In recent years, the Washington Post has managed to strike a balance between pro- and anti-legalization opinion pieces (e.g. Rauch's "Let's Go Down the Aisle Toward Legalized Pot" and Wehner's "Republicans should just say no."). Importantly, even when the Post has published pieces that I disagree...

This week, the 56th Session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs - the single most important drug policy gathering in the world - met amidst new calls for legalization from some NGOs (no, Colorado and Washington did not send delegates and the US federal government maintained their position...

It seems like everyone -- informed by the science or not -- has an opinion on marijuana research these days. And while I may disagree with their conclusions, many editors' pro-legalization opinion columns are smartly formulated and backed by some credible research. But this past week's opinion article by a...

In 1982, a young, tenacious senator from Delaware, Joseph Biden, was frustrated with the country's scattered efforts to stop drug addiction and violent drug trafficking. Drugs, particularly new and cheap ones like crack cocaine, were destroying the most vulnerable among us -- the poor, disadvantaged and forgotten -- and were...

Although it hardly enjoys the status it did twenty years ago, drug policy remains important. American society loses nearly $200 billion in social costs every year -- from reduced productivity to increased health care costs, from accidents to premature illness and death, drug use is expensive. And...

This week, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously agreed to shut down all 900 store fronts selling marijuana for so-called "medical" purposes." Siding with neighborhood residents and public health experts like the American Medical Association, the Council took a courageous stand against what has become a magnet for...

Last week, pro-legalization blogs were smitten with Guatemalan President Oscar Pérez Molina's conference promoting their cause. Indeed, according to Ethan Nadelmann -- the godfather of the legalization movement -- Molina was holding a "remarkable" meeting with other Heads of State "demanding... all options, including decriminalization and legalization."

This was going...

Exactly two weeks to the day I was born in 1979, Keith Stroup, the head of the National Organization of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told the Emory University school newspaper, The Emory Wheel, that "We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that, (we'll do...

In 1989, just a few months after his inauguration, America's new president George H.W. Bush called up his friend Tom Landry, who had just stepped down as the beloved coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Coach Landry was probably best known for having invented arguably the most effective and commonly used...

Findings from a working discussion paper that link medical marijuana with a reduction in alcohol crash fatalities, published as part of an online labor institute discussion series -- not a peer-reviewed study in a scientific journal -- are being reported as scientific fact by a surprising number of...

Last weekend, the Board of Trustees of the California Medical Association (CMA) voted to adopt a white paper calling for marijuana legalization. Though they are still contemplating their decision, the California Society of Addiction Medicine is considering following suit. The CMA reasoned that existing "medical marijuana" laws have...