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The Future of Marijuana Law Reform

Remarks by NORML Director Allen St. Pierre at the Drug Policy Alliance Conference November 20, 2005

On behalf of NORML's many supporters and its board of directors, I thank Ethan Nadelmann and the Drug Policy Alliance for inviting NORML and myself to participate in this panel.

On the eve of NORML's 35th anniversary, there maybe no better time in recent history to be involved in marijuana law reform than right now.

When Keith Stroup founded NORML in 1970, there was basically one other group working on marijuana law reform, exclusively here on the west coast, named Amorphia. NORML and Amorphia merged in the early 1970s to form a potent and credible organization that became outspoken for the need to reform marijuana laws.

Today, there are approximately 25-35 incorporated drug policy reform organizations that collectively raise and spend about  $12-15 million per year. In the 1970s NORML's staff topped out at 10 employees. Today, there are over 100 full time employees or consultants in drug policy reform.

Today there are principally five full time and funded marijuana legalization groups:

• DPA
• ACLU (drug policy reform and litigation project)
• MPP
• SAFER
• NORML

ASA is also full time and funded, but at this time, its charter only addresses access to medical marijuana by qualified patients.

Today, according to polling done by the NORML Foundation, only NORML enjoys significant name recognition or branding among the ever-expanding drug policy reform organizations: 25% of the US public knows what the acronym NORML means and what the organization stands for (legalizing marijuana) and 88% of those polled who use marijuana believe NORML is doing a good job.

Today, approximately 80% of funding for drug policy reform comes from 3-5 principle donors; more than 65% of all drug policy reform funding comes from just two people.

Today, approximately 85% of NORML/NORML Foundation's budgets are received in small donations from common citizens who want little more than marijuana law reforms and consumer-based information for cannabis users.

The obvious quandary and paradox this presents should be clear to us all here today:

Is there in fact a popular, stakeholder-based social movement in the US to reform drug laws, notably marijuana laws, as demonstrated by a narrow, homogenous and deep-pocketed funding base rather then from a broad, culturally diverse and stakeholder based constituency?

No matter how one slices and dices the math, the total universe of active supporters for drug policy reform (NORML, DPA, MPP, ASA, etc.), defined as folks who donate money to these 25 or so drug policy reform organizations, by my approximation, is not more than 35,000 to 50,000 citizens, in a country of 300 million and where over 770,000 citizens were arrested on marijuana-related charges; nearly 17 million arrested since 1965.

NORML currently has 11,000 active donors. If we were to employ some of the, in my opinion, fuzzy math found in drug policy reform these days, NORML could declare that it has 45,000 supporters. Our opt-in listserv currently has 43,000 subscribers.

Factually, High Times Magazine, a commercial entity, arguably has the widest and most popular support in drug policy reform with sales of nearly 200,000 units per month.

Further, the total universe of marijuana consumers according to recent US data in 2004 is nearly 26 million. However, when one looks more closely at the data, one can identify about 5-6 million actual marijuana consumers who can be labeled 'stakeholders' in the current effort to reform marijuana laws. By stakeholder I mean folks who regularly use marijuana, cultivate it, frequently or infrequently purchase it and use it for medical purposes. The other 20 million people who use marijuana do so infrequently so as to not really care what the laws are, they don't buy it, only use it when someone offers them some, etc. I think we all know someone like that, don't you?....they're not stakeholders, and therefore they are not necessarily potential supporters or donors to drug policy reform.

In calling ourselves a civil rights movement and making ready comparisons to the four major civil rights struggles of the last century, women's voting rights, minority voting and civil rights, women's access to reproductive choices and recognizing gays/lesbians, it is not hard to recognize that the common denominator among these historic civil rights struggles is that stakeholders misguided laws and legal battles to reform oppressive or invasive government laws.

A vexing paradox is that while we fashion ourselves a mass social movement, as I indicated before, the numbers of known and active supporters of drug policy reform belie this notion. Also, as previously indicated, in the era of "big money" coming into drug policy law reform, not too surprisingly the biggest up tick in drug policy law reform activities occur when, usually, a single philanthropist comes onto the scene, at times, causing a paradigm shift.

In the history of drug policy reform circa 1970, these following examples of paradigm or potential paradigm shifting donors stand out:

• NORML, 1970, Keith Stroup, Hugh Hefner, Playboy/Playboy Foundation
• DPF, 1986, Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese, Richard Dennis, Chicago Resource Center, etc..
• Then the TLC, 1994, Ethan Nadelmann, George Soros, Quantum Fund among other companies
• MPP/MPP Foundation, 2001, Rob Kampia, Peter Lewis, Progressive Insurance

In my view, in the first three scenarios with NORML, DPF and TLC/DPA, there was indeed paradigm shift with NORML successfully spearheading marijuana de-felonization and later decriminalization, The DPF necessarily, professionally, academically and, I think, responsibly expanded the public discourse from marijuana-only to the larger and more complicated topics of the war on all illegal drugs and their users, TLC parlayed DPF's demonstration to a few maverick, yet respected philanthropists and charitable foundations that there is a serious societal need to re-examine and ultimately reform drug laws and took the collective work of organizations like NORML and DPF and championed the biggest paradigm shift in drug policy to date: quasi-legal, codified and near retail access for physician-approved patients who benefit from medical marijuana.

At this time it is too early to honestly assess whether or not Peter Lewis' anti-prohibition oriented philanthropy is going to genuinely affect drug law reform, because, as significant as Mssr. Lewis' annual donations in direct support of drug policy reform, about $6-$8 million per year, too few stakeholders in genuine marijuana law reforms in states where Lewis' money has been principally directed (MD, VT, MT and states like OR, AK, FL, AR and most notably NV) have enjoyed a paradigm shift in the law.

Specifically, an average medical marijuana dispensary or cooperative in CA, such as the ones in LA, SF, Oakland, Santa Cruz, etc...in one hour, on any given day, will have more genuine stakeholders in marijuana law reform who have been positively affected by laws like Prop. 215 than by all the medical marijuana patients currently enrolled in state-monitored programs that can be described as restrictive, and therefore not very consumer/stakeholder friendly states such as VT (#25 legal med. mj. patients), MT (under #50 legal med. mj. patients) and MD (#1 person has used the 'improved' med. mj. law).

Ultimately, mass social movements are organized to effect big changes on society, law and custom. The self-interests of those afflicted by bad laws--not a sense of do-goodism, responsive government or philanthropic altruism--are ALWAYS the driving engines of successful mass social movements. Also, in most previous circumstances, a philanthropist's funding of a drug policy reform group is typically an ephemeral one, 3 or 5 years, rarely more. Groups that are not based in serving the needs of stakeholders and lose their major funder will likely suffer severe atrophy until either they effectively serve the constituency it purports to represent, or finds another major funder.

Looking into the future...Is this a room full of political heretics and social dissenters or pioneers in personal freedom and cognitive liberties? Of course I presume the latter and not the former or you wouldn't be here today.

Beyond these frank assessments, there are further concerns and hopes I possess regarding the direction of NORML and marijuana policy reform that I'd like to convey here today.

Some more impediments and paradoxes we as marijuana law reformers and consumers face in the near future:

• Again, drug policy reform funding base is too narrow;
• Ironically, the more money and employees there are working on drug law reform policy, the higher the annual arrest rates, incarcerations for drugs and diminution of civil liberties under the guise of drug warring;
• This supposed mass civil rights movement continues to suffer from being too white, too male, too irreligious and too upper-middleclass;
• The most recent Gallup poll released on November 1st has notable and disconcerting trends: despite a serious upwards spike in the last ten years from 20% to 36%, the number of Americans polled by Gallup who support legalizing marijuana may have flattened out here as the number of Americans who support legalizing marijuana, 36%, was the same number recorded two years ago; this may mean that the so-called Baby Boom generation may not be increasingly supportive of legalizing marijuana.

Three other brief observations from the Gallup data: Only men between the ages of 25-50, atheists and western states in the US show discernible support for legalizing marijuana.

A harsh reality marijuana and drug policy groups need to acknowledge and effectively confront is that currently there is not a visible support base for reforming marijuana laws as demonstrated by the relatively low numbers of actual supporters of drug policy groups, the recent Gallup poll (and private polling performed by drug policy organizations) indicating a strong plurality of Americans support legalizing marijuana, but not yet in high enough numbers to translate into substantive, consumer-friendly marijuana law reform changes.

You may ask yourself, OK then what does NORML do in support of the stakeholders in marijuana law reform?

Succinctly put:

• NORML has over 130 grass roots oriented chapters in nearly every state
• For 35 years NORML has been convening public conferences, with the most noted experts in the field, on the topic of marijuana and law reform advocacy.
• Save the date: The next national NORML conference is scheduled for 4:20, 2006, April 20-22, 2006 in San Francisco (hand cards are available at the NORML table outside).
• The largest 'protestivals' in the world, such as the Seattle Hempfest, occur in exclusive support of marijuana law reform and, in 2006, the Seattle Hempfest is partnering with the NORML Foundation to expand and enhance the mission and influence of well organized and meaningful pro-marijuana protestivals planned for the future.
• NORML is the only drug policy reform group that researches and publishes cannabis consumer-related information such as state/federal marijuana law guides, drug testing information, arrest data and analysis, information on Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) and consumer health concerns.
• NORML is the only marijuana legalization group that has lawyers, nearly 400 of them, training them to defend marijuana consumers.
• NORML organizes citizen lobby days in Washington DC and in state capitals
• NORML has a large, responsible and accountable board of directors consisting of 19 notable citizens and/or activists, ranging from defense lawyers to physicians to millionaires to hourly wage earners who range from Marxists to Libertarians, from gay to conservative, from young to old.
• Recently NORML pushed further into the vanguard of marijuana law reform advocacy by being the first major drug policy group to offer Podcasting, videoblogging and the organization will soon be launching new and compelling community-building features into its multimedia public outreach.

Very soon, NORML/NORML Foundation will become even more transparent with the public and drug law reformers as one of the only drug policy reform groups to post for public inspection all of its IRS financial data from the last three years.

When it comes to the larger, macro picture of marijuana law reform there are many unique advantages to being NORML's director, one of them is scope.

The Oxford Dictionary defines scope as:

• The extent of the mind's grasp; range of perception or understanding
• Room or opportunity for freedom of action or thought

NORML, the oldest, most recognized and in fact, largest marijuana organization in the world enjoys both scope and independence if it enjoys no other advantages as the genesis of the modern drug policy reform movement and nearly every drug policy law reform group in the world today.

Also, over these last 35 years NORML, and its board of directors, knows its DNA. It is comfortable within its skin and makes no apologies for placing cannabis consumers first and publicly acknowledges that the responsible use of marijuana by adults is nothing to be ashamed of.

Almost two years ago today the Wall Street Journal published an interview with BMW's CEO Helmut Panke, considered by many in the business world as one of the best marketers in the Fortune 500, when asked about whether there is a responsibility to maintaining a company's brand or identification with consumers, he said that premium brands, even well funded ones, will fail if they are only skin deep. Brands must arise naturally from the product's or the service's core DNA. A brand must be recognizable by each human sense that interacts with it. And a brand must never fail on its promise.

What is old is new...SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation).

One of the principle and effective rhetorical points Keith Stroup made over and over in public while heading up NORML in the 1970s was that marijuana consumers should be treated like alcohol consumers.

Over thirty years later, a 23-year old college student and founder of SAFER Mason Tvert, using the same basic narrative of comparing alcohol and marijuana, recently passed a no-fine penalty initiative for the city of Denver.

This campaign is notable to me for a # of reasons:

• -It logically compared and contrasted marijuana and alcohol, when this happens in a public forum, marijuana reform usually prevails.
• The pro-choice narrative and juxtaposition to alcohol left the typical proponents of prohibition, the ONDCP and private anti-drug groups like CADCA, on the sidelines and unable to mount a counter campaign
• While the comparison of marijuana and alcohol was central to SAFER's messaging, the campaign did not draw the ire and big money attack ads from the alcohol industry
• Lastly, re SAFER's aspirations to role out more Denver-like initiatives, my recommendations are to 1) build into the initiative language that creates a joint citizen-police review task force. This way, police will not be so dismissive of reform efforts and will have to communicate with reformers post the initiative. The inclusion of such a provision is arguably one of the most important aspects of Seattle's successful implementation of their recent de-prioritization initiative. 2) as long as SAFER's initiatives seek zero fines rather than Olegalization' or Otaxation' (which, arguably no state can effect under current federal law or USSC precedence set in both OCBC (in 2001) and Raich/Monson (2005)), the federal government will not likely be able to enjoin the law, making it null and void.

Again we 'win' when we ask our fellow citizens to use their brains and its amazing ability to compare and contrast, especially as a means for the average citizen or tepid stakeholder to publicly discuss and or debate marijuana vs. alcohol policies. Edmund Morris is his well-written biography of Ronald Reagan indicates that Reagan gave virtually the same political speech for nearly 20 years, eventually catapulting him to the presidency.

In this vein, I've been doing the same thing at NORML since 1991. One of the features of the speech is a projection that compares the role of a Bartender vs. a ODrug Dealer' [show slide and explain].

Ultimately there are only two known and readily understood models for commercially distributing a non-prescribed, psychoactive substance. When cogently discussed with nearly any public audience, it is nearly impossible for there to be any dispute over what distribution model works better in a democratic, free market-oriented society: Regulation/Control vs. No regulation/No Control

In conclusion, in my opinion, there are currently four important keys to success in marijuana law reform:

• Flip the media from hostile to at least neutral in covering the topic of marijuana
• Continue to buildup stakeholder support base, especially among women and minorities (notably Blacks and Hispanics)
• Come out of the closet and become politically visible
• While we all want marijuana legalized, only about 1 in 3 of our fellow citizens currently support legalizing marijuana. That means that we must really need to concentrate on educating the stakeholder base and general public better, rather, than possibly trying to pass initiatives or legislation that stakeholders in marijuana law reform outcomes and the general public do not YET support.

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