NORML 2006 Annual Conference - From Grasstops to Grassroots: Working Together Effectively at All Levels

By "Radical" Russ Belville

National NORML Conference 2006

Each year, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) hosts a national conference for marijuana activists. The leaders of these organizations come from Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, and other national and international cities. NORML presents educational seminars featuring some of the top names in medicine, law, and politics, discussing the state of marijuana policy in medicine and criminal justice throughout the US and the world.

It's also a forum for networking with other activists from all over the country and to share current stories of success and ideas for progressive changes in the future, or to share stories of tragedy, collateral damage in the War On (Some Taxpaying American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, and the frustration borne of fighting for cannabis freedom deep inside unfriendly territory... like Oklahoma, for instance.

It's also a four-day non-stop peaceful pot party with stoners so stony that aspiring potheads search them out like Luke Skywalker seeking Yoda on Dagobah.

"Radical" Russ Belville	"Smoke Dogg"
"Morgan Fairchild"	Madeline Martinez

On the Road Again...

This year's conference was in San Francisco, California. It was a great location to inspire a road trip, which is fortunate since I avoid flying (not out of fear; I just believe in the 4th Amendment). Traveling with me was Madeline Martinez, the executive director of Oregon NORML, her husband, "Smoke Dogg", and my wife, uh, "Morgan Fairchild" (some of the names and photos have been changed to protect the Googlephobic). My three passengers are all patients in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, so it was also good to drive, so they could carry their medicine legally all the way south to the California state line (at which point we parked the Jeep and the patients dutifully turned over the contraband to a helpful California state trooper who'd pulled over Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for speeding).

The Mighty Jeep

The drive from Portland to San Francisco is about eleven hours and with current gasoline prices costs about seventeen thousand dollars. OK, not quite that much, it was only $228 in my gas-guzzling Jeep, and between four people that works out to $57 each - much cheaper than a flight and the seats are comfortable, the meals are better, and the entertainment in the cabin is much, much better. We also timed the gas stops so we wouldn't be caught empty in the $3.19/gallon areas of San Francisco. We spent as low as $2.69 in Oregon and as high as $2.85 in parts of California. (I'm only going into this much detail so that when we re-read this in five years, we can all laugh about being scared of three-dollar gas.)

I drove most of the trip, with "Smoke Dogg" handling co-pilot and 2nd driver duties. Madeline and "Morgan" made sure that the blankets and pillows we had packed didn't unexpectedly fly out of the Jeep. There were a few notable points about the long drive down I-5:

	Northern California is still incredibly beautiful. This is I-5 heading south toward Mt. Shasta. If there ever is a secession to form the fictional Republic of Cascadia, then the State of Jefferson certainly deserves to join us.
	No road trip to a NORML Conference is complete without this obligatory picture outside Weed, California.
	This irritating bit of free speech was found stuck along with three others to a gasoline pump in Oroville, California. It reads: "Illegal Aliens, deport them Now. Seizure of property and garnishment of wages of the illegal aliens now. Deport all illegal aliens, now." It looks like one of those free address label stickers you get in the mail. When all the illegal aliens are deported, I wonder if the author of this sticker is going to be picking strawberries, landscaping, or washing dishes.

Arrival

We arrived Wednesday evening at the Holiday Inn Golden Gate. We missed the pre-registration for the conference, so there was nothing to do but get in the elevator and go to our rooms. Both Madeline & I had booked non-smoking rooms, but I asked for a room change and was lucky to get it. Smoking in a non-smoking room - even medical cannabis - would cost us $250 if discovered. That was good news to "Morgan", Madeline, and "Smoke Dogg", who would need a place to medicate with cannabis.

As we stepped to the elevator, a large round man in a beret and a graying beard was speaking to the people waiting for the lift. At first he reminded me of '70s rocker Dr. John; he was a charismatic fellow and wore a conference laminate around his neck. He saw that we were fresh arrivals with that eleven-hour roadtrip look on our faces. "Here for the conference?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "Just drove in from Portland. We're with Oregon NORML."

"All right, man! Hey, when you get settled, there's a 420 at 708. It's the place to be." The elevator arrived and the doors opened. "Dr. John" got into the elevator, where NORML Founder Keith Stroup and Emperor of Hemp author Jack Herer were already involved in a conversation.

I turned to Madeline and said, "Wow, I feel like I'm about to meet all of my idols. It's like a music fan being backstage at Woodstock!" Then I demonstrated my ignorance and felt like a total doobie newbie when I said, "Wasn't that Jack Herer and Keith Stroup [rhymed with 'poop']"

"It's Stroup, rhymes with 'cop'," she corrected, "and yes, you are going to meet all of your idols this weekend."

"708" is "420" after Taxes & Inflation

After we secure our belongings in our room on the 16th floor, we headed down to this 708. Upon exiting on the seventh floor, you could tell that the entire floor had been rented out to attendees of the conference. The sticky skunky sweet smell of sativa touched my senses just as soon as the elevator doors opened. Room 708 was next to the elevator and three people already stood outside the door, knocking loudly in an attempt to be heard within over the sound of loud '70s-era protest rock and many partygoers.

The door opened eventually and the smiling face of a tall skinny white dude with five-foot dreadlocs invited us in. Cannabis smoke billowed out of the threshhold of the door, literally thick enough to be seen in the hallway. "Dr. John" was seated at a large table, playing CDs on a large and loud stereo. His wife sat near him, eagerly passing a pipe around to the next person. The place was one of the (smoking, obviously) suites at the Holiday Inn. It had a large living area, its own full kitchen, and a large outdoor patio overlooking the 6th floor pool area.

There were people everywhere and they represented the diversity of the cannabis movement. There were young vegan chicks and young college honors coeds. There were old long-haired counterculture hippies and old short-haired establishment activists. There were black dreadloc'ed Rastafarians and white dreadloc'ed artists. There were tie-dyed kids in t-shirts and buttoned-down kids in suits. There were medical marijuana patients in wheelchairs and just plain old folks who like to get high.

I almost immediately met up with a guy from North Carolina by the name of "Land" (short for Cleveland, apparently a common nickname in the South). "Land" stood out because he was one of the few people taller and larger than me and he had the highest-pitched laugh that I'll never forget. He's about to graduate law school and is going to work as a public defender. I also ran into Bailey, a kid from University of Missouri, a skinny guy with those long Luke Perry sideburns (am I dating myself with that reference?) who talked to me very quickly for a long time. I don't recall anything he said, but I was impressed by his enthusiasm and passion for the movement. I thought about how I was probably drinkning my first wine cooler before this guy was born.

As I moved out toward the deck, there was a group of college students gathered around talking with Keith Stroup (rhymes with 'cop'). The conversation turned toward medical marijuana, which is unfortunately not available in the states in which these students reside. I offered up the fact that we helped lobby Oregon's legislature to approve new limits of up to 24 ounces of medicine per patient.

"That's a pound and a half of pot!" one of the students exclaimed.

"That's true. Now, in Mendocino County, California, they are allowed up to three pounds, but California laws are applied on a county-by-county basis. Oregon's the only state with statewide limits this high." I repeated that fact many times over the span of the conference and I nearly always got the same reaction. I even explained the whole "affirmative defense" trade-off that is maligned by some people here in Oregon and still everyone expressed that the 24 ounce limit was worth it. (Well, everyone except a certain medical doctor... I'll get to him later.)

"How many patients would really need more than 24 ounces?" "Land" asked me.

"Well, maybe a few, maybe a couple of dozen," I responded. "But really, the only way someone is going to know if you have more than 24 ounces is if you tell them. Plus, state and local law enforcement can only seize the amount above 24 ounces, and furthermore, you'd have to have a prosecutor who wants to procede on a case involving someone incredibly ill and suffering... not good PR, if you ask me."

Stroup picked up on the conversation and explained how he felt that the medical marijuana issue may actually end up hurting the cause of ending adult marijuana prohibition, because it sets the precedent that marijuana is so dangerous that only really really sick people can have it, because they're suffering so much that the alleged harms of marijuana are outweighed by the little comfort given to the disabled.

I was stunned because that is exactly the feeling I have had getting involved with the medical marijuana movement. "What would help patients more than marijuana that is available to all adults? No more worry about supply or police interference or criminally-high prices!" Stroup agreed with that sentiment and he and I went on for quite awhile discussing marijuana policy, particularly in Oregon with our new initiative for city of Portland. The whole time there's a voice in the back of my head saying, "Dude, you are having a heavy personal political conversation with the founder of NORML! Just a year ago, you didn't even know there was an Oregon NORML!"

As the night wound down, I ended up talking with that group of college kids while Madeline, "Smoke Dogg", and "Morgan" socialized with the other partygoers. At one point, an older guy wearing a suit, a guy named Gil, asked if I was one of the comedians who'd be performing at the Saturday benefit. I said no and wondered why he'd asked. He told me that I was very charismatic and funny and just thought I must be a comedian. This would turn out to be a theme for the conference...

The Morning of 4/20

The conference begins. I'm up at 8:00 AM, wearing a crisp, white dress shirt with a newly-embroidered "Oregon NORML" logo on the chest, my American flag tie, slacks and the ubiquitous reversed black 100% hemp marijuana leaf pageboy cap. Now, may I remind you this is after a day of driving and a night of partying til the wee hours of the morning. I can assure you this pressed, refreshed, and dressed to impress look would not be possible after a night of alcohol partying.

As you can see from the movie clips above, the vending areas outside the meeting hall were bustling with people even before the official conference began. Here are just a few of the groups represented:

Karen Malovhr, state-chapter coordinator of NORML	"Home Grown Marijuana" Bag	Stop The Drug War / Drug Reform Coalition Network	Oakland's Measure Z - Marijuana as Lowest Law Enforcement Priority
"Oaksterdam" cannabis Co-op from Oakland, CA	Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies	Jack Herer, The "Emperor of Pot"	Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Students for Sensible Drug Policy	SSDP Products	SSDP Literature	California Dispensary Vendors
Vendors from California NORML	"Freedom" T-Shirt	Hemp Products	"Just Say Humboldt"

All the vendors had excellent products and very good literature to read through. However, what I considered to be the most impressive display of the vending area was this wonderful exhibit of cannabis medicine in so many forms and varieties. Back when I was coming up, there was two kinds of pot: the pot you had, and the pot you wished you had. Lately I've matured to the "good pot / bad pot / no pot" worldview. This display showed me just how much I still have left to learn.

The Conference Begins

The first panel of the conference opened with a welcome from Steve Dillon, Chair of the Board of Directors of NORML. (Hear Dillon's speech from NORML.org.) He spoke about the theme of this conference, From Grasstops to Grassroots, and how we're striving to work together from the national organizations like NORML, SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy), ASA (Americans for Safe Access), DPA (Drug Policy Alliance) and others (the "grasstops") down to the local, college, and state chapters who can affect the most change (the "grassroots"). Dillon pointed out the following national stats:

• 72% of Americans favor decriminalization (cease arresting) for simple marijuana possession.
• 75% of Americans favor safe legal access to medical marijuana.
• Marijuana is consistently rated as the safest recreational choice over alcohol and tobacco.
• 50% of the adult population in America - 100 million people - have admitted to trying marijuana.

So why does marijuana remain illegal? Not for medical or social policy reasons, but because of control, fear, greed, lies, racism, and pure politics. Dillon then showed how these irrational drug policies are harming our nation and our youth:

• Every 42 seconds someone in America is arrested for marijuana possession.
• Marijuana arrests have doubled since 1993.
• Since this expanded focus on marijuana wince 1993, the price of marijuana has skyrocketed, while the price of cocaine and heroin has plummeted. In any case, all these drugs are just as easy to get (if you can afford them) as they ever have been.
• There have been 17 million marijuana arrests since 1965.
• Since 1998, 190,000 college students have been denied aid due to the Higher Education Act, which denies federal aid to any student with a drug conviction (but not convictions for rape, murder, burglary, or assault).

Dillon closes by noting that if the goal is to eliminate marijuana use, then the tactics aren't working. In 1937, the year of the Harrison Narcotics Act that prohibited marijuana, there were 5,000 marijuana users. Today there are 15 million regular users of cannabis.

Allen St. Pierre, the Executive Director of NORML, then took the stage to make the introduction for the winner of the Rufus King, Sr., Award for courage and conviction in standing up for an end to the drug war. In his remarks, he cites the work done in California and elsewhere to make marijuana legally available for patients.

St. Pierre points out the hurdle that we have to clear with the public is simple. We have them on our side with medical marijuana and with the right to personal privacy in the home. Where we lose the general public is with their perception of marijuana use as immoral. He notes that Pew Research polling shows 50% of the American public believes marijuana smoking is immoral, which is about the same percentage that believe homosexuality and abortion to be immoral. Clearly, he says, we are involved in one of the main battles in the "culture war".

St. Pierre believes the best way to fight this perception is by "coming out of the closet" and showing your friends, family, and co-workers that marijuana use is nothing to be ashamed of. He tells us how we are an "identifiable subculture" and as such should proud of that, to showcase our talented people and educated people, to laud and praise our shared ethics of peace, happiness, and cooperation.

St. Pierre closes by telling us about the people we most need to convince in order to get positive change. He informs us that among people 28-50, when you ask "Should marijuana be regulated statewide, like alcohol or gambling?", 49% answer "no" and 46% answer "yes", so we are very close to a tipping point. However, when those 28-50-year-olds get married, their "no" response increases. The same goes for 28-50-year-old Republicans. And the group of 28-50-year-olds who most oppose marijuana regulation? Parents, with 57.6% saying "no" to taxed and regulated marijuana.

Next up was the winner of the Rufus King, Sr. Award, Ross Mirkirimi. Mirkirimi is a City/County Supervisor in San Francisco, and one of the highest ranking Green Party elected officials in the country.

Mirkirimi was an incredible public speaker (listen for yourself) and hit on reasons why both Republicans and Democrats should be opposing the War on Drugs. He was so inspiring that Madeline told me he may have just pushed her out of the Democratic party and over to the Greens. (Certainly our Legal Director, Paul Loney, who is a state delegate for the Oregon Pacific Greens.)

Mirkirimi explained the one of the ways of getting through to parents is to show that the parents' goal of keeping drugs away from their children is actually poorly served by a regime of prohibition. "If government prohibition was effective," he said, "then there'd be less drug users, less call for drug treatment, higher perception of risk, less availibility... but in every way you measure it, they're losing the War on Drugs." He continued by showing how one fourth of the sellers of drugs are 12-17-years-old, because prohibition creates such a lucrative, unregulated market that never checks IDs.

Strategies, Successes, & Stories

The next panel featured activists working at the grassroots level sharing their stories of success and proven strategies in overcoming prohibitionist rhetoric and overturning prohibition laws. First up was Martin Martinez, whose doctor was key in implementing Washington's medical marijuana law. Martinez works with the LifeVine Clinic in Seattle.

Martinez (listen for yourself) pointed to municipal measures like Seattle's I-75, which made marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority in the city. Since that initiative passed, arrests for marijuana in the city have dropped by 80%.

Vivian McPeak spoke next. Vivian is one of the organizers behind Seattle's Hempfest, the largest open-air marijuana rights festival in the world with over 180,000 visitors every year.

Vivian, with his non-conformist beard and dreadlocs look, spoke about how some feel the tie-dyed hippies and pierced young people are the "Achilles heel" of the movement by presenting a scary or stereotypical appearance not readily accepted by the mainstream. McPeak pointed out how these people are the ones providing the most reliable and dedicated behind-the-scenes support for all our community events, and that "we all have a position" in the movement.

McPeak was also observant of the fact that the "youth argument" - keeping our kids safe from drugs - is the only good selling point the prohibitionists have . Our movement, he said, needs to focus more on the youth marijuana abuse prevention and education to innoculate our position against the "youth argument".

Alison Holcomb, a defense attorney with Sensible Seattle, defended Martin Martinez in his medical marijuana trial, which ended in a hung jury, 8-4 to acquit, where all 8 women voted for acquittal and all 4 men voted to convict. She used that to highlight the differences we find in acceptance of marijuana between men and women, where women generally favor treatment and harm reduction and men favor punishment and incarceration.

Roger Goodman is the director of the Drug Policy Project in King County (Seattle) Washington Bar Association. He spoke about the need to stop locking people up for their addictions and instead put that money toward drug treatment. He illustrated how we have a model for helping people who become addicted to alcohol and how education and prevention has succeeded in reducing the rates of smoking in the past couple of decades.

Goodman also encouraged activists to work together with other established groups whose mission may overlap a bit with ours, such as the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and various neighborhood groups.

Sunil Aggarawal from the University of Washington and is the president of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. Aggarawal made the point about how the war on drugs degrades respect for both law enforcement and the law itself by making a crime out of things that are not crimes.

The panel continued with the energetic speech of Nick Licata, the president of the Seattle City Council. Licata trumpeted the success of the Seattle I-75 Initiative, making marijuana law enforcement the lowest priority in the city.

Many in Seattle law enforcement, said Licata, claimed that "lowest priority" was already an unwritten rule of policing in Seattle. Licata pushed for an ordinance. The City Council wanted to issue a non-binding statement of "lowest priority". Licata again pushed for an ordinance.

In a vote that bodes well for other municipal lowest priority initiatives (like the Make Portland Safer campaign we're working on now), the I-75 initiative received a 58% "yes" vote in the primary, which was a better showing than any candidate on the ballot. Since the initiative passed, there has been an 80% reduction in arrests for marijuana possession in Seattle.

The panel concluded with the remarks of Allen Hopper, a Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU's Drug Law Reform Policy Project. Hopper reminded us all that changing the way America thinks about marijuana will not happen from the big organizations like ACLU, but will happen from the bottom up as more Americans realize their marijuana-smoking citizens are no threat.

Ed Rosenthal's Righteous Rant

The next panel to convene was called "Reefer, Rhetoric and Retorts: Winning Ways to Frame the Marijuana Debate". The moderator was David Nott, Presidentof the Reason Foundation, and speakers included author and cultivation expert Chris Conrad, the author of Drug Facts for Common Sense for Drug Policy, Doug McVay, and Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum from the Drug Policy Alliance.

All the speakers had excellent positions and stories to use when discussing the drug war with opponents or those too apathetic to know much about it. You can find many of the same strategies at the Shaffer Library.

However the speech that stuck out in my mind was the words of famous marijuana guru Ed Rosenthal. Ed has been involved in some of the highest profile cases in medical marijuana [UPDATE: US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just voided Ed's federal felony conviction!] and spoke with passion about the insidious and destructive nature of the Drug War. (I'll have to paraphrase, as my recorder stopped at this point and I have only my chicken-scratch notes to work with.)

"There is a RICO-level drug conspiracy in the United States!" Rosenthal boomed. "This conspiracy killed 50,000 to 150,000 people in the US. It's the pharmaceutical industry, it's Merck and Pfizer, the makers of Vioxx and Celebrex, drugs they manufactured and drugs they continued to market even after they knew they were killers. It's a government agency, the FDA, run by the corporate shills from the pharmaceutical industry, supposedly providing oversight, but instead turning a blind eye so Merck and Pfizer can continue to post record profits... Where are the 2nd degree murder charges against these corporate killers??

"Our opposition is not the alcohol, tobacco, wood, pulp, or oil industries. It is just one special interest group that continues to keep marijuana illegal, an interest group whose only interest is in preserving their jobs: the criminal justice and private prison system. It's not about the so-called 'harms' of marijuana; it's all about jobs.

"On the health front, marijuana is not a problem. They've seen the recent study in Los Angeles that shows people who smoke marijuana have lower incidents of lung cancer than people who smoke nothing at all. And people who smoke both cannabis and tobacco show lower incidents than those who smoke only tobacco.

"We've seen lab rats that were engineered without the natural cannabinoids in the brain. Those rats fail to thrive, but when cannabis is administered to them, they survive and thrive.

"We've seen statistics that show that marijuana users who get Alzheimer's disease show much later onset than those who do not smoke marijuana."

Rosenthal continued to poke holes in every reason the drug warriors give for continuing prohibition and finished up with this. "We are a minority in America and need to think and organize like a minority, and yet, we are a majority, since most Americans support medical marijuana and not jailing recreational marijuana users. This is nothing but a RICO conspiracy to preserve jobs."

Irvin Rosenfeld: Federal Medical Marijuana Patient

After these panels concluded, the organizers realized two things:

1) The schedule was running a bit long, and

2) It was approaching 4:20 PM on April 20th.

It would be impossible to seat an audience at the holiest time of day on the holiest day of the year for the cannabis community. Knowing that, the organizers called for a recess at 4:00 PM, told everyone to enjoy and celebrate the 4:20 on 4/20. That meant it was time for me to rescue my wife, "Morgan Fairchild", from our hotel room, where she was dutifully studying for a Chemistry exam, and make the pilgrimage to 708.

It was there that I was pleasantly surprised to meet Irvin Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld is one of six remaining patients out of 28 that were approved in the 1970s for the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program, a federal program borne of lawsuits won through the "medicinal necessity" defense for the cultivation and medicinal use of marijuana.

Rosenfeld got on the program in 1983 to treat a rare degenerative bone disease. Bush the Elder discontinued the program in 1992, but Irvin and the remaining patients were grandfathered in. To this day he receives a tin full of federal government marijuana from his pharmacy, grown at the University of Mississippi's pot farm.

Rosenfeld is a regular on the drug policy circuit, and has also appeared in the national media. Recently, he.was featured on the Showtime series "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" as the comedy magicians exposed the hypocrisy and tragedy of the war on drugs.

But in a room full of medical marijuana patients smoking the finest medical grade cannabis in the world, Rosenfeld smokes joints from his pharmacy supply. He shares with no one and accepts no medicine from anyone; quite an anomaly in the stoner subculture.

"I have to be really careful," Irvin confides. "[The federal government] would like nothing better than to get rid of me and this program altogether."

Irvin's shoulders slump as he explains his dilemma. "The weed grown by government is pathetic. Very low THC content; I have to smoke joints almost constantly just to be free from pain." But Irvin can't partake of any of the Californian or Oregonian medical marijuana in the room, because as far as the feds are concerned, those are prohibited Schedule I substances. Irvin must smoke only his pathetic cannabis, lest he be arrested for drug possession. He also can't share his medicine with others (not that anyone would want any) because then he'd be violating his prescription.

Rosenfeld predicted that the end of cannabis prohibition is coming soon. "The FDA has already approved synthetic marijuana [Marinol] in the US, and both Britain and Canada have approved new medicinal forms of cannabis [Sativex]. We'll see some marijuana legalization within 5-10 years." I wish I shared his optimism.

Rosenfeld told a great story about his work as a stock broker. His offices are in a park that also houses the DEA in Florida. He asked where he could medicate and was told to go to the far side of a parking area. Apparently nobody told the DEA, and within a few weeks, they busted him smoking his doobies in his car - the parking place was right next to the DEA headquarters. Irvin had to make a few calls before he could convince the DEA of his legality; it turns out that the program he's in is no longer taught in the DEA. He had to explain to them what the program was about!

An interesting aside: in telling that story, Rosenfeld told us he has the legal right to drive, even when using his medicine. Written into his program are mandates that he not drive or operate heavy machinery if he is intoxicated from marijuana. But Irvin's weed is so weak and his tolerance is so high that he does not get intoxicated when he relieves his pain. That language is something to think about as the drug warriors ramp up their efforts in "zero-tolerance" for "drugged driving" (read: you have drug metabolites in your system and may not be intoxicated or impaired at all).

Another interesting fact about this federal medical marijuana program is that Rosenfeld incurs all of the expenses related to maintaining his prescription -- the FedEx shipping costs, the cost of the tin, the cost of the labeling, etc.

Madeline Martinez had been listening in and wondered aloud, "if the federal government can ship medical marijuana across state lines, why couldn't Oregon [or any other medical marijuana state] ship medicine wholly within state lines -- no interstate commerce -- using a local shipper with no out-of-state business?" Indeed, that's a good question, but it beggars the bigger point which is:

How can the federal government continue to tell us there is no medicinal property to marijuana when it grows and administers marijuana to six people for medicinal purposes? How can the federal government raid and harrass patients and growers when they themselves are growers supplying medicine for patients?

(Irvin was a wonderful person and very humorous to boot. We had breakfast with him on the last day of the conference. As he loaded up on his second helping of bacon from the breakfast buffet, he told us he was a "good Jew boy; loves my pork!" and followed it up with an outlandish story which ends with Irvin having the power to instantly declare any food product "kosher".)

4:20 on 4/20

Room 708 began to fill up as conventioneers arrived for the celebration of 4:20. The biggest hit (pardon the pun) of the moment was the famous "MOTA" joint rolled by our own "Smoke Dogg". It's a true spectacle to watch the Dogg rolling one of these monstrosities, which he does by hand (no machines for real stoners). If you can imagine for a moment a joint the size of a roll of quarters... well, that's close (maybe closer to a roll of half-dollars).

420 has been in the stoner lexicon for decades now. There are many urban legends about its meaning, that it was California law enforcement code for a drug crime, or how it represented the 420 chemicals in cannabis. Most stoners in the know believe 420 originated with a group of California high school kids who met under a clock tower at 4:20 PM after school to smoke pot, and the time became the codeword for the activity to confuse any suspicious parents or teachers.

Nothing much more to say... in this case pictures speak best:

4:19:57... 4:19:58... 4:19:59...	Arrr! It's 4:20, Mateys!	Ay! Esta Es La Mejor Mota!	Now THAT'S a Joint!
"Smoke Dogg" with a fan	One of the Green Bud Packers	Damn, you could put an eye out with this thing	The college kids of Florida are All Right

Break-Out Sessions: Madeline and other State Chapters

After returning from the 420 celebration, the next panel to form was one of three break-out sessions. While others attended the "High Tech Communications for Effective Advocacy" or "Cultivation and Hash-Making" sessions, I sat in on "Activism 101: For New and Aspiring Activists", a panel featuring our own Madeline Martinez and other local chapter directors.

Karen Malovhr, NORML's State & Local Chapter Coordinator, began the session. She pointed out that the heavy lifting in the drug policy reform movement is performed at the local level. Only by making local changes can we gain acceptance for statewide changes, and then nationwide changes.

As evidence, Malovhr pointed to places like Nevada, where the people behind RegulateMarijuana.org, backed by MPP, are once again poised to place a measure that would legalize posession of less than one ounce of marijuana for all Nevada adults as well as provide a system for distribution and sale of marijuana somewhat like liquor.

She recalled the success of Denver SAFER, a measure that equates marijuana with alcohol and demands that the penalties for the former be no worse than the latter. Denver's initiative also mandates legal possession of up to one ounce of marijuana by adults, and now activists are trying to take the Denver model statewide throughout Colorado.

However, we also need to be wary of roadblocks, as our opponents are not above dirty procedural tricks, outright lying, and getting federal support in their anti-reform campaigns. For example, Maui county in Hawaii attempted an ordinance like SAFER. Five people formed the initiative committee, two of whom were virtually bedridden medical marijuana patients. Once the initiative was accepted, Maui county officials informed them that <em>only</em> the members of the initiative committee may gather signatures -- meaning it is now up to those three healthy activists to gather 10,000 signatures for the ballot!

Malovhr concluded by laying down three guidelines that all aspiring local activists should follow:

• Choose people who share the same mission. Are you intending to just educate, or to lobby? Is the goal enaction/protection of medical marijuana, or all marijuana? Do all the members have the same time commitments? How visible will the group be?
• Slow down. Prohibition wasn't built in a day and it won't be torn down in one day, either. Strategize for the long term by building small.
• Make your goals achievable and measurable.

Tim Beck, the Executive Director of Michigan NORML spoke next. He informed us that Michigan currently has ten counties with chapters as well as municipal and college chapters.

One item he finds very valuable is producing a newsletter for all dues paying members. He explained that the newsletter gives the members a feeling of "getting something for their money" and gets good information out there for meetings and protests. "No matter what," he re-iterated, "the newsletter must go out!"

Beck also explained that it is very predictable that about 20% of your members will end up doing 80% of the work. It is a truism in the corporate world, so it is also in the activism world.

Norma Sapp, the Executive Director of Oklahoma NORML (Norma from Norman with NORML!) then gave us the perspective of an activist fighting in one of the most anti-marijuana states in America. "If you're coming to Oklahoma," she warned, "don't bring your marijuana with you. Just call me."

Sapp is a down-to-earth woman, a farmer and rancher who found herself fighting against cruel prohibitionary policies in Oklahoma, where there are people serving 80- and 90-year sentences for marijuana cultivation.

"Oklahoma is number one in the world in women's incarceration per 100K, and third in men's incarcertation." Sapp told us that Oklahoma is so repressive that until recently, it was the only state in the union where tattooing was illegal.

Sapp explained that in such a situation, sometimes the only thing we can do is to kill the bad bills at the legislature. "Learn the inner workings of your legislature," Sapp continued, so you can lean which committees to lobby, which lawmakers to pressure, and which bills are likely to be voted on.

Sapp also had great advice for aspiring activists. "Join other unrelated groups," like PTA, Rotary Club, or League of Women Voters, "infiltrate them and make them like you by volunteering." Show them that you are a hard-working concerned citizen and they'll take you more seriously in your marijuana reform efforts.

Gary Storck from Madison (WI) NORML was next. Madison is a college town and very friendly toward marijuana reform. In 1977, Madison passed Ordinance 23.20, which legalized the medicinal use of marijuana and personal possession of up to four ounces of marijuana and one ounce of hashish.

Madison is also home to the annual Harvest Festival that brings in marijuana friendly revelers from all around the midwest.

Madeline Martinez, Executive Director of Oregon NORML spoke next. Madeline briefly explained the genesis of Oregon NORML from the old PDX NORML and how we've been instrumental in many of the medical marijuana law changes in Oregon.

Madeline's main direction to those who are starting up in marijuana advocacy is to build community and delegate much of the work to volunteers. She pointed to community-building events like our Million Marijuana March, the Portland Hempstalk, and the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards, that give everyone goals to work toward and provide a positive, active face to the community.

Madeline also stressed the importance of media -- newsletters, mailing campaigns, cable access television, the internet, and podcasting -- as ways to build community and spread the message. She was also very thankful for National NORML's goal of expanding minority and female involvement in the movement. Despite the fact that the Drug War disproportionately impacts blacks, Latinos, and women, our movement still suffers from being too white and too male.

Kris Krane of Students for Sensible Drug Policy showed us how his organization is making inroads on college campuses, with a slightly broader mission than NORML's (changing all drug policy, not just marijuana), but that colleges that have both SSDP and NORML chapters tend to make the most progress in changing their campus policies for the better.

According to Krane, this current college generation is the generation that will end the Drug War. He calls them the D.A.R.E. Generation, after the police-led in-class anti-drug education programs that began in the Nancy Reagan "Just Say No" era. "Being lied to is motivating," said Krane, explaining how this generation sat through the lies of D.A.R.E. and learned that marijuana wasn't the demon weed they were told it was.

Krane also explained that the D.A.R.E. generation has the motivation of the Higher Education Act, which has denied federal college aid to over 190,000 students since 2000.

Lauren Vasquez from University of California Santa Barbara NORML was the final speaker. Vasquez is this year's NORML Student Activist of the Year.

Vasquez talked about the successes at UCSB and the use of the student government system to pass resolutions favorable to the cannabis community. Vasquez also made the point about belonging to and volunteering for other organizations to "normalize" the people who work with NORML. If they see you as someone who is interested in building community,not just interested in one's own personal agenda, they will be more likely to support or at least listen to your points.

The conclusion of this panel marked the end of the first day of the conference. However, there was still plenty of networking and socialization to be done up at Room 708. I spoke personally with many of the people listed as speakers from the text above and I found them all to be very friendly and intelligent people, certainly not the "stoner" stereotype most people think of. It's tough to maintain the idea of the dumb slacker stoner when you're surrounded by medical doctors, lawyers, politicians, Ph.D.s, and honor-roll college students who are sharing marijuana. Not to mention the sheer artistic creativity and engineering acument necessary to produce a quad-chamber water-pipe smoking device like this.

My last meeting of the evening was with Chris Goldstein, who produces the NORML Podcast. He tells me the podcast consistently ranks in the top of the national podcast rankings, outperforming such stalwarts as "Hannity & Colmes" and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Thanks to my meetings with Chris, I will be producing five minute segments of Oregon marijuana news to be included in the national podcast.

The other notable point of the evening was my introduction to what they call a "Mendocino Cigar". It is like a joint, except that instead of rolling paper, a thin sheet of hashish is used to roll up the marijuana. It is incredibly powerful and not for the amateur pothead... and that's why my reporting of the evening's events ends here.

Day Two - Ethan Nadelmann

The second day of the conference began with a reading of two very interesting political tidbits that took place on 4/20.

1. The House of Representatives in the state of Alaska rejected a bill, 21-19, that would have recriminalized the personal possession of marijuana. Personal possession of less than four ounces of marijuana within the home is protected in Alaska by numerous court decisions, based on the right of personal privacy found in the Alaskan constitution. Right-wing Alaskan governor Frank Murkowski has been trying to recrimanalize cannabis for years now; prior to this measure, Murkowski's people tried to tie an anti-marijuana amendment onto a bill dealing with methamphetamine.
2. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) pressured the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a statement that there is no medicinal value in marijuana, a statement easily refuted by a number of marijuana patients in the room and doctors on the panel. A positive aspect is that the story carried on the front page, above the fold in the New York Times, followed with a subheading stating that the FDA's statement directly contradicts the 1999 report of the Institutes of Medicine, and continued to explain about the status of medical marijuana in eleven US states.

These statements were brought to us by the opening speaker of the second day, Ethan Nadelman (listen for yourself), the director of Drug Policy Alliance. He characterized the FDA statement as the widening of the political fight over marijuana, the "desperate last gasps of a tyrannical administration."

"John Walters [the drug czar] is not interested in helping addicts or controlling drugs," Nadelman stated, "but only interested in coerced treatment with 'God' on the front page," a reference to court-mandated drug treatment that follows the pseudo-religious tenets of the 12-step program.

"John Walters can't give up on marijuana," he continued. Nadelman assembled the pieces of the drug war puzzle, showing us all how there is now an entire industry based on the illegality of marijuana - drug testing, which most targets the presence of marijuana in the body (hard drugs like cocaine, meth, and heroin are flushed from the body in mere days; marijuana is detectable for weeks or months.) He noted how at this moment, the DEA is engaged in a tour to promote the testing of all students for drugs, whether involved in sports (the first excuse the Supreme Court allowed), any extracurricular activities (the most recent Supreme Court ruling), or juts for being in school (the next ruling the DEA would like to see).

Nadelman also discussed some of the difficulty in fighting today's drug warriors. "They're invisible," Nadelman said, explaining how drug czar John Walters and DEA head Karen Tandy are very reluctant to be interviewed by the press or to debate their opponents. "They're trying to defend a 20% minority position; I'd be invisible, too," he said, referring to opinion polls that show support of medical marijuana at 75%-80% nationwide. "The last guy [drug czar] Asa Hutchinson was from the legislative world; he loved to debate. Now, the less the drug warriors are in the news, the better, but that also means we don't get the opportunity to rebut their claims."

Nadelman's voice rose as he pointed to the success of the medical marijuana movement. "There are 219 medical marijuana dispensaries in California; 37 dispensaries in San Francisco alone." The crowd cheered this statement and Nadelman applauded the coming together of various drug law reform groups (like NORML, DPA, MPP, ASA, DRCNet, SSDP, CSDP, etc.) primarily around the medical marijuana issue, with that support leading to a national dialogue about all drugs.

The law-and-order types can be hard to convince, because they see drug use as something that requires strict regulation. The key to reversing that argument, he explained, is showing that "prohibition is the abdication of regulation" that puts the control of drugs in the hands of criminals.

"We smoke pot," Nadelman said, "but we also hate drugs. We've seen the worst of what can happen with drugs." Nadelman explained how we have seen the overdoses, the addictions, and the turmoil caused by a drug habit gone out of control in our friends and families and maybe even ourselves. However, "there is no legitimate basis for differentiating between addicts," he continued, whether they be addicted to alcohol or cocaine. We long ago decided that addiction to alcohol is not a crime and that the best method to help the alcoholic is in the realm of treatment, not criminal justice.

In fact the fastest growing alliance in drug law reform comes from the people who work in the recovery community, people who realize that the locking up of drug users is only creating more addicted drug users. Then Nadelman dropped a sobering fact: In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the religious mullahs who control the county have decided that methadone treatment and clean needle exchange programs for heroin addicts are acceptable under the strict religious "Sharia" law. Isn't it crazy that the Sharia law that mandates women cover themselves in public, never travel alone with a male non-relative, and be denied the right to drive - that law is more progressive when it comes to heroin addicts than our own.

"Whether you like drugs, hate drugs, or don't care about drugs," Nadelman concluded, "it is clear that the criminal justice solution to drugs does not work."

...to be continued ...check back often, as I'll be adding more chapters throughout the week