What We Do
Our marijuana laws aren't working. They cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year, keep police from focusing on real crimes, and don't keep marijuana away from minors.
In 2006 alone, there were 829,627 state and local marijuana-related arrests in the United States. (89% of these were for possession alone.) That's one marijuana arrest every 38 seconds.
Founded in 1995, MPP has 24,000 members, 180,000 e-mail subscribers, 36 staffers, and an annual budget of about $6 million.
72% of American adults believe that marijuana users should not be jailed - and a whopping 80% support legal access to medical marijuana for seriously ill patients.
MPP is leading the fight to replace marijuana prohibition with taxation and regulation. It's just common sense.
MPP, the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the U.S., works to remove criminal penalties for marijuana use, with an emphasis on protecting seriously ill medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail. MPP has 23,000 members, 32 staffers, and an annual budget of $6 million.
When MPP was founded in 1995, medical marijuana was illegal in every state and favorable legislation had not been introduced in Congress in a decade. Since then, the federal penalties for marijuana cultivation have been changed to provide for the early release of hundreds of prisoners; medical marijuana bills have been introduced in six consecutive Congresses, with the U.S. House debating and voting on our legislation five years in a row; medical marijuana is now legal in 12 states; and much more.
MPP is changing laws. Will you help? Visit www.mpp.org to find out how you can get involved.
The Marijuana Policy Project does not condone the illegal use of marijuana. However, marijuana prohibition has failed. For instance, when asked in a 2003 survey, "Which is easiest for someone your age to buy: cigarettes, beer, or marijuana?" 34% of teens said marijuana was the easiest to buy, followed by beer with 18%. MPP promotes the taxation and regulation of marijuana for adults, which would reduce the availability of marijuana to minors. Unlike drug dealers, licensed vendors would ensure that minors are unable to purchase marijuana, or risk losing their license...
Marijuana Prohibition Facts
"According to estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would save between $10 billion and $14 billion per year in reduced government spending and and increased tax revenue."
Miron, Jeffrey L., The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana. June 2005
"Every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined the marijuana phenomenon throughout the last 100 years has recommended that adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana."
See: Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894; The Panama Canal Zone Military Investigations, 1925; The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York, 1944; An Analysis of Marijuana Policy (National Academy of Sciences), 1982.
"Fifty-five percent of Americans believe possession of small amounts of marijuana should not be treated as a criminal offense. Seventy-eight percent support making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering."
National Gallup Poll, Nov. 1 2005.
"There have been over seven million marijuana arrests in the United States since 1995, including 771,984 arrests in 2004 — more than for all violent crimes combined, and an all-time record. One person is arrested for marijuana every 41 seconds. About 89% of all marijuana arrests are for possession — not manufacture or distribution."
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports.