By David Jackson, USA TODAY

The YouTube generation is speaking, and many of them want to legalize marijuana.

Changing the nation’s drug laws is dominating the questions submitted by YouTube users in advance of President Obama’s 2:30 p.m. question-and-answer on the video website.

UPI is reporting that “the top 10 questions all involved ending or changing the government’s war on drugs, legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana and embracing industrial hemp as a “green” initiative to help farmers.”

A coalition of groups that support legalization of marijuana report that the top 100 questions deal with their issue, and says, “the American people want to know why our country is continuing the failed, catastrophic policy of drug prohibition.”

The campaign to legitimize what is called “medical” marijuana is based on two propositions: first, that science views marijuana as medicine; and second, that the DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither proposition is true. Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe. Moreover, the DEA targets criminals engaged in the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana, not the sick and dying. This is true even in the 14 states that have approved the use of “medical” marijuana.

Drugged: High on Marijuana uses visual effects and CGI to take the viewer on a trip through the human body. Using testimony from those who enjoy using the drugs, and those who have been addicted, the episode offers an insight into the realities of these drugs. Some of Britain and America’s top scientists and doctors will also explain the surprising bio-chemical effects of these popular drugs as well as their unintended consequences.

By Maia Szalavitz

When an act of seemingly inexplicable violence like the Arizona massacre occurs, everyone is desperate for explanations. Some look to political rhetoric, some look to mental illness, some blame the parents, others point to marijuana. But what’s really at fault?

The reality is clearly complex. As researchers searching for the causes of violence and the roots of psychosis know, Jared Loughner’s behavior cannot easily be explained by a gene or a drug or culture or parenting. While each of those factors can be shown to have measurable effects, their relative contributions are often small or moderate and can’t be easily teased apart into a recipe of rampage in any individual case.

By Rob Kampia

It’s with enthusiasm that I present this top-10 list for 2010. While there were a few disappointing losses — most notably the statewide ballot-initiative defeats in Oregon and South Dakota on November 2 — almost everything else demonstrated positive momentum for the marijuana policy reform movement.

In trying to make this list manageable, I haven’t listed (1) developments in clinical research; (2) developments in foreign countries; (3) the passage or defeat of local measures to tax medical marijuana, since these measures can be viewed as either good or bad; and (4) the progress that the Marijuana Policy Project made with moving our bills forward in the Delaware, Illinois, and other state legislatures where we haven’t yet achieved the ultimate victories we seek.

(In the interest of full disclosure: MPP, of which I am the executive director, played a significant role in five of the 10 victories below, assisted in an ancillary way in four, and played no role at all in one [the court cases]. They are listed in no particular order.)

David Edwards
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

It’s becoming more and more difficult to find juries that will produce a guilty verdict in marijuana cases, according to a judge in Missoula County, Montana.

“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” District Judge Dusty Deschamps said Friday after potential jurors refused to convict a Montana man for having a 1/16 of an ounce of Marijuana.

An April 23 search of Touray Cornell’s home found several used marijuana joints, a pipe, and some residue. He’s is also charged with the criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

Cornell’s neighbors had called the police because they thought he was selling drugs. The defendant admitted in an affidavit that he had distributed small amounts of marijuana.

One potential juror after another told the court that the would not convict the man for possessing a 1/16 of an ounce.

Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul told the Associated Press that the jurors staged “a mutiny.”

“District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree,” the Missoulianreported. “Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections.”

“I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we can seat a jury,” Deschamps said.

Paul and Cornell’s attorney, Martin Elison, worked out a plea deal during recess.

Public opinion “is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” Elison wrote in the plea agreement.

Cornell entered an Alford plea Friday, not admitting guilt, but acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him. The judge sentenced Cornell to 20 years with 19 of them suspended. Cornell was given credit for the 200 days already served.

“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” the judge said.

“It’s kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue,” he added.

“If more potential jurors start turning down nonviolent drug cases, our drug laws will change,”Jason Kuznicki wrote for the blog The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

Jury nullification often happens when a law is perceived to be unjust. During alcohol prohibition, nearly 60 percent of trials were nullified by jurors. Nullification was also often used in cases involving the Alien and Sedition and Fugitive Slave Acts.

In a more recent case, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf suspectedthat jury nullification was used to spare former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.