters over to county child protective services, which charged him and his wife with child endangerment.

Kathryn Johnston

Members of a Georgia narcotics investigation team shot and killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a drug raid in her Atlanta home November 21, 2006.

Tyrone Brown

Tyrone Brown served 17 years of a life sentence for testing positive for marijuana while on probation for a $2 stickup committed when he was 17. No one involved was ever able to explain the severe penalty.

Carter Singleton

65-year-old Carter Singleton was arrested for cultivating marijuana in 2003. Carter, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2001, was using medical marijuana to stimulate his appetite, after chemotherapy treatments caused him to lose 80 pounds in 5 months.

Suzanne Pfeil

Suzanne Pfeil is a paraplegic who suffers from severe pain and muscle spasms linked to post-polio syndrome. On September 5, 2002, more than 20 armed federal agents raided her medical marijuana hospice, holding assault rifles to the heads of patients and their caregivers. When Pfeil was unable to stand, the agents handcuffed her behind her back and left her on the bed for several hours.

Gary Silva

Medical marijuana patient Gary Silva, who suffers from degenerative disk disease and nerve damage, was asleep in his Sky Valley, California home, when he heard a knock on the door. When Gary, who cultivated marijuana in his home on behalf of his patients' collective, went to undo the deadbolt, DEA agents kicked in the door. The force sent Gary sprawling to the floor, dislocating his shoulder and causing lacerations to his face.

Unnamed Florida college student

On June 6, 2003, a 19-year-old Alachua County, Florida, college student was raped by his cellmate as he served the first of four weekend sentences for delivering marijuana, a felony offense. The student's cellmate was a violent offender in jail awaiting trial on sexual battery charges; the two men shared a cell because of jail overcrowding.

Alberta Spruill

On May 16, 2003, 57-year-old Alberta Spruill died of a heart attack shortly after police mistakenly raided her Harlem, New York, apartment for drugs. The office of the city medical examiner attributed her death to "the stress and the fear that she experienced" during the raid.

Lester Siler

In July 2004, Lester Eugene Siler, 42, was brutalized by five rogue police officers in his Tennessee home. Siler, who is illiterate, was beaten and threatened with shooting and electrocution and had his head held underwater in a toilet after refusing to sign a search consent form that he could not read. Siler's wife caught the incident on an audiotape which was later used to convict all five officers.

Donald Scott

On October 2, 1992, 61-year-old Donald Scott was shot and killed by county sheriff's deputies on his ranch in Malibu, California. The deputies had a warrant claiming that Scott was growing thousands of marijuana plants on his property, but no marijuana plants were found. The federal government and Los Angeles County later settled a wrongful death lawsuit from Scott's family for $5 million.

Robin Prosser

Robin Prosser, of Missoula, Montana, used medical marijuana to treat an immunosuppressive disorder similar to lupus. Despite spending years in a successful fight to help establish a medical marijuana law in her state, federal authorities continued interfering with her access to medicine. On Oct. 18, 2007, after spending months in excruciating pain and unable to acquire the type and quality of medical marijuana she needed, Prosser took her own life.

Palm Beach County, Florida, school raid

Fifteen high school students in Palm Beach County, Florida, were arrested in January 2005 for selling drugs on school property. Some of the teens had sold as little as $10 worth of marijuana to undercover police officers who had befriended them. The teens, who will be tried as adults, face up to 15 years' imprisonment.

Don Nord

Though he was licensed in Colorado to use marijuana for medical purposes, 57-year-old Don Nord was arrested by DEA agents in 2003 and had his marijuana seized. Charges against Nord were eventually dismissed, but a federal court held in July 2005 that the DEA was not required to return his marijuana.

Cheryl Noel

In January 2005, 44-year-old Cheryl Noel was shot and killed by police officers raiding her Maryland home for drugs. Noel, who had been asleep when the raid started, came to her bedroom door with a gun — presumably in self-defense — and was shot and killed. Noel's husband, son, and a family friend staying in the house were charged with possession of a small quantity of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Jimmy Montgomery

Paraplegic medical marijuana patient Jimmy Montgomery was given a life sentence (later reduced to 10 years) for possessing two ounces of marijuana with intent to distribute. Evidence that he intended to distribute the marijuana came from a sheriff's deputy who was later convicted of embezzling seized property and assets.

Jonathan Magbie

Twenty-seven-year-old Jonathan Magbie died while serving a 10-day sentence for marijuana possession in a Washington, D.C., jail. Magbie, a quadriplegic since age 4, used his chin to operate a motorized wheelchair and required a ventilator to help him breathe. The jail could not provide the medical help he needed, and by the time he was taken to a hospital, he was dead. Magbie was a first-time offender who told the judge that marijuana made him feel better and that he didn't think there was anything wrong with using it.

Rhiannon Kephart

In January 2005, 18-year-old Rhiannon Kephart received second- and third-degree burns to her chest and stomach when police set off a stun grenade during a drug raid. Kephart was not a target of the investigation.

Esequiel Hernandez

On May 20, 1997, 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez was shot in the back by U.S. Marines patrolling the Texas-Mexico border for drug smugglers. Hernandez, who was tending his family's herd of goats, bled to death. He was the first U.S. civilian to be killed by U.S. armed forces since the 1970 political protests at Kent State University.

Clayton Helriggle

On September 27, 2002, armed police officers raided a rural farmhouse in West Alexandria, Ohio, based on a tip from a convicted felon that there were drugs in the house. Nearly 30 officers, clad in body armor and riot shields, stormed the house with a battering ram and detonated stun grenades to disorient the occupants of the house. Awoken from his nap by the noise, 23-year-old Clayton Helriggle walked downstairs — allegedly with a gun — and was promptly shot in the chest by police. Two minutes later, he was dead in the arms of a roommate.

MPP in the News

October 6, 2007 — October 6, 2007 -- Medical marijuana patient Clayton Holton asks GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney if he would end federal raids targeting patients in medical marijuana states during a forum in Dover, New Hampshire. Romney refused to answer Holton's question and walked away.

May 13, 2008 — May 13, 2008 - MPP's Rob Kampia and Montel Williams discuss marijuana law reform on Fox Business News' "Happy Hour".

August 8, 2008 -- MPP's Dan Bernath discusses the portrayal of marijuana users in films and television on CNN Headline News' "Showbiz Tonight."

June 5, 2008 — June 5, 2008 - MPP's Aaron Houston discusses the financial savings and potential revenue that could be generated by taxation and regulation of marijuana, on FOX Business News channel.

April 16, 2008 -- MPP's Neal Levine on CBS affiliate WCCO in Minneapolis, urging Minnesota lawmakers to pass a law protecting qualified medical marijuana patients from arrest.

Jan. 24, 2008 - Bruce Mirken appears on FOX affiliate KTVU in San Francisco, discussing the California Supreme Court decision giving employers the right to fire legal medical marijuana patients in the state.

Jan. 27, 2008 - Bruce Mirken appears on KRON in San Francisco, discussing the California Supreme Court decision giving employers the right to fire legal medical marijuana patients in the state.

March 9, 2007 – MPP's Rob Kampia appears on Fox News Channel's "The Big Story" to discuss dispensing medical marijuana to high schoolers who have doctor's recommendations and parental consent

August 24, 2007 — MPP executive director Rob Kampia appeared on the Austin, Texas, ABC affiliate KVUE to discuss a new law allowing police the option of citing -- rather than arresting -- minor marijuana offenders. Each marijuana arrest costs Texas taxpayers an estimated $2,000 and takes a police officer off the street for four- to-six hours to book that nonviolent offender.

July 30, 2007 — MPP's Bruce Mirken discusses the safety and efficacy of medical marijuana on the Comcast Network's "Art Fennell Reports."

May 4, 2005 — MPP's Rob Kampia speaks in favor of federal legislation to protect medical marijuana patients at a Capitol Hill news conference on Wisconsin's WSAW-TV.

December 19, 2006 — MPP's Rob Kampia appears on MSNBC to discuss a new study identifying marijuana as the top cash crop in the U.S.

May 22, 2003 — MPP's Rob Kampia watches as Gov. Robert Ehrlich (seated, center) signs Maryland's new medical marijuana bill into law.

June 6, 2005 — MPP's Bruce Mirken discusses the Supreme Court medical marijuana decision on San Francisco's KRON-TV.

May 4, 2005 — Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) presents MPP's Public Face of Reform Award to TV host and medical marijuana patient Montel Williams at MPP's 10th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C.

March 11, 2007 — MPP's Aaron Houston discusses medical marijuana on Fox News Channel's 'Studio B.'

Oct. 6, 2006 — MPP's Bruce Mirken discusses new research showing marijuana may prevent Alzheimer's disease — and holds up the U.S. government's patent on cannabinoids as nerve-protecting agents — on CNBC. Note the misleading, DEA-supplied "fact" at the bottom of the screen.

June 6, 2005 — MPP's Rob Kampia discusses the Supreme Court's medical marijuana ruling on MSNBC.

May 9, 2005 — Comedian Tommy Chong and MPP's Rob Kampia at MPP's 10th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles.

Celebrities

Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco is on MPP's advisory board.

MPP Executive Director Rob Kampia and award-winning news correspondent John Stossel

In March 2006, more than 700 MPP supporters attended MPP's party at the Playboy Mansion, raising more than $170,000 for MPP's work to reform marijuana laws. - Pictured: Hugh Hefner after receiving Pioneer Award from MPP's Rob Kampia.

"Marijuana is beneficial to many patients." — Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General

"It's about personal freedom. We should have the right in this country to do what we want, if we don't hurt anybody. Seventy-two million people in this country have smoked pot. Eighteen to 20 million in the last year. These people should not be treated as criminals." — Woody Harrelson

"[A] marijuana grower can land in prison for life without parole while a murderer might be in for eight years. No rational person can defend this; it is a Dostoevskian nightmare and it exists only because politicians fled in the face of danger." — Garrison Keillor, radio personality

Montel Williams called for passage for New York's medical marijuana bill at an MPP-organized press conference in Albany in May 2004 (pictured here with New York health officials and legislators).

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman -- shown here with MPP's Rob Kampia -- was a lifetime member of MPP and a staunch advocate of marijuana policy reform.

"I am absolutely in support of legalizing marijuana. It doesn't make any sense to me to keep it illegal when there is little argument that alcohol and tobacco are clearly far more deadly." — Margaret Cho

"There's been medical marijuana ever since there's been medicine. Nobody gets hurt, so why not? People still smoke marijuana, and they still go to work." — Gary Coleman

Marijuana Policy Project

MPP Releases New Public Service Announcements

In the News

MPP Blog

Get Local

Member Center

Victims

Bernie Ellis

The Naulls Family

Kathryn Johnston

Tyrone Brown

Carter Singleton

Suzanne Pfeil

Gary Silva

Unnamed Florida college student

Alberta Spruill

Lester Siler

Donald Scott

Robin Prosser

Palm Beach County, Florida, school raid

Don Nord

Cheryl Noel

Jimmy Montgomery

Jonathan Magbie

Rhiannon Kephart

Esequiel Hernandez

Clayton Helriggle

More Victim Stories

MPP in the News

Celebrities