Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said this weekend that “[t]ransnational drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico represent the most immediate national security threat faced by the United States in the Western Hemisphere.”

Gee, if only there were some way to cut off their largest source of revenue …

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is reportedly using a $7 million surveillance plane to spy on marijuana grows in Colorado.

Glad to see they’ve got their priorities right.

With only about five weeks left until Election Day, a new Field Poll of likely voters shows California’s Proposition 19 leading 49 to 42 percent, fueled by large majorities of voters younger than 40 and those who live in the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. That’s an extremely promising increase from the last Field Poll taken in June, which showed the initiative losing 48 to 44.

Another poll last week released by PPP also found the initiative leading 47 to 38.

These numbers indicate steadily expanding support for the measure to make marijuana legal for all adults in California, despite the cowardly opposition of nearly every mainstream politician and newspaper in the state.

As campaign contributions have revealed, the groups backing the misguided fight against Prop. 19 – the alcohol industry, narcotics officers, corrections officers – stand to lose much from a regulated marijuana market and are perfectly happy with the continued criminalization of millions of citizens who choose to use a substance that’s safer than alcohol.

On November 2, California voters will have a unique opportunity to combat these private interests by voting for Prop 19 — a desperately needed measure — at a time when most public officials are too reluctant or foolish to admit that it’s the right thing to do.

In their hearts, the average voter knows that our current marijuana laws are a failure, and that it is time for change. If these polls are any indication of voter turnout, that change might be coming to California in a matter of weeks.

Stay tuned for updates.

Perhaps as early as next week, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to sign a series of bills that would outlaw K2 — one of several names given to synthetic cannabinoids (“fake marijuana”) that are sprayed onto different herbs and sold legally in smoke shops across the country.

Such products are labeled “not for human consumption,” but people use them anyway, because, when smoked, they can mimic the effects of marijuana, but they don’t show up on drug tests. More importantly, unlike marijuana, K2 is legal to buy — though perhaps not for long. In just six months, 13 different states have moved to ban the substance, fueled primarily by reports of K2′s adverse health effects. With Granholm’s signature, Michigan would become the 14th.

At first glance, these actions might appear to be a reasonable way to protect the public from a dangerous substance. But — as I’ll explain — they’re really just a testament to the folly of our nation’s marijuana laws.

First, some background: K2 was created in 1995 by John Huffman, a chemistry professor at Clemson University who was researching the effects of cannabinoids, marijuana’s unique, active components. Only in the last year has it become widely available and used by consumers. Now, the effects of K2 might indeed be exaggerated in order to further demonize the substance (as a marijuana reformer, I’m all too familiar with this phenomenon), but papers across the country have published reports of K2 users suffering from accelerated heart rates and increased blood pressure, sometimes even ending up in the emergency room.

It’s unclear whether these reactions are caused by the substance itself, or the various herbal concoctions that vendors spray it on. What is clear, however, is that natural, whole-plant (aka, “real”) marijuana has no such adverse effects on users. In fact, a recent study from the University of Michigan showed that marijuana leads to fewer emergency room admissions than virtually any other legal or illegal drug.

Put more simply, our country’s insane prohibition on marijuana — a safe, non-toxic, and well-studied drug — is now leading consumers to experiment with lesser-known, and potentially much more dangerous, alternatives.

Professor Huffman himself has said that people who use K2 are “idiots.” But are they? Being arrested and convicted for marijuana possession can bring life-long consequences, such as the loss of a job or financial aid for college. Using K2 comes with no negative consequences — except, perhaps, to one’s health.

All this K2 nonsense is simply one more reason — alongside more important issues like sensible law enforcement, personal liberty, racial justice, and potential tax revenue — why America needs a legal, regulated marijuana market. Whereas the full health effects of K2 are largely unknown because they haven’t been studied, marijuana is perhaps the most studied plant in history — one that a former DEA judge once called “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” In a regulated market, consumers would know exactly what they’re purchasing and putting into their bodies. This is not the case when somebody buys K2 — or one of its various knockoffs — that’s been sprayed onto some mystery plant matter.

I don’t have a solid opinion one way or the other as to whether K2 should be banned or regulated like other drugs. But I do know this: The only reason anyone uses K2 and not marijuana is because K2 is legal and marijuana is not. It’s as simple as that. Make marijuana legal, and few, if any, consumers will waste their time seeking out K2.

It’s for this reason that K2 bans are misguided, because they don’t address the core issue: millions of Americans want to use marijuana, or something that will mimic its effects, and if they’re afraid about illegal means of doing so, they will continue to seek out legal alternatives. In fact, the Associated Press has reported that in states where K2 has been banned, merchants have simply changed its name, altered its chemical makeup slightly, and continued to sell it to customers. That’s right: people in those states are now seeking legal alternatives to the legal alternative to marijuana. And round and round we go.

Californians will have a unique chance to end this lunacy once and for all this November, when they vote on Proposition 19, which would allow adults to grow and possess — and localities to regulate — natural, whole-plant marijuana. If Prop. 19 does pass, I have a feeling there won’t be much of a market for K2 in the Golden State.

Oh, and just for kicks, what does Huffman, the creator of K2, think about attempts to ban it?

“It’s not going to be effective,” he told the AP. “Is the ban on marijuana effective?”

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the Huffington Post.)

SAFER executive director Mason Tvert calls out an anti-Prop 19 spokesman — “what this gentleman’s job is here is to raise doubt, and to scare people, and he’s again being paid by the alcohol industry” — on CNN. I’d say more, but the clip speaks for itself. Enjoy!

One of the most encouraging signs of change for the movement to end marijuana prohibition has been the vastly increased level of mainstream media coverage it has received in the last year or so. Last week was no exception. When U.S. officials released new data showing the number of Americans both using and being arrested for marijuana had increased, MPP was there to put those findings in context, and mainstream media outlets all over the world helped to spread our message about the failure of prohibition and the need for a regulated marijuana market.

Here’s a look at some highlights:

CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer:

The Associated Press:

Mike Meno, a spokesman for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, said the survey is more proof that the government’s war on marijuana has failed in spite of decades of enforcement efforts and arrests.

“It’s time we stop this charade and implement sensible laws that would tax and regulate marijuana the same way we do more harmful — but legal — drugs like alcohol and tobacco,” Meno said.

(Note: This article was reprinted in literally hundreds of news outlets, and my quote was included among the AP’s top quotations of the day.)

NPR:

TOVIA SMITH (reporter): But advocates of legalizing marijuana insist the news that marijuana use is up only goes to show that cracking down on users doesn’t work.

Mr. MIKE MENO (Marijuana Policy Project): The government’s been sending the wrong message to people for decades by classifying marijuana alongside drugs like heroin and LSD. And they should just give it up.

SMITH: That’s Mike Meno with the Marijuana Policy Project that supports making pot totally legal, as a ballot question in California this year would do. He says marijuana use isn’t increasing because people see it as less harmful but rather because the sale of marijuana is uncontrolled and unregulated.

Mr. MENO: We need to apply the same type of sensible regulations that we do to alcohol and tobacco, two things that you need an ID to buy, that you need to be a licensed vendor to sell. Drug dealers who sell marijuana do not check IDs.

NPR: (again)

“What people are responding to is the realization that the government has been lying for decades and that marijuana is less harmful than legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco,” says Mike Meno, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which favors legalization.

[…] Polls indicate the [Proposition 19] has roughly a 50-50 chance of passing. Both marijuana advocates and opponents agree that passage would have an enormous impact, with other states likely to follow suit and the drug becoming more readily available to young people.

“If California were to pass Proposition 19, it would be revolutionary,” says Meno, the Marijuana Policy Project spokesman. “People would see that the sky doesn’t fall, the police will have more resources to fight crimes and there will be more revenues for local budgets.”

The other big story last week was how the California Beer and Beverage Distributors were helping to fund the campaign against Prop. 19, which would end marijuana prohibition in California. Steve Fox, MPP’s resident alcohol vs. marijuana guru, said the motivation behind the donation was clear — “the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition” — and his comments were picked up by the Sacramento Bee, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Oakland Tribune, among others.

As more and more mainstream media outlets help to shine a light on the failure of (and motivation behind) marijuana prohibition, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for our opposition to continue denying reality and maintain the failed status quo.

Find out how you can help MPP keep up the pressure in the media by visiting here.

Marijuana arrests accounted for more than half of all U.S. drug arrests in 2009, while its use among Americans increased by 8 percent, according to two reports released this week by government officials.

According to the FBI’s 2009 Uniform Crime Report released yesterday, U.S. law enforcement made 858,408 arrests on marijuana charges — 88 percent of which were for possession, not sale or manufacture. Marijuana arrests peaked in 2007 at more than 872,000, and witnessed a slight dip in 2008 at 847,863.

In 2009, an American was arrested on marijuana charges every 37 seconds.

Meanwhile, an annual report released today by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 16.7 million Americans had used marijuana in the past month.

“It’s now more obvious than ever that decades of law enforcement efforts have absolutely failed to reduce marijuana’s use or availability, and that it’s simply an exercise in futility to continue arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans for using something that’s safer than alcohol,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement. “Rather than criminalize millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens and waste billions of dollars that could be better spent combating violent crime and other real threats to public safety, it’s time we embrace sensible marijuana policies that would regulate marijuana the same way we do alcohol or tobacco.”

On September 7, a major new front opened up in the campaign for Proposition 19, the ballot measure to tax and regulate marijuana in California. On that day, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors made a $10,000 contribution to a committee opposing Proposition 19.

In response, MPP issued the following statement by Steve Fox, director of government relations for the MPP and co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?:

“Unless the beer distributors in California have suddenly developed a philosophical opposition to the use of intoxicating substances, the motivation behind this contribution is clear,” Fox said. “Plain and simple, the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition. They know that marijuana is less addictive, less toxic and less likely to be associated with violent behavior than alcohol. So they don’t want adults to have the option of using marijuana legally instead of alcohol. Their mission is to drive people to drink.”

The alcohol industry is now working hand-in-hand with the law enforcement community to keep marijuana illegal. For example, the California Police Chiefs Association has given at least $30,000 to the “No on Proposition 19” campaign, while the California Narcotics Officers’ Association has chipped in $20,500 of its own. This partnership underscores the hypocrisy among law enforcement officials opposed to Prop. 19.

“Members of law enforcement have argued against Proposition 19 by asserting, ‘We have enough problems with alcohol, we don’t need to add another intoxicating substance to the mix,’ implying that marijuana is just as bad as alcohol,” Fox continued. “But the truth is that a legal marijuana market would not add another dangerous intoxicant to the mix; rather it would provide adults with a less harmful legal alternative to alcohol.”

“In their campaign to defeat Proposition 19, members of law enforcement and the alcohol industry have joined together under an umbrella group calling themselves ‘Public Safety First.’ Sadly, by fighting to keep marijuana illegal and steering adults toward alcohol instead, they are putting public safety last,” said Fox.