New Jersey recently became the 14th state to approve an effective medical marijuana law. There are actually 31 states plus the District of Columbia that have medical marijuana laws recognizing the medical benefits but most are not generally recognized because they rely on the national government to provide or authorize a legal supply of marijuana. Some advocacy groups recognize Maryland as a 15th state because they have what the Marijuana Policy Project calls a “working law” which lets patients obtain a recommendation from a doctor but only protects patients from jail time and not fines. (more…)

Medical marijuana patients and advocates had a big day Wednesday as the states of Minnesota, New Hampshire and Rhode Island all voted and passed medical marijuana bills aimed at seriously ill patients.  A similar bill in Illinois was expected to be voted on as well, but was delayed so the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Bill Haine, could amend the bill to address the concerns of some law enforcement officials. If the Minnesota, New Hampshire and Illinois bills become law, it would make 16 states with legal medical marijuana in the U.S (Rhode Island already passed a medical marijuana law in 2006).  Here is a more detailed look at each bill and its current status to become law: (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…)