NORML Women’s Alliance to Hold First Major Fundraising Weekend Dec 17-19 at KushCon II

NORML women will be descending upon Denver, Colorado next week to hold their first major fundraising event at KushCon II’s three-day lifestyle convention.  From Friday, December 17 to Sunday, December 19 the Colorado Convention Center will be buzzing with thousands of medical marijuana experts and enthusiasts in the largest cannabis lifestyle convention of the year, and the NORML Women’s Alliance (NWA) will play a prominent role.

Hydrobotanical Engineering, LLC, the company that owns the GrowBots franchise, has generously donated one of their major products, the GrowBot Garage to the NORML Women’s Alliance to be raffled at KushCon II.  Tickets will be sold throughout the weekend at the NORML Women’s Alliance booth inside the Denver  Convention Center.  If you are in town for KushCon II make sure to stop by the NORML Women’s Alliance booth to show your support and buy your raffle ticket (only $20 a ticket).

Several women of the Alliance’s newly formed steering committee will be in attendance, including Cheryl Shuman, Director of Public Relations and Media for Kush Magazine, KushCon and DailyBuds.com. Other NORML women who will be speaking and performing throughout the event include Nashville singer Greta Gaines, New Jersey NORML head Anne Davis, Esq, Colorado NORML’s Georgia Edson and NWA director Sabrina Fendrick.

The NORML Women’s Alliance fundraising weekend begins with a business-to-business networking event sponsored by the Medical Marijuana Business Alliance and KUSH Magazine on Thursday, December 16^th where the elite of the cannabis industry will gather to celebrate the movement and organize product and service giveaways expected to raise thousands of dollars.  For more information on the NWA’s involvement with KushCon II, please contact Cheryl Shuman at cheryl@dailybuds.com, 818.223.8011 or 818.835.7131.

The NORML Women’s Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition of prominent, educated, successful, geographically diverse, professional women who believe that cannabis prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends a mixed and false message to our young people, and destroys the cherished principles of personal liberty.

Beverly Hills NORML Director Cheryl Shuman testifies on the cruelty of banning medical marijuana patients from transplant lists

Recently the Los Angeles City Council held hearings on the thorny issue of medical marijuana dispensary regulation. For years city officials have abrogated their duty to create sensible regulations for the dispensaries that have proliferated across the Los Angeles basin. The number of dispensaries has ballooned to over 500 (not the 1,000+ often claimed) following an ineffective moratorium on the retail medical marijuana outlets.

As usual, the hearings were packed, with medical marijuana patients and activists flooding the chambers to add their testimony to the record.  One citizen petitioning her government for a redress of grievances was the Executive Director of the new Beverly Hills NORML 90210 (http://www.norml90210.org/become-a-member.php), Cheryl Shuman.  In sixty seconds of testimony, Cheryl recounts her own personal medical marijuana tragedy, one that has befallen many desperately ill patients who use cannabis — even legally — and require life-saving organ transplants:

Cheryl’s case is not unique.  All across America, hospitals are booting patients off of organ transplant lists because of their use of cannabis.  Being a legal user of cannabis for medicinal purposes in the now fourteen states that recognize that right is of no help; even legal medical marijuana patients are essentially given a death sentence by hospital and insurance bureaucracies for their use of a safe, non-toxic herbal remedy.

Timothy Garon was a Seattle musician who had contracted Hepatitis C.  Garon was on a waiting list for a life-saving liver transplant.  The state of Washington recognizes Hep C as a qualifying condition for the medical use of cannabis.  Garon’s physician, Dr. Brad Roter, authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate his nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite while he awaited.  Garon had become dangerously thin and malnourished and the cannabis therapy helped bring him back from the brink of death.

But unbeknown to Dr. Roter, hospital transplant programs have strict rules that forbid “substance abusers” from qualifying for organ transplants.  Seattle’s University of Washington Medical Center told Garon that if he ceased his marijuana use and tested clean for 60 days, he could have his liver transplant.  Another medical center specified six months of marijuana abstinence before they’d save his life with surgery.

Doctors had told Garon he had about two weeks to live and he died on May 1, 2008.  The cruelest irony is that cannabis is one of the few therapies Garon could have taken for pain and nausea that is not hepatoxic (liver-killing) and laden with a list of other nasty side effects.

In Hawaii, Kimberley Reyes suffered from cirrhosis and hepatitis and was given thirty days to live.  She applied for and received approval for a life-saving liver transplant, only to have the rug pulled out from under her three days later when her insurance company, Hawaii Medical Service Association, discovered cannabis in her system, which she had used to relieve feelings of nausea, disorientation and pain.  Ten days later she, too, was dead.

In Washington, Jonathan Simchen suffers from kidney failure. Doctors at Virginia Mason and University of Washington medical centers deny him a life-saving kidney transplant because of his participation in the Washington State medical marijuana program.  According to Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason, “any patient who smokes any product — tobacco, cloves, medical marijuana — would be precluded from receiving a transplant here.”

In Georgia, a man named Walter emailed me after reading these transplant stories:

My name is Walter and my kidney transplant was denied by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia due to the fact I smoke marijuana.

In January I went to the University of Minnesota/Fairview Transplant Center for an evaluation. In order to be completely honest with all the doctors I made them aware of the fact that I smoke marijuana and have for quite some time. I also made them aware that the use of marijuana has helped me with the decline of my appetite due to end stage of renal disease. With the exception of the hospital shrink, no one seemed to have a problem with it and even commented that my smoking had nothing to do with my kidney.

Blue Cross Blue Shield approved the evaluation but [after] having received the paperwork from Minnesota has declined my transplant, stating “Kidney transplantation has not been shown to be more beneficial than other alternative treatments for patients with ongoing substance abuse. Thus, I recommended denial of kidney transplantation” (Ronald Hunt MD – Medical Director).

Jim Klahr is a well-known medical marijuana activist here in Oregon who also suffers from cirrhosis and hepatitis C.  In an ironic twist, he sits on the state’s advisory committee on medical marijuana, yet hasn’t used his most effective medicine for his pain and nausea since 2004 because he’s terrified of losing his chance for a liver transplant.  “I’ve capitulated because basically I don’t have much of a choice,” says Klahr.  Paul Stanford of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, the state’s largest medical marijuana clinic, estimates at least 30 Oregonians who use medical weed have died in the past 10 years after hospitals denied them new organs.

We understand why hospitals have strict qualifying criteria for transplant candidates.  Transplant organs are in high demand and doctors want every recipient to have the best chance at survival possible.  Hospitals screen their transplant lists for “substance abusers” because it really doesn’t make much sense to put a new liver into an alcoholic who will just go out and drink that organ into cirrhosis and failure as well.  It’s foolhardy to give a new kidney to a heroin addict who would then possibly share needles and come down with another life-threatening disease.

But in the case of cannabis users, the concern for the chance of post-transplant survival is misplaced.  According to new research at the University of Michigan, cannabis use has no impact on the long-term survival rates of liver transplant recipients.  After studying 1,489 liver transplant patients, 155 of whom were cannabis users, over a span of eight years, researchers concluded, “Patients who did and did not use marijuana had similar survival rates. Current substance abuse policies do not seem to systematically expose marijuana users to additional risk of mortality.”

The cases of Cheryl Shuman and all these victims of a cruel and needless discrimination against desperately ill cannabis consumers illustrate why existing medical marijuana laws, while commendable, do not go far enough.  Cheryl Shuman, Tim Garon, Jim Klahr and others are all legal medical marijuana patients in their state, yet powerless under the law to force hospitals to keep them on the transplant lists.  This discrimination exists because cannabis is considered an “illicit drug of abuse” in the same category as heroin and LSD.  This is why cannabis must be removed from Schedule I, legalized for prescription by any doctor in any state, so that it may truly be treated like other medicines, including the prohibition on discrimination against a transplant patient for the use of his or her doctor’s prescriptions.

Welcome To The NORML Women’s Alliance

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the nation’s oldest and most well respected grassroots marijuana law reform organization, is pleased to announce the launch of the NORML Women’s Alliance.

The NORML Women’s Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition of prominent, educated, successful, and geographically diverse professional women who believe that cannabis prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends a mixed and false message to our young people, and destroys the cherished principles of personal liberty and local self-government.

Says NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre: “The prominent role of women in the effort to end marijuana prohibition is pivotal, necessary, and long overdue. According to recent national opinion polls by Gallup and others, the dramatic rise in the public’s support of marijuana law reform is being driven primarily by an increase in support among America’s women. The NORML Women’s Alliance will bring a contemporary approach to the public policy debate, and will proudly represent the interests of modern, mainstream women who believe that the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition far outweigh any repercussions from marijuana consumption itself.”

Charter members of the NORML Women’s Alliance include: NORML Foundation chair and film producer Ann Druyan, attorney and political activist Jessica Corry, editor Shelby Sadler, best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich, Beverly Hills NORML director Cheryl Shuman, NORML Foundation board member Jeralyn Merritt, Esq., cannabis activist and author Mikki Norris, Cannabis Action Network and Berkeley Patients Group founder Debby Goldsberry, NORML board member and director of Oregon NORML Madeline Martinez, law professor Marjorie Russell, and former ACLU president Nadine Strossen. This founding group of women also includes medical physicians, researchers, business leaders, editors, publishers, mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers.

The NORML Women’s Alliance holds the following positions:

1. The NORML Women’s Alliance believes that the fiscal priorities of marijuana prohibition are wasting billions of dollars on a failed policy.

2. The NORML Women’s Alliance believes that marijuana prohibition violates states’ rights, and improperly expands the reach of government into the families and personal lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

3. The NORML Women’s Alliance advocates for an open, honest conversation about marijuana with America’s youth that is void of all propaganda and misleading information.

4. The NORML Women’s Alliance endorses the science-based evidence regarding the therapeutic applications of medical marijuana as well as the continuation of research into the subject.

5. The NORML Women’s Alliance strongly opposes the sexual exploitation and objectification of women in pot-culture and business marketing.

“A marijuana policy that fosters children selling marijuana en mass must immediately change and be replaced by one that effectively stops children from trafficking in marijuana,” says Sabrina Fendrick, coordinator of the NORML Women’s Alliance. “The NORML Women’s Alliance seeks to replace a failed, tax coffer-draining and child endangering 73-year old cannabis prohibition with functional, tax-producing and youth-friendly cannabis policies consisting of legal and social controls that are not at all dissimilar to our existing and ever-evolving alcohol policies.”

Further information about the NORML Women’s Alliance is available online here.

It’s Ladies Night at NORML SHOW LIVE as we discuss “Women & Marijuana”

This weekend on NORML SHOW LIVE, we take a look at the rising influence of women in the movement to end adult marijuana prohibition. In 2009, the Gallup poll found the support for legalization of marijuana among women rose by a whopping 12% in just four years! We’ll examine the trends that are causing women in greater numbers than ever before to support marijuana law reform.

Medical marijuana has certainly been part of the trend. We’ll visit with Dr. Julie Holland, author of the New York Times bestseller “Weekends at Bellevue”, her tale of nine years working in the psychiatric emergency room of the famous New York Hospital. Dr. Holland has been an effective advocate for medical marijuana recently on the NBC Today show.

Then we speak to Mieko Hester-Perez, a recent guest of Diane Sawyer’s on Good Morning America. Ms. Hester-Perez talks about the miracle medical marijuana has provided for her severely autistic son and the complications of treating him with a very controversial medicine.

We continue the discussions, looking beyond medical marijuana and into the so-called “Stiletto Stoner” phenomenon of young professional women who prefer marijuana over martinis when it comes to socializing and relaxing. We also cover the increasing number of mothers who are calling for an end to prohibition as a means of protecting their children from the harms of an unregulated black market.

Our panel of NORML Women from coast to coast includes:

• Tonya Davis – NORML’s 2009 Pauline Sabin Award Winner and Executive Director of Miami Valley NORML in Ohio
• Anne Davis – NORML Legal Committee Attorney and NORML NJ Boardmember
• Cheryl Shuman – Executive Director of Beverly Hills NORML 90210
• Linda Adler – Executive Director of US Virgin Islands NORML
• Tanya Burgess – Georgia NORML Boardmember

These accomplished women will tell us why they’ve decided to join NORML and why other women should, too.

NORML Women featured as the secret to legalization

Three of our favorite NORML Women (L-R): Anne Davis (NORML NJ), Madeline Martinez (Oregon NORML), Cheryl Shuman (Beverly Hills NORML 90210)

Daniela Perdomo has written a fantastic piece on Alternet entitled “The Secret to Legal Marijuana? Women” featuring a look at some of our favorite NORML women…

In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap.

Women are also smoking more weed. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that current marijuana use increased from 3.8 to 4.5 percent among women, while there was no significant statistical change for men.

…Cheryl Shuman, a 49-year-old optician in Los Angeles, would agree. Up until she started using cannabis therapy to treat her cancer, she was on a daily regimen of 27 prescription drugs, attached to a mobile intravenous morphine pump, and undergoing constant CAT and MRI scans. In 2006, her doctors told her she’d be dead by the end of that year.

This year, Shuman became the founding director of Beverly Hills’ National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter — and she hopes to attract women to the cause.

…Enter Jessica Corry, a pro-life Republican from Denver. A mother of girls aged two and four, this 30-year-old newly-minted lawyer is widely hailed as a rising star in Colorado politics. … Mothers like Corry are drawn to marijuana regulation as part of a larger appeal that encourages the use of harm reduction to more pragmatically deal with substance abuse. … This year, there was a 37 percent increase in teens who said pot is easier to buy than cigarettes, beer or prescription drugs. Nearly one-quarter said they can get weed within the hour.

Those stats matter to women. In light of this, children and family will be included in the mission statement of the Women’s Alliance, a group NORML will launch next year. The coordinator, Sabrina Fendrick, plans to include mention of how current marijuana policy undermines the American family and sends mixed messages to young people.

Be sure to click over and read the entire article, as it also spotlights important female allies like Valerie Corral, Mikki Norris, and Debbie Goldsberry, who have all generously donated their time and expertise to our NORML podcasts and numerous NORML conferences, and my newest acquaintance, Deborah Small, who presented on my panel at the DPA Reform Conference last month. I agree with Perdomo; women will be the key to ending adult marijuana prohibition, just as women were key to ending liquor prohibition.

Ladies, won’t you join us? NORML is always looking for accomplished and confident women to join and lead chapters at the grassroots level all across the country. Send me an email at russ@norml.org and I can put you in touch with Sabrina and the forthcoming NORML Women’s Alliance as well.