I received a late Friday afternoon call from one of Larry King’s producers in Los Angeles seeking some cannabis-related factoids and related information for an apparent debate tonight on CNN’s Larry King between libertarian Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, M.D. and, well, actor Steven Baldwin.

Ouch!

Watch the video of the debate here.

Politicians these days just can’t seem to stop talking about pot — and for the first time in decades, this is a good thing!

No longer are lawmakers’ marijuana-centric conversation based upon the notion of penalizing cannabis consumers. Today, an unprecedented number of politicians are contemplating a society that is no longer bound by the chains of marijuana prohibition.

Speaking live on CNN this morning, California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez cited the west coast’s majority support for regulating cannabis like alcohol — as acknowledged by NORML’s recent Zogby poll — and called for a statewide “pilot program” to objectively assess the impact of cannabis legalization upon adult society.

“Well, certainly, I have seen in my own state of California, people over and over voting … [on] the whole issue of marijuana,” Sanchez said. “So maybe it would be a good pilot program to see how that regulation of marijuana might happen in California since the … majority of Californians believe maybe that should happen.”

Sanchez’s comments come two weeks after the introduction of proposed state legislation, AB 390: the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, which seeks to tax and regulate the adult sales of cannabis in California. So far, thousands of members of the cannabis community, as well as several pundits from the mainstream press, have voiced their support for AB 390. Are lawmakers listening?

U.S. Representative Sanchez most certainly is — and she’s not alone.

If you are reading this blog, then you already know that cannabis prohibition is a fraud and a failure. You know these facts, but today millions of your friends and neighbors — and even many of your elected officials — are just now waking up to these truths. And they, like Congresswoman Sanchez, are becoming more and more outspoken in their criticisms of prohibition.

Let’s encourage them to keep talking.

Well, some of the much vaunted and promised ‘change’ under a President Obama appears to be coming true in the formal nomination yesterday of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, and the mainstream media certainly seems to be picking up on all of the positive and salient points about Chief Kerlikowske that drug policy reform advocates have been touting since his name was first floated almost a month ago. Listen to the coverage of the announcement at National Public Radio.

Unlike the prior Drug Czar, John ‘Unicorn’ Walters, a moral crusader (aptly dubbed Bill Bennett’s ‘Mini-Me’ by the DPA’s Ethan Nadelmann), Chief Kerlikowske crafted pragmatic public policies and law enforcement practices that immediately distinguish him from his predecessors such as Bennett, Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Walters.

To wit:

-200,000 pro-reform cannabis law supporters converge on the waterfront in Seattle in mid-August for the world famous Hempfest, where adults openly consume cannabis and the hundreds of police present make few to no arrests (and where, ironically, alcohol use is strictly forbidden).

-Local law enforcement in Seattle apparently does not harass the artisans who craft and market the remarkable glass paraphernalia (AKA, medical delivery devices) for which Seattle is famous.

Compare that with Walters’ and former Attorney General Ashcroft’s zealous pursuit and culture-smashing symbolism of arresting, prosecuting and actually incarcerating NORML Advisory Board member Tommy Chong for nine months in a federal prison for the ‘crime’ of selling high-end artisan, Chong Bongs.

-Seattle police have a generally good track record working with medical cannabis providers, physicians and patients—including Chief Kerlikowske meeting with medical cannabis stakeholders about how to best implement Washington State’s 2000 medical cannabis laws. Compare this with Walters and McCaffrey who collectively spent 14 years insisting that there is no such thing at all as medical cannabis (often comparing it to crack cocaine), patients who claim efficacy or relief from cannabis as ‘fakers’, recommending physicians as ‘kooks’ and the majority of citizens who’ve voted for medical cannabis law reform as ‘easily duped by legalizers’.

-Rumor has it that Chief Kerlikowske has actually employed the term ‘harm reduction‘ in a sentence without employing foul language! In fact, under his leadership (and that of former Seattle Police Chief and NORML Advisory Board member Norm Stamper before him) Seattle police both recognize and practice the increasingly popular, European-inspired police/public health doctrine known as harm reduction. Two of the important tenets of harm reduction are concentrating police resources on so-called ‘hard’ drugs rather than cannabis consumers and needle exchange to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases–both championed by Chief Kerlikowske, and totally dismissed as ‘tools for legalization’ by McCaffrey and Walters.

-Despite publicly opposing a reform effort in 2003 in Seattle to make adult cannabis possession a low law enforcement priority, once I-75 was passed by a majority of voters, Chief Kerlikowske shrugged off the lost, embraced the public-health centric arguments advanced by reform advocates, and met with law reformers in the Seattle-area like I-75 campaigner and NORML board member Dominic Holden, defense attorney and NORML Board member Jeff Steinborn, popular travel author/TV host and NORML advisory board member Rick Steves.

John Walters on the otherhand would not even appear in the same green room with me backstage on TV news show, let alone debate live on the same sound stage.

Looks to me like Chief Kerlikowske is a real man…not a moralistic, lie-to-beat-the-band bureaucrat.

-Chief Kerlikowske’s former colleagues on the police force, cannabis law reform activists, medical patients, civil rights lawyers and public health officials all seem to recognize that science and ‘smart on crime’ (as compared to ‘tough on crime’ and ineffective platitudes like ‘just say no’ or ‘drug-free America’) drive his policing—not ideology and a twisted sense of personal morality.

With the recent report from a pair of WA researchers affirming that the ONDCP under McCaffrey and Walters obsessed too much on cannabis prohibition, and not enough on meth, crack, heroin…a decided change in leadership at ONDCP can’t happen fast enough.

Lastly, it was also announced yesterday by the 1980s congressional author of the ONDCP charter, no less and with sweet karmic irony, Vice President Joe Biden, that despite the best intentions of placing the ONDCP into the President’s cabinet in 1988, from this point forward the ONDCP is no longer going to be a cabinet-level office.

Whoa. Now that is change NORML and taxpayers can believe in!

Each week, more states are moving forward to reduce or eliminate criminal penalties for marijuana offenses. If you have not yet gotten active in your state, now is most definitely the time to start. Here’s this week’s latest summary of how you can get involved!

Kentucky: Okay, first the bad news. Kentucky legislators are trying to misuse the state’s traffic safety laws to target adults who use marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own home. It’s up to us to stop them. Senate Bill 5, an act to criminalize anyone who operates a motor vehicle with any detectable level of marijuana in their blood, was previously approved by the state Senate, but had stalled in the House.

However, on Tuesday, March 10, proponents attached SB 5 as an amendment to House Bill 369. Because HB 369 already overwhelmingly passed the House, the amended version may enjoy enough support to pass the Senate. That is, unless you write and call your legislators today and urge them to oppose HB 369, Senate Floor Amendment 1. You can contact them here.

Montana: In more positive news, On Tuesday, March 10, members of the House Judiciary Committee Testimony in support of HB 541, which seeks to reclassify the possession of thirty grams or less of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil infraction payable by a $100 fine. NORML submitted testimony in support of the bill, which you can read here. You can also watch excerpts of the hearing here. Our friends at Montana Patients and Families United inform us that a Committee vote is expected within the next few days, so if you live in Montana please go here to urge your elected officials to vote ‘yes’ on HB 541.

Connecticut: Senate Bill 349, an act to reclassify the possession of minor amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction, just got a needed boost of support. According to a just-published 2009 Quinnipiac University poll, 58 percent of Connecticut voters believe that minor marijuana offenders should face a fine in lieu of a criminal arrest. Currently, SB 349 is before the Joint Committee on Judiciary, which has yet to schedule a hearing. Tell the Committee and your elected officials to support SB 349 by going here.

Maryland: On Tuesday, March 24, members of the Maryland House Judiciary will hear testimony in support of House Bill 1339, an act to create a legislative task to “study and recommend whether purchasing marijuana with a recommendation from a health care provider should be (state) law.” You can contact your elected officials and urge them to support House Bill 1339 here, and you can learn more about this effort at the Maryland chapter of Americans for Safe Access.

To learn about additional pending legislation in Alabama, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington, please visit NORML’s Legislative Action Alerts page here.

By Norm Kent, Esq., NORML Board of Directors

Today I am going to come out of the closet as a Bi-Coastal pot consumer. I lead two lives; one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.

In Fort Lauderdale, I own a townhouse where I have resided for over a quarter of a century. In this community, I am a lawyer and a spokesman for NORML, very active in drug law reform. But I cannot practice what I preach. That would be illegal.

In California, however, I found a small town near Berkeley, east of San Francisco Bay, where I may retire. It is Walnut Creek, a hamlet, I understand, that has more open public spaces than any other village in America. There, I may eventually choose to grow my own pot. I am allowed to do so.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I practice law, and get people out of trouble for growing pot, I have to defend people who do what I am entitled to do in California legally. You see, the rules are different here. Life can thus be a bit conflicted.

In early 2006, my Florida roommate, after learning he was HIV positive, decided to move back to his hometown of San Francisco. As a pot consumer, he realized he could now get a medicinal recommendation for marijuana and grow pot legally under California law. The Florida laws are not so kind or generous. Cultivation of any amount is a second degree felony.

We went to San Francisco together, to a community I have visited and loved since the early 1970’s, from my first spectacular drive up the Pacific Coast highway. We found and rented a small apartment in the Haight.

It has been thirteen years since California voters enacted Proposition 215, which allowed citizens to utilize marijuana for medical purposes if a person had a legitimate need. As a recovering cancer patient, I more than qualified for a medical marijuana recommendation.

I sought out a legitimate physician, not one running a medical marijuana mill. I came with a full set of medical records tracking my unenviable medical past, including recent spinal surgery. The doctor thoughtfully reviewed with me the medical risks associated with the use of cannabis. Not that I did not have a little experience. I mean, I am 60 years old this year. My friends’ kids go to Bonnaroo. I lived through Woodstock.

After the screening, my physician then appropriately certified me as an individual who could benefit from the medical use of cannabis. Just like that, I became patient number 380206011. I then proceeded to a medical dispensary, proudly armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana Identification Card.

As a California patient, I am empowered to acquire cannabis lawfully at medical dispensaries. Under the California Health and Safety Code, I am also entitled to grow up to six plants of my own in my little apartment on the bay. I do not have to hide them from the authorities.

I joined the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, and was issued a Growers Certificate. It affirms that any herbs I cultivate at home would be grown for my personal medical use. I was now at liberty to grow my own medicine. It is still called pot in Florida. We call it medicine in California.

Full Story

California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer has an excellent commentary in support of California’s proposed marijuana legalization bill in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Here’s an excerpt:

Time has come to legalize pot
via The Los Angeles Daily News

Every year, the state shells out millions in taxpayers’ dollars to arrest, prosecute and imprison marijuana offenders in a vain attempt to stamp out its use. Meanwhile, legal and more dangerous drugs such as tobacco and alcohol are generating billions in revenues for the state.

… A new Zogby poll shows that 44 percent of voters now support taxing and regulating marijuana – and as many as 58 percent in the western states back legalization. As usual, California is ahead of the rest of the nation. Ammiano’s bill provides a path-breaking blueprint for change that would benefit our economy, safety and freedom by making marijuana a winning proposition for California.

This is the second major newspaper in California to publish NORML’s op/ed. Several other prominent papers, such as the Sacramento Bee and the Fresno Bee, have opined similarly in support of regulating pot like alcohol.

California’s cannabis community has also shown unprecedented support for AB 390: the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act. In the past two weeks, supporters have sent some 2,400 letters and e-mails to their state elected officials in favor of the proposal. Another 3,000 e-mails have been sent via MPP’s website. If each e-mail represents — politically speaking — 100 voters, then over half a million Californians have demanded an end to prohibition!

Our community is becoming more and more outspoken, and the mainstream media is listening. In recent days, NORML spokespersons have appeared on Air America radio, and have been quoted in MSNBC, U.S. News and World Report, and the world wide news wire Agence France-Press.

In short, our message is reaching more people than ever before, and the public is responding in record numbers.

2009 is truly shaping up to become an unparalleled time for marijuana law reform. NORML wants you to be a part of it. Will you join us?

Over the past few weeks, an unprecedented number of you have used NORML’s Capwiz tools to write your legislators in support of pending marijuana law reform in your state. In fact, so far this week more than 2,500 of you have taken the time to e-mail your elected officials! And while this tally is impressive — and your actions are making a political difference — think about this:

Did you know that each time a legislator hears from a constituent, they count it as representing much more than that one person’s opinion? The numbers below illustrate just how much of a difference you can make by sending an e-mail, writing a letter, or placing a call.

one e-mail represents 100 people

one letter represents 500 people

one phone call represents 500 people

one personal visit represents 1000 people

In other words, the 2,500 e-mails (and counting) generated this week represent the public opinion of 250,000! And those 8,500 e-mails generated by NORML supporters in February represent the public opinion of 850,000 Americans!

Is it any wonder that legislators in Montana, New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota have all voted in favor marijuana law reform in just the past few days? Politicians in those states heard from you — and they received the message loud and clear. And they have responded!

With this kind of strong showing of support, how could they not have?

Of course, now is hardly the time to rest on our collective laurels. In fact, now is the time to step up our efforts and make our voices heard at an even higher decibel!

If you haven’t written your state elected officials, now is the time to visit NORML’s Action Alert page and do so. If you have already written your state senator and representative, why not pick up the phone today and give them a personal phone call? Or even better, if legislation is currently pending before a Committee in your state, take time out to call the Chairperson of that Committee and urge him or her to support sensible marijuana law reform. Need contact information? You can find it all here.

In the coming days, legislators in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Montana will hold hearings and/or votes on significant marijuana reform measures. On Tuesday, March 10, members of the Montana House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony in favor of House Bill 541, which seeks to reduce marijuana possession penalties to a $100 fine! Want to see this proposal become law? Then consider sending and e-mail or getting on the phone.

In the fifteen years I’ve been with NORML, I’ve never witnessed legislators more responsive to enacting common sense pot law reform than right now. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t need to hear from you.

So keep up the pressure and act now! Changes are on the horizon, and your efforts are helping to make them a reality.

Each week, more states are moving forward to reduce or eliminate criminal penalties for marijuana offenses. If you have not yet gotten active in your state, now is most definitely the time to start. Here’s this week’s latest summary of how you can get involved!

Illinois: On Wednesday, March 4, both chambers of the Illinois legislature will hold hearings to discuss the need to legalize the medical use of cannabis under state law. Members of the House Human Services Committee will hear testimony in favor of House Bill 2514 at 8am in the Stratton Building, Room D-1. Later that afternoon, members of the Senate Public Health Committee are also scheduled to hear testimony in favor of Senate Bill 1381. You can contact your elected officials in support of these measures by going here, or by getting in touch with the good folks at Illinois NORML.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! House Bill 2514 was voted out of Committee on a 4 to 3 vote. This marks the first time a House Committee has approved legislation regarding the medical use of cannabis. For more information, please visit here.

Maine: Members of the the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee heard testimony last week in favor of LD 250, which seeks to amend state law so that the possession of up to four ounces of marijuana would be classified as a civil violation. Predictably, local law enforcement are opposing this effort. That is why Maine legislators need to hear from you. Contact members of legislature here, and tell them to vote ‘yes’ on LD 250.

Texas: Anyone who follows the marijuana law reform issue knows that change in the Lone Star State is long overdue. That’s why it is important that members of the Texas cannabis community get behind House Bill 902, which would reduce minor marijuana possession penalties to a fine-only offense. Over 60,000 Texans are arrested for pot possession violations annually. Half of these defendants are under 25 years of age. It makes no sense to saddle these young people with a criminal arrest record or to put them in jail. Tell your representatives to support HB 902 by going here, and by becoming involved with Texas NORML.

Rhode Island: This Wednesday, March 4, both chambers of the legislature will hear testimony in favor of legislation to mandate the Department of Health to establish rules governing the licensing of non-profit compassion centers “to acquire, possess, cultivate, manufacture, deliver, transfer, transport, supply, or dispense marijuana, or related supplies and educational materials, to registered qualifying patients.” To learn more about this effort, or to attend these hearings, please visit our allies at the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition.

New Hampshire: Next Monday, March 9, members of the House Health, Human Services & Elderly Affairs Committee will hear testimony at 10am in favor of House Bill 648, which seeks to legalize the use of medical cannabis is New Hampshire. Two years ago the House narrowly rejected (186-177) a similar bill, so it vital that you contact your House members and urge them to support HB 648. You can write them here. And if you wish to attend next week’s hearing, our allies NH Compassion have all the information you need here.

To learn about additional pending legislation in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, please visit NORML’s Legislative Action Alerts page here.

By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board of Directors, medical marijuana patient.

The Rohrbachers, farming family feeding America since 1972.

It is said that almost everyone in the marijuana law reform movement has a seminal moment they can point to when their public activism started. My moment was in the fall, six years ago.

I’m a past president of our local Kiwanis Club. I’ve been a member for years; we meet for breakfast at 6:30am, every Wednesday morning. My fateful “activism moment” was meeting face-to-face with one morning’s Kiwanis Club program, our town’s newly acquired dope dog. Some rock-ribbed citizen had left money in his will for the city to buy a dope dog for our town of 3,000, in a county of 18,000 people. The dog’s handler and the police chief were up at the speaker’s table. I had to fight back the urge to turn around and run.

As I sat down at my usual spot, ordered breakfast and clipped on my Kiwanis Club nametag, my heart was just racing! Thank God, my neck pain had not been severe enough that morning that it had required some marijuana medication, because, I imagined, triggered by the smell of freshly consumed ganja, that huge German Shepard would have leaped from the podium to pin me down to the floor, the dog’s sharp white teeth snarling and snapping at my throat.

As we went through club business about our kid’s reading program, ate breakfast and conducted the normal chit-chat that makes Kiwanis Club so enjoyable, I slowly calmed myself. I had not been found out as a marijuana user, yet. There was no need for me to panic, because the likelihood that I would be found out now by this agent of the state, was growing smaller and smaller by the moment. But, as the primal fear drained away, it started to piss me off; this dope dog was invading my space.

The dog handler got up and spoke glowingly about his charge, the alpha male of his litter. This dog had been born of a long and impressive pedigree in Baden-something, formerly East Germany. Looking at me from across the room was the pride of the jack-booted police state, the purebred German Shepard—smart, vicious, relentless.

The dog handler went chirping on, to mostly nodding heads, about what a fantastic dog he had and how many pot busts he had already made with it. Suddenly, all I could think was: This dog was born in East Germany, it’s father could have pulled someone down off the Berlin Wall…this dog’s great-grandfather would have marched the Jews or Gypsies to the ovens at Buchenwald or Auschwitz… And now, my own little town had a new resident from the same police dog gene pool that serviced the two most brutal totalitarian regimes in the history of the mankind!

Scenes from my childhood of when German Shepards attacked the Civil Rights marchers at Selma floated before my eyes… This well-groomed dog was a tool of the modern police state in all its scariest manifestations. The more I thought about it, the madder and madder I got.

I paid my breakfast bill and left in the first wave. I drove back out to the ranch and fed our cows their daily ration of hay, all the while mulling over my close brush with the dope dog. By the time I got done with my chores and back to the house, I absolutely had to do something! I picked up my telephone and called NORML, and I volunteered for the fight that very day…our fight for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”

Marijuana prohibition is a corrupt and evil social institution, just like the Berlin Wall was. For generations both have been symbols of the ruthless and relentless oppression of the state. Then, one day, by the sheer weight of internal political rot and thousands of little hammers, the Berlin Wall came down, and it came down virtually overnight! Marijuana Prohibition is just as corrupt and evil as the Wall, and it, also, is rotting internally from seven decades of injustice. It, too, is ready for collapse.

Help NORML take down Marijuana Prohibition…throw down some cash, send out our warriors/winners of the NORML Pro-Pot Ad Campaign for a national cable advertising campaign for as little as $.08 per 30-second ad! Please help us roll public opinion past the tipping point to legalization. The time for us to strike is now! Marijuana issues are before two-dozen state legislatures, at this very moment, California just introduced the nation’s first bill to tax and regulate pot like alcohol! Cable ad pricing has never been better than it is at this moment. We’ve now got NORML’s awesome winning video ads…you’ve got a few bucks…let’s put ‘em together and cover America with NORML ads.

Get into the Fight! Help NORML kick electronic ass!

Examples of NORML cable TV buys:

-Cable Cannabis Blitz-

33,000, 30-second TV ads, broadcast 6AM-Midnight on cable packages during programming from ESPN, CNN, CNBC, Weather Channel, MSNBC, MTV, VH-1, BET, Animal Planet, E!, Bravo and 10 other major cable programmers for the cost of…$2,750…or approximately 8 cents/per ad! This ad package will reach an estimated 1.6 million households in 187 markets.

That is right! NORML can now purchase TV spots for only 8 cents.

-Women and Weed-

Approximately 1,500, 30-second TV ads, targeting women’s programming (Oxygen, Soap, Lifetime, Style, WE, etc…) for $1,200. This ad package will reach an estimated 27.5 million households in 90 major markets. What is the cost per ad in this package?

80 cents per TV ad!

-Men and Marijuana-

Approximately 2,600, 30-second TV ads, 27.5 million households targeting men’s programming (Comedy Central, ESPN, Speed, Versus, Sci-Fi, Golf Channel, etc…) for $4,900, which boils down to $1.88/per ad.

Get out your friggin’ wallets and purses people. Get in the fight and please help us!!! NOW!