Today, after a delay of more than two years, patients eligible for New Jersey’s medical marijuana program were finally allowed to apply for the licenses that would protect them from arrest. Seriously ill individuals who could qualify for the program have been waiting diligently while the state government dragged its feet with implementation since the law took effect in mid-2010.

Unfortunately, it could be some time before licensed patients will be able to legally acquire their medicine. New Jersey’s law does not allow for home cultivation, and all medicine must be purchased at state-licensed nonprofit dispensaries. Licensing of these dispensaries has been consistently delayed as well. To date, only six have been granted preliminary approval, and only one is preparing to serve patients.

This is great news for the seriously ill of the Garden State and their families. If there are no further delays, patients should be able to access their medicine by the end of the year. How easily they will be able to get it will be another story, but at least licensed patients will no longer have to fear being treated like criminals for using the medicine that works best for them.

Michael Phelps just swam his way into the history books by winning more Olympic medals than anyone, ever.

Pretty impressive, considering that the same guy was publicly shamed and persecuted just a couple short years ago for choosing to relax with a substance that is demonstrably safer than alcohol.

But should we really be surprised? We’ve all seen the negative effects that alcohol can have on athletic training and performance. And after all, a recent study showed that marijuana has no long-term negative effects on breathing or lung function.

More and more athletes are coming forward about their marijuana use, from a wide variety of sports, citing both medical benefits for treating injuries and the much lesser impact of recreational use compared to alcohol. Unfortunately, many continue to be punished for it.

UFC fighter Nick Diaz was suspended and fined for testing positive for THC metabolites after a February bout in Los Vegas, even though he was not under the influence at the time. Diaz is a licensed medical marijuana patient in his home state of California, and medical marijuana is also legal in Nevada.

More recently, Phelps’ fellow Olympic contender Stephany Lee was kicked off the U.S. wrestling team for a positive marijuana test.

It is time we stop punishing the nation’s greatest athletes for using marijuana. These individuals have the ability and opportunity to smash the negative stereotypes that marijuana users have had to live with for so long but are being cheated out of their shots at personal and national glory by close-minded officials and archaic policies.

An arrest record for marijuana possession, even for a small amount, can cause years of problems. It is more difficult to get a job or student aid, and you can forget about a political career. The last three presidents admitted that they had used marijuana, but none of them were saddled with the stigma of an arrest on their records. Do you think it is fair that President Obama, who loved to use marijuana in his younger years, says it is acceptable to keep arresting people for the same thing?

Neither do we.

Check out MPP’s Rob Kampia on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” earlier this week, where the topics are arrests and the politics of presidential marijuana use.

Today, the City Council of Chicago voted 43-3 to amend the city’s code to direct police officers to cite, rather than arrest, individuals in possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana. Under the proposal, which has the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police could still arrest those who cannot produce identification or present a threat to public safety. Those cited would face fines of $200 to $500 dollars and up to 10 hours of community service; however, there would be no risk of jail time.

Passage of the measure means that adults in possession of small amounts of marijuana will no longer be arrested or saddled with criminal records that can make it harder to obtain employment, housing, and student loans. The ordinance will also allow law enforcement to focus on more serious crimes, like the city’s soaring murder rate, while conserving limited police resources. Violent crime has become a serious concern in Chicago, with homicides up 38% over the last year.

Chicago now joins over 90 other localities in Illinois and 15 other states across the nation in removing criminal penalties for low-level marijuana possession. Since enacting laws replacing arrest and jail with fines for such violations, there has been no appreciable increase in marijuana use in those areas, either among adults or young people. The move follows a recent trend in marijuana reforms, including a similar penalty reform in Rhode Island and medical marijuana legislation in Connecticut this May and June. Legislative chambers in New York, New Hampshire, and New Jersey also approved marijuana policy reforms in recent weeks. This trend reflects growing public consensus that harsh marijuana laws are ineffective, and scarce law enforcement resources should not be used to arrest adults for using a substance safer than alcohol.

If only President Obama’s former colleagues, like his good friend the Mayor of Chicago, could convince him that people are ready for real marijuana policy change, and that we need it more than ever.

A new study released today shows conclusively that in California’s largest cities African-Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at much higher rates that whites. In the 25 cities profiled, African-Americans were arrested at four to 12 times the rate of whites, despite much higher use rates among whites.

This horrifying disparity is one reason Proposition 19 has earned the support of civil rights groups, including the California NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens of California. These numbers make it clear that removing penalties for marijuana possession would eliminate a tool that has been used to institute a system of pervasive racism in the Golden State. Given that even a single possession charge can result in severe economic and social consequences, the fact that arrests are focused so disproportionately on minority communities is an overwhelming argument for reform on November 2^nd.

Some folks disagree, namely the majority of California’s law enforcement community. Several law enforcement groups have given large sums of money to the campaign against Proposition 19, the most recent being the California Police Chiefs Association, who donated $20,000 to No on Prop. 19.

Throughout the public debates on this issue, law enforcement groups (other than those backing Prop 19) have said that reformers need to prove why marijuana should not be illegal. It seems much more reasonable to expect the burden of proof to be on the other side, especially when marijuana prohibition results in such obvious racial persecution. Yet law enforcement does not rise to this challenge, probably because there is no justification for such practices in a civilized society.

Could it be that some California cops actually like targeting minorities?

If Proposition 19 passes, they will lose their easiest way to do so.

Interestingly, the largest law enforcement group supporting Proposition 19 is…

…the National Black Police Association.

Two days ago, Mexican authorities seized 134 tons of marijuana in Tijuana, just across the border from California. The value of the seizure was estimated at $340 million.

According to the logic of prohibitionist economics, such a huge bust should have quite a damaging effect on the marijuana market in the United States, right?

Wrong. Mexico confiscated more than 1,300 tons of marijuana in 2009 alone, and before that the average was more than 2,000 tons per year. Yet each year, production goes up and street prices in the U.S. remain relatively static.

In California, the efforts to make an impact on the availability and price of marijuana result in similarly impressive seizures, but they too fail to have any effect whatsoever. Each year during the late summer and early fall, eradication programs such as CAMP take to the hills and skies, destroying millions of budding marijuana plants. Yet each year, production goes up and street prices remain relatively static.

The lesson to be learned here is that no matter how much marijuana law enforcement takes off the street, it will still be equally and readily available. And it will cost about the same at the consumer level as it did before the governments of these two countries spent millions of dollars on their fruitless efforts.

The solution is simple, and follows the very basic laws of supply and demand: tax and regulate marijuana in California (and the rest of the U.S. for that matter). Less risk for American growers and distributors translates to lower consumer prices, and undercuts the Mexican suppliers. With a large source of income gone and decreased incentive to take the risks that do not hinder legitimate American marijuana businesses, we will soon see cross-border shipments into California dwindle down to nothing. And as the cartels’ influence in California declines, so too will the environmental damage from illegal grows on public land and the violence that exists in an industry without legal recourse for settling disputes.

But then, what else would these guys do for fun?

This weekend, Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, joined a growing number of Latin American leaders, academics, and artists in calling for an end to failed prohibition policies:

“[Legalization] is the only solution,” said the author. “Drug trafficking can not be defeated by military means.”

It seems strange that such well-respected members of Latin American society are more and more willing to come out in favor of reform, while here in the States, most public officials will not come within a mile of advocating sensible policies. The research supporting these changes is available, and new studies suggesting the same are coming out all the time.

Could it be that this is because our policies cause much more bloodshed abroad than at home, despite America being the largest marijuana market on Earth?

Earlier this summer, a Phoenix marijuana deal went bad and resulted in the deaths of three people. Now, details have been released about the investigation that led up to the massacre. After being connected with a group of buyers through a confidential informant, police planned to sell 500 lbs. of marijuana (seized in previous investigations) for $250,000. During the deal, something went wrong and shooting started.

Many words come to mind when considering this horrible event, which ended with a detective dead and two more wounded, as well as the deaths of two suspects. Tragic. Wasteful. Heroic. For me, one word stands above the rest: avoidable.

The simple fact is that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in regulated industries. When was the last time you heard about a liquor store owner gunning down the delivery driver to avoid paying the bill? As seen during alcohol prohibition – most notably in Chicago during the reign of Al Capone – illegal markets that have no legal means to resolve disputes inevitably produce violence. Once the product is brought into a regulated market, the violence disappears almost overnight.

In a society that taxes and regulates marijuana like alcohol, few of our law enforcement officers will end up murdered over a couple of bales of plant matter.