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 […]

Democratic National Committee Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz discredits her party with her malevolent views and actions on cannabis.  The Florida congresswoman’s backwardness and obstruction on one of the 2016 election’s premier issues, cannabis prohibition, may cost the Democrats important votes. Many of us will not vote for the Democratic presidential […]

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. […]

One of my stock lines on the speaking circuit is that if marijuana had been legal in 2000, Al Gore would have been our 43rd president. If 9/11/2001 had blocked your mind from recalling the events of just ten months prior, let’s refresh the memory. Al Gore had won the […]

The news media will certainly focus a lot on marijuana in the 2016 election. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that marijuana is covered a lot in the media these days. Many mainstream media outlets, once strong opponents of legalization, have now embraced marijuana with spin-off publications […]

I was tagged on Facebook by some of the Washington Medical Marijuana Drama Queens I wrote about last column. The post contained a video of King County Sheriff Urquhart and reps from the state Liquor Control Board having a press conference to discuss how the unlicensed, unregulated dispensaries in the […]

The times look to be a-chaingin’ as Louisiana is poised to legalize medical marijuana after both chambers of the legislature has passed a medical law and Governor Bobby Jindal has signaled that he will sign the bill. Additionally, Governor Jindal has stated his support for decreasing penalties for marijuana possessed […]

Yesterday, the governor of Texas signed another one of those limited cannabidiol oil bills. It’s the fifteenth state to have such a law, and this one gets even more restrictive than its predecessors. The CBD oil will only be available to epileptics, only after they have tried at least two […]

Marijuana legalization has been making inroads with Republican voters, especially millennials, but GOP support has lagged well behind Democrats and independents. Cannabis law reform advocates have long pointed out the conservative values demonstrated by marijuana legalization, including personal freedom, personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, smaller government and states’ rights. Marijuana law reform has […]

Marijuana moves mainstream in Texas!?! In Texas?!? Are we really talking about Texas? Yes, we certainly are talking about Texas and when Tea Party politicians in the Lone Star State are advocating for an end to cannabis prohibition, you know that marijuana has gone mainstream and legalization is completely inevitable. […]

One of the aspects of the film “The Culture High” that makes it my favorite drug war documentary is the section where the filmmakers investigate the role the media play in shaping our discussions of adult marijuana prohibition. Newspapers, television, radio, and websites all have methods they employ to frame […]

Newsmax.com, a conservative website seems to have adopted a libertarian stance in its cannabis coverage. Columnist Jason Gray lists off his list of the top 10 marijuana-law reform politicians. I’ll have to put together my own list at some point, but I have to take pride in the fact that […]

Marijuana has played an important role in the last few general elections and 2016 is shaping up to be possibly the most important election yet for cannabis law reform. We already know that a Nevada legalization proposal will be on the ballot and there is a great likelihood that California, […]

During law school, my favorite case was Ravin v. State, an Alaska Supreme Court decision declaring that the possession and cultivation of personal amounts of marijuana was legal under the Alaska Constitution. The court determined that Alaskans were a different breed, individualistic and supporting more privacy rights than other state […]

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida US representative, has long been a thorn in the side of the marijuana law reform movement. While more and more Democrats have joined the movement to enact sensible cannabis laws, Ms. Schultz has remained an opponent, siding with Republican backers such […]

The Oregon Ducks rode into the NCAA Football Championship has a 6 point favorite, behind a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, but the team was short-handed due to the suspension of two players, wide receiver Darren Carrington and backup running back (and a major special teams player) Ayele Forde,  who tested […]