We have much to be merry for this year. Lawmakers in 26 states have passed legislation to advance cannabis reform, including New Hampshire becoming the 22nd state to decriminalize marijuana and West Virginia becoming the 30th state to pass a medical marijuana program.
This progress has come as a result of years of organizing and conversations with our fellow citizens about the role of government in relationship to a plant. Having the tough conversations about the scope of the government’s right to stop, search, and incarcerate individuals for possessing or consuming marijuana for either personal or medical benefits.
And now for the first time ever, Gallup polling recorded outright majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents supporting the legalization of marijuana. The only way to find out if this includes your aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives is if you bring it up.
So use us as a resource – NORML.org has Factsheets, Talking Points, and you can even pass your phone or computer around the table to have your friends and family contact their lawmakers right then and there to support reform in our Action Center.
As we look toward an uncertain future, we know we must work to both sustain our existing gains and to win future victories. With your continued financial support, we are confident that we can bring the era of marijuana prohibition to an end and usher in the new era of legalization. Together, we will be unstoppable. Together, we WILL legalize marijuana across this great country.
From all of us at NORML to all of you, we hope you have a very, very green Christmas.
Onward.
Merry-Juana Christmas!
I don’t wanna miss this
Like a NORML curved paper
Im about to twist this
Legalization
On a Marley Uprising vynil
And get that tingle up the spinal
While bells jingle till the final
ash burns up my sinal
But they say “Jules,
You broke the rules
When you infuse
Your weed-dules
And rhyme tools
On fake fools
That deny Jesus did use”
…The Sacred Herb…
But I kick it to the curb
Too bad if I disturb
Our view of Christ in the superb
So kick back and roll a joint
while I prove my point
And Holy anoint
this Kanneh-bosem
Just like Moses chosem
From priests to Kings
He rose them
With indicas
And rosin
From India to Mogadishu
The herb made people see true
Get close to God and heal through
The slave mentality too
Up the Nile went these optics
With Ethiopian Coptics
Pharisees still cant stop this
Incense burning weed, that brought this
Like the Wise Man who frees us
N brought the Herb to baby Jesus
A Zoriaster master
Who burned the Herb more than to please us
To avert disaster faster
Breathe in slow, let Peace perceive us
And if you still don’t believe us
That Jesus smoked Sativas
Then your church is selling veiles
Cuz Cannabis made the sails
And filled the Holy Grails
While Jesus Inhales large bales
With the Scythians
So long before Christmas begins
Communion made so many grins
So Merry-Juana Christmas
Make sure we vote
And call our Congressman
If anything I wrote
Hits a note
Hang on this one:
Mathew 25:44
Alright, now I’m done
And one more thing,
Uhmm…
Merry-Juana Christmas!
That’s good shit!
Merry-Juana Christmas to you Julian!
You’re a good man. Keep up the faith and the good work 🙂
The man has a way with words! The Sugar Hill Gang meets Bob Marley!
Happy Weed-Year
This next verse
Drives a hurse
For all the worst
Prohibitionists
Bad Prisons,
decisions
Pill incisions,
Listen to this,
Hold up please
Let me claim
Our enemies
Name by name
If I burn
This greed
With weed
Without a name
It’s not the same
So here’s
The New Year’s
Worst people to blame
For fears
N Bad beers
List the Prohibition Shame;
Number Ten:
Liquor Boards’ in frustration
All across the WeedNation
Ya’ll tried legal filtration
MJ legalization
That needs no explanation
You stopped organization
Supplies in Vegas-station
Made dry implementation
A sad presentation
We resisted we refused
A State Judge had you recused
The state legislature choosed
N freed the weed you boozed
Now your whole branding is bruised
So your alcohol is fused
With marijuana… you losed
Number Nine:
Conservative Beaurocrats
How far did you lose the stats?
You used to be the fat cats
Now youre running like the rats
Nixon branded your bad facts
Since Controlled Substances Acts
Now even Republicrats
Are like “Go legalize” thats
Covering your MAGA hats
Have a Mary Jane Christmas!
Many years ago I purchased two $100 pound certificates From NORML on the understanding when weed became legal I would get a pound of weed for redemption of the certificate. How do I redeem my certificates?
Me too! I think I have older ones that were less than $100 per pound! gotta look around.
Here’s an interesting marijuana conversation:
https://www.marijuana.com/news/2017/12/president-trump-may-help-american-mmj-patient-avoid-life-in-bali-prison/
Gotta hand it to this guy Beasley: A sensational escape from a Bali prison… from sawing his way out of the roof during the rain to a motorcycle and a speedboat… for a simple .7 grams over the trafficking limit for his mmj… only to get recaptured in an alley after emailing his family… caught the attention of Fox News and the President.
Trump is investigating the charges and may intervene.
My first thought about this is that Fox News wouldn’t have picked up this story if Beasley hadnt made a sensational prison break. The 5.7 grams of weed is a bit more contraversial than a stolen pair of sunglasses for the Russian State Fox Media to get involved.
The President, however, appears to enjoy the power and ability to meddle in foreign criminal affairs and paint himself a hero. To which I say let him… if only he would look at the prisoners here in the US as well,
such as a man in Louisiana facing life in prison over a small possession of marijuana.
My second thought reading this story was that it wasn’t so much the small marijuana charge the caught the President’s attention as the glamour of escape. I bet Trump wishes he could escape the White House with all of his finances with Russia under investigation. What a terrible irony for the power of the Presidency that the Secret Service never leaves the President’s side. Not even in the bathroom after a bucket of KFC… I don’t inow if that’s loyalty or sadism. Trump must fantasize escaping and I think he identifies with Beasley, through some psychosis in which he identifies himself through Fox state media.
(continued…)
I’ve commented here before on how dangerous it is to rely on anything Trump does or says, or to
trust Fox State Media commercial time in attempt to influence his ephemeral attention span or persue the fleeting illusion we can direct or guide his decisions anymore than we can train a goldfish to play fetch. Its funny when John Oliver airs condescending yet educational ads on Fox mostly just to piss him off, but we can NOT give our money to Roger Stone and think it wont get filtered into some schedule 2 quasi prohibition.
Regardless of the outcome for Trump or Beasley, how the Russian State Fox channel covers this story without pissing off either Trump or their prohibitionist doners will be real, genuine entertainment. It’s tragic irony how Trump tortures his greatest supporters out of infantile self interest, impulsive greed and delusions of grandeur.
Still, what will be the political ramifications of the President recuing Beasley? How will the President react to a positive American response? Or a negative one? It’s like studying a strange orange rat with narcissist personality disorder in a Pavlovian cheese maze, except the cheese in this case is marijuana and the rat is our President.
@ Julian,
I hope Beasley is rescued, it is the least America can do.
However, regarding Trump’s motives, it is axiomatic: Trump’s motives are always self-serving, base and ignoble, if not downright cruel and vicious. True in this case, and in all cases.
Too true.
You know whats sad is how predictable Trump really is. Soon as I read your response I thought, “I bet that Trump is gonna rescue Beasley out of his greatest motivation… spite and revenge.” My second thought was, “I wonder how the Bali Trump Tower project is going along?”
Seconds later, sure enough…
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/asia/people-in-bali-are-threatening-to-demolish-a-planned-trump-resort/news-story/6137cbaffb946649b839d96c030312ce
Haha… as if Trump was ever motivated by any American going to prison for life for small possessions of marijuana. Across the sea, meanwhile he praises Duterte for killing innocent people suspected for small marijuana possession.
And the name of that homeless man who is currently spending life in hard labor in a Louisiana prison for selling $20 of weed to an undercover cop is Fate Vincent Winslow.
Sign here to free Fate;
https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/serving-life-w-hard-labor-w-o-parole-for-20-of-marijuana
Signed. Because black lives matter.
Christmas? Oh, right, right, right… must have slipped my mind. For me, it’s Four-twenty, Three sixty-five. Cheers!
Regarding talking about MJ during Xmas: My entire family knows I use the herb and their biggest concern is that I might get busted some day. They know it helps me. They know I’m a good person they can count on. They know how hard I work every day to take care of all my responsibilities.They know that, in spite of my herbal use, I am a valuable asset to my family and to my community.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Feds could come to understand that, regardless of what Jeffrey Sessions thinks about cannabis consumers, many of us are good responsible Americans!
we always think green merry christmas norml thank u for your support in marijuana reform
TRUMP’S PLAYBOOK:
The 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism
Dr. Lawrence Britt
Free Inquiry
Spring 2003
Britt found many commonalties between the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and some Asian and Latin American regimes.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause.
4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected.
5. Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated.
6. Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.
7. Obsession with National Security.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined.
9. Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption.
14. Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against, or even assassination of, opposition candidates – use of legislation to control voting numbers orpolitical district boundaries, and manipulation of the media.
Here’s my point regarding the above Fascism Primer: Marijuana legalization must occur within a Democracy.
Marijuana legalization cannot exist under a fascist regime, because Freedom itself is illegal under a fascist regime.
That is why the marijuana legalization community MUST reject and repudiate that fascist fucker Trump, and his Republican enablers!
That much I am sure of.
Looking ahead? I say, rather than vote third party in 2018, instead, we progressives must continue to take over the Democratic Party at the grassroots level, just as we are doing now (Right on, Women!)
The pro-corporate neo-liberals will not be able to stop us, because they won’t control the pursestrings to the grassroots money. We push the Democrats to the left — hard!
Then, unified, we will beat the fascist Republicans, who, despite their Bullshit Marketing Campaigns, steadfastly oppose marijuana legalization — indeed, they oppose Freedom itself.
It’s working; keep it up!
I agree with all of your points, and wholeheartedly agree that progressives must take back the Democratic Party from the Centrist (corporate) Dems, who have helped the GOP enrich the rich at the expense of the middle class and poor.
This morning I shined my dancing shoes in the hope that Sessions is buried this year. I’ll dance on his grave even if it means going to Alabama to do it.
Cannabis Prohibition needs to end in the U.S. first, and that can nudge the movement along the cannabis continuum toward Worldwide Weed–legalization worldwide. First, the U.S. has to pull out of these international treaties prohibiting the U.S. and Canadian border patrol from just passing you through. I mean, wave through personal amounts without confiscating it. Souvenir amounts beyond personal should have the option of the customs duty being pre-paid, like bought in advance U.S.-Customs duty marijuana stamps to stick on my souvenir purchase(s) excluding any amount allowable for personal use. It should be in practice in both Canada and Maine for both medical and adult recreational. Messed up boarder crossings if they’re going to be wasting time booking folks just for the feds and preventing people from re-entering the U.S. Washington and British Columbia, too. Although adult recreational is not yet legal in Mexico, hm, the notion of bringing back personal or even souvenir amounts (gifts for other people) of superb Mexican sativa strains is something that could be a near future reality. Mexican lives matter, and legal banking and taxpaying jobs with healthcare for them at a decent living wage can only be an improvement over constantly having to look over your shoulder. I mean, unless your weed is detected as containing explosives or some other danger that can be used in a terrorist attack, to commit some heinous act of violence, otherwise law-abiding citizens don’t get any kind of hassle because of cannabis.
http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/08/29/maine-border-patrol-marijuana/86943/
The situation at the border, as you point out, is so ridiculous, it reminds me of a Monty Python comedy sketch.
Monty Python starts a sketch by accepting an absurd premise, and then doggedly applying reason and logic to bring the situation to its ultimate absurd conclusion.
So it is, as well, with reefer madness.
First of all, it’s a flower. A flower!
Secondly, if it’s legal on both sides of the border, what’s the point of confiscation?
What an absurdity.
Are you trying to tell me we can’t build a wall in the middle of the Rio Grande?
Fine then; we shall build it on our own private lands through eminent domain and cede the river to Mexico! And if anyone dares to pass we shall by executive order throw rotten cabbage!
(But who will pick them, m’lord?)
What?
(Who will pick the cabbages if we deport all our seasonal workers?)
Why, we shall import the cabbages from Mexico, wait for them to rot, then throw them at the unwitting tresspassers as they climb the wall.
(Fence).
What?
(It’s not a wall. Its a chainlink fence. We couldnt afford a wall. The King said Mexico would pay for it but they didn’t).
But that’s preposterous. A fence won’t stop a child.
(Doesn’t have to. They just have to pay off our border agents).
How is that?
(Because theyre bored. Theres too many of them.We keep hiring new patrols when we need more immigration judges and court appointed lawyers. I thought thats why we call them boreder agents?)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year NORML!
Thanks for your decades of work to get this far, here is to our bright future.