The Super Bowl bet between Washington and Colorado NORML chapters, along with interviews with NORML board members Rick Steves and Kevin Oliver from Washington, was featured this morning on NBC’s Today Show. Additionally, Marketplace, heard on National Public Radio, also covered NORML chapter wager and the fact that the two teams competing for NFL title are from the states with legal cannabis sales.
Thank you for the positive Super Bowl exposure.
Nice PR victory!
Something to keep the national narrative on legalization going are these aspects.
Get more marijuana states to have more reciprocity agreements. Look at all these states that don’t have reciprocity agreements with one another. First, get them linked with reciprocity agreements. Then, get the more prohibitionist states such as New Jersey to lighten up its MMJ laws to soften up to that of Colorado or Washington, making NJ more liberal on cannabis than it currently is. Don’t stop there. Keep weaving that web of cannabis states to surround the tougher non-cannabis states (Alabama, South Carolina,Pennsylvania North Dakota for example)to influence them. Any airlines with direct flights between the two recreational states that will allow transport by passengers and for trade between the states, yet? The feds have been against that, but that needs to change. Feds have to allow domestic air travel with cannabis. When I stated calling off the federal dawgz that’s what I meant. Dare I bring up drugs coming back in soldier’s coffins, Iran-Contra? You can allow air transport. It’s been done before with selective non-enforcement of laws. So what is with this Imperial Presidency backlash shit against Barry because of allowing legal cannabis banking? Like Ronnie Reagan and Poppy Bush didn’t pull the same shit looking the other way. When you have the net of state reciprocity agreements it’s more likely the feds will have to relent.
Arizona: YES –
Quote
The act defines a ‘visiting qualifying patient’ as a person ‘who has been diagnosed with a debilitating medical condition by a person who is licensed with authority to prescribe drugs to humans in the state of the person’s residence.’
California: None
Colorado: None
Delaware: YES – when the laws go into effect prior to May, 2013
District of Columbia: None
Hawaii: None
Maine: YES –
Quote
Authorizes visiting qualifying patient with valid registry identification card (or its equivalent), to engage in conduct authorized for the registered patient (the medical use of marijuana) for 30 days after entering the State, without having to obtain a Maine registry identification card. Visiting qualifying patients are not authorized to obtain in Maine marijuana for medical use. Me. Rev. Stat. Tit. 22, §2423-D (2010).
Michigan: YES –
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Authorizes visiting qualifying patient with registry identification card (or its equivalent) from a State that also allows the medical use of marijuana by visiting qualifying patients, to engage in the medical use of marijuana. Also authorizes a person to assist with a visiting qualifying patient’s medical use of marijuana. Mich. Comp. Law § 333.26424(j) (2008).
(other state, district, territory, commonwealth, or insular possession of the U.S. must offer reciprocity to have reciprocity in Michigan)
Montana: YES –
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Authorizes qualifying patient with registry identification card (or its equivalent) to engage in the medical use of marijuana. Also authorizes a person to assist with a qualifying patient’s medical use of marijuana. Mont. Code Ann. §50-46-201(8) (2009).
Nevada: None
New Jersey: None
New Mexico: None
Oregon: YES –
Quote
The Oregon law does not include a reciprocity provision. However, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled (and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program has confirmed) that patients from out of state are permitted to register with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program to obtain a registry identification card, the same as an Oregon resident, which will protect them from arrest or prosecution while in Oregon. These out of state patients are required to obtain a recommendation for the medical use of marijuana from an Oregon licensed physician. State v. Berringer, 229 P3d 615 (2010).
Rhode Island: YES –
Quote
Authorizes a patient with a debilitating medical condition, with a registry identification card (or its equivalent), to engage in the medical use of marijuana. Also authorizes a person to assist with the medical use of marijuana by a patient with a debilitating medical condition. R.I. Gen. Laws § 21-28.6-4(k) (2006).
Vermont: None
Washington: None
Sources:
http://forum.grasscity.com/medical-marijuana-usage-applications/849472-state-reciprocity-agreements-where-you-can-travel-medicate-legally.html
Duplication of cannabis legalization outside the U.S. By land size there is probably no state in other countries where legalization to the square miles/kilometers extent will first occur so what we are looking at is provinces or even counties, at that level.
If the counties or provinces where UK (Colin Davies), Dutch (Nol van Schaik), Germans (Georg Wurth–just to name a few of my favorites–and advocates and entrepreneurs in other countries would allow legal cannabis medically and recreationally beyond the city level as is the case in the Netherlands then you can do away with the stupid weedpas. And in Belgium and Germany if you get the respective federal government to leave it up to the states, you can have states allowing basically legal cannabis, in which case there are bound to be cities in Germany and Belgium that will allow it while wide parts of the states will not permit it. The polder model spreads. Vienna doesn’t have any choice but to eliminate the UN prohibition of cannabis because of what has already happened in the US. Then you get reciprocity agreements going amongst neighboring countries such as US, Canada and Mexico And Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark.
Mexico will have to improve the quality of its cannabis to compete with domestically produced cannabis so under the guest worker program from immigration reform to stay legally if things work out that way. Who knows what DC politicians will craft immigration reform? You guess is as good as mine, probably better. It would be great to see superb Mexican tropical varieties in the US and Canadian shops.
Michele Leonhart and other prohibitionists need to stop resisting and need to craft how national legalization will be implemented. I’m sure you prohibitionists read this stuff, and that you despise legalizers like me. You need to keep your jobs and pensions, you federal and staties, and the cannabis community is the only bunch out there willing to pay the taxes that will do that for you. Just retool your drug task forces for meth, heroin, crack, you know, the stuff that really truly kills people. Get over it already. It is logical to give you the opportunity to adapt and if not support at least get out of the way of legalization before calling for your resignation and either your replacement or the elimination of your job position–your job stricken from the budget, no allocation for salary. Michele will have her job, but you folks at the state and county level, well, sorry, you need to send the message up to Michele Leonhart to come to her senses. Everybody is waiting for their money in the cash strapped states, and the cannabis community is right there waiting for you to stop persecuting them and can bail you out. Where else you getting the money from? If you prohibitionists had a plan you’d have implemented it already. Jobs, Baby, Jobs! Good Jobs! MariJobs! Good Pay! Good Benefits!
First let me say, thank you, for the manner in which your video depicts todays cannabis consumer. More times than not the mainstream media will portray the cannabis consumer as a criminal and the source of all evil in society today. This insult to truth has lasted too long. Nothing more destroys our progress to a better life than this kind of propaganda. All across America for decades cannabis has been consumed by responsible, hardworking men and women that are the true backbone of this country. They love their families and do no harm to the world. It is so great to see an honest representation of something that is so truly American. Yes, American. It matters not what we do within the scope of our freedom as much as it matters how much we respect what others do within that same scope. Tolerance is so very important to any society, especially in one as diverse as ours. For those that are feeling outside the issue, please take a moment and investigate the truth. Statistics prove it is closer to you than you might think.
Anyone notice the ad for the muppets new movie. It had a strange capital M.
“Just retool your drug task forces for meth, heroin, crack, you know, the stuff that really truly kills people.”
How about we limit that only to dealers, and stop criminalizing addicts? Drug War tactics do NOT work even for the harmful drugs, in fact, even less so.
I don’t think they’re going to go for your deal, Oracle, because they know that their organization is entirely based on abuse of power and going after victims. If we went for a more public health approach (you know, the successful approach) to hard drug addiction, stopped criminalizing addicts and, by extension, criminalizing the American people a priori in a vain attempt to catch addicts, scum like Leonhart and crew wouldn’t have a job at all. If they were limited only to busting dealers, they’d at least take some heavy cuts and a lot of them would lose their jobs. And don’t forget, targeting addicts, and especially targeting MJ users, is a nice safe way to make it look like you’re a “hero” who is “protecting ‘Murica”, low risk and high reward, and the more “bad guys” (ie: addicts who are victims of both dealers AND the Drug Warriors) they catch, the more funding they get. MJ users are safe harmless people who rarely carry guns, and they wouldn’t want to actually endanger their precious little selves to earn that “hero” mantle, after all.
The fact is that even just cutting MJ will eliminate the vast majority of their justification to exist, and what is left to them will be infinitely more dangerous. Right now, they can bust thousands, even millions, of harmless MJ users every year and have the unwashed masses celebrate their “courage” in fighting “the bad guys”, and reap huge rewards in terms of money and expanding power to abuse, at the same time being able to minimize their contact with the actually dangerous elements of the drug world. Take just Mj out of that equation, much less all users, and they make maybe only hundreds of busts every year, and those busts would be much more dangerous. These people don’t WANT to focus on actually dangerous drugs because they are stupid, putrid cowards who are drunk on their own abusive power and unearned wealth, and there is no point in trying to reason with pieces of garbage like them.
No, I think we’re on the right track, fighting on the political front and raising awareness and gaining the popular opinion that is going to force those politicians to bend. If we could pressure non-Drug War profiteering companies in the same way, for example, pushing them to end their testing programs and making them aware that companies that test have higher rates of hard drug use, and that they are NOT winning any PR points by violating their employees “for the greater good”, we could drain a hell of a lot of funds from at least one POS Drug War profiteering company that has been spending billions to keep MJ illegal to protect their own ill-gotten gains.
But these bastards like Leonhart have NOTHING to gain and EVERYTHING to lose if we legalize MJ, and there is NOTHING any of us can say to make them change their minds on that. They’ve devoted their entire lives to the Drug War, they enjoy tyrannical power and privilege because of it, they often own stock in Drug War profiteering companies, and when they retire from the DEA they often either buy a drug testing company or take a choice job in that industry. The legalization of MJ is the lynchpin in their power grab, the lynchpin in ending the Drug War entirely and re-creating our drug policies in such a way that militaristic power-abusing tyrants will no longer have a place in the chain, or at best not as juicy and profitable a place in that chain, and they are NOT going to let it go without a fight. And it is the fight of their lives, you can believe that. Without MJ, there is no Drug War, and without the Drug War their lives are wasted and worthless and they are left with nothing.
Now this Denver vs. Seattle thing is amazing. I hate football and this is probably the first time ever that I knew who was playing in the Superbowl! And on the same year that both states are enacting their legal sales of MJ laws! If I believed in God, I’d think this was a sign–but failing that, it’s still a wonderful coincidence, and profitable to our side for the purposes of spreading awareness of the cause! Great job in exploiting that excellent opportunity!
Weave the net. Sadly, the only way the prohibitionists will allow legalization to happen is if we leave them no choice. A switch to such things as heroin injection rooms and maintenance programs as one would see in Europe should come with the change in the way we look at the war on some drugs. You have to have a strategy other than just bitching about the stuff you don’t like, and you need money to fund the change in treating drugs as a health problem rather than using the heavy hand of the criminal justice system. What would Arnold Trebach say?
Its pretty simple: spend less on drug enforcement and more on drug education. Spend legal marijuana revenue on education and let Americans grow enough hemp to make our families self-sustainable.
I caught the NPR show just as I took a break framing a winecellar in the cold. I leaned back in my truck and forgot for a moment that marijuana was illegal. Some of those guys at NPR really love their job. But I thought the strain-talk and coverage of the NORML bet was on NPRs “the World.” Did they cover it on Marketplace as well?