Background
Cowan was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1940 where he graduated from a local high school in 1958.
Cowan was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1940 where he graduated from a local high school in 1958.
In 1962 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, from Yale University, where he had served as president of the Yale Young Republicans and as Chairman of the Party of the Right in the Yale Political Union.
After graduating, Cowan held various management positions in his family’s companies working in manufacturing and natural resources. Later, Cowan worked as an independent investor. In 1972, after volunteering with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Cowan wrote a cover article for Buckley"s National Review.
In it he called for Conservatives to support the legalization of marijuana, one of the first positions against prohibition in a major opinion journal.
Buckley agreed with Cowan, and became a regular critic of marijuana prohibition. In 1986, Cowan wrote another National Review cover article, "How the Narcs Created Crack", in which he introduced the concept of the Iron Law of Prohibition.
Cowan argued that prohibition is actually counterproductive because the economics of contraband creates incentives for selling stronger drugs. lieutenant was the basis of a book on the subject by economist Mark Thornton.
From August 1992 to August 1995 Cowan served as executive director of NORML. In 1994, following a dispute with the NORML Board of Directors, Cowan resigned, but then agreed to stay on after marijuana research pioneer and author, Harvard Medical School Professor Doctor Lester Grinspoon, Doctor of Medicine, organized a new board of notable academics.
Cowan spent most of 1996 in Amsterdam studying Dutch marijuana policies. In 1997 Cowan helped the late Peter McWilliams launch his website, MarijuanaMagazine.com. Later in 1997 he began MarijuanaNews.com, which has been called the original marijuana blog, documenting what he called “the best two-word explanation of marijuana prohibition: "bad journalism.” MarijuanaNews is offline as its archives are being edited to make them more useful for researchers.
Cowan also pioneered video blogging in 2001 on Marc Emery"s Pot television In 2008, Cowan co-founded Cannabis Science, the second publicly owned medical marijuana company, but retired as an officer and director at the end of 2012.
Cowan now lives in Europe where he works with marijuana legalization activists.
He was also a founding member of Young Americans for Freedom, the Conservative student group launched in 1960 by William F. Buckley, Junior. Buckley"s friendship became a lifelong influence on Cowan"s life.