I am very grateful to Bernie Sanders for helping to educate the public about socialism and income inequality. Is socialism the scary boogey man it has been painted as in the last few decades? In short, I argue no. Socialism has been given a bad rap, as has welfare. Just […]

Bernie Sanders lost narrowly to Hillary Clinton in Nevada, but he stuck to his common themes in his concession speech, including criminal justice reform. Senator Sanders again stressed the absurdity of people getting criminal records for marijuana offenses while Wall Street crooks don’t suffer any punishment. Former Secretary of State […]

In every election since 2010, I have donned my screen beret to do battle with the keyboard kommandos online who smoke pot and oppose legalization. I don’t know if I coined the phrase or borrowed it, but I call them Stoners Against Legalization. And now, I have damning proof from […]

Hillary Clinton reaffirmed her commitment to continue President Barack Obama’s policy of allowing states to move forward with their own cannabis laws and her support for moving marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance to Schedule II in an interview with Nevada Public Radio. While the Democratic front-runner wouldn’t move […]

Bernie Sanders continued the messages and policy proposals that have helped him surge in the polls in tonight’s MSNBC Democratic Town Hall in Las Vegas, Nevada. Unlike some politicians that tend to “play it safe” when taking a lead in a poll, Senator Sanders stayed consistent on marijuana legalization and […]

Two recent polls have shown a big surge by Bernie Sanders, turning the Nevada caucus on Saturday into a dead heat. In such a close race, is it possible that marijuana legalization supporters could tip the scales in favor of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the more progressive candidate on federal cannabis […]

Bernie Sanders’ proposal to deschedule marijuana just got a big endorsement: former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders. “I certainly would support” it, Dr. Elders told Marijuana Politics on Saturday. “You know, we don’t have cigarettes [in the Controlled Substances Act]. We don’t have alcohol on it,” she added, “So I […]

As I continue to take heat from the marijuana growers and True Legalizers™ in California over my support of marijuana legalization in the form of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), one thing that really bugs me is the deification of the plant and those who grow it. Look, they’re […]

One of the most soul-affirming things I get to do in my strange career is speak to men who have been incarcerated over flowers. The first such man I met was Bobby Platshorn. He was sentenced to 64 years in prison for importing marijuana from Mexico and South America in […]

The Oregon House of Representatives passed a landmark marijuana banking bill, exempting banks and credit unions from any state liability for conducting financial services with state-regulated marijuana businesses. Ultimately, the cannabis industry needs a federal fix to the banking issue, but the state of Oregon is showing real leadership by […]

Former President Clinton, stumping for his wife Hillary Clinton in Tennessee, contended that President Obama wasn’t “a change-maker.” Bill Clinton garnered quite a bit of media attention for stating that, “we are all mixed-race people” after Representative Steve Cohen introduced the forty-second president as a “heck of a stand-in” for the first […]

This weekend’s International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco was once again the premiere industry/activism event of the year. The Hyatt Regency is an amazing venue and the presentations and people at the event were top notch. I collected the audio from every speech and panel and will be uploading […]

Hillary Clinton claims that the policies of Bernie Sanders won’t help black communities, but activist Dr. Cornel West vehemently disagrees. Now that the Democratic nominating process is moving past the homogeneous demographics of Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton and Sanders are both making their case as to why their platforms […]

I got the chance to sit down with cannabis legend Tommy Chong at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco. Chong, 77, is parlaying his cannabis celebrity into a new brand, Chong’s Choice, as well as co-hosting a podcast with his son, Paris, to be hosted on CannabisRadio.com. I asked […]

For those not lucky enough to see Tommy Chong interviewed by Steve Bloom of Celebstoner and Freedom Leaf at the International Cannabis Business Conference  (ICBC), here are some highlights and notes, in a very stream-of-consciousness-kind-of-manner. This is according to my recollection, so most quotes are very much paraphrased: How are […]