UPDATE — Some readers have stated concerns that the language quoted only references “cigarettes” specifically and not blunts or wraps. I have found that the specific context of this section does only target cigarettes, however the bill does give the FDA power to apply similar restrictions to any tobacco product. This most likely means that flavored blunts and wraps are not a priority under the bill and will not be disappearing from stores immediately.

President Obama signed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” into law which is aimed to give the FDA more control over what tobacco companies can put into their products and how the products can be marketed. One important part of the new law was aimed at restricting flavored tobacco that anti-smoking groups say target kids. These flavored tobacco products include blunts and wraps which are used by many marijuana smokers to roll marijuana filled cigars. (more…)

President Obama angered many marijuana supporters when he laughed off questions about marijuana legalization in an online town hall saying “the answer is, no, I don’t think that is a good strategy — (laughter) — to grow our economy”. Many took Obama’s answer as a rude side step of an important issue, and are upset that while the President stated that he does not believe legalization is a good economic strategy, he ignored the fact that marijuana legalization is about more than tax revenue for the government.

Polling data shows that the support for marijuana legalization has increased since 1989, however there is no correlation between support of marijuana legalization to the status of the economy. So if generating billions of dollars for the government is not the only motivating factor in marijuana legalization, what else is causing this increase? (more…)