Personal Marijuana Use

Torturing Children to Protect Them From Drugs

Some would say there's a certain inherent fairness in "zero tolerance" drug policies that approach every situation with equal levels of panicked overreaction. But as this story shows, zero tolerance is nothing more than a prescription for unfathomable cruelty.

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Despite Decrim, California Marijuana Possession Busts Abound [FEATURE]

If anyone needs a reason to consider voting "yes" on California's Proposition 19, we've got 550,000 of them right here.

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More Than Half a Million Californians Arrested for Marijuana Possession in Past Decade

California arrested more than 60,000 pot smokers last year, but that's just the tip of the iceberg on the state's drug arrests.

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Marc Emery Prosecutor Now Says Legalize Marijuana

He led the effort to imprison Prince of Pot Marc Emery, but now former federal prosecutor John McVay has emerged from the dark side.

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California Marijuana Initiative Lead Narrows, Poll Finds

Prop 19's lead has dropped three points in the latest SurveyUSA poll, but it's still leading with the election less than 60 days away.

Study Disputes Marijuana 'Gateway Drug' Theory

Yet more evidence that the tired statement made by prohibitionists that "marijuana is a gateway drug" is false. Researchers said the predictors of whether someone uses harder drugs are social factors such as income status, psychological stress levels, employment status/potential, race and ethnicity, etc., not whether they ever smoked pot before. [Of course, more than a decade ago Institute of Medicine research conducted at the behest of Gen. Barry McCaffrey -- then the U.S. drug czar -- concluded "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs", and that marijuana has been mistaken for a gateway drug in the past because "Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana -- usually before they are of legal age."]