activism
Bill Maher Lights-Up On Network Television
Long-time marijuana legalization proponent, and NORML Advisory Board member, comedian Bill Maher, achieved some sort of milestone recently when he lit-up a joint during a humorous monologue on his HBO television show Real Time With Bill Maher. Now, don’t get me wrong. There have likely been thousands of entertainers and celebrities over the years who […]
If Marijuana is Legal, Why is Growing Your Own A Felony?
Washington may have legalized marijuana in 2012, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal for you to grow your own ‘dro. Washington is the only state that has legalized marijuana for recreational use but has banned its adult citizens over 21 from cultivating their own extra-special houseplants. Supporters of home-grow argue that if citizens over 21 years […]
Justin Trudeau and Marijuana: Like Father, Like Son
The recent victory in Canada by Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party, a landslide triumph that ended nearly a decade of rule by the Conservative Party, promises a significant change in the politics of Canada in a number of policy areas, including a boost in spending to stimulate the economy; raising taxes on the wealthy; and legalizing marijuana.
Stephen Harper, head of the Conservative Party, attempted to use marijuana legalization as a wedge issue against Trudeau in the recent campaign, making the rather bizarre claim that marijuana is “infinitely worse” than tobacco (an estimated 37,000 Canadians die each year from tobacco smoking). His allegation fell flat with the voters and likely helped Trudeau demonstrate the need for new, fresh and more innovative and honest leadership.
Trudeau has long favored the legalization of marijuana, publicly acknowledging his own past use of weed (including an admission of smoking when he was a member of Parliament). Shortly after the recent Liberal Party victory, he announced legalization would move forward as one of his top priorities. We share a common border stretching nearly 4,000 miles, and whatever occurs in the U.S. inevitably has an impact on Canada. It appears our domestic experience with marijuana legalization has favorably impacted attitudes in Canada, and they too are now ready for a tax and regulate regimen.
The First Prime Minister Trudeau
This needed change in Canadian marijuana policy reminds some of us of earlier times when Canada had a far more progressive and tolerant marijuana policy than the U.S., going back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was the Prime Minister. Pierre Trudeau served as prime minister from 1968 to 1979, and again from 1980 to 1984. He was a dominant political presence who, with his glamorous wife Margaret Trudeau, was part of the fast-lane crowd during the 1970s, famously partying with the Rolling Stones; hanging-out at then-popular Studio 54 in New York; and, in a strange moment in a Washington Post news article, once publicly invited disillusioned young Americans to visit Canada, promising they would not be harassed if they brought along a couple of joints.
This was during the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, when young Americans burning their draft cards and long hair and marijuana smoking were all part of the cultural rebellion that would transform American society and eventually bring that war to an end. Canada, and Pierre Trudeau, were generally opposed to the war, and supportive of U.S. draft resisters (offering them asylum in Canada) and others who were working to stop the killing.
Raising the “Pierre Trudeau Defense”
It was this public invitation to visit Canada that led me to raise the “Pierre Trudeau defense,” when I was busted with a joint entering Canada to give a college lecture in Calgary in the mid-1970s.
I was (obviously) not familiar with the rigors of international travel at the time, and had stuck a joint in the pocket of my sports coat to share with the students when the lecture was over. We usually went back to someone’s apartment after a college lecture, where the students would generally pass around a joint of whatever weed was available on the black market, at prices most students could afford, and frequently it was not high quality – what we might call “ditch weed” today. So I always enjoyed bringing a joint from my own stash – high quality homegrown – to share with the students, to let them experience the better marijuana that was available if one had the right connections on the black market.
As further evidence of my naiveté, I also was wearing a gold marijuana-leaf lapel pin on my sports coat, oblivious to the fact that the marijuana pin might well bring closer scrutiny as I entered the county. I almost made it through Customs without a problem, but at the last minute, one of the officers recognized my pin, and decided to stop me and search my pockets, where he found the joint.
As I was being taken into custody, a group of the students who were meeting me to take me to the lecture saw what was happening, and someone had the good sense to bring the lecture fee that I would have received, to use as bail, so I could get out of custody and deliver the lecture on schedule later that night.
When I returned in a few weeks to go to trial, my old friend Gerry Goldstein, a young Texas criminal defense attorney who was then heading Texas NORML, accompanied me as my attorney. Since we knew possession of a single joint in Canada would bring, at most, a slap on the wrist and a modest fine, we decided to engage in some street theater, and to make it into a show trial, at which we put on the “Pierre Trudeau defense”.
I was never quite sure why Trudeau had made that statement. Perhaps he simply wanted to demonstrate how hip he and his wife were, since they were known to have smoked marijuana with the Rolling Stones at some point. Regardless, it sure sounded like something that might help me justify my actions in Canada, and it would surely make good theater for the media.
So attorney Goldstein first introduced a copy of the Washington Post article into evidence, and then had me take the stand, and under oath, say I admitted bringing the joint into Canada, but insisting that I had done it on the reliance that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had assured me (and other young Americans) that we would not be hassled.
It was obviously not a legal defense, but it did have a certain appeal to the media, and seemed to further NORML’s position that there is nothing wrong with smoking pot.
The judge saw the humor in what we were doing, and allowed us to put on our defense, but then convicted me (on my own testimony), imposed a modest fine, and sent me on my way home, none the worse for wear. It had been exhilarating to challenge the system, and we felt we had successfully pushed the policy envelope by being so out-front and unapologetic about my marijuana smoking.
Busted Again, On the Way Out of the Country
But then things turned ugly. On our way through customs as we were leaving the country, still beaming from the fact that we had pulled-off our legal street theater without harm, the Canadian customs officials found an empty one-gram cocaine vial which I had inadvertently left in my shoulder bag, with trace amounts of cocaine still in the bottle, and I was taken back into custody. Suddenly, this little Canadian joke did not seem so humorous, and especially not to the prosecutor or the judge who had just allowed us to pull-off our stunt in his courtroom.
I was thrown in jail overnight, and the following morning Goldstein arranged for me to plead guilty to the new cocaine charge, pay a larger fine, and finally get out of the country, with a warning that I would never be permitted back into the country. (In fact, I have since been back to Canada on several occasions, so apparently someone saw fit to remove me from the list of banned travelers at some point.)
But all these many years later, when I hear the name Trudeau as the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, I cannot help but smile as I remember the good-old-days, when a combination of youth and naiveté allowed us to live close to the edge, with little or no fear of the consequences.
Today I lead a far less dangerous lifestyle!
Support for Legalization Continues to Grow Into The Future
Public policy, in a democracy, depends on the will of a majority of the citizens. Only when a clear majority favor a change in policy can that change occur, and even then, when working with elected legislators, these is always a significant lag between a change in the public attitudes, and a change in public policy. Most elected officials, with an eye towards being re-elected, find it safer to vote for the status quo, until it is unavoidably obvious they are on the losing side.
Fortunately, in half the states citizens have the option of going around their elected state legislatures and changing public policy by a voter initiative – a direct vote of the people. Which explains how the marijuana legalization movement has been so successful over the last few years. As public attitudes have increasingly shifted against prohibition, and in support of legalization, we have had the ability to ask the citizens in several states to approve legalization, despite the trepidation of their state elected officials.
And that has allowed us to enact legalization in a few states several years earlier than would have been the case if we would have had to move the proposal through the state legislature. For that, we are truly benefiting from the successes of the Progressive movement of an earlier era, from where the concept of a voter initiative.
The Latest Gallup Poll
But none of that matters unless a proposed change in policy enjoys the support of a majority of the public. And as the latest Gallup Poll results underscored, the support for legalizing marijuana continues to increase, and there is every reason to believe that trend will only increase in the coming years. And the political implications of that are obvious.
More specifically, this latest Gallup Poll found that 58 percent of the public nationwide now support the full legalization of marijuana, matching the highest level of support Gallup has ever found over 46 years of polling on the question.
Gallup first polled the American public about their support for legalizing marijuana in 1969, the year before NORML was founded, and found the support level at only 12 percent. That number rose to 28 percent by 1977, before beginning a decline, falling to 23 percent by 1985. Support then again began to rise gradually over the next 25 years, until finally reaching 50 percent in 2011. Gallup found support peaking at 58 percent in 2013, before showing a decline to 51 percent in 2014 (those numbers are within the 4 percent margin of error for their telephone survey of just over 1,000 respondents), and then rebounding to 58 percent again in 2015.
These latest 2015 findings were overwhelmingly favorable in all age groups, with a majority level of support in all age categories, except seniors (my own group), and even there we are showing big gains.
Younger Americans, Democrats and independents are the most likely to favor legalizing cannabis, while Republicans and Americans over the age of 65 are least likely to do so. Among those poll respondents age 18 to 34, 71 percent endorse legalization. Among respondents age 35 to 49 years of age, 64 percent support legalizing marijuana. Among those age 65 and up, support fell to 35 percent, but this too reflected a sharp increase in support.
We Are Outliving Our Opponents
At NORML we have often joked that our strategy, if all else failed (and there were certainly decades when we were making very little measurable progress), was to out-live our opponents. We were only partially kidding, as we were aware that younger Americans were far more supportive of legalization than were older Americans, and eventually we would win.
The most significant implications of this latest Gallup data is the likelihood that this trend will continue for many years in the future, as more seniors are replaced by younger Americans, making it possible for us in the next few years to adopt legalization in many more states that offer a voter initiative; and importantly, in many other states that do not, by way of the state legislature. Even elected officials can only ignore the will of the public for so long, before either supporting that change, or being replaced by those who do. It is only a matter of time.
The poll’s authors suggested the future looks positive for those who favor legalization. “Given the patterns of support by age, that percentage should continue to grow in the future. … These trends suggest that state and local governments may come under increasing pressure to ease restrictions on marijuana use, if not go even further like the states of Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska in making recreational marijuana use completely legal.”
Or as NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano has pointed out, continuing to support marijuana prohibition is now a “fringe position” in America. “These results ought to embolden campaigning politicians, as well as elected officials, to take a more pronounced stance in favor of legalizing and regulating cannabis in a manner that is consistent with the desires of the majority of their constituents.”
The Next Administration
This is an important point to keep in mind when thinking about who might be elected the next US president, and whether that individual will continue “the Obama policy” of allowing the states to determine their own marijuana policy, without interference from the federal government. With support for full legalization reaching nearly 60 percent nationwide, it will be difficult, and likely politically impossible, for the next president to change that policy, regardless of her/his personal views.
We have, after a long and sometimes frustrating public debate covering several decades, finally won the hearts and minds of a majority of the American public, and with that, the power to move marijuana legalization forward full speed, until it is the law of the land. We are now the majority.
It’s a wonderful time to be a marijuana smoker.
A Second Look at Ohio: Why It’s Worth Supporting
With the 2015 election day only two weeks away, and prodded by our friend Russ Belville at 420 Radio for failing to more enthusiastically embrace Issue 3 in Ohio, this seemed like a good time to take a second look at the measure on the ballot in Ohio to both legalize marijuana for medical purposes and fully legalize marijuana for all adults.
First, one might justifiably ask the authors of this measure why they would bother with medical marijuana at all. If marijuana is legal for all adults, that includes patients as well as recreational users, and it removes the need for patients to pay a physician to confirm their need for marijuana. With the exception of a small medical use program that would cover those minors who have a legitimate medical need, there is no need for two separate legalization distribution systems.
But having somewhat duplicative legalization systems, while it may not be efficient, is not a reason to oppose Initiative 3.
Provisions Limiting Access to the New Market Are Not New
The reason given by most who claim to support legalization, but who oppose the Ohio proposal, is the reality that the investors who have put up millions of dollars to qualify the initiative for the November ballot also stand to profit handsomely from their investment, by controlling the 10 commercial cultivation centers allowed under this plan. It strikes many of us as inappropriate to build such an economic advantage by a few rich investors into the state’s constitution.
But as Belville and others (including this author) have noted, several other states that have legalized marijuana (for medical use) have limited entry into the legal industry by placing severe limits on the numbers of licenses that will be permitted, or by requiring such enormous financial investments that ordinary citizens are effectively shut out of the industry. So limiting access to the commercial cultivation centers in the newly legal market would be nothing new, nor should it justify opposing this opportunity to end marijuana prohibition in Ohio. We should focus on ending prohibition, and not get distracted by who will profit from the legal market.
Why NORML Supported I-502
In his latest rant, Belville questions why NORML and other pro-legalization organizations would endorse I-502 in Washington state in 2012, which failed to legalize personal cultivation, and included a 5 nanogram per se DUID provision that would leave many smokers unfairly subject to a DUID charge, but would either remain neutral on Issue 3 in Ohio (MPP, ASA and DPA) or tepidly endorse the proposal (NORML).
The answer to this question is simple: In 2012 marijuana for personal use was illegal in all 50 states, and had been for more than 75 years. It was crucial that some state – any state – show the courage to break the mold and openly defy federal law, as New York and a handful of other states did near the end of alcohol prohibition. For the legalization movement to gain credibility and force our way onto the mainstream political agenda, we had to take legalization out of the theoretical realm and demonstrate that it actually works.
Our opponents had always claimed that if we legalize marijuana, the sky would fall. Everyone would sit home and get stoned all day; no one would go to work or live an ordinary life; and western civilization as we know it would come to an end (perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration, but you get the point).
Of course, we would counter that legalization would stop the senseless arrest and prosecution of otherwise law-abiding citizens who smoke marijuana responsibly, and save enormous amounts of law enforcement resources that could be redirected to fighting serious and violent crime.
But until we had at least one state with the fortitude to declare itself out of the prohibition game, we had no actual data to validate either position. It was an endless theoretical argument, with no clear winner.
The approval of legalization in Washington and Colorado in 2012, by giving us these two state laboratories where we could measure the actual impact of legalization, was the game changer that catapulted full legalization into the mainstream political debate, and gave us the measurable evidence that legalization is indeed the solution that most Americans are looking for. And the fears that were stoked by our opponents – of a spike in adolescent marijuana smoking, or carnage on the roads caused by stoned drivers – simply did not materialize. In fact, just the opposite. Adolescent use is slightly down in the legalization states, and there has been no increase in DUID cases.
We gave our strong support to I-502 in Washington (as well as A-64 in Colorado) even with its limitations, because of the crucial need to demonstrate that a majority of the voters in a state would support full legalization, and that legalization actually works on the ground, with few, if any, unintended consequences. Those first two victories made it possible for our subsequent victories in Alaska and Oregon in 2014, and hopefully many more to follow.
Issue 3 in Ohio Should Be Approved
There. Now I have said it, clearly and unequivocally. Issue 3 in Ohio should be endorsed by all who favor legalization, even with its imperfections. As the NORML board of directors concluded when we endorsed the Ohio proposal, unless the current proposal in Ohio is approved, it will likely be five years or more (perhaps far longer) before marijuana will be legalized in Ohio. Under their current laws, roughly 12,000 Ohioans are arrested on marijuana charges each year. Does anyone really believe we should sit by waiting for a more acceptable version of legalization to magically appear, while another 60,000 to 100,000 smokers are arrested in Ohio?
In addition, just as the victories in Washington and Colorado were especially significant because they were the first, and opened the door for serious consideration in additional states, it would be an enormous step forward politically to adopt full legalization in Ohio — a large, conservative midwestern state. And it would suddenly put full legalization on the table for serious consideration by many other similarly situated states.
Its time to legalize in Ohio.
INFOGRAPHIC: Up in Smoke: A Timeline of Marijuana Use in the U.S
Up in Smoke: A Timeline of Marijuana Use in the U.S
Calling All Activists!
When the 2008 election was still up in the air, Barack Obama was campaigning as a medical marijuana-friendly candidate. In that time, we have seen numerous states struggle towards legalizing medicinal marijuana, and still others that have already passed their legislation are finding constant resistance in the forms of unconstitutional bans and arbitrary paperwork that continually holds up the process of getting safe medicine to patients.
California has seen more dispensary raids from the IRS and DOJ during Obama’s reign than during all of GW Bush’s eight years. Why is this happening? We need to raise our voices, louder and more unified than ever. America stands at a crossroads, but now more than ever patients and all citizens must stand behind what they believe in. In this modern era of instant communication, our country can have a stronger, more powerful voice, if only we are willing to use it.
For people who care about the laws of our land and the future it endows, there is so much that can be done. Stand up and make your vote count! Become active in your community. Join a protest at city hall, help spread education and awareness about all the benefits of medical marijuana, or maybe even go as far as to head to D.C. and march on the state capital. Show them who we are by making our presence known through peaceful protests. For those who are less inclined to leave the home, or who simply cannot, there is still much that can be done. Concerned citizens should call their legislators, write a letter to your congressmen, sign petitions, send emails, start a blog and rile up some additional supporters and encourage them to get involved.
Dispensaries have flourished in recent times and have grown some of the finest medication in the world. Colorado, California and other states have led by example, but make no mistake,we still have a long road ahead. The medical marijuana system may not be perfect yet, but it is working in the right direction. Other states, like New Jersey and Hawaii, have passed laws that allow for programs, yet their laws were poorly constructed and they remain unusable. In Hawaii you can get a card to allow you to medicate legally, but there contain no provisions for legally procuring medicine. It is legal to grow and own up to seven plants, but it is still illegal to purchase marijuana plants or seeds to begin a personal grow operation. Also, many employers utilize zero tolerance drug policies that make no exceptions for people who are otherwise abiding by state laws. How does a patient grow their own plants if they can’t hold down a job, therefore they have no income for a home to grow in, or even have money to feed themselves?
Americans need to stand up now and tell all the power-hungry naysayers that we will no longer tolerate the abuse of power and stifling of freedoms. We the people have no more excuses for being lazy. If you can’t figure out how to get involved, then look no further. Marijuana.net will spell it out for you.
Are you in California? Cypress Hill’s San Bernadino SmokeOut was Saturday March 3rd, and two days earlier was the March on LA’s City Hall to demonstrate unhappiness with how laws are being carried out. Thank you to those who made it out. There is more for us to do. Those near San Francisco will also have their opportunity to ensure Safe Access. March will see several County Board Meetings that need people to help out.
Maryland is another state seeking to pass laws in favor of medical marijuana. They need help to guarantee it passes. Furthermore, the right law needs to be passed so that Maryland does not become another New Jersey or Hawaii. Want to help? Check this out.
Michigan is reviewing its current laws and is looking to alter them with several bills that will give its program a chance to grow into something as grand as California, and not stumble where the Golden state has. Concerned citizens near Lansing are holding a forum on March 4th to coordinate a uniform front as they approach legislators and hope to pass a proper set of laws.
We can’t list what every state is doing right here, but we encourage you to find out and help wherever you are. Marijuana.net has been covering developments for some time so please check our archives to find what is relevant. Here are a few other resources for anyone who wants to help.
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
One more thing. For those who find that political activism is the right thing to do, don’t stop with marijuana laws. This country needs more people to help it be the best it can be. As more people stand up for what they believe in, America will find itself less dominated by the interests of corporations and power-grabbing politicians. It is our country, fight for it.