NBC, CBS, ABC, & FOX happy to profit from marijuana, as long as nobody talks about legalizing it
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August 3, 2009
Marijuana legalization is the hottest topic in the media these days. MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, FOX, NatGeo, and CBS News have presented special features on marijuana business, medical marijuana, and the marijuana legalization movement. Google Trends is showing double the interest in searches and news hits for the term “marijuana legalization”. Showtime’s hit series Weeds, about a suburban mom turned pot dealer, is entering its fifth season. Everywhere you look, corporate media are happy to profit from America’s most popular herb.
Unless you want to address marijuana’s illegality and the lives that are shattered by the effects of marijuana prohibition. In that case, the corporate media cannot have anything to do with you, even if you want to pay to broadcast the message of ending adult marijuana prohibition.
Case in point: CBS. At the end of June, CBS’s new internet radio venture, ChatAboutIt.com, contacted NORML. One of our advisory board, Ann Druyan, advertised her podcast in Talkers Magazine, an industry journal for talk radio. ChatAboutIt was interested in hosting Druyan’s show, but Druyan wasn’t interested in the offer.
This is where I come in. I am a talk radio professional, having hosted my show (The Russ Belville Show) on XM Satellite Radio and AM 620 KPOJ in Portland, for almost two years. I have guest-hosted for the extremely popular Bill Press Show in Washington DC. For the past year and a half, I have hosted NORML’s Daily Audio Stash, the organization’s daily news and interviews podcast. I contacted ChatAboutIt to discuss creating a new live talk radio show dedicated to this incredibly popular phenomenon around medical marijuana and marijuana legalization called NORML SHOW LIVE.
Throughout the negotiations, the salesman from ChatAboutIt was fantastic. He joined me and NORML’s executive staff by conference call. We emphasized that we are NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. We told them that we would have advertisers involved with promoting marijuana - legally, as they are co-ops and dispensaries in California and Colorado – marijuana-themed magazines, doctors, clinics, authors, musicians, and so on. We told them we would be talking about marijuana legalization, our web page would have marijuana leaves on it, callers would be talking about marijuana, and, oh, by the way, did we mention that the show was about marijuana?
It’s all good, we were assured by the salesman. He said he’d run it all by his VP and this was fine. He said we’d own all our content and we could run all our ads. We verbally agreed this was a go and all we needed to do was to raise the $6,000 necessary to pay for the first two months of broadcast. We explained that we’d need to produce some press releases to raise the money. To be sure we weren’t saying or promoting anything in any way that CBS would not approve, we submitted our release to CBS, which did make some changes. They approved of our revised release and we posted it on the NORML Blog and front page on Wednesday.
Thursday morning I receive a call from the salesman at ChatAboutIt. “People higher up” had seen the release “on the blogs” and they “will not green light your show”.
Now, CBS has all the right in the world to decide what to put on their airwaves or cyberstreams; I’m not crying “censorship”. If they want to pass up affiliation with the most recognized brand in marijuana and a professional live call-in show dealing with the hottest topic in the media, that’s their call.
What I am crying, though, is “hypocrisy”.
CBS's Showtime is airing the fifth season of "Weeds"
See, CBS owns Showtime. That very same Showtime that’s aired for the past five years the tale of Nancy Botwin, suburban pot-dealing mom on Weeds. A show that films many scenes in the legal marijuana clinics and dispensaries in California that would be our advertisers. A show that just this year signed contracts with NORML to allow display of our trademark in the scenes where it is shown in Weeds.
And it cannot be that CBS is OK with airing a dramatic interpretation of marijuana culture, but afraid of airing a serious news program about marijuana culture. CBS News has an entire web special feature entitled “Marijuana Nation” (not-so-coincidentally the tag line of NORML SHOW LIVE) devoted to all their news coverage about marijuana dating back to Mike Wallace in 1968.
CBS will show Weeds to make money off of people who like marijuana, but won’t allow its banner advertisements for Weeds to be seen on any website trying to keep those marijuana lovers from arrest and a criminal record. CBS will pepper their news coverage and websites with cannaporn* and cannabusiness, but won’t allow a non-profit organization attempting to legalize those industries to have a voice on their networks.
Case #2: In addition to hosting NORML’s podcast and social blog, I am NORML’s Outreach Coordinator. In this position I recruit activists from all across the country (even the US Virgin Islands) to organize NORML chapters. These independent affiliates host events, gather petition signatures, and provide education to the community to counteract the anti-marijuana propaganda from the government (such as our “drug czar” recently proclaiming – in California, no less – that “Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.”)
I was contacted by the tour manager for the “Blazed and Confused” Tour. The artists performing in the most pro-marijuana concert of the summer are Mickey Avalon, Bob Marley’s son Stephen Marley, San Diego rockers Slightly Stoopid, and Snoop Dogg, probably the most recognizable person alive associated with marijuana aside from Willie Nelson. They, particularly Slightly Stoopid, wanted NORML chapters to host marijuana information tables for the concerts and offered us the opportunity for free.
Pot leaf skull at Blazed & Confused tour at NBC Universal's Hard Rock this Saturday
I combed through my chapter listings and got them NORML booths for over half the shows. At the show in Portland I got to interview Miles from Slightly Stoopid and wander around backstage. The props for the Stoopid show were two massive five foot skulls with pot leaves on the forehead. Snoop’s show featured a huge backdrop reading “Tales from the Crip” and marijuana leaves were all around. Everyone performing at or attending this concert was very pro-marijuana legalization.
Yet this morning I’m contacted by the tour people who tell me they need to cancel the booth we have scheduled for the show last Saturday in Orlando. It seems the venue is the Hard Rock, and “because they are a Universal owned company they are much more conservative than your typical venue.”
Available from NBC Universal
This Universal, of course, is NBC Universal, the parent company to the MSNBC and CNBC networks that reported their highest ratings ever for their marijuana-themed news reports on the burgeoning cannabis business in California. The same NBC Universal that is happy to sell you Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie, Dazed & Confused, and Half Baked on DVD. The same NBC Universal that has no problem allowing Snoop Dogg to get the crowd at the Hard Rock in Orlando to chant “Legalize It”, but somehow can’t let a couple of college kids in NORML T-shirts hand out educational fliers about why we should legalize it.
Case #3: Another marijuana legalization organization, Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), produced an excellent TV ad calling for passage of a bill to tax and regulate cannabis for adults. The governor had recently called for an open debate about legalization and MPP created this thirty second ad to begin that debate:
Certainly a sober and non-sensational way to debate the issue. Yet when MPP offered the ad to California stations, Los Angeles’ KABC (ABC) and KTTV (FOX), San Francisco’s KGO (ABC), and San Jose’s KNTV (NBC) refused to accept the ad. KNTV said their standards department wouldn’t approve the ad. KGO issued an official “no comment.” KABC and KTTV didn’t even bother give the courtesy of a “no comment” – they would not respond to MPP’s inquiries.
I’ve detailed NBC’s and CBS’s profiting from cannabis culture. You’d think ABC, being a part of the Walt Disney Corporation, would generally shy away from profiting from cannabis culture. But a little digging shows they own Miramax films, which this year released Adventureland, a comedy about teenagers smoking and dealing weed while working at an amusement park and in 2001 offered Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, the adventures of two inveterate stoners who wrote a stoner comic book. FOX for eight years aired That 70′s Show, a ratings hit whose signature sight gag was teenagers sitting in a smoke-filled basement passing around a joint or bong (never seen, however), with the camera focusing on each character as they “passed the dutchie on the left hand side”.
So it is OK for the corporate parents of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX to profit from movies and TV shows that satirize marijuana culture, but they have a “standards and practices” problem with their broadcast affiliates showing 30 seconds of a 38-year-old woman suggesting we should tax and regulate marijuana.
Keep in mind in these cases, we are talking about one part of the big media company raking in huge profits with shows about the marijuana community, while another part of the big media company refuses the free educational fliers, paid advertisements, and pay-to-play broadcasts BY AND FOR the marijuana community. Marijuana is the modern day minstrel show – we’re allowed on the air as long as we keep on our “greenface”, shuck and jive (or would it be “smoke and pass”?), and never forget our proper place.
By the way, the NORML SHOW LIVE mentioned in Case #1 will still be going on the air, as promised, on Labor Day Weekend. Unlike CBS, we keep our promises to our customers. The money raised will go into promotions and producing our show through the facilities of BlogTalkRadio.com, which was happy to accept our business, and quite frankly, offers us a better production technology at one-sixth the price. Tune in every Saturday Night at 9pm Eastern for two hours of intelligent discussion about marijuana legalization.
* Cannaporn is the news specials that like to show lots and lots of pictures of big green sticky buds and the people smoking them, usually the same stock footage they’ve run for years with the most stereotypical “stoner” types they can find, lots of pictures of bongs and tie dyes, some b-roll from a music festival, or body-armored police helicoptering in to chop down marijuana plants, while intoning the reefer madness du jour about increased potency, psychosis, or clandestine cartel grows and violence that wouldn’t exist in a legal market. In other words, not what you will find on NORML SHOW LIVE.
91 Responses to “NBC, CBS, ABC, & FOX happy to profit from marijuana, as long as nobody talks about legalizing it”
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Sad to say, I’m about to present case number 4. Involving CBS radio once again.
WBCN, CBS Radio, is going out of business. Our long time radio sponsor for the Rally. They’ve privately told me for years that the suits at CBS Radio, did not like the BCN sponsorship of our event. Despite the fact, they run Budweiser ads, every 5 minutes. Booze is ok, advocating for changing the law on cannabis? Not ok.
With BCN gone, I tried with my contacts at CBS radio to see if another station would pick it up.
You know I’m sure what happened. No CBS radio sponsorship.
But, that won’t stop us. I’m working on other radio stations. And hoping to have something by September.
I’ll be re-posting this to MikeCann.net with a bit of a forward about CBS radio in Boston.
BCN ruled, sad to see them go. CBS Radio? Not so much. And stupid for them, because we have big mouths and now we’re not gagged by doing business with them….
I’m sure the 10% of their audience that agrees with them will be happy but what of the rest of us? The majority? CBS Radio, screwing up good radio for decades.
Im glad to hear that you are going live on the radio. Ill be tuning in.
This article tells the straight truth about how the media is dealing with marijuana in their industry. I whole-heartedly agree that when it comes to banking a profit, large “conservative” corporations have little to no second guessing. When it comes to activism and education, however, large corporations refuse to involve themselves. I work for Medical Marijuana Education and we help debunk myths behind false marijuana propaganda but are confronted and our progress stopped because we are talking in a positive way about medical marijuana rights and legalization of marijuana.
One can only hope and continue to educate the American people one at a time to really change the negative views on marijuana.
-Kelly
I am simply speechless.
Yeah, that’s pretty sickening. I just called my wife to cancel our movie channel subscription. I’m not going to pay for Showtime (the only one I watched anyway) if they just want to profit without giving back in any way. Screw them.
I ask that others do the same. I know ‘boycott’ seems to have fanatical connotations these days, but action is the only way people listen. I say cancel Showtime, and send them a letter stating that you will re-subscribe just as soon as they let our voices be heard.
You’re a champion, Russ! Keep up the good work and we look forward to your show out here. We’re right behind you!
This is a great writeup. I hate the media and television.
Satelite radio or a show on an existing satelite channel has to be the answer Sirius XM has to be shown that this controversial hot topic should be on their uncensored airways.
Best of luck
[Russ responds: Thought of that and used my contacts with the VP of Original Talk at Sirius/XM, home of my former satellite show, to pitch NORML SHOW LIVE. He told me that they currently had no room on their channels for such a show.]
Humm… not sure what to say except… THEIR LOSS!! Damn hypocrites.
They don’t mind profiting from people laughing at stoners, but as soon as you ask them to do anything that is serious about legalizing and legitimizing cannabis they get scared of losing revenue from their other advertisers who would cancel their contracts and advertise somewhere else. In plain English, they are afraid of their big pharma advertisers pulling their ads and going to the competition. Have you notices how many damned commercials there are for prescription drugs on tv these days? You can believe big pharma will threaten them because they feel threatened by legal cannabis. We’ll have to think of a work around.
[Russ responds: Don't forget beer ads!
But yes, certainly, no company making 25,000% to 500,000% markup on NSAIDs, opioid painkillers, or benzodiazepenes wants to see demand drop one-third to one-half when people can get legal medical-grade cannabis that is more effective, has less side effects, and can be grown in your home.]
Excellently written article Russ. This country is the epitome of hypocrisy and lying to the public. I guess there’s still hope for change. We need to stay strong, stay vigilant and increase our numbers!
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I’ve been in contact with Bruce Margolin of the LA NORML chapter and requested he appear on my new show “The Marijualogist” (Sats @ High Noon on http://www.latalkradio.com).
I would love to speak with you or a member of NORML on my show. In fact, anything you wish to express would be welcomed, as I offer this show as an open forum for activism for the cannabis legalization movement. On our first show we featured a prominent LA physician and Carrie Harger from OULA.
Please contact me when you have a moment by email or call 323-802-3176. Thanks for your consideration.
They will feel stupid one day! Shoulda woulda coulda they’ll say. (added by Mobile using Mippin)
This was a great post! It always disturbs me when I see how the corporations act towards cannabis.
I really look forward to toking and listening to your show on Saturday night!
if NORML could make printable flyers or banners , I would gladly post them around my neighborhood.
Anything to help speed up the process of legalizing the sacred herb and stopping the reefer madness propaganda, which is still going on after 60+ years!!
Cheers!
Someday, I won’t have to cry no more.
Some-day, I won’t have to cry no more.
some-day, I’m goin to rest, on the other shore.
-with props to Leon Russell.
420 420 copy copy check check check.
But Russ, when cannabis becomes legal again, it will return to its pre-prohibition mundanity, and all the commercial media pot culture you refer to will disappear. They will lose a cash cow. As long as the biggest open secret in America is turned into a giant “so what?” you won’t be able to get people to watch “Weeds” or promote the genre of stoner films/music/culture, because they will not exist.
Case in point: caffeine. Can you think of any entertainment form that focuses on caffeine use and users? Tobacco. When’s the last time you heard a song about smoking cigarettes? Alcohol. Aside from Jimmy Buffett, have you heard a pop performer singing about alcohol in an appreciative way over the past 30 years?
Yeah, they’re a bunch of a-holes for leading you folks on, but clearly there is an executive v.p. who knows exactly what they are risking should we be effective in our pursuits.
[Russ responds: Very good point, Keith. Hard to make "Pineapple Express" if the protagonists aren't involved in an illegal transaction. However, I do hear a lot of songs (any rap song with "Cristal", for example) and see movies celebrating alcohol ("The Hangover", anyone?) I don't think "stoner" culture disappears in a re-legalization scheme, because there are far more solid cultural connections (medical users, religious users, etc.) that don't require marijuana to be illicit in order for their culture to exist. I think Boston Freedom Rally and Seattle Hempfest will still exist in a legalized world.]
I think this is an example of a kind of internal social colonialism. What does a colonial power do to country that it colonizes?
The colonizers seize the natural and cultural resources of the colony and use them to make their own country richer while denying basic rights to the colonial natives.
The colonizers like to portray the colonial natives as sleepy, uncivilized, unintelligent, lacking in ambition and even lacking in basic virtues such as honesty, thrift, modesty, etc etc etc.
This is how colonial Europeans treated the Africans whom they colonized and this is how the British justified their horrific treatment of the Irish while stripping Ireland of its native forests to use to build fine English homes.
We are the colonial natives of the New Millenium.
Let’s look at “Weeds,” for eexample. “Weeds” obeys the colonial model, because it’s all about the feckless colonial natives of Potheadland.
“Weeds” never argues for basic rights and liberties for the natives of Potheadland. There isn’t one single marijuana user on “Weeds” who shows even the tiniest shred of a moral or political consciousness.
It seems pretty certain that not a single one of those losers on “Weeds” has ever heard of NORML or the MPP or ASA.
“Weeds” is the show the British would have made about the Irish if they’d had TV back before the Irish won home rule.
FACTS:
Judges have been accused of taking bribes to insure for profit jails stay full.
Millions are paid under the table to ensure stiff sentences with jail time to insure corporate profits. It is called slavery where I come from. Wonder how much it cost to get the federal mandatory minimum sentence put in place? Grow one plant 5 years in jail and it is almost guaranteed you will do the five years..
Our representatives continue to take money and vote to jail us. Rather than help us.
They sell their vote and sacrifice millions to slavery to ensure they receive millions in contributions. We must stop the selling of our representation to the highest bidder.
Cops are caught planting drugs.
You have done nothing and are stopped for DWB if you don’t kiss the cops ass they will plant drugs on you.
Plus is you know any cops they all have a quota systems. They are expected cover their cost by the fines and arrest they make to feed the system (system=jailers, cops, judges, jails, bailiff, jail food suppliers, inmate transportation, lawyers or any of the thousands that make their living supporting this war on drugs)
Legal drugs kill hundreds of thousands every year yet remain legal.
A herb that has never killed anyone based on written history for thousands of years of use is illegal.
The war on drugs was started mainly for racist reasons. It was viewed as a way to re-enslave the people of color. It is still working as designed today..
The secondary reason is greed. They did not want hemp to compete with oil and tree farming. So they made it illegal as well although you can’t get a high from it. It would replace oil and tree farming if our leaders stopped taking bribes to keep it illegal.
The legal drug pushers liquor, beer, chemical drugs, cigarettes. Pay big bucks to keep cannabis illegal. They would lose too much money and could not competed with cannabis, any one can grow in their flower garden. hundreds of billions would be lost to these corporations every year so they pay to ensure the only choice we have is their products….
I could do this for days more later
Cherokee Fred Jesus
I just read an interesting article posted on NORML about cops raiding a church that was partaking of a weekend shindig with available goodies for the mind. To be proud to have violated the sanctity of the churches grounds and those partakers of that form of religion and to so jail them for their religious beliefs is the biggest crime of all time if you ask me, where will they stop, after we undesirable persons are gone and in jail, out of sight out of mind. Well I for one say, Those at that church should have posted guards with AK’s and M-16′s at the border of the property to De nigh entrance to those not approved by the congregation, that is what is has come to all out war on those that use a drug and don’t ask for big brother’s permission to enjoy the freedom of religion that I thought we had, O that’s right we aren’t free. better luck next time. MY “GOD”, HAVE MERCY ON THEIR SOUL, AND NOT, ALLOW THEM TO HURT ANYONE ELSE, FOR PARTAKING OF THE TREE OF LIFE. PEACE!!!! AL….
I wish they would grow up and stop being so immature about this topic, why can’t we have an adult conversation with these people?
OR, WHAT EVER DO YOU MEAN, TO CHASTISE ME FOR MY RELIGION. I SAY TO YOU, “TOLD YOU SO”. WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO THE VOICE IN YOUR HEART, WHEN IT SAID THIS IS WRONG, YOU WEREN’T TO DO IT ANYWAY. WHEN YOU LET BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE, YOU ARE AS DOING THE BAD THING TO THE SAME PEOPLE AS THE DOERS OF THE EVIL DEED. LET MY PEOPLE GO. SET US FREE. LEAVE MY LIFE TO ME. “MY “GOD” RULES OVER ME”. THEN WE WILL, (DEAL WITH CESAR), AND (GIVE CESAR WHAT’S CESAR’S). NO PEACE TILL FREEDOM IS WON, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. AL….
What “we the people” (more like slaves) really need to do is criminalize government hypocrisy. Give ‘em 5 year mandatory jail time for being a political hypocrite. Also, add to that, 5 year mandatory prison terms for lobbying government officials, and 10 year mandatory sentences for politicians who accept bribery, I mean “lobbying”, from lobbyists.
This country is ass backwards when it comes to politics and law. It is not a country run “by the people, for the people” nor is there any truth to “innocent until proven guilty”. We are a nation of hypocrites, liars, bigots, Sheeple, slaves and greedy bastards. The world will be a better place when Mother Earth washes us all away.
Well, well, well, the media is a parallel to the political leadership of the American Government. Both groups, politicians and the media are THE end of the line for support on behalf of pot users. There’s only one bad thing about the media here, you can’t vote them out or can we?
Big pharma, alcohol companies and Wall Street types are definitely out to stick it to us and rake in the big bucks. The media are complicitous, willing accomplices this way. They manipulate things left and right. Right now, for example, they are trying to drive up the price of oil worldwide by anchoring fully loaded oil tankers in harbors around the world to lessen supply. I’ve been trying to get the U.S. newswires to expose this but have been unsuccessful so far. Here is the link to a British newspaper about it for whoever is interested.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168326/Tankers-oil-anchored-Devon-coast-waiting-world-prices-rise.html
Will I never stop getting screwed by these people? I might as well be married to them for as much as I’m getting screwed by them.
This will blow on there faces. I know it I can feel it. I see that we are rising we cannot stop now….The beginning has begun already. Aither this will get ligalize by the good way or the bad way. Is their choice.
Cherokee Fred Jesus, I totally agree with you. Too many corporate interests corrupt and pervert any real justice from taking place. I just hope that our passion to repeal Prohibition and fix our failed drug policies will come sooner than later. So many people depend on this change at this very moment.
I say we treat CBS the way we treated Kellog’s. Let’s let them know how badly they screwed up. Too bad, I was just saying the other day how i wanted to watch “Weeds” to see if it was any good. Don’t think that will be happening any time soon.
WE SHALL OVERCOME . . . SOME DAY.
Wow Russ you really do a great job of explaining exactly how and why these companies do what they do. I will be spreading your show to everyone I know. It is people like you that make NORML the voice of the free people in our country. Thanks for doing your home work on this. It is always good to know what is behind all of the smoke and mirrors in this fight for cannabis freedom. The truth keeps on keeping on!
Couldn’t agree with you more Shawn W.: “I am simply speechless”.
It’s about money really. Big stations have no problem running shows like weeds because it pulls in big revenue. Yet having a measly political radio show doesn’t yield enough profit for the “projected losses” the company might receive by support.
Probably the drug czar or someone standing to lose money from the end of prohibition, standing in the way of progress for personal gain.
Legalization of Marijuana would provide gains for everyone, yet would take gains from some business. Clearly our nation is not about whats good for everyone, but whats good for the few.
That’s why the internet is so crucial for our cause; they don’t own it yet and we can still promote our view above and beyond them. It makes me want to throw my television in the garbage and tell them to shove their cable up their ass.
And case #5, if you haven’t yet gotten a fifth case. This goes back about 10 years, when I was in grad school (btw, SMOKED my way through grad school, was never late on a single assigment, and graduate with a 3.67 gpa) but I was watching my local CBS station one day for the noon news, and they were having a call-in debate on legalizing marijuana-this was in 1998 mind you) but they specified they only wanted parents to call in (obviously parents are going to be abhorrent to the idea of their little can-do-no-wrong darlings smoking pot as adults) so I called in (not a parent, but I figured since I had parents, that might count), and they listened to my three sentence opinion and then asked if I was a parent, and then told me they weren’t interested.
So how slanted is that, to have a debate on legalizing marijuana, but only allow participants that are highly likely to be prohibitionists?!?
I honestly don’t understand what the fear is, except that the previous blog that mentioned prohibition being based on Judeo-Christian principles that discourage their followers from getting “intoxicated” (Let me tell you that cheap mogan david they serve at communion always leaves me floating back to my pew), and this whole thing is based on some perception of inherent evil.
Having been a pot smoker for now 70% of my life, I have lived in a world not unlike the old t.v. show Bewitched, where they are a perfectly normal household except for one magical thing, that is perceived by Samantha’s husband as at best “inappropriate,” (and Samantha always seems to concede that it’s somehow wrong to use magic), and if this magical thing were to be made public, it was feared that all hell would break loose. If you substituted lighting up a joint for twitching a nose, you’d have my life to a tee.
The US rule of law is only for the poor and middleclass… the rich and the politicians don’t abide by the laws they make to keep us in check and making money for them so they can live the good, free life on our sweat & blood …
….AND ANOTHER THING…..CBS likes that show Weeds because, despite the middle class backdrop, it still portrays marijuana in an illigitimate light.
I have to say, though, that I thought CNN did some good work with the legalization issue, as did MSNBC. Sure, they showed the opposing viewpoint, but that’s a basic principle of journalizm, and the opponents provided the weakest of weak arguments, which imho cut their flagging credibility. At least those two stations have allowed some level of serious debate.
It is probably NOT the mainstream networks. They are in it for the money. I would bet CBS was all ready until the DEA might have made a call to the network to say not this one. For all we know this goes straight to the White House.
Right now the legalization movement has the prohibitionists on the ropes. The bull sh@t does not work anymore and the cops and robbers(!) are afraid of losing their jobs so the debate is censored.
Marijuana and the legalization movement have the TRUTH on their side. The good news… The end is near unless things ‘change’ to smash the cannabusiness and consumer/patient like we saw under Reagan and Bush 1.
[Russ responds: Good news - we have truth on our side. Bad news - they have the law, riot police, prisons, all the mainstream media, political majorities, and a $50 billion budget.]
THE TIME IS NOW! Everyone must work together! OUR GENERATION IS NOW!
posters and signs held by activist during their morning shows would shake them up…
lots of air time in NY with their live shows in the AM…
[Russ responds: Great idea, although I would suggest making a mundane sign ("Wisconsin loves Today Show!") that hides your real sign ("Stop lying about marijuana!") somehow, as I bet the shows have people who pick out offensive signs to keep them off-air. Wait for ol' Al Roker to saunter on up to your Wisconsin sign and when the camera's on, flip that sign to show the pot leaf on live NBC TV!]
Sorry Fireweed, commenter #36: Not giving any television stations a break anymore. They can allow Conan (NBC) and Ferguson (CBS) to joke about “being high” nearly every show however they don’t have the balls to allow this program to go forward. They’re cowards in my opinion and this is unforgivable.
Not a Rush Limbaugh fan but he’s right, it’s now “state run media”.
[Russ responds: Great point! And notice it is always the band that gets the camera shot whenever Conan, Fallon, Kimmel, Letterman, or even going back to the day, Carson, makes a pot joke.]
im surprised there hasent been a few hits on big pharma exects .it would be justice for crimes commited against americans.for marketing thier poisoins .
[Russ responds: No one at NORML advocates violence against pharma execs. We just want their business curtailed so much by access to legal marijuana that half of them are out of jobs and the rest have to take massive pay cuts.]
It seems there are definately some reversals of words with regard to this subject. What I would like to see at some point is the creation of a national news channel dedicated to nothing but the topic of cannabis education and the positive effects it can produce in our great nation. What are the chances of making somehing like that happen. Surely there are some supporters out there that are capable of making this happen. Anyway on the subject of reversal of words did anyone see the statement on yahoo today? Below is a cut and paste of something that stood out to me and the link to the entire article. I just thought this might be something that should be highlighted in some manner to possibly get our current administration to reconsider there position with regard to prohibition.
During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime” — although he also talked about raising taxes on families making more than $250,000 to pay for health care. On Sunday, Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, said the health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere and refused to rule out higher taxes on middle-income Americans.
“There is a lot that can happen over time,” Summers said, adding that the administration believes “it is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_s_math_analysis
MikeC #2,
Your so proud of the bad cop video on your website that I just had to post this and yes, I live here in Cookeville, Tennessee.
STORY: Officer Accused of planting weed.
Evidence not planted; suspect admits having ‘weed’
Author: Mary Jo Denton Herald-Citizen Staff
Date: 02/28/2008
Publication: Herald-Citizen (Cookeville, TN)
COOKEVILLE — Carlos Farrell has admitted that he did have marijuana when Cookeville Police Officer Chris Melton arrested him last June.
That changes everything in a controversy over a videotape of that arrest and a lawsuit Farrell filed recently alleging that Melton planted marijuana on him, police officials say.
But Farrell’s lawyer, Blair Durham of Nashville, has said the lawsuit, which also alleges rights violations via excessive force by police, is still on.
…
On a funny and crazily hypocritical note. I am an employee at Universal Studios and I happen to know for a fact that only a couple of years ago Universal implemented a drug screening policy for all management. The policy only last past the first screening since they discovered that over 60% of the managerial staff at the park are habitual cocaine users. Needless to say they no longer drug test as they could not afford to fire over half of their managers. So they are ok with letting coke heads run their family amusement park, but they wont even allow a politically motivated booth for the legalization of marijuana at a pro legalization of marijuana concert? Simply absurd.
We can grieve the damage done to the reputation of cannabis by the media, but alcohol during the time of its prohibition also saw similar abuse. Consider W. C. Fields in many of his movies. He played a funny drunk, even though being drunk isn’t very funny. “Don’t be alarmed m’dear, it’s only for medicinal purposes.”
i know this is a little off topic but come April 20 most people don’t want to wear a pot symbol out in public but that’s what we need im trying to get the pot community to wear green because most people have a boss,friend ,family that wouldn’t understand so this made the most sense. that way the anti smokers can’t screw with the guy wearing a pot leaf but know this is a issue that has spread like a wild fire and can’t be contained. im trying to blog every site that will listen and i hope it gets out there so tell a friend and norml please pick up the idea there is plenty of time to tell the community it is a cheap way to get the message out, that its time for change.
A conservative is a politician who wants to keep what the liberals fought for a generation ago
Will everybody stop talking about it and start organizing what we need is a directory of everyone who is willing to march,willing to spead the word. Stop being afraid of what people think. I sell cannabis shirts for ends meat and the few people that do buy em tell me that they wont be able to wear it everywhere but still they bought it. Its in all of us we all want the same thing. I know if NORML did have such a directory I would be the first to put my name in there.
Ps.. check out these you tube videos,”Jack Herer on hemp”.,,,any thing with Rusty Flemming,,,,,anything with Cele Castillo,,, “Run from the cure Rick Simpson” “Bubble bag hash”,,The last one is for pure enjoyment..!!!!!!! Peace & Prosperity To All
Mota vation Man
Get @ me greenpeace80@live.com
Mota vation Man