Online Now: NORML’s 40th National Conference Registration and Agenda

I don’t know if it is A) Denver: The Mile High City, B) 4/20 week C) Colorado’s For-Profit Medical Cannabis Industry or D) Marijuana’s popularity is ever increasing in America. The reason why I muse is that after only posting host hotel reservation information in January not only did NORML’s large room block sell out almost immediately—we signed an additional contract to double the capacity, and that too is almost sold out!

Well, all right…

Looks like a lot of folks want to convene and talk up cannabis law reform in Denver!

With no further ado…

Please check out the current schedule, which features three confirmed and prominent speakers:

• NORML founder Keith Stroup commenting on NORML at 40-years-old
• Marijuana maverick and Harvard Medical School’s Lester Grinspoon, MD
• Congressman and supporter of legalization Jared Polis (D-CO)

Some equally notable and popular speakers will be announced soon! Check out the conference agenda here.

Register online for the conference here (there are discount rates for senior citizens and students).

Want to stay at the Grand Hyatt, the conference’s host hotel? You’ll have to move fast to snap up the last of these steeply discounted hotel rooms here.

Conference sponsorship packages and vending table opportunities for cannabis-related businesses, services or organizations are still available, though, these too have nearly sold out this year as well. Contact Kim for more information!

Socials and NORML fundraiser: A La Carte
Lastly, this year’s conference planning committee is still working on procuring top-notch musical acts and performers for some of the event’s awesome socials and fundraisers. At this time, the online registration does not have options to sign up for these events, but, the information will be posted online ASAP and directly marketed via email to all conference attendees.

This year’s national conference convenes in the wake of the most important political effort to date to legalize cannabis in the narrow defeat of Prop. 19 in California this past November and in advance of 2012—a year that by all accounts will be the busiest ever regarding legalization initiatives and legislation in a number of states and in the United States Congress.

If you’re concerned with reforming cannabis laws in your lifetime, please make the necessary arrangements to join the cannabis legalization movement’s most important conference—the annual NORML national conference—this April 21-23 in the beautiful and amazingly cannabis-friendly city of Denver, Colorado.

Cannabem liberemus,

Allen St. Pierre
Executive Director
NORML

Now Available: Discount Hotel Rooms For NORML Conference 2011

The 40th Annual NORML Conference Convenes April 21-23 In Denver

Boulder's 4/20

The host hotel is the centrally located and top-rated Grand Hyatt, where, NORML has procured steeply discounted hotel rooms (rack rate is usually $300-$350 night, our rooms start at $129).

The room block at the host hotel for NORML conferences always sells out almost right away, so please do not delay in making your room reservations right now. Earlybird conference registrations will be available online soon—along with the agenda and speakers list. Roundtrip flights to Denver from both coasts are currently around $200 on most airlines. A very good price!

Celebrating 4/20 At A Mile High

Denver's 4/20

Arrive before or early on April 20 in Colorado and be prepared for a 50,000 person ’4/20′ political rally in Denver, or, a 30,000 person ‘smoke-out’ rally (no political speeches or music, just an explosion of cannabis smoke at 4:20PM) 30 miles north at the University of Colorado @ Boulder.

I’ve been to both…and they’re equally amazing to behold.

Thanks in advance and please take advantage of these discount room rates ASAP to make sure you’re in the center of the action for the 40th annual NORML conference!

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.

Colorado: Yet Another City Votes To Remove Marijuana Penalties

Fewer than 2,000 people reside in the mountain town of Nederland, Colorado — located west of Boulder. Nonetheless, Tuesday’s ‘small town’ vote in favor of a local ordinance eliminating all criminal and civil penalties for the adult personal use of marijuana is no doubt representative of the rising tide of national popular opinion in favor of cannabis legalization.

For the record, Nederland is the third Colorado city in recent memory to vote to remove marijuana possession penalties — following Breckenridge in 2009 and Denver (2007 and 2005) — and it most certainly won’t be the last.

Nederland votes to remove penalties for marijuana
via Fox News

NEDERLAND, COLO. — Voters in the town of Nederland voted on Tuesday and approved a ballot measure that removed all local penalties for private adult marijuana possession, making the mountain town the third Colorado locality to legalize marijuana in the past five years.

Denver voters adopted a citizen-initiative to do so in November 2005, and voters in Breckenridge approved a similar measure in November 2009.

More than 54 percent of Nederland voters supported the measure in what Town Clerk Christi Icenogle said was a high turn-out election.

Voters also ousted incumbent Mayor Martin Cheshes, who had vocally opposed the measure and referred to it as “foolish,” replacing him with Trustee Sumaya Abu-Haidar.

Prior to the announcement of the vote, the Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett told The Daily Camera: “I’ll pay attention if it passes. Marijuana enforcement is a sensitive issue, and it’s important to gauge public sentiment.”

… Durango, which voted largely in support of the statewide initiative to legalize marijuana in 2006, will likely to vote on a similar local marijuana legalization initiative this November.

A recent poll of likely Colorado voters found that 50 percent now support making marijuana legal for adults and regulating it like alcohol.

Where is America’s Cannabis Capital?

Because of the numerous media reports and typical Hollywood hype many close observers would immediately place the city of Los Angeles as America’s cannabis capital. Or maybe they’d guess that ever-cannabis tolerant San Francisco must be it. Possibly, ‘Oaksterdam’?

But, they’d be wrong.

Based on the size of the populations and number of reported medical cannabis dispensaries by each city’s respective City Council, America’s cannabis capital is….drum roll please….

Los Angeles – 1,000 dispensaries for a population of 9,862,049 = 1 dispensary per 9,862 people

Denver – 198 dispensaries for a population of 598,707 = 1 dispensary per 3,023 people