Ending Federal Prohibition Update: Sign Our Petition to Representatives Smith and Upton

It has been a few weeks since a bipartisan coalition of legislators introduced HR 2306, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011, into the House of Representatives. This legislation would prohibit the federal government from prosecuting adults who use or possess personal use amounts of marijuana by removing the plant and its primary psychoactive constituent, THC, from the five schedules of the United States Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Similar to the ending of alcohol prohibition, the federal government would get out of the business of arresting responsible marijuana smokers and allow states to set their own policies.

HR 2306 was assigned to both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill currently sits in legislative purgatory and how long it will stay there is entirely dependent on two men. The chairmen of these two committees have thus far refused to schedule the bill for a hearing. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has made it clear he has no intentions of hearing the bill. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has yet to take a strong public stance.

Stand up for states’ rights and civil liberties by joining NORML in telling these two elected officials that we believe HR 2306 is sound public policy that deserves discussion.

Click here to sign our petition and tell Representatives Smith and Upton to schedule HR 2306 for a hearing!

In better news, we are pleased to announce that HR 2306 now has a new co-sponsor! Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has contacted Barney Frank’s office and declared his intention to co-sponsor this legislation. He explained his support in a letter to a constituent:

Thank you for contacting me about repealing the federal laws prohibiting the possession of marijuana. I appreciate you taking the time to write, and I welcome this opportunity to respond.

I have contacted Representative Barney Frank’s office and requested to be added as a co-sponsor of H.R. 2306, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011. I share your concern about the problems associated with marijuana in regards to enforcing drug laws, creating a black market for illegal drugs, and punishing drug users who need treatment. Federal law enforcement should concentrate its efforts on measures that truly protect the public, and I do not believe that prosecuting those found in possession of small amounts of marijuana should be a federal priority.

Law enforcement agents are forced to operate under scarce resources and I believe it is irresponsible to spend those resources prosecuting the personal use of marijuana. Far more pressing problems demand attention. I think marijuana use for non-medical reasons is a bad idea, and I would discourage anyone from using it, but I don’t believe making it a crime has been a useful or just policy.

If you are interested in following a particular piece of legislation through the legislative process, the website hosted by the Library of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov is extremely helpful. It provides a wealth of information about legislation under consideration in the current Congress as well as bills introduced in earlier sessions. The site is called Thomas to honor President Thomas Jefferson and his belief in public access to the workings of government.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I welcome your views, and look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Source

You can keep up to date on HR 2306 by visiting its Facebook page. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to visit NORML’s Take Action Center and contact your elected officials and encourage them to support HR 2306.

Legalizing Marijuana Is America’s Top Political Issue — Again

To the surprise of virtually no one who has been following public opinion polls for the past 18 months, the call to “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana” placed #1 in the 2010 Change.org online vote for the “Top 10 Ideas for Change in America.”

Open voting at the Change.org website took place for six weeks — during which time citizens voted nearly 210,000 times on over 2,500 different ideas. This morning the website released the top 10 results here.

Legalization’s first place victory was expected. After all, the issue topped a similar Change.org poll last year. Legalizing marijuana also finished #1 in the White House’s first ever Change.gov poll; it finished #1 in Barack Obama’s first-ever online Town Hall vote; and it finished #1 in the White House’s 2009 ‘Citizens Briefing Book.’

Yet despite these consistent first-place finishes, the administration and the mainstream media remain dismissive. President Obama has twice publicly retreated from the issue — the second time chuckling that such a question would even be asked of him. His press secretary discounted the issue’s true public support, claiming that groups like NORML had somehow stuffed the online ballot box. As if! Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets brushed off the results as the work of “Internet trolls.”

Trolls, huh? How do ‘trolls’ explain the consistent victories racked up by marijuana law reformers at the polls year after year? And how do trolls explain the rising public opinion poll numbers that now show that over 80 percent of the public supports legalizing medical marijuana, and a solid majority also backs legalization for all adults.

Will today’s latest poll results finally be the time that President Obama, his press secretary, stuttering Robert Gibbs, Drug Czar Gil ‘legalization isn’t in my vocabulary‘ Kerlikowske, and the members of the mainstream press start to heed the public’s message that marijuana legalization is not a political liability, but rather it is a political opportunity?

Probably not. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to stop telling them that it is.

NORML Foundation To Relaunch NYC Times Square Ad Campaign — ‘Money Can Grow On Trees,’ Marijuana Legalization Group Announces

“Money can grow on trees.”  That is the message of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML) in a 15-second digital ad scheduled to debut in New York City’s Times Square next week.  The advertisement, produced and paid for by NORML’s educational arm, The NORML Foundation, will air on the CBS Super Screen through May 31, 2010.

“Regulating the adult use of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol could raise over $30 billion annually in new tax revenue, while saving an additional $15 billion per year in law enforcement costs,” NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said.  “This tax season, why not ask your elected politicians why the federal government continues to spends billions of tax dollars enforcing this failed and archaic public policy.”

Fifty-three percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, according to the results of a December 2009 Angus Reid survey of over 1,000 adults nationwide.

The NORML Foundation’s ‘Money Tree’ ad will appear eighteen times per day on the CBS’s digital billboard, located on 42nd Street.  Approximately 1.5 million people walk by the billboard each day.

In January, CBS and the NORML Foundation entered into a contractual agreement to air the NORML Foundation ad, beginning on February 1, 2010.  However, representatives from CBS and Neutron Media abruptly pulled the ad prior to its scheduled air date, stating that its content did not comply with the network’s outdoor advertising standards.

Last month, representatives from the political advocacy organization Change.org organized an online petition targeting CBS Broadcasting and demanding the network to reverse their decision.  Nearly 10,000 people signed and sent the petition.

CBS formally changed their position shortly after receiving the petitions.

“NORML would publicly like to thank Change.org for taking on this important political and First Amendment issue,” St. Pierre said.  “We would also like to thank the thousands of concerned citizens who contacted CBS on NORML’s behalf.  Without your participation, this important NORML ad campaign would not have been possible.

“Finally, NORML would also like to extend its appreciation to the CBS Corporation for responding to the will of its viewers, and acknowledging that marijuana law reform is a topic deserving of such a prominent public forum.  Over 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations since 1965. It is time to end 70-plus years of federal marijuana prohibition with a policy of legalization, taxation, regulation and education.”

The ‘Money Tree’ is anticipated to be the first of two planned ad buys.  The second advertisement is scheduled to debut in Times Square on April 20, 2010 – in conjunction with the informal marijuana celebratory holiday ‘4/20.’

Founded in 1970, NORML is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization advocating on behalf of marijuana law reform.  The NORML Foundation was founded in 1997 to support public education, research, stake holder organizing and impact litigation.  In 2009, NORML Foundation launched the first-ever nationwide television ad campaign calling for the regulation of marijuana by adults.

Tell CBS That It’s Time That They “Change Their Morals!”

As NORML has previously reported, representatives from the CBS Corporation and Neutron Media Screen Marketing recently rejected a paid advertisement from the NORML Foundation, the educational arm of the National Organization of Marijuana Laws (NORML), that was intended to appear on the CBS Super Screen billboard in New York City’s Times Square.

The fifteen-second ad (Watch it here.) asserts that taxing and regulating the adult use and sale of marijuana would raise ‘billions of dollars in national revenue. It was scheduled to appear on CBS’s 42nd Street digital billboard beginning on Monday, February 1, 2010, where it would have been viewed by 1.5 million people a day.

Earlier today NORML’s friends at the online advocacy website Change.org established an online petition targeting the CBS Corporation and demanding the network to reverse their decision.

You can sign the petition here.

Change.org intends to present the CBS brass with your petitions next week. It’s up to us to make sure that they get the message. (For those keeping track, this is the second time in six months that NORML has negotiated a paid contract with the network, only to have CBS abruptly and arbitrarily cancel the deal in the final hours.)

Major media corporations like CBS have no problem airing programming that allows them to profit off the public’s interest in marijuana and marijuana law reform, such as Showtime’s hit series Weeds and the CBSnews.com online series ‘Marijuana Nation.’ Yet these same corporate entities balk at airing media that calls on reforming America’s criminal marijuana policies – policies that have led directly to the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965.

Tell CBS that it’s time they, and not NORML, “change their morals.”

You Asked For The Public’s Opinion; Now When Are You Going To Act On It?

In August I commented on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s revealing interview with CNN, where she called on the public to actively voice their support for marijuana law reform.

“We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress.” Pelosi said. “[W]e need peoples’ help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this (marijuana law reform) should be the case.”

Ask and you shall receive.

In the past few months the public has taken their message to the hallowed halls of Washington, DC in unprecedented numbers:

Over 700 individuals have posted comments to The Hill.com’s influential Congress Blog calling on lawmakers to amend federal marijuana policy;

In December, a question calling for the legalization of marijuana bested over 7,300 public policy issues to claim the top spot in Change.gov’s inaugural ‘Open for Questions’ poll;

In a follow up poll conducted by Change.gov this month, marijuana law reformed was the eighth-most popular question voted on by the public, out of a staggering 76,000 issues;

This week, the question “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana” finished first (by nearly 5,000 votes) in Change.org’s inaugural “Ideas for Change’ online poll;

And finally, in yet a third poll hosted by the Obama Transition Team, the public’s call for “ending marijuana prohibition” is — you guessed it — polling ahead of all other issues. (To participate in this latest poll, please visit: http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov and click on “popular ideas.”)

In short Madam Speaker, the people have done their part — just as you requested. The question now is: When are your colleagues and the incoming administration going to do their part to end the federal government’s war on marijuana consumers?