The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation’s leading organization working to end the war on drugs, with over 100,000 supporters and eight offices nationwide. They released this video about a year ago, so you may have already seen it. Either way, it’s worth watching again.

Tell Congress it is time for a new bottom line in U.S. drug policy, one that focuses on reducing the problems associated with both drugs and the war on drugs. Take action at drugpolicy.org.

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A customs officer at the Tokyo airport recently went against company regulations and hid a package of 142 grams of marijuana in a random passenger’s luggage to test airport security. According to this article by the BBC News, the passenger unknowingly walked away with it when the “Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in.”

If it weren’t for the fact that you can go to prison in Japan for even the smallest amounts of marijuana, I’d consider this a blessing.

Officials are asking that whoever finds the package contact them, but come on – If you found 5 ounces of weed in your bag when you got to your hotel, what would you do with it? I’m sure calling the police to tell them about it is the last thing that comes to mind.

Does smoking marijuana increase the risk of heart disease or stroke?

A recent study by Dr. Jean Lud Cadet of the National Institute on Drug Abuse showed that heavy marijuana use boosts the levels of a protein called apolipoprotein C-III in the blood by up to 30%, which increases the levels of triglycerides in the blood. Triglycerides contribute to the hardening and thickening of arteries and raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The study measured the protein levels in 18 long-term marijuana users who smoked an average of 78 to 350 joints a week — 11 to 50 joints per day — which, according to the NORML blog, is equivalent to 2 to 9 ounces per week. The study did not research whether or not the subjects actually had heart disease.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the The Marijuana Policy Project disputed the results:

We’re talking about people who are stoned all the time. We’re talking about the marijuana equivalent of the guy in the alley clutching a bottle of cheap wine. If you do anything to that level of excess, it might well have some untoward effects, whether it’s marijuana or wine or broccoli [...] Even if you take this finding at face value, it’s not at all clear that it has any relevance to the real world because there is still no data showing higher rates of mortality among marijuana smokers. If this was a significant cause of cardiovascular disease, where are the bodies?

In other words – If you’re not smoking upwards of two ounces of weed every week, you shouldn’t really have anything to worry about.