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ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York affiliate of Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) and a nonpartisan alliance of lawmakers, scientists and other concerned citizens coordinated by Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (LICADD) and chaired nationally by former U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, applaud today the State […]

We are SAM. Smart Approaches to Marijuana. We are professionals working in mental health and public health. We are bipartisan. We are medical doctors, lawmakers, treatment providers, preventionists, teachers, law enforcement officers and others who seek a middle road between incarceration and legalization. Our commonsense, third-way approach to marijuana policy is based on reputable science […]

“The legalization of marijuana is moving fast in parts of the United States and it looks as though the domino effect could quickly move to other states such as Hawaii,” said former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Project SAM chairman. “We decided to bring SAM to Hawaii to spur discussions about marijuana use and misuse.”

“While the current conversation in Vermont about marijuana is decriminalization, the legalization of marijuana is moving fast in parts of the United States, and it looks as though the domino effect could quickly move to other states such as Vermont,” said former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Project SAM’s chairman.

Patrick Kennedy spoke with MSNBC in January 2013.

On Jan. 9, 2013, the Boston Globe reported: “Kennedy’s group, called Smart Approaches to Marijuana — which is also led by a top pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston and a Cambridge-based drug policy expert — is warning of a public health crisis unless a science-based approach is taken to minimizing the harmful consequences of marijuana […]

Project SAM directors Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet wrote this column, published Jan. 12, 2013 in The Denver Post.

Project SAM Chairman Patrick Kennedy told MSNBC that the United States needs to halt efforts to legalize marijuana:

As The Daily Caller reported Jan. 11, 2013: “Kennedy also discussed his family’s struggles with alcoholism and his own addiction to Oxycontin, using the story to illustrate the danger he sees in lessening marijuana’s historical stigma as a very dangerous drug.

As the Washington Times reported Jan. 11, 2013: “What I want is to slow this train down and kind of begin a discussion before other states rush to judgment, which is what I think happened here,” Patrick Kennedy said (during the formal launch of Project SAM at The Denver Press Club).

Ed Gogek, a self-described “lifelong partisan Democrat” and physician who serves on the board of Keep AZ Drug Free, published an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that his party should not embrace legalization. Democrats have long pilloried Republicans for ignoring science, he wrote, but they’ve done just that when it comes to marijuana: […]

As the IrishCentral.com reported Jan. 11, 2013: “Former Rhode Island Congressman and recovering addict Patrick Kennedy is spearheading the fight against the legalization of marijuana in the United States through his new nonprofit organization, ‘Smart Approaches to Marijuana.’”

Project SAM Chairman Patrick Kennedy recently spoke with The Washington Post. As the news organization noted Jan. 8: