I received a late Friday afternoon call from one of Larry King’s producers in Los Angeles seeking some cannabis-related factoids and related information for an apparent debate tonight on CNN’s Larry King between libertarian Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, M.D. and, well, actor Steven Baldwin.

Ouch!

Watch the video of the debate here.

Speaking at a landmark press conference today, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced comprehensive legislation to tax and regulate the commercial production and sale of cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol.

“With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes”, Assemblyman Ammiano said. “California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”

The proposal is the first marijuana legalization bill ever introduced in California.

“It’s time for California taxpayers to stop wasting money trying to enforce marijuana prohibition, and to realize the tax benefits from a legal, regulated market instead,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a sponsor of the bill.

As introduced, Ammiano’s measure would allow for the licensed production and sale of cannabis to consumers age 21 and over. Licensed cultivators would pay an excise tax of $50 per ounce of cannabis. In addition, the proposal would impose a sales tax on commercial sales. (Ammiano’s proposal would not affect the state’s medical marijuana law, allowing patients and caregivers to grow their own medicine.)

If enacted, the measure would raise over $1 billion per year in state revenue, according to an economic analysis by California NORML, available online here.

Ammiano’s bill comes at a time of growing public support for legalizing marijuana. A recent Zogby poll reported that nearly six in ten west coast voters support taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol.

Faced with a $40 billion budget deficit, other public officials have joined in endorsing Ammiano’s bill, including San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessy and Betty Yee, a member of the State Board of Equalization, which oversees collection of sales taxes.

Currently, tens of millions of dollars are paid annually in state and local taxes by licensed distributors of medical marijuana. However, these sales only represent a fraction of the overall statewide marijuana market. “The millions of dollars raised each year on the sales of medicinal cannabis is only the tip of the iceberg,” Gieringer said. “Kudos to Assemblyman Ammiano for proposing a path-breaking bill that would benefit our economy, safety and freedom by making marijuana a winning proposition for California.”

Starting today, Change.org (not to be confused with the Obama administration’s website, Change.gov, which is also running a poll) has begun it’s final round of voting on public policy questions for the incoming administration.

As many of you know, our issue was the top vote getter in the preliminary voting, so there’s a very good chance that — with your help — we will finish #1.

And it is important that we do.

According to the website:

“The top 10 rated ideas from the final round will be presented to the Obama administration on January 16th at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, co-hosted by the Case Foundation. At the event we will also announce the launch of a national advocacy campaign behind each idea in collaboration with our nonprofit partners to turn each idea into actual policy.“

Change.org’s press conference will no doubt be covered by the mainstream media. Imagine the splash we will make when the public’s call to legalize marijuana is presented as the #1 idea for the new administration.

Well, we won’t have to imagine if you get out and vote!

Right now, the public’s call to “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana” is the most popular issue on the website. (A related question asking Obama to “end the war on drugs” is #4.) However, several other important issues are just a few votes behind, so it is vital that those of you reading this post take the time to log on to the Ideas for Change website and vote to make cannabis legalization the #1 issue in America!

Voting ends at 5pm eastern time on Thursday, January 15.

Help us put the new administration and the national press on notice on January 16, 2008. Please forward this post to your friends and colleagues, and most of all: vote!

Change.gov, the official website of President-Elect Obama, has reopened its online polling page, “Open for Questions.” Of course we all know what happened the last time the incoming administration asked the public to decide what issue should be America’s top priority. And we’re all well aware of Obama’s less than favorable reply.

That said, the fact that the legalization of marijuana finished first out of over 7,000 questions polled generated significant media coverage, including features by Fox News (watch the video here), Esquire, and The Hill.  So let’s keep the media and the soon-to-be President’s feet to the fire and continue to push the debate.

Currently, over 25,000 public policy questions have been submitted to Obama’s website. Dozens of these questions pertain to cannabis law reform. Right now, the leading vote-getter among these (with 2,000 votes) is:

“Why do you believe that marijuana should not be legalized? How is the prohibition of marijuana any different than the prohibition of alcohol? 100,000 Americans die every year due to alcohol but none to marijuana.”

Please take a moment and log onto the Change.gov site to voice your support for this question, and others pertaining to the need to end America’s antiquated and punitive prohibition of marijuana. (To vote for this and other popular marijuana law reform questions, click on the “additional issues” link or perform a word search using the term “marijuana.”) The people spoke once before; it’s time we make our voices heard again!

“Change we can believe in?” We shall see.

“The war on drugs has been an utter failure. … (W)e need to rethink and decriminalize our (nation’s) marijuana laws.”
-Barack Obama, January 2004 (Watch the video here.)

“I inhaled frequently, that was the point.”
-Barack Obama, November 2006 (Watch the video here.)

Q: “Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

A: “President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.”
-Statement from Change.gov, the official website of President-Elect Obama, December 15, 2008

Okay, count me among those disappointed, but hardly surprised to see that Change.gov — the official website of the incoming Obama administration — answered the above question, which finished first out of over 7,000 public policy questions submitted to the website, in the most curt and dismissive way possible.

That said, as StoptheDrugWar.org’s Scott Morgan writes, Obama’s brevity is, in fact, quite telling.

As frustrating and insulting as it is to witness an important matter brushed casually to the side without explanation, Obama’s answer actually says a lot. It says that he couldn’t think of even one sentence to explain his position. Within the vast framework of totally paranoid anti-pot propaganda, Obama couldn’t find a single argument he wanted to associate himself with. That’s why he simply said “No. Next question.”

All of this highlights the well-known fact that Obama agrees that our marijuana laws are deeply flawed. He‘s said so, and has back-pedaled recently for purely political reasons. If Obama’s transition team tried to give an accurate description of his position on marijuana reform it would look like this:

Q: “Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?” S. Man, Denton

A: President-elect Obama will not use his political capital to advance the legalization of marijuana. While he agrees that arresting adults for marijuana possession is a poor use of law enforcement resources, he believes that the issue remains too controversial to do anything about it.

In fact, Obama essentially said as much earlier this year when asked about the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Obama: “When it comes to medical marijuana, … my attitude is if it is an issue of doctors prescribing marijuana, … I think that should be appropriate. … Whether I want to use a whole lot of political capital on (this) issue; the likelihood of that being real high on my priority list is not likely.” (Watch the video here.)

So then, disappointed as we are, how should we proceed?

Answer: Just as we have been.

To be fair to President-Elect Obama, he never pledged to legalize marijuana. Quite the contrary, during his Presidential campaign he backtracked from his previous comments supporting pot decriminalization, and he even went so far as to pick one of the chief architects of the modern drug war to be his Vice President. In short, to believe that the Obama team would have responded to the legalization question any other way was idealistic at best, and foolish at worst.

But that hardly means that we activists should write off the next four years.

In November, editors at the website Alternet.org asked me to draft “a progressive agenda for Obama” regarding marijuana policy. At that time, I listed several realistic, practical actions Obama could take to substantially reform America’s antiquated and punitive pot laws. (Note, legalizing marijuana by Executive Order was not on my wish list.)

These actions include:

1. As President, Obama must uphold his campaign promise to “not … use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws” that legalize the medical use of cannabis. (Watch the video here.)

2. Obama can appoint leaders to the US Department of Justice, DEA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy who possess professional backgrounds in public health, addiction and treatment rather than in law enforcement.

3. Obama can support the autonomy and health of Washington D.C. voters by encouraging Congress to lift the so-called “Barr amendment” (passed by Congress in 1998 and reinstated every year since then), which prohibits the District of Columbia from implementing a 1998 voter-approved ballot initiative legalizing the use of marijuana by authorized patients.

4. Obama can call for the creation of a bipartisan Presidential commission to review the budgetary, social and health costs associated with federal marijuana prohibition, and to make progressive recommendations for future policy changes.

Ultimately, of course, it’s Congress, not the president, who is responsible for crafting America’s oppressive federal anti-drug strategies. Moreover, it is clear that in the coming years this battle will continue to primarily be fought — and won — on the state level, not in Washington D.C.

That’s not to say that we should not continue to keep the pressure on Obama by continuing to post questions to websites like Change.gov. (My suggestion for the next round of voting… How about: “On Election Day, over 3 million voters decided to legalize the medical use of cannabis in Michigan, making it the 13th state to enact laws allowing the legal medical use of marijuana. While campaigning, you pledged: ‘What I’m not going to be doing is spend Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws on this issue.’ As President, will you and your Attorney General uphold this promise not to target and prosecute patients and providers who are in compliance with state medical marijuana laws?“)

However, we must always remember that it will be the actions of tens of thousands — not the actions of just one man — that will ultimately bring an end to America’s vindictive and senseless war on cannabis consumers.

Now let’s get back to work!

Capitol Hill is talking about cannabis, again!

Earlier today The Hill’s influential Congress Blog posted my commentary:

Legalizing Marijuana Tops Obama Online Poll
via The Hill

Last week, the website Change.gov — the official website of the Obama Transition Team — asked the public to provide them with a list of the top public policy questions facing America. Visitors to the site were then asked to vote on which questions should take priority for the incoming administration.

According to the website, “participation … outpaced our expectations. … Since its launch … the Open for Questions tool has processed over 600,000 votes from more than 10,000 people on more than 7,300 questions.”

Ironically but perhaps not surprisingly the top question for the new administration — as chosen by the general public — was one most politicians seem utterly unwilling to talk about.

“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

… So will Obama’s team respond to the demands of the electorate and initiate an honest, objective, and long-overdue review of U.S. marijuana policies? Or will the incoming administration — like the outgoing one — hide their collective heads in the sand?

As we’ve noted before, The Hill is widely read by lawmakers and by the national media; it is vital that we demonstrate the popularity of the marijuana legalization issue by commenting prolifically. Please post your feedback to The Hill and make a point of disseminating this essay to your friends and colleagues.

(Note: Comments to The Hill are moderated. That means that there will be a delay, sometimes a significant delay, between when you post and when your comment appears live online. That said, all comments will eventually be published. As you can see, my last Hill essay received over 200 comments, one of the highest totals ever received by The Hill on any topic!)

Finally, please take a moment to drop a note to your local news outlet highlighting the results of Obama’s online poll. Currently, this issue is reverberating throughout the blogosphere, but with your help, we can make this a mainstream news story as well.

Marijuana is #1.

To follow up on yesterday’s post, change.gov (the website of President-Elect Obama’s transition team) has now closed the webpage “Open for Questions.”

NORML wishes to thank all of you who took the time to visit the website and demanded the incoming administration to reform America’s marijuana laws.

Your message got through loud and clear.

After receiving nearly 100,000 total votes on more than 10,000 separate public policy issues, the most widely voted on question for Obama is:

“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

(Equally impressive, 16 of the top 50 overall questions posed to the new administration pertained to drug law reform. Now do we have your attention?)

According to the latest update on the Change.gov site, “Over the next few days, some of the most popular questions selected by the Change.gov community will be answered by the Transition team, and their responses will be posted here on the site.”

So does this mean that the Obama will post a response to the public’s outcry for tangible marijuana law reform? Or will the incoming administration choose to remain silent on the one progressive issue that the American public, but not their elected official, is ‘buzzing’ about?

Meanwhile, over at the website Change.org (which is not affiliated with the Obama administration), your votes (Nearly 2,500 of them as of this morning) have made the question, Should we legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana? the top rated idea on the website!

According to the site, there will be a second round of voting (this first round ends on December 31, 2008) in January to determine which top 10 ideas are presented to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day.

Finally, over at the highly popular website Digg.com, over 2,500 visitors have added their support for making marijuana law reform a key platform of the incoming administration. You can join the discussion here.

It was just over a month ago when statewide marijuana law reform initiatives in Massachusetts and Michigan prevailed with more votes than America’s soon-to-be 44th President — once again reaffirming the widespread popular support for changing our nation’s antiquated and punitive pot laws. It wasn’t clear that either the national media or the incoming administration was listening then. Are they listening now?

The website of President-Elect Barack Obama, www.change.gov, has added a new feature that allows visitors to submit and vote on specific public policy questions. Not surprisingly, over 130 separate questions have already been added to the site demanding the incoming administration to reform America’s failed marijuana laws.

Of these, one of the most widely voted on questions for Obama is: “Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

So far, votes are running more than 2 to 1 in support of legalizing marijuana. Pete Guither over at drugwarrant (Thanks for the tip!) reports that the question ranks in the top 30 of all questions submitted to the Obama website.

If you haven’t done so already, considering logging on to the website at:

http://change.gov/page/content/openforquestions

Type “marijuana” in the search questions box and tell the incoming administration to enact sensible marijuana law reform, including: ending the federal raids on state-authorized medical marijuana patients, and taxing and regulating the personal use of marijuana by adults.

Please note: Change.gov is not affiliated with the website Change.org, which is also accepting votes whether the new administration should “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana.” (Be patient; page is slow to download.) As I noted yesterday on NORML’s blog, cannabis legalization is the is the top vote-getter of all criminal justice related questions on the site, which intends to present the top 10 ideas to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day.

As the old saying goes, “Things are starting to get very interesting…”

The website change.org is offering folks an opportunity to send an unmistakable message to the incoming administration. By logging onto the website here, visitors can “vote” on whether to “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana.”

Having gained over 1,800 votes so far, pot legalization is currently the top vote getter in the “criminal justice” category.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

A few folks have written NORML in the past 24 hours expressing difficulty logging on to the change.org website. If so, try cutting and pasting the following url into your browser:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/legalize_the_medicinal_and_
recreational_use_of_marijuana

I’ve also listed instructions in the comments section below to help folks better navigating the site and vote.

According to the website:

The ‘Top 10 Ideas for America’ will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day.

The ‘Top 10 Ideas for America’ will be determined through two rounds of voting. In the first round, ideas will compete against other ideas in the same issue category. The first round will end on December 31, 2008, and the top 3 rated ideas from each category will make it into the second round. The second round of voting will begin on Monday, January 5, and each qualifying idea will compete against the qualifying ideas from all other categories. Second round voting will end on Thursday, January 15.

What happens after voting?

Our work does not end with the voting process or the delivery of the top 10 ideas to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day. That is rather the end of the beginning. Instead of passively hoping the administration accepts each top idea, we will select a formal nonprofit sponsor for each idea to help create a nationwide movement to lobby the administration and Congress to turn the idea into real policy. … We will then build a national campaign to advance each idea in Congress, marshaling the resources of Change.org, MySpace, and our dozens of partner organizations and millions of combined members.

Want to assure that marijuana law reform is one of the “Top 10 Ideas” presented to President-Elect Obama? Then take five minutes to log on to the website and vote.

Please note that change.org is not affiliated with the with the Obama transition team website change.gov. If you have not yet done so, please take a moment today to contact the Office of the President Elect and demand that our next administration engages in a national dialogue on marijuana policy.

Here are three suggested ways that the Obama administration can take immediate, practical steps to reform America’s antiquated and punitive pot laws.

1. President Obama must uphold his campaign promise to cease the federal arrest and prosecution of (state) law-abiding medical cannabis patients and dispensaries by appointing leaders at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the US Department of Justice, and the US Attorney General’s office who will respect the will of the voters in the thirteen states that have legalized the physician-supervised use of medicinal marijuana.

2. President Obama should use the power of the bully pulpit to reframe the drug policy debate from one of criminal policy to one of public health. Obama can stimulate this change by appointing directors to the Office of National Drug Control Policy who possess professional backgrounds in public health, addiction, and treatment rather than in law enforcement.

3. President Obama should follow up on statements he made earlier in his career in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana by adults by calling for the creation of a bi-partisan Presidential Commission to review the budgetary, social, and health costs associated with federal marijuana prohibition, and to make progressive recommendations for future policy changes.

My recent debate with Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed at Dickinson College on September 4 in now online for viewing. Public debates at places such as colleges and universities are crucial in educating the public about alternatives to cannabis prohibition. Interested individuals and parties that would like to establish a NORML chapter or sponsor a debate between NORML and a proponent of cannabis prohibition are encouraged to contact NORML.