Dan Viets is an attorney in private practice in Columbia, MO, concentrating on the defense of marijuana cases. He has served for many years as the Missouri State Coordinator for NORML. He is a former president of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, former chair of the board of the Mid-Missouri ACLU, former president of the University of Missouri student body and former chair of the City of Columbia Human Rights Commission.
Dan Viets was the recipient of the 1993 Martin Luther King Association’s “Keeping the Dream Alive” award and the 1995 Mid-Missouri “Civil Libertarian of the Year.” Dan was named High Times Freedom Fighter of the Month in March 2005 for his work helping to pass both a marijuana decriminalization initiative and a medical marijuana initiative in the November 2004 election in Columbia.
He received the 2005 Atticus Finch Outstanding Criminal Defense Lawyer award from the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In January 2006 he received the Trailblazer award from the Mid-Missouri NAACP.
He received the “Audiencey Award” from Conan O’Brien on the Tonight Show for looking most like the college professor who could always get you weed. Dan hosts a weekly radio program, called “Sex, Drugs and Civil Liberties”, on a community station affiliated with National Public Radio.
Dan co-authored Missouri’s medical marijuana law and chaired the Board of the 2018 campaign which passed that law, now Article XIV, Section 1 of Missouri’s Constitution. He co-authored Missouri’s law legalizing adult use, cultivation and sales of marijuana and Chaired the Advisory Board of the 2022 campaign which passed that law, now Article XIV, Section 2 of Missouri’s Constitution.
Dan is Chair of the NORML Board of Directors, a member of The NORML Foundation Board of Directors, and a Lifetime member of the NORML Legal Committee.