Next Sunday Nationwide: Pot Prohibition Parlor Parties

Update: Checkout the HuffingtonPost’s interactive map regarding information about Alcohol Prohibition in conjunction with the upcoming PBS documentary debuting this Sunday night, ‘Prohibition’.

Have you made plans yet to host or attend a ‘Pot Prohibition Parlor Party’ next Sunday night? Have you been in touch with one of the nearly 200 NORML chapters in America about your desire to get involved with these much needed law reforms?

Why convene such controversial parties?

Because on Sunday, October 2nd, the Public Broadcast Corporation will air the most recent American history documentary from Ken Burns called ‘Prohibition’.

Also, and probably not by coincidence, October 2 marks the 74-year anniversary of America’s longest, most expensive and constitutional-twisting prohibition…Cannabis Prohibition!

This most recent examination of a slice of American history by Mr. Burns is the single best opportunity in years for the general public to understand the folly and expense of Cannabis Prohibition (the only educational documentary that can top this one about the tremendous failure of Alcohol Prohibition would be…a Ken Burns documentary on the history–and absurdity–of Cannabis Prohibition).

Invite some good friends, family and co-workers to get together next weekend to watch the first installment in the three part series. Afterward, when lobbying your local, state and federal elected policymakers to reform cannabis laws, ask them if they watched the Burns documentary.

If they say ‘yes’….ask them if they support continuing another 74 years of Cannabis Prohibition in America.

If they say ‘no’, get them the documentary to watch, follow up and ask them to end Cannabis Prohibition by establishing logical law reforms such that cannabis is as legal and taxed as other adult products like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.

Ask them to respect the Constitution, the free market, personal autonomy and the right for self-preservation.

America’s Upcoming Prohibition Primer: A Call For ‘Pot Parlor Parties’ Nationwide

Mark your calendar and make plans for ‘pot parlor parties’ with your like-minded family, friends and co-workers on October 2 to view the first in a series of PBS broadcasts from legendary filmmaker Ken Burns on the history (and total folly) of Alcohol Prohibition.

The upcoming broadcast of Prohibition may possibly present the best opportunity ever for America’s mainstream population to come to understand 1) the failure of government prohibitions in free market-oriented societies on otherwise safe and popular commercial products, 2) the dynamic of ‘tolerant’ and otherwise law-abiding peoples trying to be dominated and made into criminals by ‘intolerant’ people (i.e., wets vs. drys), 3) how much worse and profound 74 years of Cannabis Prohibition has become in America (as compared to Alcohol Prohibition’s relatively short dozen years) and 4) the recognition of need to immediately end today’s totally failed and feckless Cannabis Prohibition (replaced with a state-based system of regulation and control in a manner similar to today’s alcohol laws and social controls).

The broadcast of the first episode of Prohibition is scheduled for Sunday, October 2 and NORML and its 170 chapters around the country are encouraging citizens who oppose Cannabis Prohibition to convene viewing parties in their homes to be known as pot parlor parties as means to educate ourselves better about what is often called today America’s Great Failed Experiment and to keep building up a fast growing community of activist-citizens who’re calling for logical alternatives to our antiquated Cannabis Prohibition laws.

Contact your local NORML chapter to help coordinate pot parlor parties in your area.

BTW…maybe it was planned…maybe it is a coincidence…but October 2 also happens to be the official 74th anniversary of the day Cannabis Prohibition laws went into full effect.

What better way to mark such a dark day in American history than to organize for the necessary cannabis law reforms today greatly aided with much needed and objective light from our past?

When watching Burns’s Prohibition, please keep in mind the stark differences between the relative benignness of alcohol’s prohibition as compared to today’s far-reaching and extreme blanket prohibition on cannabis:

*Alcohol Prohibition came about after nearly 100 years of social agitation from citizens who effectively advocated for a constitutional amendment to be passed to ban the commerce of alcohol sales (citizens could make their own alcohol products, but they could not sell it lawfully as the government ceased regulating and taxing the commerce). Of course, a little more than a decade after the anti-alcohol amendment, to lawfully end the Prohibition, congress and the states had to pass another amendment to the Constitution allowing states the ability to again regulate and tax alcohol-related commerce.

Is there a constitutional amendment to ban cannabis?

No. Cannabis Prohibition in America was created by legislative fiat.

*During Alcohol Prohibition, hundreds of thousands of citizens were able to continue to use alcohol for ‘therapeutic’ reasons by obtaining a doctor’s recommendation and a license from the federal government. Of course, during our long suffering Cannabis Prohibition, the federal government continues to spuriously claim cannabis has no medical value and treats patients (even with a physician’s recommendation to use medical cannabis) like common criminals.

*Nearly fifty percent of the working population in America are subject to anti-cannabis drug tests in the workplace.

*Every 35 seconds a cannabis consumer, seller or grower is arrested in America (approx. 850,000 arrests annually).

*Today, there are dozens of ‘sacred cow’ federal and state anti-cannabis bureaucracies (DEA, ONDCP, Customs, NIDA, SAMSHA, DARE, PDFA, NDIC, EPIC; federal, state and local law enforcement entities, etc….)

With nearly one million people having opted into NORML’s network of cannabis law reform via Facebook, Causes, Twitter and our internal listservs, the upcoming Ken Burns documentary is a fortuitous opportunity for today’s cannabis consumers and reformers to organize around.

PBS has created a well done online ‘postcard’ that allows you to remind friends, family, and maybe most importantly, our elected officials to watch and learn.

More to come soon about NORML’s October 2nd Pot Parlor Parties…

Weed The People: Cannabis and The Constitution

Update: Inexplicably, the Republican leadership chose to CENSOR reading the 18th Amendment today. Ugh.

Today, as first act for the Republican led 112^th Congress, the new majority is going to read the United States Constitution out loud.

Oh, the irony.

If there is real reverence for the document (notably the original copies of the document in the late 1700s were scribed onto paper made from hemp…a staple commercial crop during America’s Revolutionary period cultivated by many of the US Constitution’s original signers…an agricultural product banned by US federal governments for the last 74 years) by those who read the document and sit in rapture listening to the words, then it should be clear to all in the Congress this morning that Cannabis Prohibition is unconstitutional.

Why?

Where in the Constitution does the federal government derive the power and authority to ban and criminalize such a utilitarian and life-enhancing plant species as cannabis?

The oft-lamented by conservatives Commerce Clause? This is where the liberals in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration justified the federal government’s prohibition of cannabis in 1937. Both liberal and conservative governments have argued strenuously, and successfully, in federal courts that Cannabis Prohibition is lawful and sanctioned under the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

Further, and most importantly, today’s Congress, notably the new Constitution-loving majority, should listen carefully today when the reading turns to the 1919 18^th Amendment (which created Alcohol Prohibition) and the 1933 21^st Amendment (which, of course, repealed Alcohol Prohibition, which, like Cannabis Prohibition, was a complete failure that created more problems than it solved and unnecessarily conveyed policing powers from the states and cities to the federal government).

Unless the new majority supports the continued use of the Commerce Clause to justify federal intervention into state sovereignty, for them to adhere and respect the U.S. Constitution (which each member of Congress swears to uphold), they need to pass a constitutional amendment post haste that prohibits the cannabis plant and criminalizes its use, rather than rely on what many Americans consider a legislative fiat by the Congress that created and has fostered Cannabis Prohibition for over eight decades.

Indeed new majority (and minority) in Congress, read and respect the U.S. Constitution!

Why I’m Voting ‘Yes’ on Prop. 19

I’m NORML’s Deputy Director, a Californian, and a parent. This why I told my local newspaper that I’m voting ‘yes’ on Proposition 19.

Why you should say ‘yes’ to Proposition 19

Seventy-eight years ago this November, Californians overwhelmingly voted to repeal a morally, socially, and economically failed public policy — alcohol prohibition. Voters did not wait for the federal government to act; they took matters into their own hands.

On Nov. 2, California voters have an opportunity to repeat history and repeal an equally bankrupt public policy — marijuana prohibition.

California lawmakers criminalized the possession and cultivation of marijuana in 1913, some 24 years before Congress enacted similar prohibitions federally. Yet today some 3.3 million Californians acknowledge using pot regularly, and the Golden State stands alone as the largest domestic producer of the crop. Self-evidently, marijuana is here to stay. The question is: What is the most pragmatic and effective way to deal with this reality?

Proposition 19 — which legalizes the adult possession of limited quantities of marijuana in private, and allows local governments to regulate its commercial production and retail distribution — offers voters a sound alternative to the inflexible and failed strategies of the past. The measure acknowledges that adults should not be legally punished for their private use of a substance that is objectively safer than alcohol or tobacco, while simultaneously enacting common sense controls regarding who can legally consume it, distribute it, and produce it.

Critics of Prop. 19 … express concerns that passage of this initiative will lead to increased marijuana use and send a mixed message to children. Both arguments are specious at best.

Virtually any Californian who wishes to obtain or consume marijuana can already do so, and it is unlikely that adults who presently abstain from pot will cease doing so simply because certain restrictions on its prohibition are lifted. Further, it must be acknowledged that unlike alcohol, marijuana is incapable of causing lethal overdose, is relatively nontoxic to healthy cells and organs, and its use is not typically associated with violent, aggressive, or reckless behavior. Why then are we so worried about adults consuming it in the privacy of their own home?

Critics’ concerns regarding marijuana and youth are also not persuasive. Young people already report that they have easier access to illicit marijuana than they do legal beer or cigarettes. Why? It is because the production and sale of these latter products are regulated and legally limited to a specific age group. As a result teen use of cigarettes, for example, has fallen to its lowest levels in decades while, conversely, young people’s use of cannabis is rising. In short, it’s legalization, regulation, and public education — coupled with the enforcement of age restrictions — that most effectively keep mind-altering substances out of the hands of children.

Further, a regulated system of cannabis legalization will make it easier, not harder, for parents and educators to rationally and persuasively discuss this subject with young people. Many parents who may have tried pot during their youth (or who continue to use it occasionally) will no longer perceive societal pressures to lie to their children about their own behaviors. Rather, just as many parents presently speak to their children openly about their use of alcohol — instructing them that booze may be appropriate for adults in moderation, but that it remains inappropriate for young people — legalization will empower adults to talk objectively and rationally to their kids about marijuana.

The Bottom line? For nearly 100 years in California the criminal prohibition of marijuana has fueled an underground, unregulated, black market economy that empowers criminal entrepreneurs while having no tangible effect on the public’s access to pot or their use of it. A “yes” vote on Prop. 19 is a first step toward allowing lawmakers and regulators to seize control of this illegal commercial market and turn it over to licensed business. A “no” vote continues to abdicate command of this market to criminal gangs and drug traffickers.

The choice is up to us.

Cannabis Consumers and Producers Labeled ‘Criminal’ By The Government; Beer Industry and Consumers Celebrate 75th Anniversary Ending Beer Prohibition

April 7, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt fulfilled a campaign promise to hasten an end to alcohol Prohibition when he signed a modification to the Volstead Act, allowing the sale of 3.2 percent beer in advance of the formal end to the 21st Amendment being ratified.

His reward? The first case of beer delivered directly to the White House.

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