Just a couple of days ago, my colleague Anthony Johnson reported that for the second year in a row, the National Conference of State Legislatures has passed a resolution in support of fully removing cannabis from the list of Controlled Substances, essentially freeing the growing majority of states which have […]

Sign of the times: President Barack Obama made a joke about his marijuana use at last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The glitzy annual hobnobby event featuring journalists, celebrities, and high-ranking politicians saw its expected share of Donald Trump jokes (even though the Republican presidential front-runner wasn’t in the audience […]

The Bernie Sanders political revolution rolled through Wyoming, marking 8 victories out of the last 9 contests for Sanders over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Senator Sanders earned 56% of the vote in the closed Wyoming caucu while Clinton won 44%. The all-important New York primary is next, with both candidates […]

Hillary Clinton’s ongoing private email server scandal is not an engineered right-wing smear. Even though Bernie Sanders hasn’t made Clinton’s server and corresponding ethical questions an issue during his anti-establishment campaign, that doesn’t mean that Clinton’s server and lack of transparency isn’t a legitimate issue to the American people. We […]

Filets-o-Fish, Big Macs, Wendy’s, Oreos, and plenty of soda. This is the actual, no-kidding diet of the Republican presidential front-runner. Yes, Donald Trump, the man who, per his family physician, would “unequivocally…be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” eats like a teenage stoner. The proof? A sparkling Washington […]

A Little Birdie Told Me The Bernie Sanders Path to the Nomination With another set of wins in the western states of Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, Senator Bernie Sanders has chipped away at Secretary Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. However, the math in the remaining states makes […]

The deep-red state of Utah hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in over 50 years, but that would likely change if a presidential election were held today between Democrat Bernie Sanders and GOP front-runner Donald Trump. A Deseret News/KSL poll found that 48% of Utah voters would cast their ballot for […]

The fact that Bernie Sanders is just 7% down from Hillary Clinton in Missouri’s Democratic primary this Tuesday has been widely reported. The Docking Institute of Public Affairs Poll conducted for Missouri newspapers has the Democratic establishment candidate Clinton with 47% of the vote with the anti-establishment Sanders at 40%, within […]

While Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio were able to keep hope alive after Super Tuesday, the odds of a Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton general election matchup definitely increased. I, and many other progressive cannabis law reformers and civil libertarians, have spent a lot of time describing why Bernie […]

Colorado Berned one tonight. The results are still coming in, but his lead is so strong that the networks were calling it for him as we were walking out of the caucus location, Byers Middle School, just west of ritzy Washington Park. The energy tonight was palpable, and the Sanders […]

Bernie Sanders was immediately declared the winner of the New Hampshire primary, once the polls closed, becoming the first presidential primary candidate to win a state after supporting cannabis legalization. Once considered to have no shot at all, the anti-establishment underdog can certainly be considered a viable candidate after defeating […]

Ted Cruz and several other Republican right-wingers have regrettably challenged recent encouraging signs of congressional change in criminal justice, incarceration, and scheduling of cannabis. Incentives have been building in recent years to make changes to America’s bloated criminal justice, drug war, and prison systems. The realities and downsides of now generations […]

Florida Senator Marco Rubio had his momentum (or “Marcomentum,” if you will) blunted by New Jersey Chris Christie at the final Republican debate before the New Hampshire primary. Rubio had been seen as the “establishment” candidate with the most momentum following his strong third-place finish, just one point behind national frontrunner […]

The latest results from respected pollster Quinnipiac University show that Senator , once down by 30 points nationally to Secretary , is now within just two points of the supposedly presumptive Democratic presidential nominee among voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning, and out-performs her against the three leading GOP candidates. […]

About three weeks ago, I blogged about Senator Bernie Sanders surging in the polls and the establishment freaking out and I’m happy to post today that he is continuing to surge, but a little dismayed that the establishment continues to lose its mind. In a stunning development, Sen. Sanders now […]

Imagine being forced with the choice of either breaking state and federal law or watching your child suffer. That was the tragic choice put before the parents of Vivian Wilson, who chose to move to Colorado to acquire the medicine needed for her Dravet syndrome. The Wilson family wanted to comply […]

The Republican presidential primary looks to be boiled down to three real candidates following the Iowa caucus and one, Marco Rubio, should have cannabis law reformers and civil libertarians concerned. The Reefer Madness candidate was Chris Christie, who famously stated that marijuana users were diseased and needed curing with law […]

Rubio was the real GOP winner while the Democrats prepare for a  slog after a tie After months (years?) of campaigning in one of the more unique political seasons in modern American history, the Iowa caucus results are in. Republican Ted Cruz won a solid electoral victory while Marco Rubio […]

Political junkies like myself were waiting anxiously as the final Des Moines Register Iowa caucus poll was announced this afternoon. The poll is widely respected as having the best grasp on the hard-to-predict Iowa caucus. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump leads the Republican field, although Ted Cruz is in striking distance of […]

The Democratic political establishment has gone into full panic mode as anti-establishment candidate Bernie Sanders surged past Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and pulled within striking range in Iowa. We can certainly count on more ridiculous hyperbole coming out of the Clinton machine now that the latests CNN/WMUR polls have Senator Sanders […]

I’m a political junkie and have watched all of the Republican and Democratic presidential debates so far. If I were one of the moderators, these are the marijuana questions I’d ask the candidates for president: Democrats , you’ve called not for rescheduling, but descheduling of marijuana. Would that mean moving […]

I’ve only been superficially engaged in the story happening in West Idaho – er, Eastern Oregon – with Ammon Bundy and the armed Oregon militants holed up in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Mostly, I’m following the #YallQaeda and #VanillaISIS hashtags on Twitter, which aren’t really fair comparisons to the […]

Progressive supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders got great news this past week when a Fox News poll showed the anti-establishment Democratic candidate with a commanding 13 point lead over frontrunner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. The good polling news continued with the release of the NBC/The Wall Street Journal/Marist also […]

Last month Ohio Governor John Kasich debated his way into the mainstream spotlight at the first official Republican presidential showdown. In a sea of prototypical GOP voices attempting to out-Trump The Donald, his reasonable and measured demeanor stuck out like a pair of cuffed skinny jeans paired with a man-purse […]

Monmouth University released its first Republican poll following the first presidential candidate debates and the new GOP poll is good news for Donald Trump and other outsiders, bad for news for the establishment candidates. The conventional wisdom immediately following the first Republican debates seemed to be that Donald Trump would […]

Jeb Bush, the one-time presumed 2016 Republican presidential nominee, has seen better days. His establishment front-runner status was shattered over the summer by the meteoric rise of Donald Trump and, more recently, surging GOP insurgents Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. After spending the first half of this year raising more […]

What do President Barack Obama, right-wing talk king Rush Limbaugh, pop star Miley Cyrus, and most of the 2016 presidential candidates all have in common? You know, beyond the fact that they travel with security and are rich beyond our wildest dreams? They all smoke or have smoked marijuana and […]

Bernie Sanders isn’t done talking about criminal justice reform — in fact, he’s merely getting started. The presidential contender continues to rise in the polls and sensible Drug War reforms will only increase his standing with the Democratic base. Appearing at a campaign rally in Nevada on Tuesday, the Vermont […]

Ted Cruz has proven to be a formidable challenger in the GOP primary, with the latest national polls putting him in the top tier of candidates. With the presidency in mind, Texas Senator Ted Cruz has “evolved” on cannabis and flipped his position on marijuana legalization, now supporting the right of […]

By all accounts, Carly Fiorina impressed many voters and pundits in the first (undercard) debate and has increased her standing among her primary competitors. Since she has moved up in the polls, the cannabis community needs to examine her record on marijuana policy. While she certainly remains a longshot for […]

Don’t let his dry mouth fool you: Marco Rubio is no friend of marijuana legalization or even states’ ability to end cannabis prohibition within their own borders as he has joined Chris Christie in the Reefer Madness camp of using armed federal agents to override the will of the voters. […]

Later today, Republican presidential candidates will participate in a two-hour debate on live television, where there’s a good chance they will be asked to address issues of marijuana policy. The primetime debate, organized by Fox News in Ohio, will begin at 8:50 pm Eastern time and will feature the top […]

UPDATE: Chris Christie has doubled-down on his Reefer Madness rhetoric and has become a caricature of a serious presidential candidate.  UPDATE 2.0: Christie flip-flops and says that the Drug War is a “failure”?!? While delivering a speech on Thursday, New Jersey Governor and presidential hopeful Chris Christie doubled-down on his […]

Chris Christie is making a habit of attacking states’ decisions to legalize marijuana, which he threatened to revoke this week should he become president. With the Republican debates only a week away, the New Jersey Governor is trying to stand out from other presidential candidates, and he has little time […]

Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is already a unique endeavor that will hopefully allow our nation to more honestly debate a whole host of issues, particularly on the Democratic side. Sanders will definitely push Hillary Clinton on many progressive issues and the Republicans likely will have to deal with the consequences […]

Dr. Dale Gieringer, the Executive Director of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) is a cannabis law reform advocate that I have admired from afar, but have never had much of an opportunity to speak with. I will be fortunate to get to spend some time with him […]