Marijuana Policy Project

About the Marijuana Policy Project Our marijuana laws aren’t working. Our failed marijuana laws cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year, keep police from focusing on real crimes, and don’t keep marijuana away from minors. Nearly 800,000 Americans are arrested on marijuana charges each year -- one arrest every 40 seconds. And 9 out of 10 arrests are for possession, not distribution. 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 25,000 members, 180,000 e-mail subscribers, 36 staffers, and an annual budget of $6 million, plus a separate $1.5 million grants program. 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; the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine declared that marijuana has medical value; medical marijuana is now legal in 12 states; and much more.