Since the Obama White House started the We the People petition site, the petition system has been dominated by requests related to marijuana legalization and medical marijuana. The Obama administration promised to formally respond to petitions with enough signatures — 25,000, raised from 5,000.  So last week as part of the late Friday news dump [...]

While President Obama won’t discuss the results of tonight’s brutal election until an afternoon press conference, one part of his Administration already commented on the results of Proposition 19, California’s initiative to legalize marijuana.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is pushing a bill that aims to put yet more people in jail for using marijuana, even hoping to create a crime for “conspiracy to possess” marijuana that could put people in jail for planning to fly to Amsterdam with their friends to smoke pot.

That’s bad enough, and luckily Nancy Pelosi pulled the bill off the House’s fast track. But Lamar Smith continues his war on marijuana, hilariously suggesting on Fox News that Barack Obama is “encouraging the use of marijuana.”

But Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of NORML, took to the pages of The Hill newspaper to give a reality check to Lamar Smith’s lies.

Office of National Drug Control Policy director Gil Kerlikowske is having difficulty facing other more plausible explanations for why teenage marijuana use might have increased. It’s easier to blame medical marijuana instead.

This morning I joined with members of Students for Sensible Drug Policy and delivered 52,000 petition signatures to drug czar Gil Kerlikowske on behalf of the Just Say Now campaign. Daniel Pacheco, a Georgetown University student from Colombia and a member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, handed the petition to  Kerlikowske at a press [...]