Tampa, FL – On Sunday April 13th, people came from all parts of the sunshine state to the to attend the first statewide Florida NORML conference at the University of South Florida. While the most critical topic of the day was Question 2 (Florida’s medical marijuana ballot initiative) to be voted on in the November election, there was also a diverse range of information presented by conference speakers such as student rights on campus, organizing and social media outreach.
Panelists consisted of a group of nationally recognized advocates and some of the state’s most high profile reformers. They included federal medical marijuana patient Irv Rosenfeld, Kathy Jordan of the Kathy Jordan Medical Marijuana Act, the Silver Tour’s Robert Platshorn and Florida NORML Chapter Director Karen Goldstein. Other speakers included Catherine Sevcenko, litigation coordinator for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and Eli Zucker, Founding Director of USF NORML and Sabrina Fendrick of National NORML.
The event was organized and hosted by the USF NORML chapter, with support from Students for Liberty and United for Care – the campaign behind Question 2. For more information in how to get involved with marijuana law reform in the sunshine state, please contact Karen Goldstein at normlsfla@gmail.com.
I am extremely concerned that the State of Florida is being proactive in denying/revoking driving licenses of those patients issued medical marijuana cards, once the program is passed via vote, approved, and implemented. Law enforcement seems highly motivated to prevent anyone who consumes any cannabis product, despite its legality, from operating any vehicle or vessel, even though they are passed the level of intoxication and the substance is only detectable in a blood test. This is the primary reason I am moving from this state, though I’ve waited, and my physicians are supportive in my use of cannabis for all (many) of my medical disabilities.
By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms….
Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him.
Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, jazz musicians, and entertainers. Their satanic music is driven by marijuana, and marijuana smoking by white women makes them want to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others. It is a drug that causes insanity, criminality, and death — the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.
Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy
Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis.
Forget that the LaGuardia report suggested that “the drug is so mild that it might well be used successfully as a substitute in the process of curing addiction to other drugs, or even in the treatment of alcoholism”.
Much of the trouble we encounter is due to the trafficker going to a feed store and buying the birdseed and planting cannabis, and all due to the birdseed being scattered during the winter. Hempseed is thrown out in the garden or in the vacant lot. The following year you have a growth of cannabis. That is what happened in Baltimore, and particularly in Philadelphia. I know of a case there where the State officers got over 200,000 pounds of growing plants, as the result of dissemination by bird seed.
How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured…No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer…
Harry Anslinger was an asshole.
Meanwhile nothing gets done in New York State.( Cuckold Cuomo )
NYS will be the last state in the union to get a real medical marijuana program.
NEW YORK POLITICIANS = NO COMPASSION
SHAME ON NEW YORK !!!
New York State Sennate has only 26 more sessions left to bring our marijuana bills up for a vote.
June 19 is the cut off, then it’s full scale campaining until the November elections. Greg Ball can go and hug all the African-American kids he wants in Peekskill, but deep down he is quite content knowing that we have laws in place to lock them up for possession of a weed.
Harry Anslinger would be very proud knowing that even though we have “Negro’s” in politics they still can’t stop the abusing arrests of young non-violent black men.
FACT: There is no medical science behind our marijuana prohibition laws.
@Weed The People- The NYS DOH web site still has no information on Cuomo’s Compassionate Care access to State Police confiscated marijuana for medical use. (This even sounds like the wrong way to go for medical patients). I agree “shame on New York”.
In other news i just came across this article in Yahoo news right now and all i can say is good work, Paul and that your quite impressive and intelligent ! Jerry
Ojai Valley, California
A step toward sanity on marijuana [Editorial]
We pay a price for keeping marijuana illegal [Letter]
•Marijuana bill reflects Mizeur’s leadership [Letter]
•Push to decriminalize marijuana based on false premises [Letter]
See more stories »
Decriminalization there has not led to an increase in marijuana use among the public, but it has shielded many cannabis consumers from a criminal record and the lifelong penalties associated with it.
Only two other states currently have higher rates of arrests for marijuana possession than Maryland. The enactment of this policy will enable police, prosecutors and the courts to reallocate resources to activities that better serve the public, like targeting violent crime. It will also mitigate the disproportionate impact of marijuana law enforcement on communities of color.
Paul Armentano, Washington, D.C.
The writer is deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-decriminalization-letter-20140417,0,4187281.story#ixzz2zBHAV9g9
No respect for patient’s rights. There are few studies out there regarding the operation of a vehicle under the influence of cannabis. If it is removed from the schedule, maybe some real and honest research can be performed. Personally, performance under the unfluence of cannabis is defined by the volumn of consumption. Moderation and honest evaluation of limitations can remove an impaired auto operator. Relegation to the back seat simply because you are a responsible consumer is akin to listing by religious affiliation due to preceived preconditions. We all are prejudicial when we are treated as ignorant opponents.
As the founding director of the USF NORML chapter, I would also like to extend a special thank you to Bianca Garza, Regional Coordinator for United for Care, and United for Care as well. It would be a much harder fight to get medical marijuana legalized without their continued support and manpower.
Florida’s demographics, older, religiously fanatical, racist and right wing is very hypocritical. When they get sick with cancer or other age related disease, they want cannabis. Meanwhile they don’t let anyone else have it.
The prices we’ve paid for 7 decades of propaganda controlled pseudo-science in defining cannabis and its medicinal value is showing a nation that has children from their schools and clubs trained to turn on their caregivers the way criminals controlled another well known nation in the 20th century.
Harry Anslinger,ignorance means not knowing for a minute I thought that might be your problem in life then I decided you must really be stupid to tell your idiotic evaluation of the medicine cannabis,,so study about the medicine or I might just start calling you stupid, stupid ignorant writer.
Blessing you jerk. Fix you opinion, study about the medicine and the fiber before you speak again or else you will always be ignorant and stupid, when it comes to the topic of Cannabis and Hemp.m I mean no harm just want you to study.m
Michael lr