Hi, I’m Rick Steves, TV travel show host and a proud member of NORML’s Board of Directors. I’ve just returned from doing a barnstorming speaking tour in both Maine and Massachusetts to help build support for their legalization initiatives. It was an exhilarating week, meeting and talking with the good folks in those states, getting lots of great press, and feeling the excitement build in advance of what we expect will be victories in both states.
I’m investing my time and money in these latest state initiatives because I’ve seen first-hand the damage done to so many good, hard-working Americans because of a marijuana arrest. And we’ve got such a powerful message to share now that we have a solid legalization track record in my home state of Washington and in Colorado and Oregon: teen use does not go up, crime does not go up, and DUIs do not go up. The only thing that goes up is tax revenue and citizens exercising their civil liberty to smoke marijuana recreationally.
Our political opponents and the big money special interests they represent, including both the alcohol and the pharmaceutical industries, are investing millions of dollars to stop us:
- $3.5 million from Casino Magnate Sheldon Adelson to oppose legalization in Arizona, Nevada and Massachusetts.
- $500,000 from opioid producer Insys to fight legalization in Arizona.
- $75,000 from the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of Massachusetts to oppose legalization in Massachusetts.
- $10,000 from the Arizona Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association to oppose legalization in Arizona.
And that’s just to name a few.
So please, match my support and make a donation to NORML today and help us ensure that we not only win these current battles, but that we continue to expand the list of legalization states all across this country in 2017 and beyond.
Together, we have the power to end marijuana prohibition once and for all.
Let’s do it. Thanks!
Never again will we sit still for a lecture about “kids and drugs” from any of these brazen hypocrites having anything to do with the massive, corporate, drug-pushing cartels known as “The Alcohol Industry” and “Big Pharma.”
Cracked and broken, the guise of prohibition is crumbling everywhere – quickly. Still Govenors will use disproven arguments to persuade the citizens into continued persecution “for public safety”. NO MORE!
We are winning on such astounding levels every single day. This revolution is about freedom. It’s fixing a unjust system with a plant. People are waking up to the lies, and seeing how wide spread these lies really are. Time for a changing of the guard. Let’s save our country with hemp and rejoice using nature’s healing plant! PEACE
Done.
(Whew! This is getting tough! Had to sell a truck on my lunch hour for that one!)
Ok Steve, we’ll spare you another “why-dont-you-star-in-a-Rick-Steves-Cannabis-America-tour” for THIS post… basically because youre not just “touring” you are campaigning for legalization on our behalf; And quite effectively and eloquently I might add. “The only thing going up is tax revenue.” I love it. Topped iff with “Happy travels.” How can anyone argue with a man that literally makes us want to travel on a marijuana tour from our own couch?
Rick Steves brings whole new meaning to the word “staycation.” If he did a video for each legalized state… woops! I said I wouldn’t heckle him on this post… 🙂
Keep up the good work Steve! You are a real Cannabis Hero!
Some reasons why your title should have included Big 2WackGo:
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Adelson angrily canceled a huge casino project near Madrid in frustration that Spain wouldn’t make casinoes an exception to strict anti-smoking laws. “The money factor: studies suggests that smoking bans have historically led to steep declines in gaming revenue” (pressherald.com/2016/04/09/smart-money-says-less-smoking-in-las-vegas). Tobackgo is the stay-awake drug for gamblers who have no work to do except to watch everything carefully, press buttons, lay out money in neat piles etc.
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How many injurious and fatal car crashes attributed to Alcohol happened because “a $igarette or two” emboldened a drunk to try driving the car home? How many homicides attributed to Alcohol happened because “a $igarette or two” helped an angry drunk remember to take the gun along? Pachink pachink, medics and undertakers cashing in.
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2014 Surgeon General Report estimated yearly $289-bil. “loss to US economy” caused by “tobacco-related illness” of which $135-bil is “medical care”– someone check how much of that $135-bil. went for prescribing and selling opiates??
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Adelson (who personally doesn’t smoke ’em) and ilk may have reason to fear cannabis is going to kill off more of their profit than anti-tobacco laws ever would.
Sheer Agony, to see the Boston Archdiocese donate $850,000 against us there today. It’s significant and important that Rick Steeves mentions the church goers use cannabis. We have to win this Hail Mary effort – then engage massive clean up, to stridently admonish our enemies, once and forever.
The support of prohibition by the diocese has long preoccupied me; Looking at the problem secularly, supporting prohibition is not a moral direction so much as a reflection of the people donating and tithing to their church diocese. Priests and Bishops are in the business of forgiveness and Lord lnows there are two faced politicians and crooked cops that need it… but we touched on this subject before when Keith Stroup asked what gives on people like Sheldon Adelson who expose their children to a fast paced world of addiction then seem Hell bent on blaming the prohibited source of their income on one hand while supporting evil drug policies on another. Its this monetary chain of guilt, almost as astonishing and incomprehensible as how much money Tom Cruise has given to the Church of Scientology. (Got news for ya Maverick, youre never gettin enough points to go to heaven. You may as well smoke a bowl and relax and give that money to NORML so we can do somethin about this planet we all live on while were still livin!)
As former President Vicente Fox pointed out, God did not tell Eve that eating the apple would be “bad, because it might have a worm in it.” God said “it is prohibited.” And so she ate the apple. And so did the archdiocese!
For it is not the bad apple that rots the lot so much as the prohibition of the apple itself.
The lawless, black market cartels become purchasors of salvation and bribe spiritual leaders for the subjugation of entire communities. In Michoacan, Mexico, priests that stand up to cartels are killed and then defamed.
The irony is that Jesus broke the rules of prohibition when he offered the holy anointing oils reserved for priests and kings and gave it to the poor, the sick and the wringfully imprisoned. The archdiocese, who own the titles to church property, ought to remember that when they donate our tithes to Caesar.
Hey, thanks for bringing up that quote about the garden of Eve. Aware that many believe the apple was the forbidden fruit because it might have a worm, alias talking serpent, in it, my theory has been it was the grapevine, the Tree and the Serpent were one. Too late in the Fall, the grapes might contain too much allgohell, the humans got drumphk and fanaticized they needed clothing (killplusloathing). Gawd alias Grandpaw banished them from rapidly coldening Garden, i.e. into House where it was hot & smoky in Ma’s kitchen breathing all those kanehbosomstalk fumes from the cookstove (in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread), see Wikiversity.org:Ethnobotany.
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Oh yes another theory, it was the orange tree, eating too much vitamin C we lost the ability to make our own and became citrus (and sugar) dependent like certain other primates, the fruit bat and the guinea pig (cavy rodent).
Here are a couple of interesting comments on the subject of the Boston archdiocese donation against marijuana legalization from the Boston Globe:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/28/archdiocese-spend-against-marijuana-legalization/qtCwVY4ViWjRFwOvcyveeK/story.html#comments
Donleavy10/29/16 08:26 AM
“Donilon said the money comes from a discretionary, unrestricted central ministry fund, not from parish collection baskets or other programs.”The archdiocese relies heavily on donations from its annual appeal and a “parish tax” it has imposed on its constituent parishes. Since money is fungible, it’s silly for Mr. Donilon to claim that parishioners are not funding the cardinal’s folly. I’ll be sure to ask about other discretionary funds before I make another contribution. Those funds represent money the archdiocese does NOT need from me. I’m particularly annoyed by the cardinal’s regular cries of poor mouth. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.”
Cosmo76710/29/16 12:04 PM
“… discretionary, unrestricted central ministry fund,”…Read: DARK MONEY.MY bet? It’s being funneled through them from other sources, ie: Big Pharma. possibly some SA cartels and political groups who oppose it and just needed to launder a few grand… no big woop.”
Ahhh… it all comes back to laundering money and tax evasion doesn’t it? I still like my historical analysis between Religion and prohibition though. 🙂
Well finding a link from Big Pharma to the Catholic Church didnt take long:
https://books.google.com/books?id=PEojQDou7MIC&pg=PA194&lpg=PA194&dq=archdiocese+of+Boston+accept+donations+pharma&source=bl&ots=zWmXA5Hs-Z&sig=-FydTmB1cS3_7X-Yxx54QdoopMs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAz5TK84XQAhVI7SYKHdWaDIYQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=archdiocese%20of%20Boston%20accept%20donations%20pharma&f=false
And it involves Donovan, the Kennedy’s, Pfizer and Cuba. Jesus would be flipping tables from Boston to Cuba. What a shame.
Hi Rick, i want to vote based solely on a candidates stance on ending prohibition. I cannot find who is for or against prhohibition in my state (rhode island). I do know the people want it legal. I also know that the govt keeps it in committee and will not bring it up for a vote. This means our govt is doing what it wants for various reasons, instead of what hte people want. Norml could do few things greater to benefit the cause of ending prohbition than providing a list of who supports and who rejects prohbition. My vote is useless without the truth.. and they thrive by keeping me in ignorance. Please start tracking all state and federal elected positions and providing this information to Norml citizens.
http://norml.org/congressional-scorecard/rhode-island
Senators. Party. Grade
Jack Reed (D) (B)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D) (B)
Reps
David Cicilline (D) (B)
James Langevine. (D) (B)
Pretty much stay Blue, Find (or create) your own local NORML chapter to figure out how to vote for your state legislature. Do what I do; put your phone on silent and google the word marijuana next to anyone youre not familiar with. See what you find.
Did MY part by joining NORML! Hoping to be able to help more financially in the future, as well as getting involved with legalization here in my state!