You can learn a lot about the merits of a proposal by taking a good, hard look at who’s lobbying against it.

Take California’s Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which would require the diversion of certain non-violent offenders to drug treatment and increase funding for state-sponsored rehabilitation programs. The measure seeks to expand upon the alternative sentencing programs initially enacted by Proposition 36, which is estimated to have saved taxpayers some $1.7 billion dollars and reduced the number of people incarcerated for simple drug possession by one-third. So who would oppose this proposal?

If you guessed: the folks who make their living arresting non-violent drug offenders, you’d be right! According to the ‘No on 5′ website, the California State Sheriff’s Association, the California Narcotics Officers Association, the California Peace Officers Association, the Police Chiefs of California, and the California District Attorneys Association all oppose Prop. 5.

However, even more disturbing is who’s bankrolling the ‘No on 5′ campaign. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, California’s powerful prison guards union has spent close to $2 million dollars to lobby against the passage of Prop. 5. After all, overcrowded prisons — In 2007, California declared a ’state of emergency’ in the prison system because of the lack of bed space — and more prison construction (in lieu of building additional public high schools and state colleges) are a financial windfall for prison guards, even if they spell disaster for everyone else.

In addition to expanding drug treatment in California, Prop. 5 would also reduce minor marijuana possession penalties from a misdemeanor (punishable by a $100 criminal fine with a criminal record) to a non-criminal infraction (punishable by a $100 civil fine with no criminal record). Now who would be against that?

If you answered: the folks who make their living by possessing a monopoly on the sale of legal intoxicants, you’d be correct! According to the DPA, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors have donated $100,000 to the ‘No on 5′ campaign. Could it be that the alcohol lobby is fearful of the day when they will have to legally compete with a natural product that is remarkably safe, non-toxic, and won’t leave you with a hangover? Do we even have to ask?

So now that you know who’s against Prop. 5, why not examine who is lobbying for it. That list would include the California Nurses Association, California Society of Addiction Medicine, the California League of Women Voters, and the California Academy of Family Physicians.

In short, those who have dedicated their lives to helping others in need are backing Prop. 5, while those who have dedicated their careers to destroying people’s lives (or who promote a product that does) vehemently oppose it. You do the math.

If you ever wondered how low the opponents of medicinal marijuana could possibly stoop, just check out the 30-seconds of vile propaganda above. (I recommend having a strong anti-emetic handy.)

For those of you who may not know, even though I’m NORML’s Deputy Director I live in California. Let me tell you that the claim that so-called “pot smoking clubs [are] in every neighborhood” is as false as it is absurd. Fact is, the county I live in (Solano County) doesn’t even allow for the establishment of dispensaries, nor has it — in four years since the passage of Senate Bill 420 — ever issued identification cards to state-authorized patients, as is required by law. Numerous counties and municipalities have passed similar moratoriums on patient dispensaries, and many others continue to resist issuing ID cards to qualified patients.

By contrast, those California cities that allow for the not-for-profit patient dispensaries have enacted strict zoning policies regarding where they can operate (”Just blocks from schools???” Please!), and imposing limits on the number of collectives that may operate in a community. (Just imagine if drug pharmacies like Walgreens were forced to endure similar restrictions.)

That is the reality in California, and that is why polls indicate broader public support for the legalized use of medical cannabis now than when Proposition 215 first passed in 1996.

Of course, those who oppose Proposition 1 in Michigan and who condone arresting and jailing patients for their use of cannabis are well aware of these facts — just as they are aware that Prop. 1, like the medical cannabis laws in eleven other states, does not even allow for the creation of licensed cannabis dispensaries. Yet in order to continue to prosecute and cage their fellow citizens, regardless of whether they are healthy or dying, our opponents rely on lying and fear-mongering  — the same tactics that brought us marijuana prohibition in the first place.

Will the scare-tactics work? They haven’t in past. (Of the ten state medi-pot initiative campaigns since 1996, nine have passed.) Unfortunately, like in Massachusetts, the negative campaigning is clearly having an effect — with recent polls indicating a drop in public support from an estimated 66 percent to 54 percent. Believe me, as one who bases his written words on science and facts, it pains me to say that.

That said, like in Massachusetts, I am confident that a majority of Michigan’s voters will see through our opponents cynical and dishonest smoke-screen come Election Day, and will choose to make the ‘land of 11,000 lakes’ the thirteenth state to authorize the legal use of medical cannabis.

Why do I say this? I say this because for the first time in recent memory it’s become apparent that our opponents are desperate. They are desperate because they know they are losing — state by state, community by community, and voter by voter.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Well, it’s obvious that we are no longer being ignored, nor are we being ridiculed. Finally, with their backs up against the wall, the defenders of prohibition have decided to fight.

And we all know what comes next.

Marijuana law reformers continue to take the phrase “all politics is local” to heart.

Over the past decade, grassroots activists in numerous towns and municipalities — including Seattle, Washington; Columbia, Missouri; Santa Cruz, Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara, California; and Denver, Colorado — have successfully campaigned for local ordinances making the enforcement of pot possession laws their city’s lowest law enforcement priority.

This year, a coalition of activists — led by the University of Arkansas chapter of NORML and the Alliance for Drug Reform Policy — have placed a similar proposal on the ballot in Fayetteville, Arkansas (population: 67,000).

If passed, the city will become the second Arkansas municipality in recent years to enact marijuana ‘deprioritization.’ (NORML’s state affiliate championed a similar measure in Eureka Springs in 2006.)

In the days leading up to November 4th, most Americans attention will be directed toward Washington, DC and the Presidential election race. But while we remain focused on national politics let’s not forget about the significant changes taking place locally — one community at a time.

NORML applauds the work of Sensible Fayetteville and the efforts of other local — and often unrecognized activists — not only what they’ve already achieved, but also (and especially) for what they will accomplish in the future.

One of NORML’s primary functions is to educate the public. Day in and day out NORML’s staff and affiliates work tirelessly to promote factual and scientific information about cannabis — information that in an ideal world would be provided to the public by drug educators, health providers, and police, were not all three entities directly involved in supporting the continuation pot prohibition.

Why does NORML work so diligently to provide this information to the general population? We do so, in large part, because we know that our politicians opponents — including many members of the before-mentioned groups — have no qualms lying about pot in order to stifle our reform efforts. We also know that the mainstream media rarely takes the time or effort to challenge their disinformation.

Unfortunately, as we are seeing in Massachusetts, lies unduly influence voters — particularly when those doing the lying are those the public trusts.

Since September, a coalition consisting of the state’s 11 district attorneys, along with numerous members of law enforcement, have campaigned vociferously against Question 2 — a proposal to reduce minor marijuana possession to a fine-only offense — falsely claiming that the measure will increase adolescent drug abuse, permit large-scale marijuana trafficking, endanger workplace safety, and sharply increase traffic fatalities. (Reality check: If passed, Question 2 would equalize Massachusetts pot penalties with those of neighboring Maine, which last time I checked, isn’t suffering from any such pot-related catastrophes.)

A recent statewide poll conducted by Suffolk University indicates the extent to which our opponents’ lies are influencing the public. Support for Question 2 has dipped precipitously since the launch of the D.A.s’ campaign (though it still remains above 50 percent), with the greatest loss of support occurring among those age 65 and older. (Support among this voting block fell from 70 percent in August to just 40 percent in October.)

This drop, though troubling, is hardly surprising. Those older Americans who typically lack first-hand experience with cannabis and may be unaware of NORML’s efforts are most susceptible to the lies politicians and police spew about pot.

Conversely, support among younger voters in Massachusetts (those defined by pollsters as 45-years-old and younger) has held above 60 percent despite the cops’ smear campaign. In large part, this is also to be expected. After all, these voters are, statistically, most likely to possess first-hand knowledge of cannabis (or still be current users) and are arguably more familiar with NORML’s educational efforts. As a result, they are more likely to be dismissive of the D.A.s’ cynical rhetoric — as they should be.

Will the D.A.s’ disinformation campaign ultimately be responsible for the defeat of Question 2? We’ll know in eight days, but I remain cautiously optimistic. Previous law enforcement led propaganda campaigns designed to defeat statewide medicinal marijuana initiatives have almost universally failed. That said, it can be argued that older voters — the voting block that has the potential to tip Question 2 one way or the other — more readily identify with the medical use issue than the recreational aspects of pot.

One thing is for certain, our opponents’ smears and scare-tactics have made this battle too close to call — and once again revealed that those who support (or whose livelihoods are based upon) pot prohibition will do or say anything in order to keep our community in cages.

Like the Energizer bunny, Drug Czar John Walters’ lies just keep on coming. It was only one-month ago when the Czar made a fool of himself on cable television — denying the fact the law enforcement arrest 800,000+ individuals on pot charges each year. (The FBI’s 2008 Uniform Crime Report, released just days after Walters’ absurd denial, showed that police made a record 872,721 marijuana arrests in 2007.)

Walters further embarrassed himself by claiming that the likelihood of finding a marijuana smoker in prison or jail for pot possession is like finding a “unicorn” — a claim that is readily rebutted by the US Department of Justice’s own data, as well as by the startling number of former ‘unicorns’ who wrote to NORML here.

You’d think that these two gaffes would fulfill the Czar’s ‘lie quota’ for one day, but Walters was just getting started.  At the same press conference, Walters further alleged (read: lied) that marijuana use has fallen dramatically under his watch when, in fact, according to the government’s own data — recently crunched by George Mason University senior fellow Jon Gettman and posted to The Hill.com by MPP’s Bruce Mirken — Americans’ overall pot use rates have remained stable since 2002.

And then there’s this story, just released by ABC News.

Study: Anti-Drug Ads Haven’t Worked
Report Finds $1 Billion Campaign to Curb Teen Drug Use May Have Encouraged It
via ABC News

Despite investing $1 billion in a massive anti-drug campaign, a controversial new study suggests that the push has failed to help the United States win the war on drugs.

A congressionally mandated study released today concluded that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign launched in the late 1990s to encourage young people to stay away from drugs “is unlikely to have had favorable effects on youths.”

In fact, the study’s authors assert that anti-drug ads may have unwittingly delivered the message that other kids were doing drugs, inadvertently slowing measured progress that was being made to curb marijuana use among teenagers.

“Youths who saw the campaign ads took from them the message that their peers were using marijuana,” the report suggests as a possible reason for its findings. “In turn, those who came to believe that their peers were using marijuana were more likely to initiate use themselves.”

… “Despite extensive funding, governmental agency support, the employment of professional advertising and public relations firms, and consultation with subject-matter experts, the evidence from the evaluation suggests that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign had no favorable effects on youths’ behavior and that it may even have had an unintended and undesirable effect on drug cognitions and use,” the report said.

In other words, teens who specifically said they had a lot of exposure to the campaign messages were no less likely to stay away from marijuana than those who did not.

… The evaluation was conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, after Congress called for the study. The study was based on four rounds of interviews conducted between 1999 and 2004, each involving about 5,000 to 8,000 youths between the ages of 9 and 18 years.

Predictably, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy spokesman Tom Riley responded to the data by sticking his head in the sand. “This campaign has been a striking success,” he said — his nose growing significantly longer as he spoke.

Riley also questioned why Annenberg’s findings only assessed the White House’s public service announcements through 2004. ABC News didn’t provide an answer, so I will.

The reason Annenberg abruptly ceased evaluating the (in)effectiveness of the ONDCP’s failed media campaign in 2004 was because the National Institute on Drug Abuse — which by law was instructed to fund an independent, ongoing review of the ads — ceased paying the school’s evaluators to do so. NIDA pulled the plug on the evaluations after preliminary findings by Annenberg’s investigators found the Czar’s ad campaign to be among the least effective in the history of large-scale public communication campaigns. Somebody ought to tell John Walters, who apparently failed to get the memo.

Of course, were the mainstream media to actually do its job, Walters’ bottomless pit of documented lies and delusional fabrications would be headline news, and the reigning Czar would be looking for a new line of work (dogcatcher perhaps). Unfortunately, lying about the war on (some) drugs has become so common and pervasive among police and politicians that the fact that America’s top drug cop is completely full of, ahem, crap isn’t only acceptable, it’s actually compulsory.

Event: HIGH TIMES presents…

SMOKE THE VOTE: A Benefit Concert for NORML

Date: Sunday, Oct. 26th
Time: Doors open at 7pm
Location: Don Hill’s, NYC

511 Greenwich St. at Spring St.
New York City
212-219-2850

Host: comedian Rob Cantrell
Performers: Schram-8pm, The Stoned-9pm, Black Water Rising-10pm, Warrior Soul-11pm

Tickets: $12

C’mon out to Don Hill’s this Sunday for a smokin’ night of fun, music and pot-n-politics– all in support NORML’s cannabis law reform advocacy work in New York and nationwide.

Many thanks and praises to longtime supporters High Times, Bobby Black, Rob Cantrell and all the great bands.

The War on Pot Is a War on Young People
via Alternet

NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano delivered this speech at NORML’s 2008 National Conference, “It’s Not Your Parents’ Prohibition” in Berkeley, California.

According to a 2005 study commissioned by the NORML Foundation, 74 percent of all Americans busted for pot are under age 30, and 1 out of 4 are age 18 or younger. That’s nearly a quarter of a million teenagers arrested for marijuana violations each year.

To put this bluntly, we now have an entire generation that has been alienated to believe that the police and their civic leaders are instruments of their oppression rather than their protection.

And the sad fact is: They’re right!

Why is this the case? And why, as a community, don’t we talk about it?

(Text of full remarks after the jump.)

Full Story

NORML’s 37th annual national conference, “It’s Not Your Parents’ Prohibition,” takes place this week – on Friday, October 17 and Saturday, October 18 – at the Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center in Berkeley, California. Join NORML’s staff and Board of Directors – and nearly 500 policy activists, medical patients, cultivators, doctors, politicians, and clinical investigators – as we congregate and celebrate in one of America’s most ‘pot friendly’ cities.

Detailed conference agenda, speakers list, and information on conference social events – including Saturday night’s ‘can’t miss’ 2008 Extravaganja party at the Oasis Nightclub (which will feature fire dancers, live performances by from Los Marijuanos and the Extra Action Marching Band, and a laser light show) – are available here.

Rooms at the Doubletree Hotel are sold out, but alternative hotel accommodations are still available here. On site registration will available throughout the conference. Discounted day passes will also be available for purchase at the registration desk.

Featured guests at this year’s conference include longtime Democrat Berkeley City Councilman Kriss Worthington, Doors keyboardist and author Ray Manzarek, and Saturday Keynote Luncheon Speaker, Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).

Plenary sessions at this year’s conference include:

• Getting the Story Wrong: How the Media Lie About Cannabis

• The Legal Marijuana Generation: Growing Up and Raising Children in the Age of Legal Pot

• The War on Pot Is a War on Young People

• What If We Arrested 20 Million Americans and Nobody Noticed?

• The Politics of Marijuana and Health

• Drug Testing and Cannabis: The Case Against Legally Sanctioned Discrimination Via Forensics

• Pot Culture: A Round Table Discussion of Cannabis in Society, Entertainment, Music and American Culture

In addition, on Sunday, October 19, NORML’s Legal Committee and the faculty of Oaksterdam University will co-sponsor a special, third-day session, entitled “Everything You Wanted To Know About Medical Cannabis, But Knew Better Than To Ask John Walters.”

This unique, one-day seminar will guide attendees through the maze of conflicting federal, state, and local medical cannabis laws and regulations, and will offer step-by-step instruction regarding how to establish a legal medical marijuana business in the state of California.

Learn from the nation’s top experts on cannabis and cannabis policy. Strategize with the country’s leading marijuana activists and reformers. See what cognitive freedom and tolerance looks like in Oaksterdam, the most cannabis-friendly neighborhood in North America.

Don’t delay; register today and join us this week for an unforgettable three days of pot, policy, and politics at the 37th annual national NORML Conference.

- Senators McCain and Obama:

If elected, will you create a Presidential Commission to study marijuana—its Prohibition, Budgetary, Social, and Health effects, and to make recommendations for marijuana law reform?

By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board Member

Federal law prohibiting marijuana dates from 1937. The Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives for just over a minute and against the wishes of organizations such as the American Medical Association. Cannabis, as it was then known, was a component of at least 28 patent medicines made by industry leaders such as Merck, Eli Lilly, and Squibb. With the passage of this law, not only did the legal sale and possession of cannabis end, but all American research into medicinal use of marijuana ground to a halt, and even the ages-old knowledge of marijuana as a medicine went into deep remission.

Today there is a whole universe of information on the subject of marijuana that is brand-new since the Shafer Commission last studied marijuana in the 1970’s. The information then available lead Nixon’s own handpicked commission come to a surprising conclusion: they recommended no legal penalties for adults possessing up 100 grams of marijuana. Nixon freaked out, flew into a rage, canceled print runs of the report, and refusing to read the document, he buried the Shafer Commission’s recommendations. Tricky Dick did exactly the opposite and started America’s full-scale War on ‘Weed’, instead. And now forty years later, the War on Pot continues to grind on, getting larger with each passing year. After hundreds of billions of dollars expended, after millions of people arrested, is it not time we studied marijuana again? Because, by every measure available, America’s current approach to marijuana has failed—and, in the words of former-President Jimmy Carter, it is “…doing more harm than good.”

Here are 8 pressing reasons why a Presidential Commission on marijuana is needed now:

1) By October 10, 2008, America will have recorded its 20-millionth marijuana arrest, with people of color and the young arrested in disproportionately large numbers. It is time for a re-assessment of marijuana policy, plain and simple.

2) In addition to the pain and suffering visited by these millions of arrests on “we-the-people”, our government expends about $25 billion annually on its pot prohibition efforts, funds that should be expended elsewhere in the budget.

3) In addition to huge costs on expense side, we lose billions in taxation revenue, as well. Because, despite all government efforts to eradicate it, America’s vast underground marijuana market continues on, just as it has for the last seventy years, creating crime where there need be none, churning out billions and billions of dollars in untaxed and unregulated commerce. A tax and regulate posture as a method of control, verses the ‘no control/out of control’ situation we have today where kids can get marijuana more easily than beer—which alternative should America choose?

4) Marijuana use and purchase has been legal for the last 30 years in The Netherlands. This is the world’s great marijuana legalization experiment—and proof positive that a modern society will not collapse when pot becomes legal. Holland’s tightly regulated cannabis sales have created enormous tax revenues, while at the same time, usage rates for Holland’s teens continues to remain at just half of the usage rates of America’s teens even under our draconian prohibition model.

5) There are more than a dozen states over the last dozen years (covering about 1/5 of the US population) that have passed medical marijuana laws, mostly by voter initiative. ‘We-The-People’ created America’s state-by-state crazy quilt of medical marijuana laws, now what have ‘we’ learned from these experiments?

6) The modern use of cannabis/cannabinoids as medicine, buttressed now by 17,000 scientific studies, validates humanity’s medicinal use of cannabis that has been going on for as long as recorded history. In any rational world, a non-toxic, useful drug like cannabis would have been re-scheduled long ago by the federal government from Schedule I, where it now resides with heroin, to Schedule III with most prescription drugs, or lower.

Why have the vested interests blocked cannabis from being rescheduled?

7) On 10/07/03 America’s own Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) received US Patent #6630507 for the use of marijuana’s active ingredients under the title, “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuro-protectants.” While HHS filed and supported this application, at the very same time, in other executive-branch Cabinet-level offices, at the ONDCP and the DEA, their legislative charters direct them to fight all use of marijuana as a medicine (the charters contain no standards to correct this prohibitionist posture if marijuana is shown scientifically to be useful as medicine). Either the HHS or the DEA/ONDCP must be wrong.

8.) A Presidential Commission hearing on the subject of marijuana law reform is a necessary exercise in government bureaucracy oversight, and is simply good government.

America, after our 20-millionth marijuana arrest—is that amount of human wreckage not enough? How much longer must our government pursue its failed policy of marijuana prohibition?

Presidential candidates McCain and Obama, show some guts, show some leadership and take the pledge: when you are elected, you will form a Presidential Commission via the National Academy of Sciences, or a like objective review body, to study marijuana.

************************************

NOTE: Now, all you fellow voters out there in Blog-ville: Help me out with this.

Help NORML.

Help America!

The Shafer Commission needs a 21st Century update. Does anybody think we need 10 or 20-million more marijuana arrests before Congress and the White House wakes up and changes our failed marijuana policies?

The Supreme Court has told us repeatedly not to expect a judicial ruling to fix this social disaster; the change, the correction, must come legislatively. Well, 20-million marijuana arrests is enough and a Presidential Commission is what’s needed at the onset of the next president’s tenure to provide the political cover and scientific validation for members of Congress to find the guts to take the votes needed to reform this sorry mess after 70 long, shameful, and pathetic years.

America eventually found the guts to end slavery, a social institution in place for over 200 years, evil and vile in its consequences but fiercely protected by special interests, even state governments; America can find the guts to end marijuana prohibition.

Get ‘Graphic’ To Express Your Outrage About Prohibition!
$10,000 in Cash Prizes!!

Washington, DC: The NORML Foundation today launched its 2008 cash contest for the best pro-marijuana public service advertisement in favor of marijuana law reform.

Today, the 20-millionth person in America was arrested on cannabis charges!

How mad and frustrated does that make you? Want to turn that frustration into a positive direction?

College and art students, graphic designers, animators, cartoonists, flash animators, filmmakers, documentary-makers, activists, NORML chapters, senior citizens, medical marijuana patients, victims of marijuana prohibition laws, concerned citizens and cannabis consumers in general—the five decade-old movement to reform marijuana laws is calling for your time and talents, and you maybe the winner of some serious holiday cash for your stash.

Contest winners’ videos and animations will be prominently featured on NORML’s popular webpages, blogs and social networks (i.e., Facebook/MySpace, etc…, with over 500,000 supporters). Also, ‘Radical’ Russ Belville of NORML’s daily podcast, the Daily Audio Stash, will interview top winners of the contest.

The winning entry will be featured in any NORML public service announcement campaign on television in 2009.

Check out last year’s contest winners here.

Get Concerned – Get Creative – Get Graphic About 20 Million Marijuana Arrests!