NORMLtv: Marijuana Maverick Dr. Lester Grinspoon at NORMLCON

NORMLtv is proud to present highlights of Dr. Lester Grinspoon’s question and answer session conducted at this year’s NORML Conference. Lester shared very intimate details about his life and efforts in drug law reform. In the segments provided you can hear Dr. Grinspoon discuss how marijuana proved an invaluable aid in helping his son face cancer treatments and about the time he spent with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

We stand on the precipice of change. Cannabis legalization is becoming an inevitable reality and every one of us has Lester Grinspoon to thank for his hard work in laying the foundation for our movement, and for being an outspoken supporter of drug law reform and NORML for many decades. His insight was greatly appreciated and provided some of the most memorable aspects of this year’s conference.

Easing His Son’s Pain from Cancer Treatments with Marijuana

On Hanging Out with John Lennon and His First High

Previous NORMLCON 2011 Coverage:
Mayoral Debate Feat. Montel Williams – Ziggy Marley: ‘Three Little Birds’
High Times Activist Awards – Day 1 Floor Report – Day 2 Recap – Day 3 Recap

Stay tuned in to NORMLtv by subscribing to our channel or following us on Twitter.

National Marijuana Law Reform Conference To Be Held In Denver Announces Line-Up: Montel Williams and Ziggy Marley To Be Featured

Just Announced – Next week’s National NORML Conference in Denver will feature: TV personality and medical cannabis patient Montel Williams (hosting a Denver mayoral debate sponsored by NORML)

Musical performance from reggae music legend Ziggy Marley

Opening remarks reflecting on NORML’s forty years of law reform advocacy from public interest lawyer and founder Keith Stroup; Closing remarks in a rare public appearance from legendary marijuana researcher and author Lester Grinspoon, M.D.

The 40^th annual conference of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana  Laws (NORML) is going to convene next Thursday, April 21 – Saturday, 23 at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, Colorado.

The theme for this year’s annual conference is Coming of Age: Cannabis and Commerce. A complete conference agenda and speakers’ bios are now online.

Why Colorado?
Colorado has emerged as the geographic center of legal medical cannabis in America—the state has licensed hundreds of medical cannabis dispensaries, cultivation centers and medical edible manufacturers thereby creating the legislative impetus recently for the state to further adopt laws that regulate, tax and control the cultivation, sale and use of medical cannabis.

U.S. Representative Jared Polis (D-CO), the conference’s keynote speaker, who publicly endorses legalizing cannabis for responsible adult use and regulated sales, will articulate this point.

His public remarks are in advance of anticipated federal legislation to be introduced in this session of Congress to have the federal government acknowledge the failure of 75 years of Cannabis Prohibition and that the states—like his state of Colorado—can craft functional policy alternatives to prohibition laws that don’t compromise public safety, collect needed (and otherwise uncollected) tax revenue and licensing fees; respecting both the public’s will for reform and the Constitution.

Millions of dollars of taxes and fees have already been collected by the state of Colorado, future state budgets now include the anticipated revenues and state bureaucracies are being created for (and funded by) these cannabis-related businesses.

Cannabis commerce has come of age during the country’s longest and steepest recession, Colorado is at the center of this public discussion and positive changes in laws. The nation’s leading cannabis law reformers, researchers, legal advocates and cannabusiness owners will all be front and center at NORML’s 40^th annual conference.

Register Now, Seats Going Fast
The host hotel’s rooms are already sold out. All of the conference vending and sponsorship opportunities have also been snatched up as well! However, there are still some registration tickets available (including day passes). Please register now to insure a spot at the most important cannabis law reform conference in years.

Please register now before both 1.) the conference registrations and NORML socials tickets sell out and 2.) pricing increases next week for those attendees who don’t pre-register online or by calling 202-483-5500.

Hope to see you and yours…one mile high next week on Colorado’s front range!

NORML@40: Marijuana Advocates and the Shafer Commission

The third installment of ‘NORML@40’ is now available for viewing on our YouTube Channel, NORMLtv. (Note: For easy navigation you can now access NORMLtv through our new domain norml.tv)

‘NORML@40′ is a retrospective video series that documents the trials, tribulations, and accomplishments of America’s marijuana consumer lobby from those who kept the movement going for the past four decades.

In this episode, founder and legal counsel Keith Stroup looks back on the first years of NORML and how the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse provided him with a clear mission.

Subscribe to NORMLtv, visit NORML’s Facebook page, and follow NORMLtv on Twitter for announcements and polls regarding future NORMLtv programming. Click here to vote for which ‘Ask NORML’ topic you want to see premiere this Friday.

Get active; get NORML!

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

Marijuana Triple Play

Politico does a twofer and the New York Times remembers an academic titan who well chronicled drug use and ensuing government policies to thwart it–a largely unsuccessful endeavor.

With unmistakable juxtaposition, Politico’s printed tabloid available in Washington, D.C. featured two informative items married together. First, a column from constitutional scholar and salon.com contributor Glenn Greenwald underscoring the political significance, public health benefits and taxpayer savings if Prop 19 is passed by California voters in a few weeks based on his recent research paper for the Cato Institute examining the benefits of Portugal decriminalizing all drugs in 2000.

Additionally, Politico wickedly notes that 28-years-ago today President Ronald Reagan declared a ‘war on drugs’, yet these days, the current drug czar is uncomfortable employing the now broadly derided term, deeming it “counter-productive”.

RIP David Musto, MD

Today’s New York Times does justice in honoring the recent death of Dr. David Musto, a well respected professor at Yale Medical School, an author of many notable books and expert in the history of drug control policy.

Before there was an Internet…from 1991 to 1993, David and I frequently corresponded about cannabis use, policy making and law enforcement via letters and faxes. His books (notably for me, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotics Control, along with other very important scholarly works researched and penned by Drs. Lester Grinspoon, Norman Zinberg, Andrew Weil and Consumer Union’s Edward Brecher; along with the writings of law professors Charles Whitebread and Richard Bonnie) quite definitely helped form my political and sociological views about cannabis.

I note from the Times’ obituary that David passed away in China whilst visiting to deliver his academic papers to Shanghai University. I trust somewhere in what must be an immense collection of papers and correspondences will be our exchanges, and a rare conceit from David in a correspondence to me, replying to my frustration that he was not more of an advocate for reforms rather than a genuine ‘Ivy League’ academician, he noted, I recall, something like: I seem best equipped to point out the history of drug use and government’s efforts to control for such…and let the public and elected policymakers make of my work what they will…I’m not an activist or a solutions person  per se.

As noted by NYT book reviewer James Markham correctly predicted that The American Disease would “probably become mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into this mess”.

True then. True now. You can purchase a copy @ Amazon, or you can get the flavor of David’s writing from his 1972 essay, The History of the Marihuana Act of 1937 at druglibrary.org.