Are You Doing 4/20 Right? Here’s a List of What’s Happening

Following tradition, marijuana consumers and advocates from around the globe are organizing rallies, marches and other acts of political expression or civil disobedience in advance of this year’s celebration of 4/20, an annual protest against the prohibition of marijuana. While these public events are often effective at generating some buzz and raising public awareness, they are rarely organized to directly influence or appeal to those elected officials who continue to oppose common sense marijuana law reform efforts.

To increase the political effectiveness of these events, NORML chapters are planning to combine these traditional events with a robust presence on social media that includes a call-to-action urging federal lawmakers to support HR 1227: The Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act. If passed by Congress, this legislation will eliminate federal criminal penalties for possessing and growing marijuana, give states the power and flexibility to establish their own marijuana policies free from federal interference, and remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, which would allow for more marijuana research both recreationally and medicinally.

NORML Chapters will continue to use these public events to demonstrate that our culture is a growing part of the broader community, and to raise awareness and support for marijuana law reform efforts.

A couple examples of which are:

Members of Chicago NORML have a lot to celebrate after voters in Cook County, Illinois voted to approve, “the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older,” through a non binding referendum earlier this year. Organizers are planning a 4/20 celebration that will help fund educational & outreach efforts in their community.

In South Carolina, members of Lowcountry NORML are hosting a 4/20 rally in downtown Charleston to raise awareness about marijuana’s proven medicinal benefits, its hundreds of industrial uses, and the obvious need to end the mass arrest, stigmatization, and incarceration of nonviolent marijuana consumers. To help spread the word, supporters will be wearing t-shirts, holding signs, sharing stories, and asking others to join the fight to end marijuana prohibition.

Below is a list of events that are taking place around the country:

Alabama

Alabama NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/144416092932869/

California

Humboldt NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/176073716520697/

Monterey County NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/150183702470495/

Colorado

Denver NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/2137082429854938/

Southern Colorado NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/165225564129646/

Delaware

Delaware NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/420211771762876/

Florida

Northeast Florida NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/2049355575350535/

Illinois

Chicago NORML – https://chicagonorml.z2systems.com/np/clients/chicagonorml/eventRegistration.jsp?event=503&

Indiana

Indiana NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1964672153792901/

Purdue NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/353749958430389/

Iowa

Iowa NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1173742189395622/

Kentucky

Kentucky NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/155608048425043/

Minnesota

Minnesota NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/582709222121912/

Minnesota NORML Women’s Coalition – https://www.facebook.com/events/121504848551480/

New Mexico

New Mexico NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1546743615424372/

New York

Western New York NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1983972578530607/

North Carolina

North Carolina NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1568205869881130/

Charlotte NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/296119900919588/

NC NORML of the Triangle – https://www.facebook.com/events/457312888018481/

South Carolina

Aiken NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/146375166036064/

Lowcountry NORML – https://normlsc.org/pages/420-rally

Tennessee

Memphis NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1673604129371656/

Texas

DFW NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/185597428714345/

El Paso NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1779571042339535/

Houston NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/556580421390187/

Hub City NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1893685727608368/

Hub City NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/576627839344019/

Southeast Texas NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/221071241791222/

Texas NORML – http://www.austinreggaefest.com/

Virginia

Hampton Roads NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/217136348839688/

Roanoke NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/158436751510406/

Wisconsin

Southeastern Wisconsin NORML – https://www.facebook.com/events/1894312693920769/

18 thoughts

  1. No Pennsylvania. Still in the cannabis closet.

    Harrisburg is freakin’ clueless about how $trong a hold the (Mexican) cartel$ have on the $tate. If the $tate ain’t getting the money off recreational marijuana, who the hell do they think is getting the money? And how much money are they getting that the $tate could be raking in.

    Lazy dumb plagiarizing Harrisburg politicians, just get some of your staff to work together with other lazy dumb plagiarizing Harrisburg politicians’ staff to go to the government website of a state where adult recreational is legal, and download their legislation, law even. Then direct them to do a Find-Replace to change the state name to Pennsylvania. Change Oregon to Pennsylvania, for example.

    Here’s where the lazy dumb plagiarizing Harrisburg politicians must actually work, you know. They have to proofread it then recommend a “Yes” vote to the majority of other lazy dumb Harrisburg politicians’ staff to read and lay it out for them in short simple terms with a “Yes” recommendation. Can’t expect them actually to read the legislation themselves before they vote on it.

    Your hor$e$hit expanding legal gambling $till I$n’t bringing in enough money, and you $till haven’t been able to pa$$ an extraction tax on $hale.

    You tip the scale in favor of legal gambling and having to address gambling addiction. Same goes for cannabis. I want the cartels shut down in the state’s cannabis sector. The quality of legal weed must be good enough to make that happen. I’m all for legal Mexican weed being imported like fine wines imported from France. Love the exotic sativas. There’s no reason the Mexican cannabis community shouldn’t be able to live without fear of the cartels or government either. Top shelf.

    I guess the idea of Mexican resorts allowing legal cannabis for the tourists got pooh-poohed.

    1. Mexico has branding and mislabeling issues just like the US, hence we need international regs on quality testing… but extortion… fed by US and international drug policies… is the number one problem for Mexican businesses that wish to invest in cannitourism. And the only way that kind of corruption is going to change is when the international community wakes up and reforms our drug conventions so the US DOJ can stop organizing and fleecing Mexican cartels who turn and fleece the Mexican businesses we all pay to play in from Cancun to Cabo.

    2. Oracle,

      Here’s the NORML scorecard in Pennsylvania:

      Senate: 1 Dem B
      1 GOP D

      Reps: 5 Dems all B
      2 GOP B
      1 GOP C
      10 GOP D

      So it isn’t “politicians” keeping PA in the dark ages–it’s the Republican Party. The GOP has had a stranglehold on your state with the obscene amount of gerrymandering; but the recent court cases have weakened that death grip a bit.

      All Dems in PA are rated B
      The vast majority of GOpers are rated D

      You get a few more Dems in there, and a few less GOPers and you might have a sliver of a chance to start legalizing.

      Until that happens, PA, I’m afraid will join many of the Southern states and Great Plains states as the last to legalize. Them’s the facts.

  2. It is amazing that Georgia is not even listed for events. Typical dirt eaters.

    1. George and Georgia,

      If it is part of the USA, we’re going to legalize it! Notice how it’s Republicans and Red State legislatures that are now always the ones standing in the way?

      Red State voters will receive precisely as much oppression and abuse from Republican politicians as they are willing to tolerate.

      Beak from the cult, and vote Democratic! (You really should try it, Reds. At least once, now, to save your own ass! It’s not a crime, you know — just sacrilege to your cult leaders. You all call yourselves “rebels”, right? Well? Who owns you now?)

      1. Dain,

        Very good advice. I can tell you with all honesty, if the Democratic Party was acting like the Repubs right now in the matter of legalization, they’d lose my vote in the next election. If the Democratic Party was impeding legalization the way GOPers are across most of the country, I might become an independent. I’ve been one before, years ago, and would do it again.

  3. I intend to do it right.

    I intend to be in a sea of people smoking weed in public protest! The sense of solidarity is phenomenal.

    (Never been on Facebook in my life, don’t intend to start now.)

    I’ll stick with good old fashioned smoke signals! Watch for it at 4:20pm!

  5. While I would love to see Collie Buds sing “Finally the herb’s come around” at the Austin Reggae Festival, that Saturday is the Real Ale Brewery Anniversary. Sometimes we have to step out of the mj scene to reach some conservative alcoholics about legalizing mj, especially in Texas. Just wearing my Texas NORML tee with a Vote Beto bumper sticker delivers the message.

  6. Too bad so many (I’m lookin’ at you, North Carolina) have links to Facebook for information.

  7. Back in the dark ages,1970’s 1980’s everyone and I mean everyone smoked canabis. We smoked on our way to work,at work and on our way home from work. I was a route salesman for a major soft drink bottler in a Kansas town. I used to get smoke for my customers on my route. Store owners,store managers,stock boys,tellers,you name it. WE ALL SMOKED and were succesful tax paying Americans.We didn’t do any substances except cannabis.No problems PERIOD. Then drug testing came along. Then came coccaine, (3 days off and you pee clean). And meth and booze. Now the U.S.A. is a wreck. Because of the stupid war on drugs. When no one cared if you smoked a little herb there were no problems. Hopefully things will go full circle and we can all smoke and be happy again. P.S. Name s have been omitted to protect the guilty.

    1. Even in Dallas, Tx., I remember nights at drive-in movies, a bunch of us crammed into a vw wagon, smoking, and later, stopping for munchies at Kipps, and lighting up, holding doobies underneay the table, with cops trying real hard to ignore us at 2 a.m. and hey, they did.

  8. Back in the dark ages,1970’s 1980’s everyone and I mean everyone smoked canabis. We smoked on our way to work,at work and on our way home from work. I was a route salesman for a major soft drink bottler in a Kansas town. I used to get smoke for my customers on my route. Store owners,store managers,stock boys,tellers,you name it. WE ALL SMOKED and were succesful tax paying Americans.We didn’t do any substances except cannabis.No problems PERIOD. Then drug testing came along. Then came coccaine, (3 days off and you pee clean). And meth and booze. Now the U.S.A. is a wreck. Because of the stupid war on drugs. When no one cared if you smoked a little herb there were no problems. Hopefully things will go full circle and we can all smoke and be happy again. P.S. Name s have been omitted to protect the guilty.

  9. North Dakota is working towards recreational legalization, and if enough signatures are collected it will be voted on. There is a rally at the Capital building in Bismarck, today.

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