“[T]o me, high is a place … and when I want to go there I don’t need the government to give me a passport.”

You can also listen to Rick Steve’s keynote address from the 2009 national NORML conference here.

It would set limits on how much cannabis people can have: an ounce of dried bud, 16 ounces of marijuana-infused foods in solid form, and 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids, or all three, Holcomb said. Limits are necessary to help ensure that people don’t buy large amounts for resale in other states, she said.

The Seattle Times breaks the news below and highlights some of the proposed initiative’s early and key supporters–including the former US Attorney, the current Seattle prosecutor and NORML Advisory board member Rick Steves.

NORML Advisory Board Member and Best-Selling Travel Author Rick Steves Addresses Hempfest's 100,000 @ 4:20

The 20th annual Seattle Hempfest will have two important reform projects for the hundreds of thousands to truly rally around this year: a state legalization initiative (the ACLU’s or Sensible Washington’s) and the first ever federal legalization bill expected to be introduced at any moment here in the decidedly less hip and green Washington, D.C.

Will 2012 be the year of mass marijuana legalization initiatives in America? It appears that way now with Washington, California and Colorado on track for such; Oregon, Massachusetts and Ohio may follow suit.

A coalition that includes former U.S. Attorney John McKay, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes and travel guide Rick Steves is launching an initiative that would legalize marijuana in Washington state.

The group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, decided to push the initiative this spring after Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed most of a medical-marijuana bill that had passed the state Legislature.

“We did some more public-opinion research, looked at the numbers and said, ‘Yeah, this is the time,’ ” said Alison Holcomb, campaign manager for the initiative and drug-policy director of the ACLU of Washington.

The initiative would regulate the recreational use of marijuana in a way similar to how the state regulates alcohol..

It would legalize marijuana for people older than 21, authorize the state Liquor Control Board to regulate and tax marijuana for sale in “stand-alone stores” and extend drunken-driving laws to marijuana, with blood tests to determine how much of the substance’s active ingredient is present in a driver’s blood.

Taxing sales would bring the state $215 million a year, conservatively estimated, Holmes said.

McKay, who spent five years enforcing federal drug laws as the U.S. attorney in Seattle before he was fired by the Bush administration in early 2007, said he hopes the initiative will help “shame Congress” into ending pot prohibition.

He said laws criminalizing marijuana are wrongheaded because they create an enormous black market exploited by international cartels and crime rings.

“That’s what drives my concern: The black market fuels the cartels, and that’s what allows them to buy the guns they use to kill people,” McKay said. “A lot of Americans smoke pot, and they’re willing to pay for it. I think prohibition is a dumb policy, and there are a lot of line federal prosecutors who share the view that the policy is suspect.”

Supporters would have until the end of this year to gather more than 240,000 signatures to get the initiative before the Legislature. Lawmakers could approve or allow it to go to the ballot next year.

Read the rest of the article here.

There are hardly better ambassadors for cannabis consumers than the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and best-selling travel author and popular TV host Rick Steves–who also happens to be on NORML’s Advisory Board.

These great hemp backpacks are made available by Rick in support of NORML’s longstanding law reform efforts and you can get these only from NORML and only this week for half off the donation amount usually needed to score one of these cool, conversation-starting hemp backpacks.

This special offer ends Sunday night, June 26…don’t procrastinate, please make a much appreciated and well utilized donation to a long standing non-profit organization that is in the nation’s capital (along with over 160 state chapters and affiliates) serving both cannabis consumers and the victims of Cannabis Prohibition laws–and putting the ‘grass’ in grassroots everyday!

There are three important components in this 2010 NORML conference alert:

-Key Speakers

-Early-bird Pricing For Registration Is About To Expire

-Conference Agenda and Speakers Announced

-Key Speakers-

NORML is honored and proud to have the former two-term Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson (R) address the 39^th annual national NORML conference on Friday, September 10 at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

Gary Johnson became the first sitting governor in 2002 to speak at a NORML national conference in Washington. To date, few elected policymakers—and no governor in American history—have been more politically supportive of ending cannabis prohibition than Governor Johnson. As New Mexico’s term-limited governor from 1994-2002, Governor Johnson championed numerous drug policy reforms, including legalizing medical cannabis.

Governor Johnson, a man of both big political ideas and financial means, is an early and declared candidate to be the next U.S. president in 2012 (running a decidedly libertarian-leaning campaign as a Republican) who favors substantial changes to America’s longest and most expensive war—the war on some drugs.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) is a long-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon, who is a co-signer of current federal legislation that would reschedule cannabis to allow its medical use by qualified patients.

Rick Steves, a best-selling travel author and NORML Advisory board member is a longtime supporter of cannabis law reform based on his travel experiences and personal observations, who, in 2008 hosted an ACLU television program called ‘Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation’.

-Early-bird Pricing for Registration Is About To Expire; Register Now, Save Money-

After a one month-long period promoting early-bird discount pricing to pre-register for the conference, prices are about to take a turn upwards. Register now to save, especially if you’ve already reserved a room at the sold-out Governor Hotel, overflow hotel Red Lion or live in the greater Portland area. Discount pre-registration pricing ends at midnight (Pacific) Sunday, August 29.

-Conference Agenda and Speakers Announced-

The 39^th annual NORML conference, ‘Just Say Now!’, continues the tradition of inclusiveness, expertise, passion, devotion, experience and celebration of all things cannabis-related—where over fifty speakers from across America will speak on matters ranging from legalization, medicalization, hemp, history, politics, science, law, business and culture.

Don’t delay if you want to be assured a seat at America’s oldest and largest pro-marijuana conference, as it will likely sell out soon (the host hotel and overflow hotels already have…).

Sponsorships and vending tables are still available. Deadline for sponsorships is Aug. 30 and vendors Sept. 7. Check out more conference details or pre-register at www.norml.org/conference

I hope to see you this September in Portland!

Interested in a NORML internship? Click here.

Nick Sibilla, NORML summer intern, 2010

With legalizing marijuana on the ballot in California, cannabis is finally becoming mainstream. But while some supporters are pretty obvious, others can be quite surprising.

8. Glenn Beck
Not only is Glenn Beck one of Fox News’ more (in)famous anchors, he is also a leading figure of the burgeoning Tea Party movement, a renowned linguist and vocal thespian as well. Yet in a recent show, Beck declared, “I think it’s about time we legalize marijuana.” He added, “We have to make a choice in this country. We either put people who are smoking marijuana, behind bars, or we legalize it…[banning cannabis] is not helping us, it’s not helping Mexico, and it is causing massive damage on our southern border.” In that episode, he also interviewed Andres Rozenthal, a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico, and expert on the drug violence down south. Rozenthal determined that around 60% of the Mexican cartels’ profits come from trafficking cannabis to the United States. Legalizing marijuana would then greatly undermine one of their revenue streams.

7. Milton Friedman
As an ardent advocate of the free market and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, Milton Friedman was hardly a tie-dye-in-the-wool hippie. But due to his belief in limited government, he was one of the most prolific critics of America’s failed “war on drugs.” He also headed a petition of 500 other economists to promote the fiscal benefits of legalization, which, according to their calculations, would amount to almost $14 billion nationwide.

6. Rick Steves
He is one of America’s better-known travel writers, authoring over 50 guidebooks on visiting Europe. But he is also dedicated to reforming this country’s marijuana laws, and even serves on the Advisory Board of Directors for NORML. “Last year over 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges — a 100% increase since 1980. Well over 80% of these arrests were for simple possession.” This, in his view, tarnishes “the credibility of parents, teachers, police and our government.”

5. Art Linkletter
Art Linkletter was an icon of 1950’s culture and exemplified mainstream family values. He was most famous for hosting the original Kids Say the Darnedest Things, and later marketed the hula-hoop and Milton Bradley’s “Game of Life.” But he also backed reforming America’s unjust marijuana laws, because he was against a system that turns “ordinary, decent kids” into “criminals.” He even held a press conference with NORML in 1977 to voice his support for decriminalizing cannabis.

4. Montel Williams
Montel Williams hosted the originally named The Montel Williams Show for nearly two decades and even won an Emmy in 1996. He also served in the military for 22 years and retired as a decorated Lieutenant Commander of the US Navy. But in 1999, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a painful, neurological disorder. After traditional painkillers like Percocet, Oxycontin, and Vicodin failed to manage his pain, Williams settled on a more controversial (but effective) treatment: medical marijuana. He is now a proud medical marijuana advocate and wants to remove cannabis from its Schedule I listing (alongside PCP and heroin), so that doctors nationwide could prescribe it.

3. Ann Landers
Arguably America’s most famous advice columnist, Ann Landers was the nom de plume for Eppie Lederer, who penned the column for almost 50 years. Yet she also supported decriminalizing marijuana. In 1999, she addressed “A Sad Mother in VA,” whose son was charged with possessing cannabis: “I have long believed the laws regarding marijuana are too harsh. Those who keep pot for their own personal use should not be treated as criminals.”

2. Pat Buchanan
A conservative heavyweight, Pat Buchanan has advised the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He is also a seminal political commentator and a three-time presidential candidate, making him the Bizarro Ralph Nader. But troubled by the harrowing, drug-fueled violence in Mexico, he asked in a recent Human Events column, “How does one win a drug war when millions of Americans who use recreational drugs are financing the cartels…?” In his view, “There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton’s way and Mao’s way. Mao Zedong’s communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman’s way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.” While he still strongly condemns drug use, he nevertheless wants to put these dangers into context: “Which is the greater evil? Legalized narcotics for America’s young or a failed state of 110 million on our southern border?”

1. William F. Buckley
As the founder and editor-in-chief of the conservative National Review, Bill Buckley criticized and agitated the American left for decades. But there was one issue where he and his opponents could find common ground: legalizing marijuana. Since banning cannabis has not prevented consumption, he quipped, “It requires less effort for a college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel.” He also mocked those who argue that cannabis is a “gateway drug,” since that would be “on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.”

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! WATCH THE WASHINGTON STATE HEARINGS LIVE HERE!

January 2010 is off to a ‘smoking’ start. Lawmakers in three key states — New Jersey, California, and Washington — are taking action this week on legislative measures that seek to significantly amend, or end, marijuana prohibition. Here’s a quick look at the week ahead.

Monday: [UPDATE 3!!! The New Jersey State Assembly and Senate have approved the “New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" (A804/S119).  Governor Jon Corzine is expected to sign the legislation into law this week. The measure is expected to take effect in six months, at which time New Jersey will become the 14th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana. Major thanks go out to Ken Wolski and Jim Miller of Coalition for Medical Marijuana -- New Jersey, and to NORML New Jersey's Chris Goldstein. Without their efforts it is unlikely that this victory would be upon us today.]

Tuesday: [UPDATE!!! I have just returned from Sacramento and wanted to confirm to folks that AB 390 did pass out of Committee by a 4-3 vote. A google news search under the key words "marijuana" and "California" with yield plenty of media coverage, with much more to come.] Members of the California Assembly, Public Safety Committee will vote on Assembly Bill 390, the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, which seeks to regulate and control the production, distribution, and personal use of marijuana for adults age 21 and older. This vote will mark the first time since 1913, when California became one of the first states in the nation to enact cannabis prohibition, that lawmakers have reassessed this failed policy. (See my op/ed in today’s Sacramento Bee here.) A press conference is anticipated to take place immediately following the vote. You can read NORML’s prepared testimony here and here, and you can voice your support for this effort by going here.

Wednesday: Washington state House lawmakers will hear testimony at 1:30pm in favor of a pair of bills seeking to significantly reduce state marijuana penalties. Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness will debate two pending proposals, House Bill 1177 and House Bill 2401. House Bill 1177 seeks to reclassify the possession of forty grams or less of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a class 2 civil infraction punishable by a $100 fine. House Bill 2401 seeks to “remove all existing civil and criminal penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.” This will be the first time state lawmakers have ever debated regulating marijuana production, distribution, and use by adults.

NORML representatives will be testifying in Olympia on Wednesday (Read testimony here.), and NORML Advisory Board member Rick Steves will also be hosting a public forum on the topic at Olympia’s Capitol Theater on Tuesday evening. If you live in Washington, you can urge the Committee to vote ‘yes’ on one or both of these measures by going here and here.

For information on additional state and federal marijuana law reform legislation, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.

Mr. Steves is the host of the popular public television series, “Rick Steves’ Europe,” and author of over 30 European travel books.  For more than 30 years, he has helped American travelers connect more intimately with Europeans — often for a fraction of what mainstream tourists pay.

Since joining NORML’s Advisory Board, Rick has been an outspoken advocate for marijuana law reform.  He hosted the recent television program Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation, and has spent countless hours lobbying politicians in his home state of Washington (and elsewhere) about the need to stop arresting responsible adults who consume marijuana.

“Like most of Europe, I believe marijuana is a soft drug (like alcohol and tobacco), not a hard drug,” he says.

“Like alcohol and tobacco, it should be treated as a health rather than a criminal issue. Crime should only enter the equation if it is abused to the point where innocent people are harmed.”

He adds: “As a parent helping two children navigate their teen years, and as a travel writer who has seen firsthand how Europe deals with its drug problem, I’ve thought a lot about U.S. drug policy — particularly our criminalization of marijuana.  … The time has come to have an honest discussion about our marijuana laws and their effectiveness. We need to find a policy that is neither ‘hard on drugs’ nor ‘soft on drugs’ — but smart on drugs.”

Rick says, “Yes we cannabis” and so should you! Meet Rick and hundreds of other like-minded people at NORML’s 38th annual conference, taking place September 24-26 at the Grand Hyatt in downtown San Francisco. For registration information, please visit: http://www.norml.org/conference.

More about Rick Steves:

New York Times: Fresh Ideas for a Tired Crusade

Seattle Post Intelligencer: We need to get smart about marijuana

Listen to Rick Steves deliver the keynote speech at NORML’s 2005 national conference

Listen to Rick Steves interviews on the NORML Daily Audio Stash here and here and read more Rick Steves posts on the Stash Blog.

By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board Member

The largest marijuana legalization rally in the world, Hempfest, is held annually on the third weekend of August at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront. This free marquee event usually attracts well over 200,000 people in attendance and Hempfest ’08, Aug. 16-17, was no exception, if not the record—because the weather on the Seattle waterfront was perfect for a mass gathering! The total number of attendees might well have topped 300,000.

Saturday was blazing hot, or as blazing hot as it can get along the shoreline of Puget Sound. The sky was clear blue and the sun was very intense. As the afternoon progressed, it increasingly reflected off the water onto the crowd, near record amounts of fund-raising “Legalize It!” water were consumed by the crowd. This day was Seattle at its very best—and at its most tattooed—and at its most skimpily dressed.

Thankfully Sunday started off slightly overcast and a notch cooler, because by 4:00pm on the second day of the event, crowds in the 2-mile-long park were so thick that the density of the people on the pathways and the open spaces was virtually the same. The music and the message of marijuana legalization rocked continually all weekend long from the four stages set-up about a ¼- mile apart along the linear waterfront park. At each stage after each band finished playing, and as the next band was setting up, activists, such as myself, Rick Steves, Allen St. Pierre, Keith Stroup, and several other NORML board members, along with a boatload of other fine folks regaled the public about the 71 years of negative societal consequences from the prohibition of marijuana. This was the fifth Hempfest I was privileged to attend as a speaker. My speech topic this year was “America’s 20-millionth marijuana arrest is coming on 10/10/08”. I got to wail away at the bustling crowds on this topic from the three music stages over two days and I spoke at the Hemposium stage on “Abraham Lincoln, Hempster.” Hemp can now rightfully claim 3 out of 4 at Mt. Rushmore!

So, how does all this happen, how does this huge fun and glorious “protestival”, this FREE Hempfest come into being? Dozens of bands playing on 4 stages, dozens of speakers, seminars and demonstrations, put in front of hundreds of thousands people along the gorgeous Seattle waterfront, and ALL FOR FREE? How is this possible? The answer: Hempfest is one of America’s largest All-Volunteer Events! The bands play for free. The speakers speak for free. There are 54 crews, totaling about 1500 volunteers, some working year-round, that make this modern marvel called “Hempfest” happen, from permitting and planning months in advance to picking up the very last piece of paper when all the shouting’s over, it’s the Hempfest volunteers that make this incredible thing happen, and it’s been that way for all 17 years of Hempfest’s existence. The $200,000 for direct expenses, electricity, port-a-potties, etc, come from booth rentals, contributions, and water sales. But the real backbone of the enterprise, is the hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours, that is what brings this marvelous creation, Hempfest, to life each year. Virtually every volunteer I’ve ever talked to, tells me that their involvement, their participation in Hempfest, their contribution to making Hempfest happen is one of the most important things that they did that year. It’s pride. It shows. It shows everywhere at every level at Hempfest.

Three years ago while walking Hempfest, I came upon the command detail of the Seattle Police Department, four sergeants, a patrolman or two, and some important guy with scrambled eggs on his hat. As a grey beard, a former member of the state legislature, a board member of NORML, I stopped to thank them for serving and then quizzed this group on how this detail differed from patrolling the professional football or baseball stadiums with crowds of near the same size. The oldest sergeant laughed and said, “Patrolling Hempfest—a two day event—is like patrolling a Girl Scout picnic compared to dealing with the drunks at Safeco Field, 80 games plus a year.” The whole bunch nodded their heads in agreement. And the sergeant was right, because leaving the encounter only a few minutes later, in a particularly tight clutch of people, someone bumped up against me from the side, and we, immediately, almost instinctively, both apologized, and then moved on, both our good buzz and good nature still intact. Stoners get along, go figure. In the three years since then, I’ve talked to dozens of cops at Hempfest and they have all told me pretty much the same thing—the 200,000 plus stoners are so peaceful, that patrolling Hempfest, as a police detail, is seen by most police as almost a vacation day.

Saturday evening, after I’d gotten done speaking on the mainstage, my son, a family friend, and I were leaving the backstage enclosure. As we walked along the fence near the stage, there in our path was a blue-jeaned butt facing us, and as we passed, the owner straightened up slightly, it was Vivian McPeak, the Hempfest Director. He was picking up trash. Vivian, who had coordinated this huge army of 1,500 volunteers, working non-stop for weeks, was also in charge of the mainstage and had just introduced the band that was playing, had run outside with a trashbag on his free moment. As we walked by, I grabbed my son’s arm, pointed to Vivian, and said, “See, that’s the biggest boss of Hempfest there, picking up trash in the middle of his main stage shift. There’s true Leadership. He leads by example. Hempfest is not only one of America’s largest but one of its finest all-volunteer events.”

So, how many great bands and speakers can you take in the cause of cannabis legalization? How many semi-naked sun worshipers could one watch in two beautiful sun-drenched days? Hempfest is the best place I know of to come find the answer to these kinds of questions. So set your calendar, third weekend in August and I’ll see you at Hempfest ’09, and help us end marijuana prohibition. Come to Hempfest next year and volunteer, or just pick up a sack of trash on our way out, either way, the very act of volunteering warms that spot in your body just above your stomach and just below your heart, the seat of contentment, the seat of real happiness.

Thank you Hempfest for showing the way.

In a surprise move today while visiting Kiev, Ukraine, in advance of NATO meetings, US President George Bush made a dramatic announcement that in one giant sweeping act of Executive Clemency he was freeing all 70,000 of America’s marijuana-only prisoners.

President Bush said, “I was down in Crawford last week…drivin’ my pickup ‘round the ranch, lookin’ for some brush to cut…turned on the radio…it was my buddy, my fellow Texan, Willie Nelson, he was singin’ “Bobbie McGee”. Well, right after that song finished, Willie came back on and did a PSA for NORML, you know, that marijuana group. I was sittin’ there in my truck alone, listenin’…and a guess what? A thought occurred to me. You know, I’m at the end of my term in office…and I’m never gonna be runnin’ to be elected for anything, ever again…That’s when I realized that freedom isn’t just another word, when you ain’t free. And I have the power to free America’s most harmless prisoners, the 70,000 marijuana- only prisoners.

After all, what Willie Nelson says is right…half of all adult Americans have smoked a doobie sometime in their life. Shoot, if the cops ever caught everybody who was breaking marijuana laws in America at the same time, you’d have to fence off a couple of states to make us a jail big enough to hold ‘em all. And you know, letting all those marijuana prisoners go, I’ll also be freeing up 70,000 prison cells for real criminals…or we could use some of the freed-up billions of dollars we were spending to lock those people up and spend the money for college scholarships…or fixing roads.

I was watching one of my all-time favorites TV shows last week, Real Time with Bill Maher, and agree with Rep. Barney Frank that the Congress needs to pass the ‘Make Room for Serious Criminals’ bill.

Lastly, in preparation for my last NATO meeting in Europe, my aides included recent writings from travel guru and author Rick Steves. Who can’t appreciate his practical advice?

The veteran Washington press corps was momentarily stunned by Bush’s dramatic pronouncement. And before they could ask a single question, President Bush waved his hand in the air and said, “That will be it for today. Thank you all for coming, but I’ve got to leave. I’ve got a very important meeting at 4:20 this afternoon with other heads of state.”

Suffer no fools this April 1st…support and contribute to NORML!

Compare that to the United States where a consumer is arrested every 38 seconds on cannabis-related charges (830,000 cannabis arrests in 2006), and, as of 2004, there were over 69,000 ‘offenders’ in jail or prison.

Update: Continued kudos in the New York Times today for Steves’ honesty and foresight regarding the urgent need for America to re-evaluate federal cannabis policies.