Dear NORML members and supporters,
As a board member of NORML I am feeling really good. I’m on a drug policy reform high for four reasons:
- We legalized marijuana in my state (Washington) and in Colorado in 2012. (That gives “the lower 48” a whole new meaning.) And, the Brookings Institution gave it a two-year review and concluded it’s a good thing.
- We plan to legalize in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia this November. (I’ll be spending six days on a 12 city barn-storming tour in Oregon, like I did in Washington two years ago, to explain to the confused and frightened that ending this crazy prohibition of our age is good citizenship).
- There’s a great new documentary movie called “Evergreen” which tells the amazing and behind the scenes story of how a committed band of NORML-types waged our successful campaign and did what no one else until then had been able to do: make the responsible adult recreational use of marijuana a civil liberty. In my state and in Colorado now we can smoke pot just because it’s fun…we can invite our friends over and get high legally. Finally: pot is legal, taxed, and regulated. The movie tracks the political battle from start to finish and travels with me as I bring the NORML view to citizens all over the state–from churches to universities and to our capital dome. (Spoiler alert: the “rumble under the rotunda” is pretty messy.)
- And, you and your friends have a great opportunity to empower NORML to end the war on marijuana in your state too by joining or renewing your NORML membership or even joining up your mother. And, for that $50, we’ll send you a copy of the documentary movie, Evergreen.
This is important. We have momentum. There’s lots more to do. That’s why I’m donating these DVDs to NORML for this campaign. And that’s why I’m packing up and heading to Oregon next month for an intense week of media and lectures. We are a team and you matter. What are you doing? All we’re asking is that you send NORML $50. As a thanks, we’ll send you the exciting Evergreen movie.
I am so proud of what we did in Washington State. I’m proud of what NORML is doing nation-wide. And I’m really excited to offer you this movie on DVD. If you care about legalizing pot, this is something you need to watch. Share it with your friends. It’s an inspiration.
Again, to be among the first in the nation to watch Evergreen, please join NORML for $50 or more to receive your DVD copy of this important documentary capturing a historic change in American politics: When cannabis prohibition first ended.
I am contributing the cost of these DVDs to NORML as my personal challenge to you. I hope you’ll kindly join NORML, view Evergreen with friends and family, share with neighbors, co-workers and locally elected policymakers. I sincerely hope you too find the same inspiration we developed in Washington to get the job of ending marijuana prohibition done, once and for all.
Thanks in advance for your support of marijuana law reform in America and NORML’s long-standing public advocacy work.
Warm regards,
Rick Steves
Author and TV Host
NORML board member
Edmonds, WA
Marijuana should be legal everywhere in the the US period. I have always said this. One set of rules and laws so no state is any different than the other. That is what is so confusing to people you can smoke it but the rules are different here and they shouldn’t be it should all be the same.
As a seventy four year old, retired air traffic controller (one of the first female ATC’s), I have discovered the benefits of cannabis for the reduction of pain and other debilitating symptoms of diabetes, arthritis, peripheral neuropathy and other afflictions. Legalizing cannabis use would simplify my life and the lives of many others who are extremely limited in the places where we can travel and live. The medicines prescribed for me prior to my discovery of medical cannabis were extremely hard on my body as well as my cognitive abilities and were addictive as well. Using cannabis has made a great positive change in my quality of life. I’m hoping that the US will understand the logical reasons for legalizing the use of cannabis in all states while I’m still able to enjoy the benefits.
I’m hoping there are NEW pro-cannabis documentaries that will be aired and rerun before this fall’s election. The idea is to counter any criticism the prohibitionists (SAM) are putting out there to persuade voters to defeat pro-cannabis ballot measures and candidates and put out a convincing pro-cannabis meme about states that have legalized for those that want to, all the while leaving the prohibitionists no time to devise a new anti-cannabis approach and message before the election. It’s important they don’t have time to refute until after the election and hopefully after it’s too late because, for example, the legalization measures have already been passed in Oregon, Alaska, DC, and elsewhere.
The prohibitionists get a ticker, tv and print coverage for a day or two, but they don’t get rerun like pro-cannabis documentaries that can be a ratings boost in the right time slot. $adverti$ing dollar$ from the rating$ boo$t. Hell, even Bill O’Reilly must have a ratings spike on the shows the announces in advance he’s going to rant against cannabis.
RICK is it you my bubala?
There should not be any rules for what I put into my body at my house. Anti-prohibition is about “Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness”. I Can grow & consume a plant which supports my life. I can do so at my Liberty, without permission from any government. I can pursue Happiness, however I choose to pleasure myself. Tattoos, overeating, cigarettes, alcohol, sexual preference, beverage size, weed, etc. it’s my body, it’s my choose.
America is a nation of laws. Laws apply to everyone. Rules apply to the ruled, not the rulers. America was founded to escape the very system which we are now becoming. We must unite and stand behind candidates who will bend to the will of the people. For now, we are still free to speak & vote.
I just watched this the other night on —flix,
over all I’m glad they passed reform,as it is a big step in the right direction in the big picture,and in the end I think that’s what sold a lot of people on it. I am convinced that they did not work hard enough to make home growing legal like Colorado did. That is a huge difference to me,as one of the things I really look forward to is growing my own, when(hopefully) my state Montana passes legalization. I also believe the other good point made by the medical opposition is that the implementation of the .05 nano gram DUI , is not only scientifically invalid,as many users wake up in the morning with more than that in their system, but it allows the race war / war on the poor, to run full speed ahead. Neither are just unsavory components of this law,they are both the continuation of injustice.
I fully agree there should be a DUI test, but Cannabis is not the same animal as alcohol,nor opiates.
Cannabis users can, and often do acclimate the affects of Cannabis so well as to go unnoticed to not only the untrained eye,but the trained as well. Others who are maybe casual users are better of,as are the rest of us if they don’t drive.
The DUI test should be a physical roadside test on camera that can be used in court either as prosecution, or defense for the individual case. This will prevent the personal opinion of police officers from intervening in the justice process,as the person will have to be impaired beyond a doubt, by his peers.
Thank you Rick, just paid my $50.00 and it feels great. What a wonderful opportunity for us to renew our membership.
As a marijuana activist, I truly love the professional legitimacy you bring to this much needed documentary of our movement.
Have you ever considered doing a documentary on the history of hemp? Being that you’re right there in Washington with Hemp Industries of America and Dr Bronners Magic Soaps you could crowd source with NORML and create a powerful educational tool. Henry Ford’s hemp car? The Koch brothers timber and petrochemical patents purchased from DuPont in 2004? The whole Anslinger and Hearst racist propaganda to cover up the money trail to the Department of Forestry? The fact that American voters had no idea they were outlawing hemp when the Marijuana Stamp Act passed? And when it was finally declared unconstitutional the War on Drugs scapegoated our social inequality with the Controlled Substance Act.
These are all suppressed parts of our history that are highly relevant today. And I can’t think of a better narrator for the job. What do you say?
I wrote to my Governor about HB 1181 / SB 1182. My mother was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer over 7 years ago. Chemo kept the cancer at bay but also did a lot of damage after her first bout. This time the breast cancer cells have traveled extensively through her nodes. She hasn’t responded well to chemo this time around. 6 treatments later – extremely low BP. Uncontrollabe movements in the nether region. Last week she fell and hit her head because she’s so weak she can’t walk more than 10 steps without needing to sit down. So far not one doctor has mentioned anything about treating her cancer with any form or variation of THC or CBD. It’s the most intense and emotionally uncomfortable situation, to know someone who has loved you their entire life is dying. Plus, knowing she would’ve had a better chance to fight in a State where medical ‘marijuana’ isn’t gridlocked by politics… All I know is, too many people have laid claim to the notion that cannabis has saved them from the demise cancer brings, for it all to be made up. Even if it doesn’t ‘cure’ it, I know my mom would not be the way she is now. Dying in a hospital bed while nurses wipe her because she’s too sick to do it herself. My mom’s never toked, She only has 1 drink on a blue moon, a good christian who always gave to the collection plate, and just a really nice person in general. She won’t take any medications unless a doctor prescribes it. She’s not going to listen to her stoner son try to talk her into ‘getting high’.
Truth be told, from what I’ve heard, the meds would be too busy kicking her cancer’s ass to give her a buzz anyway. But, hey, WTF do I know right?
can not wait public need more inf !!
@ Jeff
I’m very sorry to read that about your mother. We went through a similar thing with my mother a few summers ago, but miraculously my mother gained enough strength back to leave the hospital. She has been battling cancer since 1996…multiple surgeries and drip chemo therapy over the years, is hanging on for dear life. I hope yours hangs in there and has as good a recovery as possible to be with you for a long time yet.
I have been battling cancer for a number of years now too. A surgery and ongoing pharmaceutical prescription pill chemo, with some real nasty shit in front of me in the future, with drip chemo and radiation and surgery again or some combination of the three looming over the horizon as each new day approaches. State Senator Folmer is on board, but my state representative, Dave Hickernell is not. Man, he really puts the HICK in Hickernell. What a hick! He doesn’t give a shit about the evidence. He only gives a shit about himself and getting re-elected, a politician at heart. If he were a true statesman he would be fighting the good fight and doing right by people who can benefit from cannabis.
Stop begging for insane laws to end. Just live free.
Victor, we aren’t “asking”, we are doing.
Personally, I can’t wait to see the money returned and the shithead prohibs in jail. Think locking people up for profit is a good idea? Well, then take your turn in jail for someone else’s profit, mine for a change.
At the end of the Civil War, they burned the south down. Every slaving property was burned. And so it should be done again, but more measured. Instead destroying wealth, it should be returned to the Americans it was stolen from with endless lies about Marijuana as the excuse.
Yeah, I think you may have missed the point here Lazlo. It’s precisely that legal medicinal marijuana is being denied to cancer patients like Oracle here that we are NOT living free. That’s more or less why this is a National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws blog. You might have missed that too. Or the seventy five years of prohibition that just went by… (Whew! Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are we Lazlo?)
Man made beer , God made pot ,
God is perfect , man is not !!!
Thanks NORML! I already received my DVD in the mail! Now THAT’S service!
Hey whats up with the chick on the back of the DVD cover with the marijuana booby-stickers? Nice breasts and all, but its not what i was expecting from a Rick Steve’s marijuana documentary is all. Not that i wouldnt watch Rick Steve’s Europe if women in marijuana booby-tassels popped on to the screne at random… Just sayin some of us are married with children here and im glad i caught this at the mail box instead of opening the envelope in front of the wife and kids; “Oh look, kids! Its a bird! “(Damn, baby we need to get some of those stickers!)
i believe in legalize this item and take away the cash cow from the uban gangs and let the goverment profit from the sale of pot!We know Prohabition failed and it us time to capitalize on this item by taxing it like alcohol!