Marijuana Policy Project

 Imagine airing radio ads on major stations across the country, listing prominent officials who have used marijuana (including President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Vice President Al Gore, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) and asking, "Is it fair to arrest three quarters of a million people a year for doing what presidents and a Supreme Court justice have done?"

The Marijuana Policy Project's new radio ad - which you can listen to here - does exactly that. The spot hit the airwaves on July 3rd on nearly 200 radio stations nationwide and will continue to air through the summer. The ad can be heard during Jim Hightower's “Common Sense Commentary” (broadcast on 141 Air America affiliates), Dean Becker's “Drug Truth Network” (syndicated on 59 stations), and the “Downsize DC” radio show.

The ads have already caused a stir in the media. CNN Radio, New York Daily News, National Journal, and influential blogs such as TalkLeft, Hammer of Truth, and CommonDreams have all reported on the provocative new ad.

Why talk about top government officials who have used marijuana? Because it's time for Americans to start hearing the truth about marijuana, and they certainly aren't hearing it from their government. The federal government has spent over $1 billion on anti-drug ads, the bulk of which have been devoted to inaccurate scare tactics connecting marijuana use to violence, insanity, and lung cancer.

The leading voice in this anti-marijuana crusade has been White House Drug Czar John Walters, who told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 26 that marijuana "is not just a gateway (drug); it's a dead end."

In fact, marijuana wasn't a dead end for the current president of the United States, the former vice president, and a whole lot of other distinguished Americans. Whatever one thinks of Bush, Gore, Schwarzenegger, and the rest, one thing is clear: They used marijuana and went on to lead extraordinarily successful lives, not unlike the many Americans who drink alcoholic beverages.

It's no shock to HIGH TIMES readers, of course, that marijuana use hasn't prevented tens of millions of Americans from enjoying great success. But it's a message most Americans rarely if ever hear. Indeed, one reason America is still burdened by bad marijuana laws is that we haven't had the sort of open, honest discussion of the issue that a democracy needs to have.

MPP's new ads, and others that will follow this fall and winter, are intended to help provoke that debate. They will shed light on scientific findings - often from research funded by the federal government - that undercut the reasoning behind our nation's failed policy of marijuana prohibition. They'll educate listeners about how the government's war on marijuana has failed to stop marijuana use, while handing the marijuana market over to an unlicensed, unregulated informal system whose profits - unlike those of liquor merchants - are outside the stream of tax revenue.

Keep your ears open for the series of radio spots, which MPP will be airing over the next year. The next ad will debut during the first week of September, and another spot will release about eight weeks after that. For more information - and to hear MPP's previous public service announcements featuring Montel Williams - click here.