In the face of growing calls to tax and regulate marijuana, the prohibitionists are left with few tools in their rhetorical arsenal.  One talking point they’ve trotted out lately goes something like this:

Why not tax pot and alleviate the financial burden of our cities and states? We tax alcohol sales and it earns billions. “The latest studies show that the U.S. collects about $8 billion yearly in taxes from alcohol.” However, this is not the end of the story. “The problem is, the total cost to the U.S. in 2008 due to alcohol-related problems was $185 billion, and the government pays about 38% of that cost (about $72 billion), all due to consequences of alcohol consumption, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism.”

In other words, if we “legalized” marijuana, the damage caused by all the rampant stoners would cost us more than the pot taxes would bring in.

Of course the argument is silly on its face; alcohol use causes serious health problems, violence, and auto wrecks, so it naturally costs society more than it brings in.  Cannabis use is relatively safe and as I’ve argued before, 22 million of us are using it now, so if there is any social cost, why not at least bring in some tax revenue instead of none?

So today I was very happy to see Paul Armentano’s latest piece on the NORML Blog regarding a Canadian study of social costs of cannabis vs. alcohol and tobacco, which concluded:

In terms of costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user. On the enforcement side, costs for cannabis are the highest at $328 per user—94% of social costs for cannabis are linked to enforcement. Enforcement costs per user for alcohol are about half those for cannabis ($153), while enforcement costs for tobacco are very low.

Now that’s Canada, so our US numbers may vary a bit, especially when we’re talking about health care costs.  But in the title of his post, Paul asked me to “do the math”.  So here it is:

• Prohibited Cannabis: Total Cost to Society = (22,000,000 Annual Users * $20) + (22,000,000 Annual Users * $328) = $7,656,000,000

When cannabis is relegalized, that doesn’t mean the $328/user enforcement costs go completely away.  I don’t think they’d be as high as alcohol but not as low as tobacco.  Let’s split the difference and say it ends up costing $75/user in cannabis enforcement costs.

• Relegalized Cannabis (Low Estimate): TCS = (22M * $20) + (22M * $75) = $2,090,000,000

Let’s also imagine that cannabis enforcement does cost as much as alcohol, unreasonable as that may sound:

• Relegalized Cannabis (High Estimate): TCS = (22M * $20) + (22M * $153) = $3,806,000,000

For David H. Kerr and the other prohibitionists’ theory about legal cannabis costing society more than prohibited cannabis, there has to be enough increase in use and users to make up between $5.6 and $3.8 billion dollars in cost.  In the Low Estimate, a cannabis user costs society $95/user; in the High Estimate, $173/user.  So between 22 and 58 million more people would have to smoke cannabis in the US, at rates comparable to the current usage rates, for legal cannabis to cost as much as what we spend on prohibiting it.  That means a 100% to 263% increase in annual user population, or 44 to 80 million annual users, or between 18% and 32% of all US adults.

Now currently, only about 9% of US adults use cannabis annually.  So imagine a room with 25 adults in it.  Right now, about 2 of those adults will smoke pot this year.  Under relegalization, about 2 to 6 more would have to start smoking pot for the TCS to break even.

Then we’d have to consider what happens under a substitution effect; that is, would alcohol and tobacco users lower their use of those substances if they have the choice of legal cannabis?  The alcohol user costs us $318 per year and the tobacco user costs us $800 per year.  Under the Low Estimate, three drinkers are worth close to ten tokers and two smokers are worth close to seventeen tokers; under the High Estimate, the ratios are about 1:2 and 2:9.  If just 1% of the 162.5 million annual drinkers and 70 million annual smokers quit and took up cannabis instead, that’s a savings of over a billion dollars in health and enforcement costs, or another 3.9 to 10 million new tokers we could afford over the 2.3 million new ex-smoker/drinker tokers we’ve added.

In other words, in order for legal cannabis to cost society more than illegal cannabis, a whole hell of a lot more people will have to be smoking it, and that’s even under grossly inflated estimates of legal marijuana’s enforcement costs.

Medical Marijuana IS Legalized Marijuana (caduceus art by Dave Bram, Oregon NORML)

Houston, TX (ASA)– The American Medical Association (AMA) voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value. The AMA adopted a report drafted by its Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. The CSAPH report concluded that, “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.” Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.”

The change of position by the largest physician-based group in the country was precipitated in part by a resolution adopted in June of 2008 by the Medical Student Section (MSS) of the AMA in support of the reclassification of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance. In the past year, the AMA has considered three resolutions dealing with medical marijuana, which also helped to influence the report and its recommendations. The AMA vote on the report took place in Houston, Texas during the organization’s annual Interim Meeting of the House of Delegates. The last AMA position, adopted 8 years ago, called for maintaining marijuana as a Schedule I substance, with no medical value.

The AMA’s about face on medical marijuana follows an announcement by the Obama Administration in October discouraging U.S. Attorneys from taking enforcement actions in medical marijuana states. In February 2008, a similar resolution was adopted by the American College of Physicians (ACP), the country’s second largest physician group and the largest organization of doctors of internal medicine. The ACP resolution called for an evidence-based review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I controlled substance to determine whether it should be reclassified to a different schedule.

So does this mean we get a change of heart from Rep. John Boozman, Rep. Dennis Cardoza, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and all the other Politicians on Pot who rely on the old excuse that the American Medical Association says that “crude” marijuana is not medicine?

This is huge.  An entire plank in the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs™ has just crashed and burned.  Resistance to medical marijuana from roadblocks governors like John Lynch and Tim Pawlenty and Jodi Rell in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Connecticut will be more difficult now that nobody can deny that smoked cannabis is medicine.  It’s a lot harder politically to veto medicine.

Rescheduling will be interesting.  Marinol — a pure 100% Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed™ dose of THC — was originally entered as Schedule II, but was then moved down to Schedule III.  So how do you rate cannabis as any more dangerous than dronabinol pills?  Does cannabis end up in Schedule III like anabolic steroids and ketamine (Special K), or does it end up in Schedule IV with Ambien, Xanax, Valium, and rohypnol (Roofies)>

AMSTERDAM, Nov 5 (Reuters) – The Dutch are among the lowest users of marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands’ well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study published on Thursday. Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4 percent used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8 percent, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures.

A higher percentage of adults in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and France took cannabis last year, the EU agency said, with the highest being Italy at 14.6 percent. Usage in Italy used to be among the lowest at below 10 percent a decade ago.

The policy on soft drugs in the Netherlands, one of the most liberal in Europe, allows for the sale of marijuana at “coffee shops”, which the Dutch have allowed to operate for decades, and possession of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz).

The full report is available here.  Some interesting stats of note:

• While 41% or 102 million Americans have tried cannabis in their lifetime, only 22% or 74 million Europeans have.  Interestingly, there are about the same number of Europeans as Americans who will use cannabis this year (about 22 million) and this month (12 million), but of course that represents a lower percentage of population since America has 304 million and Europe has 491 million.
• While cannabis represents 49.8% of all drug law arrests in America, it represents between 55% and 85% of all drug offenses in the majority of European countries.
• While 25% of American 15-16-year-olds have tried cannabis in the past year, only 15% of European 15-16-year-olds have.  The same percentage of 15-16-year-olds in the Netherlands used cannabis in the past year as in the USA, 25%.
• The greatest decrease among European countries in the prevalence of cannabis use among young adults aged 15-34 has occurred in the United Kingdom since 2003, where past year use has dropped by a third.  Incidentally, 2003 was the year the UK downgraded cannabis to a Class C offense, essentially decriminalizing it.

(New Scientist) IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.

I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK’s official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, “Drugs drive politicians out of their minds”, the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course.

I quoted these words in the Eve Saville lecture at King’s College London in July. This example plus other comments I have made – such as horse riding is more harmful than ecstasy – prompted Alan Johnson, the home secretary, to say that I had crossed the line from science to policy. This, he said, is why I had to go.

But simple, accurate and understandable statements of scientific fact are precisely what the advisory council is supposed to provide. Why would any scientist take up some future offer of a government advisory post when their advice can be treated with such disdain?

The results of a government inventing its own reality and acting on it can be seen in the appalling consequences the George W. Bush presidency had for world peace, the environment and human rights. The message for the British government is a simple one: don’t exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don’t try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.

David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, was chairman of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he was dismissed last week by the UK home secretary

It’s a message President Obama needs to hear as well.  He promised to return us from the George W. Bush presidency’s disdain for rational thought and scientific evidence.  Obama promised to base our policies on sound science with respect to global climate change and other issues.  But stubbornly, this administration’s drug czar is still out parroting the completely unscientific falsehood that “the raw cannabis plant is certainly not medicine”.  Obama himself is laughing off the notion of marijuana legalization as having any economic benefit to cash-strapped states, despite the rational analysis by many prominent economists.  And despite the evidence of reduced social farms in the Netherlands, Portugal, and other countries that have experimented with drug decriminalization and tolerance, Obama continues to push a federal policy that relies heavily on interdiction and incarceration.

For over a century now, every time hard scientists, social scientists, economists, and policy experts gather to take a rational and scientific look at marijuana policy, they recommend decriminalization and tolerance or they recognize medical usage of cannabis, from the 1894 British East India survey to the 1942 Laguardia Commission to the 1972 Shaffer Commission to the 1999 Institute of Medicine study.  Cannabis can no longer be the exception to the “we believe in science” rule!

I have about a half dozen Vietnam vets as friends who would tell you, “no shit,” but it’s always good to get the official science on our side.

Newswise — Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a recent study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa’s Department of Psychology. The study, carried out by research student Eti Ganon-Elazar under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, was published in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience.

The present study, carried out by Dr. Akirav and research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, aimed to examine the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with post-traumatic stress. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana, which has similar properties to the natural plant, and they chose to use a rat model, which presents similar physiological responses to stress to that of humans.

Dr. Akirav and Ganon-Elazar also examined hormonal changes in the course of the experiment and found that synthetic marijuana prevents increased release of the stress hormone that the body produces in response to stress.

According to Dr. Akirav, the results of this study show that cannabinoids can play an important role in stress-related disorders. “The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into the use of cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,” she concludes.

I agree with Willie Nelson when he says “The biggest killer on the planet is stress and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis.”  I think cannabis is good not just for PTSD, but for everyday stress most of us feel from time to time.  How much could we reduce road rage, ulcers, and domestic abuse if our hyper-stressed, always-on culture embraced a little more cannabis and a little less caffeine?

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s top drug adviser was fired Friday after saying that marijuana, Ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

David Nutt’s comments have embarrassed the British government, which toughened the penalties for possessing marijuana earlier this year over the protests of many prominent British scientists.

In later comments to BBC radio’s “PM” program, Nutt accused British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of making “completely irrational statements” about the dangerousness of marijuana.

“I’m not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like cannabis and Ecstasy,” he said.

Although Nutt’s views have long been public knowledge, the government seems to have been angered by a recent lecture for the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College in London during which Nutt accused former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of “distorting and devaluing” researchers’ work.

Honesty… is such a lonely word… everyone is so untrue.

It’s getting tougher and tougher for governments to conceal the plain fact that now a majority of people recognize: marijuana is safer than alcohol.  We’re tired of being harassed, locked up, and lives ruined because we prefer not to get hangovers when we party.  We’re tired of every other commercial on the telly being for beer and boner pills, then being told our pot smoking is bad for a “drug-free America”.  We’re tired of being punished for using a natural substance that doesn’t make us cause wrecks, punch people, and puke on your shoes.

This news comes on the heels of our “drugs advisor”, drug czar Kerlikowske, once again saying that marijuana legalization is a “non-starter”.  It’s not a surprising statement, given that Kerlikowske is mandated by law to lie about marijuana.  Three cheers for David Nutt for having the stones to tell the truth based on science!

Cannabis smoke condensate III: The cannabinoid content of vaporised Cannabis sativa

Cannabis sativa is a well-known recreational drug and, as such, a controlled substance of which possession and use are illegal in most countries of the world. Due to the legal constraints on the possession and use of C. sativa, relatively little research on the medicinal qualities of this plant has been conducted. Interest in the medicinal uses of this plant has, however, increased in the last decades. The methods of administration for medicinal purposes are mainly through oral ingestion, smoking, and nowadays also inhalation through vaporization. During this study the commercially available Volcano vaporizing device was compared with cannabis cigarette smoke. The cannabis smoke and vapor (obtained at different temperatures) were quantitatively analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In addition, different quantities of cannabis material were also tested with the vaporizer. The cannabinoids:by-products ratio in the vapor obtained at 200°C and 230°C was significantly higher than in the cigarette smoke. The worst ratio of cannabinoids:by-products was obtained from the vaporized cannabis sample at 170°C.

Smoking cannabis provides more by-products (e.g. carcinogens, tar) than vaporization.

Experiments show that vaporization at 230° C provides the highest THC:by-product ratio.

Loading more cannabis in your vaporizer actually leads to less THC by weight.

A new article on MedPage today claims that we still don’t fully understand the health risks of cannabis use:

Overall, “the public health burden of cannabis use is probably modest compared with that of alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs,” Australian researchers reported in the Oct. 17 issue of The Lancet.

Wayne Hall, PhD, of the University of Queensland in Herston, Australia, and Louisa Degenhardt, PhD, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, reviewed nearly 100 studies covering acute as well as chronic effects of marijuana, including reports of the prevalence of marijuana use around the world.

Globally, they wrote, about 3.9% of the world’s population used marijuana in 2006, according to United Nations statistics.

Well it opens nicely by noting that cannabis is safer and that almost 1 out of 25 people worldwide use cannabis. It gets a bit dicey from there:

They spent more time detailing the psychomotor impairments associated with the marijuana high. “Some experimental studies have shown diminished driving performance in response to emergency situations,” Hall and Degenhardt said, findings also corroborated in epidemiological studies.

For example, one study of car crash victims found that they were more likely to have tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of marijuana, in their blood compared with age- and sex-matched controls.

Another study determined that motorists killed in wrecks were 2.5 times as likely to have been responsible for the accident when they had THC in their blood.

These are meaningless points when you recognize that:

1. Marijuana is the third-most used drug after alcohol and tobacco, so it is not surprising you’d find it in car crash victims;
2. Marijuana is detectable in the blood long after most other drugs, including alcohol, are not; and
3. Recent studies show that people can test positive for THC in the blood up to a week after ceasing their use of cannabis.

Few somatic effects of chronic use have been documented, Hall and Degenhardt found, except for several case-control studies suggesting promotion of lung cancer. Also, THC increases heart rate in a dose-dependent way, perhaps increasing risks for people with preexisting cardiovascular disease.

Yet when we look at populations of chronic cannabis users, we don’t find any link to lung cancer or heart attacks. In fact, we’re finding that cannabis may be a key to preventing and curing cancer!

Cognitive effects while high are, of course, well recognized, but their persistence is less clear, Hall and Degenhardt said. Some studies say cognitive impairment remains in chronic heavy users even after they quit, but others indicate that recovery of function is the rule.

I’d say we just find some old dudes who’ve smoked pot for fifty or more years and put them in a Jeopardy tournament with old dudes who’ve been drinking for fifty or more years and let’s settle this once and for all!

Similar uncertainty clouds the research on whether marijuana fosters use of other, arguably more dangerous, drugs such as cocaine and heroin, the researchers said. People who use marijuana are more likely to use other illicit drugs as well, but causality has been difficult to prove.

How about “impossible to prove”? The Institute of Medicine in 1999 and every other study since has concluded that there is no “gateway effect”. The only gateway in marijuana is to the dealer of illegal drugs. You know why they don’t call tequila a gateway drug? Because you can’t buy cocaine, heroin, or meth on the shelf next to it.

Marijuana use has also been linked to increased risk of psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and, less consistently, depression.

Except that, worldwide and nationally, the rates of schizophrenia and psychosis remain virtually static even as cannabis use and potency rises and falls. A recent ten-year analysis of data from the UK found no increase in schizophrenia and psychosis even as rates of cannabis use exploded.

Overall, they concluded that marijuana is clearly associated with negative health and psychosocial consequences, but these are not as major as for some other drugs, and the causal relations remain unproven.

“The focus of epidemiological and clinical research should be on clarifying the causative role of cannabis for these adverse health effects,” the authors said.

Really? You looked and looked and found that lots of people use cannabis and you couldn’t prove that it did much harm to them, so the the focus going forward should be to prove that cannabis did harm them? How about accepting that as drugs go, cannabis is probably the safest one out there, the most beneficial to the most people and the least harmful to society?

They also cited a recent study estimating that marijuana accounted for about 0.2% of the total disease burden in Australia, a nation with one of the world’s highest rates of cannabis use. Its health impact was one-tenth that of alcohol and one-fortieth that of tobacco, the study found.

That makes for a nice sound bite: Cannabis – ten times less damaging to society than alcohol, forty times less damaging to society than tobacco, and yet still illegal.

Click here to read the actual marijuana booklet produced by the Foundation for a Drug-Free World

Right off the bat, you’ve got to distrust anyone called the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. Might as well be called the Coalition for an Ice-Free Antarctica or the Alliance for a Sand-Free Sahara. Not only is it a completely unattainable goal, but also an undesirable one. Do we really want a world without Lipitor, OxyContin, or Prozac? (Not good drugs, silly, they mean the bad drugs.)

This is one of thirteen little booklets, similar to the “Man or Monkey” and “Are You Saved” cartoon booklets you find left by religious proselytizers in phone booths, that you can order for free from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. The 24-page booklet on marijuana may just set an Anslinger Rating record.

Let’s start with Page 7, displayed above, which compares alcohol and marijuana.

Alcohol consists of one substance only: ethanol.

Which, we should note, is a poison that is toxic to healthy cells and organs. When metabolized by the body, it produced acetaldehyde, an organic chemical linked to cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract. Recent studies show that lifetime use of alcohol corresponds to a greatly increased risk of cancer.

Marijuana contains more than 400 known chemicals, including the same cancer causing substances found in tobacco smoke.

Yes, which makes marijuana much like every other plant that also contains hundreds of chemicals. The carcinogens are found in marijuana smoke, but also found in marijuana smoke are cannabinoids that seem to mitigate the carcinogens. In thirty years of study, Dr. Donald Tashkin tried to find a link between marijuana smoke and cancer and instead found a protective effect against cancer.

Alcohol is eliminated from the body in a few hours, but THC stays in the body for weeks, possibly months, depending on the length and intensity of usage. …the chemicals in marijuana, some of them cancer-causing, remain in the body long after the drug is taken.

Main metabolic route for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Alcohol is eliminated from the body by the liver, which over time with drinking can no longer do the task, one gets cirrhosis, and one dies. Meanwhile, THC is actually metabolized by the body within hours, and the remaining inactive metabolites, THC-COOH and glucuronide, are neither impairing nor carcinogenic.

THC damages the immune system. Alcohol does not.

These studies purporting that marijuana harms the immune system are ridiculous and achieved by using impossibly high doses of THC to cells in a lab. No studies have shown that pot smoking among humans has any effect on the immune system. HIV patients using cannabinoid therapies have actually seen increases in their T-cell counts. However, it does seem very clear that acute and chronic alcohol exposure causes severe immunosuppression in humans.

That’s just one page in a 24-page mini-booklet, and already we’ve found five distortions or outright lies. Won’t you join me for some more debunking after the break?

Here are the rest of the lies, distortions, and just plain weirdness from the booklet.  In the interest of time I’m just throwing out a snarky caption for each one, but you can click the pictures for the link to a webpage with the science to debunk this garbage. — “R”R

Who the hell is calling weed "astro turf"?

You know what doesn't get laced with PCP? Alcohol and tobacco.

Studies show no comparative difference between cannabis smokers' lungs and non-smokers' lungs.

Cannabis users experience no serious cognitive decline compared to non-smokers

Would this be the study where they hooked monkeys up to cannabis gas masks and they died from lack of oxygen?

Ah, yes, that famous 1% THC pot all the bell-bottom-wearing, tie-dye-making, Hendrix-listening kids of the '70s were smoking rears its hempy head again!

Seems to me that 40 years of handling marijuana your way really hasn't worked, has it?

"Involved" meaning "the patient mentioned it or we found it in blood tests". Since so many people smoke pot and it stays detectable for so long, it's not surprising. Now did marijuana "cause" the ER visit? No.

Again, since so many people smoke marijuana this is not a surprise. And since marijuana is illegal, it's no surprise many criminals use it.

So are you trying to convince us that kids shouldn't smoke pot? Agreed! Now here's a stat: 102 million people have tried marijuana, yet there are only 350,000 heroin addicts in America.

And once again, you're detecting an inactive THC-COOH metabolite that tells you nothing about what caused the crash.

"Often" followed by depression? Please. Yes, some people experience discomfort from using marijuana. I'd recommend them to stop.

Nope. delta-9 THC becomes 11-carboxy-THC and then becomes inactive THC-COOH within hours.

And yet, a link between marijuana and lung cancer has never been found and marijuana smokers have less risk of head, neck, and oral cancers.

True, we can get bronchitis, but there's no link to emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The most recent ten-year survey showed NO increase in schizophrenia and psychosis even during a great increase in marijuana smoking

That must explain why all the Rastafarians died out and why we never see hippie kids playing hacky sack anymore.

Yeah, that pot smoker Carl Sagan sure had a diminished brain capacity.

Don't you think we'd have heard of an epidemic of "pot babies" by now?

No, nope, uh-huh, wrong, lie, no, nein, no sir, no way, not really, and I'm not understanding things clearly?

Marijuana is a gateway... to drug dealers. Separate the markets, like the Netherlands, and you find half the drug use rates.

Workplace accidents and fatalities in Oregon have never been lower, steadily declining since the state introduced medical marijuana. Studies show drug testing does not improve safety, productivity, or reduce drug use. As for the college students, if you're smoking every day, yes, you're likely to do worse on mental tests. What they don't find, however, is a correlation between pot use and educational attainment.

Funny, another Australian study found cannabis plays "no significant role" in traffic accidents.

This should be of great concern to those of you with word-list remembering jobs.

Students who use marijuana are kept out of extra-curriculars and denied student aid for college, and may have been using marijuana to cope with other issues that affect grades.

I’m editing and compressing audio from our NORML National Conference last month in San Francisco as fast as I can.  Here are five items from the conference that are already up at the Special Events feed at http://www.norml.org/rss/normlevents_podcast.xml

Secret Stash - Register to access

(This also means that tonight’s podcast will be posted late – 10pm Pacific time — “R”R)