The Marijuana Conference 2010!

The Marijuana Conference (Oct. 25 - 26) is the first unbiased event covering business, legal, health and political issues surrounding the growing debate over marijuana in the United States. This New York event is imperative for anyone interested in gaining an unbiased perspective of the growing, distribution, and sale of marijuana. Learn more and register today!

The Latest on Prop 19

Marijuana use and arrest rates increase

New Report: Marijuana Prohibition Doesn’t Work, Regulation Needed

Get Invovled

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

On The Ballot

Current Campaigns

Recent Posts

Former U.S. Surgeon General Calls for End to Marijuana Prohibition

Former U.S. Surgeon General — and MPP VIP Advisory Board member — Joycelyn Elders appeared on CNN yesterday to argue against the criminalization of marijuana users. “Marijuana has never caused anybody directly to die,” she said. “It’s not a toxic substance … We can use our resources so much better. I think we need to [...]

Published: Oct 18, 2010 10:46 AM CDT

Attorney General Holder is Wrong to Oppose California’s Marijuana Initiative

According to the Associated Press, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter earlier this week to former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration in which he promised that the Justice Department would continue to enforce federal marijuana laws in California even if the state’s voters approve Proposition 19, which would make marijuana legal for [...]

Published: Oct 15, 2010 01:06 PM CDT

The MPP Insider, Episode #016

Published: Oct 15, 2010 11:14 AM CDT

What Exactly Did that RAND Study Say About Cartels and Marijuana?

If you believe most headline writers, yesterday the RAND Corporation released a study that said ending marijuana prohibition in California would do little to take away profits from Mexican drug cartels. But if you take the time to actually read the study, you’ll learn that Mexican cartels make billions of dollars from exporting marijuana to [...]

Published: Oct 13, 2010 04:41 PM CDT

Prop 19 and Constitutional Law for Dummies (and DEA Administrators)

There’s been a great deal of chatter recently about what the federal government can or will do if Californians wisely pass Proposition 19 in a few weeks (read up here and here for example). President Obama has several choices, but the one I want address here is the one recently urged by nine former DEA [...]

Published: Oct 13, 2010 12:40 PM CDT

Why Regulation is Better Than Decriminalization

Ever since California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill decriminalizing possession of up to one ounce of marijuana in the Golden State, opponents of Prop 19 have latched onto this development as their latest (bogus) talking point for why voters should reject the ballot measure on Nov. 2. Their argument goes something like this: By [...]

Published: Oct 12, 2010 03:59 PM CDT

Nobel Laureate Adds Voice to Chorus Calling for Marijuana Reform

This weekend, Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, joined a growing number of Latin American leaders, academics, and artists in calling for an end to failed prohibition policies: “[Legalization] is the only solution,” said the author. “Drug trafficking can not be defeated by military means.” It seems strange that such [...]

Published: Oct 12, 2010 03:36 PM CDT

Endorsements, Donations Power Prop 19’s Momentum

There are just 21 days left until California voters decide whether their state becomes the first in the nation to make marijuana legal for all adults. And as the campaign enters its final stretch, support for ending marijuana prohibition in California continues to pour in from all kinds of sources. Late last week, the League [...]

Published: Oct 12, 2010 12:18 PM CDT

Victim: 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.

Victim: Bryan Epis

Chronic pain sufferer Bryan Epis was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for growing medical marijuana for himself and others. He served more than two years of his sentence before being released while the Supreme Court considered Gonzales v. Raich. In 2010, he was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Victim: Peter McWilliams

Writer, poet and publisher Peter McWilliams used medical marijuana to relieve the pain he suffered from cancer and AIDS. He also took advantage of his prominence as a writer and public figure to advocate in favor of medical marijuana laws. As a result, he was investigated, raided, arrested, and put on trial by the federal government. In 2000, while out on bond and unable to use marijuana to ease his nausea, he began vomiting, choked on his vomit, and died.

Victim: Jeffre and Alice Sanderson

Jeffre Sanderson and his wife, Alice Wiegand, owned a garden that supplied medical marijuana to ten patients under California state law. But because the federal government did not recognize California’s Compassionate Use Act, the couple was arrested in 2006 and had their children turned over to social services.

Victim: Roni and Charity Bowers

On April 20, 2001, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ordered the Peruvian Air Force to shoot down a plane suspected of smuggling drugs out of Peru. The plane was carrying not drugs but American religious missionaries Jim and Roni Bowers; Roni and seven-month-old daughter Charity died in the shooting.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: 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.

Victim: Marisa Garcia

In March 2000, 19-year-old Marisa Garcia lost financial aid for college because of a federal law that denies financial aid to those convicted of drug offenses. Garcia, who had paid a $415 fine after a police officer found a pipe with marijuana residue in her car's glove compartment, nearly had to delay college for a year because of this punitive federal law.

Victim: Anthony Diotaiuto

On August 5, 2005, 23-year-old Anthony Diotaiuto was killed after a SWAT team shot him ten times. Officers barged into his home at 6:15 a.m. with a search warrant, looking for marijuana; Diotaiuto, presumably fearing burglars, grabbed a handgun and was subsequently shot. The officers eventually found a little over an ounce of marijuana.

Supporter: Tom Robbins

"I support MPP because our existing marijuana laws — based on fear, ignorance, and vested interests — are unenlightened, overreactive, and often inhumane to the point of tyrannical cruelty." — best-selling author Tom Robbins

Supporter: Richard Brookhiser

"In 1992, I was found to have testicular cancer. My chemotherapy put me in the hospital for five days at a time, once a month, for four months. But midway through my treatment I could tell that Zofran, then a hot new drug prescribed to combat nausea, was losing its effect. For the remainder of my chemotherapy I turned to marijuana to keep my head out of the toilet." — Richard Brookhiser, senior editor of National Review, historian

Supporter: Ray Benson

"Given the many known medicinal uses for marijuana and the wasted money and time spent on jailing marijuana users, it seems the logical and humane thing to do is tax and regulate marijuana for its medicinal purposes. I support MPP's efforts and encourage more people to pressure your lawmakers to reform our marijuana laws." - Ray Benson, Musician and Advisory Board Member

Supporter: Ralph Nader

"Marijuana is the drug that should most clearly be brought into a system of regulation and taxation. It is less dangerous than drugs like alcohol and tobacco as far as addiction and death. Regulation and taxation would provide greater control over purity, potency labeling, health warnings and age restrictions then the ineffective current 'war on marijuana' approach." — Ralph Nader

Supporter: Peter Coyote

"Jailing people for the mild alteration of their consciousness will appear to future generations as cruel and draconian as the tortures of the Inquisition appear to us today. May the reputations of today's jailers suffer the same fate as Torquemada's reputation today." - Peter Coyote, Actor

Supporter: Mike Gray

"MPP is at the forefront of the battle for a sane drug policy in the U.S." — Mike Gray, Author, "Drug Crazy"; screenwriter, "China Syndrome"

Supporter: Michelle Phillips

"I support MPP because it is the most professional and credible organization working to change these harmful policies -- and because MPP gets things done." — Michelle Phillips, Actress, Singer

Supporter: Melissa Etheridge

"Instead of taking five or six of the prescriptions, I decided to go a natural route and smoke marijuana ... Every single one (of my doctors) was, 'Oh, yeah. That's the best help for the effects of chemotherapy."— Melissa Etheridge

Supporter: Maurice Hinchey

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) received MPP's Legislative Leadership Award at MPP's June 2006 Awards Gala in New York City.

Supporter: Margaret Cho

"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

Supporter: Jocelyn Elders

"Marijuana is beneficial to many patients. I support MPP because it is a professional organization attempting to change our destructive marijuana laws." — Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General

Supporter: Jim Gray

"All we need in order to change away from our nation's failed and hopeless marijuana policy is to have a full, honest, and open discussion about the issue. That is why I support MPP — and that's why you should too." — Judge Jim Gray

Supporter: Jello Biafra

"You don't need to smoke pot to realize that the real drug problem in this country is not the drugs. We can help solve drug problems, crime problems, environmental problems -- even our racial problems -- if we say no to the failed drug war and support organizations like MPP." Jello Biafra, Musician and Advisory Board Member

Supporter: Jack Black

Actor Jack Black is on MPP's advisory board.

Supporter: Garrison Keillor

"[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

Supporter: Dennis Kucinich

"The federal government should use its power to help terminally ill citizens, not arrest them. And states deserve to have the right to make their own decisions regarding the use of medical marijuana." — Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Congressman (D-OH)

Supporter: Bill Maher

Comedian and TV personality Bill Maher performed at a benefit show for MPP and Students for Sensible Drug Policy at the world-famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles in July 2003.

Supporter: Ani DiFranco

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

Marijuana Policy Project

Get Invovled

MPP-TV VIDEOS