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MPP-TV VIDEOS

An Open Letter to President-elect Barack Obama
Two-Minute Truths: Marijuana and Addiction
Two-Minute Truths: Marijuana and Lung Cancer
Two-Minute Truths: The Gateway Myth
Just How Bizarre is Our Drug Czar?
Dr. Wagoner Speaks from the Heart: Yes on Prop 1 in MI
Robin Prosser: A Tribute

In the News

Settlement Reached in Death of Quadriplegic Medical Marijuana Patient
The mother of a quadriplegic inmate [Jonathan Magbie] who died in 2004 after suffering breathing problems at the D.C. jail has reached financial settlements with the District government and his care providers ... Magbie died four days into a 10-day jail sentence for possessing marijuana, which he said he used to ease the discomfort caused by his disability. ... [D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith] Retchin told a judicial commission that she sentenced Magbie to jail because he said he would continue to smoke marijuana to alleviate his pain. (December 3, 2008)

U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Federal Pre-emption Case
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by a California city that asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling requiring police to return medical marijuana that they seize from a patient. ... The city of Garden Grove (Orange County), joined by the California Narcotics Officers Association, argued that returning marijuana to a user would violate federal law ... The state Supreme Court refused to review the case earlier this year, and the nation's high court denied review Monday without comment. (December 2, 2008)

Evidence Proves Thousands of Years of Human Marijuana Use
The cache of cannabis [found in a tomb in China] is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," ... says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. ... "To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo. ... "It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years." Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis. (November 28, 2008)

Op-Ed Cites MPP-Funded Study
A senior fellow at the George Mason University School of Public Policy, Dr. Jon Gettman's recent study, Consistent, Persistent and Resistant, Marijuana Use in the United States - funded by the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation - finds that the "Bush Administration anti-drug policies have been unsuccessful in reducing the demand for and use of marijuana and other illegal drugs." ... In the absence of a strategy that can both win the drug war and pass Constitutional and affordability tests, police departments, prison operators and hundreds of thousands of prison guards keep themselves busy wasting money on non-performing programs and arresting more low level drug offenders. (November 25, 2008)

California Supreme Court Muddies "Caregiver" Definition
Someone who supplies marijuana to a patient who has a doctor's approval for it can be prosecuted for dealing drugs, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday in a narrow interpretation of California's medical marijuana law. ... Lawrence Gibbs, attorney for the Santa Cruz County man who appealed his marijuana-dealing convictions, said the court "made it much, much more difficult for qualified patients to get their medical marijuana." Although patients can turn to cooperatives or clubs, Gibbs said, the resulting centralization of cultivation and supply will make raids and prosecutions much easier for federal authorities ... The ruling is the second time this year the state Supreme Court has limited the scope of Prop. 215, which allowed patients to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. (November 25, 2008)

MPP Blog

D.C. Settles in Magbie’s Death, but U.S. Congress Members’ Hands Still Bloody

Now that her case is settled against the D.C. government over the 2004 death of her quadriplegic son while in prison for marijuana possession, I hope Mary Scott can find at least some comfort. However, the D.C. prison system’s incompetence and neglect are not the only culprits in Jonathan Magbie’s tragic death. If it weren’t [...]

Published: Dec 03, 2008 12:09 PM CST

U.S. Supremes turn down opportunity to gut California’s medical marijuana protections

The forces that have been working to undermine California’s Compassionate Use Act suffered another legal defeat today – this time from the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court refused to hear an appeal in the case of Garden Grove v. Superior Court of California, et al. In this case, the police department for the City [...]

Published: Dec 01, 2008 04:21 PM CST

A Tale of Two Drugs

For the first time in my life, I’ve just been prescribed an opioid painkiller: hydrocodone/acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Vicodin. The occasion was a medical procedure known as brachytherapy. I’ll explain more about that below, but it’s pretty low on the fun meter. There can be lingering pain for a few days, hence [...]

Published: Nov 30, 2008 05:45 PM CST

Britain’s Big Step Backward

Update to Bruce’s post yesterday about the British government’s effort to increase penalties for small marijuana violations over the objections of its scientific advisors: In what was really an expected formality, the House of Lords approved the move. As Bruce pointed out, with its relatively good track record of science-based marijuana policy, it’s difficult to imagine [...]

Published: Nov 26, 2008 12:07 PM CST

Pardon me for caring

Yesterday, George W. Bush began the time-honored tradition of granting pardons to convicted felons in the president’s final days in the White House. 14 pardons and two commuted sentences were announced late last night, and more are expected to be handed down before he leaves office on January 20. Two former politicians who have been convicted [...]

Published: Nov 25, 2008 06:52 PM CST

Pleas for Sanity From Britain

Forces of common sense are making a last-ditch stand in Britain today. Earlier this year, the British government announced its intention to “upgrade” marijuana from “Class C,” the lowest category of illicit drugs, where it’s been since 2004, to “Class B”: drugs considered more dangerous and subject to stiffer penalties. The move directly contradicted the [...]

Published: Nov 25, 2008 12:41 PM CST

Dutch Mayors Call for Licensed Marijuana Growers

The Dutch have evolved a mostly workable but somewhat contradictory system for handling marijuana: While technically illegal, possession and sale of small amounts through regulated “coffee shops” have been tolerated since the mid-’70s. This has effectively separated the retail market for marijuana from more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin, but because marijuana cultivation remains [...]

Published: Nov 24, 2008 12:07 PM CST

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

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Victims

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.

Goose Creek, South Carolina, School Raid

In November 2003, police officers with guns drawn swept through Stratford High School in South Carolina. Officers held guns to the backs of 130 students — a majority of whom were black though the school population is only 25% black — who were ordered to lie on the floor or kneel against lockers while police dogs sniffed for drugs. No drugs were found and no arrests were made.

MPP in the News

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

"[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

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.

"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

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

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.

"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

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

"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

"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

Marijuana Policy Project

Get Tickets for MPP's Party at the Playboy Mansion Now

MPP-TV VIDEOS

In the News

MPP Blog

Get Local

Member Center

Victims

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

Goose Creek, South Carolina, School Raid

More Victim Stories

MPP in the News

Celebrities