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.
My recent debate with Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed at Dickinson College on September 4 in now online for viewing. Public debates at places such as colleges and universities are crucial in educating the public about alternatives to cannabis prohibition. Interested individuals and parties that would like to establish a NORML chapter or sponsor a debate between NORML and a proponent of cannabis prohibition are encouraged to contact NORML.
Originally published by the Seattle Stranger’sSlog.
Last week White House appointee John Walters claimed on C-SPAN that finding people in jail for “first-time nonviolent possession of marijuana… is like finding a unicorn … because it doesn’t exist.” I had a hunch that some of the 775,138 people arrested for pot possession last year were actually unicorns…
But the drug czar probably assumed that it’s a freebie to call people with criminal convictions anything he wants, because they’re likely to be too ashamed to defend themselves. That’s certainly true, but it didn’t take me long to find credible people willing to vouch for the existence of first-time, non-violent marijuana offenders—excuse me, unicorns.
In just one hour, I’ve found five people who have seen the Drug Czar’s unicorns with their own eyes. Here are Slog’s exclusive unicorn reports:
Lest folks think that NORML is unfairly biased toward one political party over another, let me reiterate that NORML and the NORML Foundation are required by law to be non-partisan.
(I state this position, again, in response to recent posts proclaiming, inaccurately, that NORML is either pro-Democrat or pro-Republican. In truth, neither of these positions are true, and in fact, NORML’s endorsement of any party, including Greens or Libertarians, would be illegal.)
By contrast, the NORML PAC can raise funds to contribute to “pot-friendly” political officials at the local, state, or federal level. Since 2001, the NORML PAC has contributed over $37,000 to select politicians. These public officials are not selected because of their political party affiliation; they are selected because they have each made exceptional efforts to liberalize America’s antiquated and punitive marijuana laws.
Unfortunately, none of the four major Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates are prior recipients of NORML PAC funding — nor is it likely any of them will be in the future.
On the Democrat ticket, Presidential candidate Barack Obama has flip-flopped twice on the issue of decriminalizing marijuana (replacing arrests and jail terms with small fines) for adults. Although he has made statements supporting an end to federal interference in state medical marijuana laws, he has also expressed skepticism that cannabis has demonstrable therapeutic value, and has said that he would only favor its use under “strict” controls. As a Congressman, Obama has made little-to-no effort to advance marijuana law reform, and has championed various federal anti-drug provisions to increase drug law enforcement efforts both domestically and overseas.
By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Delaware senior Senator Joe Biden — as noted here, here, here, and here — has a 35-year record regarding the drug war, almost all of it disgraceful. Biden’s most recent verbal support in favor of medical cannabis notwithstanding, the bottom line is that the Senator is a primary architect of the federal policies that have brought us: mandatory minimum sentencing in drug crimes, random workplace drug testing for public employees, the 100-to-1 crack versus powder cocaine sentencing ratio, the creation of the Drug Czar’s office, the RAVE Act, and America’s modern federal anti-paraphernalia laws (the statute that comedian Tommy Chong ultimately spent nine months in prison for violating). Most recently, Biden endorsed a nationwide ban on smoking, and he espoused the use of mycoherbicides such as Fusarium oxysporum — a genetically engineered fungal plant killer — in illicit crop eradication efforts.
Predictably, the Republican candidates are no better. During his 26 years in Congress, Arizona senior Senator John McCain has consistently voted in favor of stricter drug enforcement in America and abroad, endorsed Nancy Reagan’s vapid “Just Say No” mantra, backed mandatory minimum sentences and even the death penalty for certain drug offenders, and has repeated scoffed at the notion of medical marijuana, even going so far as to turn his back on bonafide patients.
McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has by far the most limited record on drug policy. Like Obama, Palin is an admitted former pot smoker. However, unlike her running mate, Palin may have some sympathy for medical cannabis patients, having served as the Governor of one of the twelve states that has a legal therapeutic cannabis program and chosen not to speak out against it.
In short, both party’s veteran candidates (McCain and Biden) are positively awful on drug policy, while the younger generation (Obama and Palin) may offer reformers at least some minor glimmer of hope.
Bottom line: regardless of who wins the Presidency, marijuana law reform will still be waged primarily on the state and local level — where our support and our victories — continue to grow.
By Dominic Holden, Member, NORML Board of Directors
Obama selecting Biden is a punch to the gut. Like that sickening feeling you got as a high school freshman, walking up the steps to the big party—and you’re telling yourself, if I fuck this up, my dreams are shot. But if things go well, this could be an excellent four years.
I am anything but a single-issue voter, but I’m also a die-hard zealot against the drug war. Everything that could have gone wrong has been an unbridled catastrophe: Drug epidemics and cartel routes breeze across the continent, privacy laws are gutted for sport, kids try drugs younger and younger, our prisons are stuffed with young black men…
And it’s Joe Biden’s fault.As former chairman for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden is the person most responsible for passing a package of laws in the mid-80s that we think of as today’s drug war. Biden presided over the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines that required judges to sentence dealers’ girlfriends and small-time peddlers to decades-long terms in state and federal prisons, where thousands are rotting to this day.
He used hearings “to mislead his colleagues and the public… on drug policy where police, prosecutors and DEA officials got the opportunity [to speak] while opponents were kept out,” says Kevin Zeese, a former director of Common Sense for Drug Policy and a leading drug-law reformer in Washington, D.C. since the 1980s. “Pick a drug law you don’t like from the last 25 years and thank Senator Biden.”
But, since this is Obama’s campaign, I’m trying to hope—hope that Biden can change.
Read the rest of this blog originally posted to the Seattle Stranger’s Slog.
Hard to believe that the entire Democratic National Convention could go by without even one speaker paying lip service to the devastating folly that is America’s war on (some) drugs, but as NORML podcaster Russ Belville reports in his latest blog post here, the subject of marijuana law reform has been all but “invisible” in Denver.
Fortunately, thousands of Digg.com users posed the following question to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi live on CNN: “As a taxable resource, what stops marijuana from being legalized, for medical or recreational purposes, throughout the country?”
(The question comes four and a half minutes into the video.)
Pelosi’s response is candid yet disappointing. While acknowledging that scientific research clearly supports the medical use of cannabis, Pelosi acknowledges that most of Congress — including many otherwise ‘progressive’ members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus — “just isn’t there yet. … There just isn’t enough support for it.”
Of course, anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Speaker’s Congressional assessment is painfully accurate.
That said, I find myself a bit incredulous when Pelosi says: “We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress for [the] use of medical marijuana. … [W]e need peoples’ help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this should be the case.”
While I agree that it’s both important and necessary for constituents to contact their elected officials, I’m disappointed that Ms. Pelosi still believes that the ‘heavy-lifting’ needed to successfully move this issue forward federally must be engaged in outside, not inside Congress.
Pardon me, but here in the real world (outside of the Washington Beltway) public voteafter public vote illustrates that the overwhelming majority of registered voters back the legalization of medical pot, and national poll after national poll consistently shows that upwards of 70 percent of the electorate support a patient’s right to use cannabis legally.
Here in the real world, numerous health and medical organizations such as the American Public Health Association and the American College of Physicians have passed resolutions urging Congress reschedule marijuana so that a physician may prescribe it, and scientific papers indicating that cannabis can inhibit diseases ranging from multiple sclerosis to cancer to MRSA are being published virtually every week.
Given this reality, I humbly submit that those of us who work ‘outside’ the so-called ‘hallowed halls’ of Congress have done our part. It’s now time for our federally elected officials, in particular Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama, to pledge to do theirs.
A few months ago it was Iowa’s Democratic Senator Tom Harkin that was replying to his constituents claiming cannabis “use often has fatal consequences” and that cannabis users may actually sell their children for ‘drug’ money.
Now, Senator Charles Grassley (R) in a letter to constituents, oddly equates cannabis use to genocide, murder and child rape.
After several thousand years, civilized societies have failed to eliminate murder, rape, or child abuse. Nor have they eliminated organized crime, the manufacture of counterfeit money, or genocide. But no one seriously sees these failures as justification for surrender. Illegal drug use costs society at least as much as any of these social ills. Yet we do not hear any calls to legalize these abuses. Why then should we give up? Should we surrender to the criminals, and legalize marijuana? No. Instead, we should do whatever we can to prevent criminals from gaining the upper hand, do what needs to be done to give our families, our friends, and our neighbors a safe and secure place to live.
However, his major problem with this premise, and presumably his underlying rationale for supporting cannabis prohibition, is that few in the United States (even in Iowa) agree with such absurd assertions as most citizens perceive cannabis use closer to alcohol consumption—and since the mid-1990s, as a valuable, non-toxic, affordable and effective medicine.
Also, similar to the Harkin letter, Senator Grassley equates cannabis law reform with “surrender”, which helps one understand how hard it is to lobby these gents when they cast the debate as ‘winning’ or ‘surrendering’ (but, what else is new in DC?).
There are many reasons why America’s 70-year old cannabis prohibition, a failed public policy many times worse in scope and cost than alcohol’s short-lived prohibition, still prevails. Regrettably, because of the way the US Senate works regarding seniority, committee assignments and a senator’s individual ability to place a hold on legislation, cannabis reform is always against the eight ball in the Senate in a way not possible in the House of Representatives.
Senator Grassley is too smart and sophisticated a man to really believe that cannabis use equates to murder, child rape and genocide. Please join NORML in contacting Senator Grassley and asking him to stop replying to his constituents in Iowa with non-sense, and to support the decriminalization of cannabis and to allow sick, dying and sense-threatened Iowans (and citizens nationwide) to legally access and use medicinal cannabis.
Thanks to Ames Progressive’s Gavin Aronsen for the tip and Grassley’s letter to constituents who contact him about cannabis law reform is read here.
April 27th is Ulysses S. Grant’s 186th birthday. The man buried in Grant’s Tomb still has insights to share with today’s candidates hoping to serve in the White House, and for all of us who would vote for them.
Grant won an appointment to West Point so he might further his education. He detested the work at his father’s tannery. His aspirations were to become a college mathematics professor. He had no designs on the military as a profession. But as fate would have it, Grant became one of American history’s great generals, commander of all Federal forces the last year of Civil War and, at the age of 46, President of the United States.
While in excruciating pain, broke, and dying from throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs in an attempt to leave an income for his widow. His good friend, Mark Twain, published them after his death. They were a huge commercial and critical success, ranking today among the best military autobiographies ever written.
In September of 1845, arriving with the invading United States Army at the Mexican boarder on the Nueces River, Grant reported on the very active business of smuggling. Illegal trade was the town of Corpus Christi’s primary reason for existence. But unlike today, the flow of the 19th century smuggling was from the United States into Mexico, not the other way around! Grant says, “The price was enormously high, and made successful smuggling very profitable. The trade in tobacco was enormous considering the population supplied.” The Mexican government maintained a tax monopoly on tobacco sales, which created a huge black market economic opportunity for those who would take the initiative, break the law, and supply the demand.
Below is this week’s summary of pending legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state and at the federal level.
California: In an important victory for medical marijuana patients, the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment approved Assembly Bill 2279, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno, in a 6-2 vote. The measure is now headed to a vote on the Assembly floor. This bill would protect patients from employment discrimination on the basis of their state-licensed medical cannabis use in off-work hours. (The bill exempts workers in safety-sensitive jobs, including law enforcement). California supporters are strongly encouraged to contact their Assemblymembers via NORML’s online advocacy system.
Minnesota: Minnesota’s House Ways and Means Committee has approved Senate File 345, along with its companion bill, House File 655. The measure will now go before the full House for a floor vote, and if approved there, to the Governor’s desk. This legislation would ensure that medical marijuana patients in Minnesota would no longer have to fear arrest or prosecution from state law enforcement. However, Governor Pawlenty has indicated that he is inclined to veto this bill if it gets to his desk. Minnesotans are strongly encouraged to urge their Representatives and the Governor to support these bills via NORML’s online advocacy system.
New Hampshire: House Bill 1623, which would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis, was passed by the House on March 18. The bill is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing on it on April 22. The committee will likely take action the next time they hear this important measure, so the time to contact your New Hampshire State Senator is now. Additionally, our allies at NH Common Sense are now encouraging supporters to contact Governor John Lynch directly and urge him to rethink his assertion that he will veto HB 1623 if it reaches his desk. New Hampshire supporters are strongly encouraged to urge their Representatives and the Governor to support these bills via NORML’s online advocacy system.
Washington, DC: US Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced legislation in Congress Friday, April 18, to strip the federal government of its authority to arrest responsible adult cannabis consumers. The measure, H.R. 5843, known as an “Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults,” is the first federal decriminalization legislation introduced in 24 years. Frank’s pending bill, co-sponsored by presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), seeks to eliminate all federal penalties prohibiting the personal use and possession of up to 100 grams (3 1/2 ounces) of marijuana. Under this measure, adults who consume cannabis would no longer face arrest, prison, or even the threat of a civil fine. The bill also eliminates all penalties for the not-for-profit transfers of up to one ounce of pot. All are encouraged to write their representatives in support of this important legislation via NORML’s online advocacy system.
Washington, DC: Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 5842, the “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act,” on Friday, April 18. This bill would make federal authorities respect states’ current laws on medicinal cannabis and end DEA raids on facilities distributing medical marijuana legally under state law. Representative Paul, whose presidential campaign prominently featured the ending of the drug war as a platform plank, was joined by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Sam Farr (D-CA) in co-sponsoring this bill. All NORML supporters are strongly encouraged to write their Representatives in favor of this important bill via NORML’s online advocacy system.
In a surprise move today while visiting Kiev, Ukraine, in advance of NATO meetings, US President George Bush made a dramatic announcement that in one giant sweeping act of Executive Clemency he was freeing all 70,000 of America’s marijuana-only prisoners.
President Bush said, “I was down in Crawford last week…drivin’ my pickup ‘round the ranch, lookin’ for some brush to cut…turned on the radio…it was my buddy, my fellow Texan, Willie Nelson, he was singin’ “Bobbie McGee”. Well, right after that song finished, Willie came back on and did a PSA for NORML, you know, that marijuana group. I was sittin’ there in my truck alone, listenin’…and a guess what? A thought occurred to me. You know, I’m at the end of my term in office…and I’m never gonna be runnin’ to be elected for anything, ever again…That’s when I realized that freedom isn’t just another word, when you ain’t free. And I have the power to free America’s most harmless prisoners, the 70,000 marijuana- only prisoners.
After all, what Willie Nelson says is right…half of all adult Americans have smoked a doobie sometime in their life. Shoot, if the cops ever caught everybody who was breaking marijuana laws in America at the same time, you’d have to fence off a couple of states to make us a jail big enough to hold ‘em all. And you know, letting all those marijuana prisoners go, I’ll also be freeing up 70,000 prison cells for real criminals…or we could use some of the freed-up billions of dollars we were spending to lock those people up and spend the money for college scholarships…or fixing roads.
Lastly, in preparation for my last NATO meeting in Europe, my aides included recent writings from travel guru and author Rick Steves. Who can’t appreciate his practical advice?
The veteran Washington press corps was momentarily stunned by Bush’s dramatic pronouncement. And before they could ask a single question, President Bush waved his hand in the air and said, “That will be it for today. Thank you all for coming, but I’ve got to leave. I’ve got a very important meeting at 4:20 this afternoon with other heads of state.”
By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Delaware senior Senator Joe Biden — as noted 
McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has by far the most limited record on drug policy. Like Obama, Palin is an 
In a surprise move today while visiting Kiev, Ukraine, in advance of NATO meetings, US President George Bush made a dramatic announcement that in one giant sweeping act of Executive Clemency he was freeing all 70,000 of America’s marijuana-only prisoners.
