The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Political Action Committee (NORML PAC) has announced its endorsement of Beto O’Rourke for Senate in his race to unseat Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.
“Beto has been a true champion for abolishing our disastrous prohibition on marijuana since the very beginning of his political career as a city council member in El Paso. We were pleased to support him in his previous campaign for the House of Representatives and excited to endorse him again in his race for the US Senate,” said NORML PAC Executive Director Erik Altieri, “As Senator, O’Rourke will be an outspoken and indispensable ally in reforming our federal laws relating to marijuana and fight to finally end our failed prohibitionist policies that are currently tearing apart families, oppressing communities of color, squandering countless tax dollars, and filling the coffers of criminal cartels. The time has come for our nation to move towards the sensible policy of regulation and legalization, sending Beto to the Senate would bring us yet another step closer to that goal.”
“We must end the federal prohibition on marijuana in this country,” said O’Rourke. “Texas should be leading the way by encouraging comprehensive reforms in drug control policies that have had a devastating effect on communities of color.”
Recent polling on the Texas Senate race showed O’Rourke running neck and neck with Ted Cruz with Cruz claiming the support of 47% of state voters and 44% supporting O’Rourke.
According to a 2017 poll by the University of Texas, 83 percent of Texans support legalizing marijuana for some use and 53 percent would go beyond legal medical marijuana to allow possession for any use.
According to an April 2018 poll from Quinnipiac University, 63% of all Americans support the legalization of marijuana nationwide.
“Texas ranks as one of the states with the highest arrests rates for simple possession of marijuana, at an estimated cost of 1.5 billion in taxpayer money annually,” said Jax Finkel, Executive Director of Texas NORML. “Beto O’Rourke understands that our federal prohibition is a failed policy and it is past time for Congress to end it and allow states like Texas the freedom to pursue new, sensible alternatives.”
we stand with you, Beto! Julian?:)
Porky Pig Ted Cruz…lol
You really got Ted with that one.
You rock!
lol….
abba dee abba dee duh duh duh doooonnnald trrrump, oink oink
lol
Peace
Says the guy who says he smokes weed and yet supports Cruz who takes money from Geo Group and CCA through ALEC and wants to lock Gumbo Joe up.
Gumbo, if you want to get locked up, there are better ways than voting for Two faced Ted.
Texas needs beto to end the war on a god given plant.
If I lived in Texas, I would vote for Beto!
Neck and neck with… Ted Cruz? See, this is the whole problem, here. Who the fuck actually supports Ted Cruz, but more importantly, WHY support Ted Cruz? What does that even mean to those people who do? What do they think that gets them? Liberal tears? We’re too angry to cry now.
I want payback so bad. But I have little to no money. This is one time I wish I lived in Texas, just so that I could vote against Ted Cruz.
Oh shit, Texas, please don’t let me down. Vote!
http://norml.org/action-center/item/register-to-vote
https://www.vote.org
Ted Cruz has always been at the forefront fighting for our rights.
Your mindset gives us Venezuela.
Why not destroy America so that you can get high?
Do you want Ted’s district to turn into Chicago?
Sure you do.
Stupid Gumbo Joe! Ted Cruz is a US Senator of Texas, not a district representative. Chicago is a buzz word for the alt right. People like you hate on intelligence and celebrate willful ignorance if it’s some kind of damn virtue in this country! Sociopaths like you and Cruz are what’s wrong with this country!
I enjoy smoking weed and am frequently disappointed to see the political ideology of those paving the way for legalization.
Go Ted Cruz!
No, that’s “fuck” Ted Cruz. Better. Yeah, much better.
Gumbo!!!…
TED WANTS to SEND YOU to J-A-I-LLLL… So he can make money from Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America…
…fu€*!ng lemming…
So you are telling me that Ted Cruz personally makes money off of people going to jail for smoking weed?
Ted will be surprised to hear that.
Do I get paid when people go to jail for smoking weed or just Ted?
You are so smart; please tell me more.
Gumbo Joe,
What you want is not to know.
The information has already been given to you — you don’t want it. More information won’t help you.
You know how it works, Gumbo. Shell corporations funnel money for everything from Koch-funded ALEC to private prisons… and to pay troll farms like yourself.
Sessions rescinded an Obama era policy that removed quotas on private prisons and attempted to close many of them down. Removing quotas means private prisons had incentive to keep a low prison population because they get paid the same no matter what… (well, unless you’re so greedy and unconcerned with health you don’t buy A.C. in Houston and you end up in front of a Federal Judge).
Quotas on private prisons mean they have to maintain %90 capacity or they lose multi-million dollar federal contracts. Private Prisons would like to maintain marijuana prohibition in Texas to maintain those contracts. So they donate to ALEC which donates to Ted Cruz’s campaign and what a coincidence… Ted Cruz’s promise to reverse mandatory minimums flops like a fish the day he goes to vote.
No, we didn’t forget that Gumbo Joe. Go on and find another site to troll on before the next Billy goat knocks you down your bridge of lies.
lol, nice name, Gumbo Joe….
Gumbo Joe, Ted Cruz….
“‘ol country roooooooadd, take me hoooooome” banjos uh playin’ lol
Ted cruz needs to cruz on outa texas
You first.
Texas need good honest conservatives.
Venezuela is where your socialism will lead.
Smoke “em if you got ’em.
Ted Cruz… is honest?! Ha ha ha! Hee hee hee ha ha ha har har har! Gumbo Joe, you full of shit.
What you know about Venezuela? A dollar says you can’t even find it on a map.
Gumbo Joe, you said you were getting off the Trump Train like Dilbert’s creator, and I gave you credit for saying so. But I see now I was wrong, you were just lying. Figures.
Worse, you’ve learned nothing. Out of the pocket of Trump and into the pocket of Ted Cruz. You would seem to be addicted to being a social victim. Who abused you, to cause such self-loathing on your part? What makes you need a “daddy figure” like Ted Cruz? I shudder to imagine your pathologies.
I guess there’s no hope for Republican dumbasses like you. Gotta roll right over you. Get ready for Democratic rule, fool!
(Gumbo Joe has an “I hart Hillary” tattoo on his ass. I’ve seen it!)
Wow.
I hope you get to live in your socialist knightmare.
It is hard to believe there are people like you who actually vote for the Democrats.
Good luck with that.
That means nothing.
You attack me because you cannot refute my ideas.
You call me names because you’ve got nothing else.
You live up to your moniker.
You are married to ignorance. And you are definitely getting fucked. But no one can help you.
Then you can go to jail for Cruz while we send a real Democratic “conservative” like Beto to the Senate so we can gain fairly taxed revenue with legal conservative hemp and stop wasteful Republican socialist corporate welfare and subsidies on private prisons, petrol fertilized agriculture and defense contractors.
Yes, I just outted you, Gumbo, you greedy Republican socialist.
You outed me for what?
Being a conservative?
Loving to smoke weed?
You’re just another angry Democrat.
Have you found any Russians yet?
Gumbo Joe, you the one who works for Putin. Oh, didn’t you know?
Do you hear that sound from a plane going right over your head? We all heard it. It’s a plane of facts only you are willfully ignorant to ignore. But when it lands in November only then will you understand. Or Ted will win and he will send your dumb @$$ to prison. Your choice, isn’t it?
Ha! I see what you meant now Erik… candidates don’t have to accept PAC money, (whether it’s NORML or not), to receive an endorsement from NORML PAC.
This is a very important distinction to be made in bold letters because Beto still has not accepted a SINGLE DIME of PAC money throughout his Senate campaign. As I’ve said before, I know, because I asked him to his face if he would accept NORML PAC money and he reluctantly refused.
I did let him know that after speaking with you and Justin in DC he was already getting NORML board’s support from small donations.
I’ll contact Beto’s campaign and make sure they make a public distinction from accepting money or an endorsement from a PAC.
Beto’s refusal of PAC money is one of the principal reasons he is rising in the polls against Ted Cruz. As more Texans figure out what a Political Action Committee is, and why we allow billionaires to refuse to disclose their identities, or why an unconstitutional decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United more than 8 years ago removed the caps to campaign donations and sold our Deocratic Republic to the highest bidder, the more Texans that support Beto Orourke to replace Ted Cruz.
And MILLIONS of Texans still need education as to what a PAC or Citizens United even means.
Unlimited campaign donations are not “corporate freedom of speech” they are direct threats to our national security.
With that said, we need NORML PAC to financially support marijuana reforming candidates that have no resources for publicizing their refusal to accept PAC money.
And an endorsement… even without a donation… still clarifies whose side Beto is on. And Cruz is missing the plad suit of a crooked used car salesman. Cruz has more bait and switch than Trump and a majority of Texans dont approve of Trump!
Very good points Julian. Money has always been the greatest threat to our democracy–that’s why the Right wants our political system awash with it. Keeps the politicos paid off and firmly under control.
Democrats are the party of slavery, more government and restrictions on the private citizen.
You have no further to look then major cities that are democratic bastian’s like Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago.
Texas has always done well because they are conservatives at heart.
Keep your hand out of my pocket.
Venezuela will be more to your liking if you want a Democrat Party rule.
Hillary is a Democrat you know.
Did you vote for Hillary?
GumboJ,
That’s very nice of you to suggest another country–you right wingers are always so accommodating. I’ve got the perfect place for you to move to, as well, a non-government advocate’s dream: Somalia.
It’s the perfect place for someone who doesn’t like to pay taxes: very few paved roads, street signs, libraries or public parks. Little government oversight of those pesky things like clean water and inspected food.
I think you’ll be very happy there.
Haha… good one Bud. So true.
Who else does NORML support in other political races in Texas ?
First we must distinguish between NORML the non-for-profit, and NORML PAC, which is registered to endorse political candidates.
Second, May run offs will take place May 22nd where Democrats Allred and Salerno face off for district 32, (includes Dallas County) at which point any marijuana reform from medical to recreational markets would be a welcome endorsement in lieu of Republican Pete Sessions, the worst most obstructive prohibitionist in the House of Representatives.
Pete Sessions is only 1,200 votes away from losing his chair to the House Rules Committee. It’s up to us to turn the vote out and educate our fellow Texans!
Hopefully you can endorse Bernie Sanders.
He will give us free college, socialized medicine and government jobs for everyone who wants one.
It doesn’t matter how this will be paid for because we get free stuff that we didn’t earn.
Go Democrats!
I smell fear on Gumbo Joe.
And fish.
I’ll endorse Salerno or Allred. Whoever wins. Are you saying you are for Pete Sessions?
I will happily endorse Bernie Sanders!
He wants to return to us many of the things that FDR brought in the ’30s and ’40s. It was those policies, in fact, strong unions, social security, minimum wage, good, viable government jobs, that created the large and vibrant American middle class of the 1950s-1970s.
It was GOP policies in the late ’70s and ’80s and ’90s that disrupted many of those policies and dilapidated that middle class. Corporate Dems in ’90s to present have aided and abetted that destruction.
That’s why it’s imperative for the health of our country to put Bernie or Elizabeth Warren in the white house.
Texas needs Betos to end war on canibus.
Time for changing of guards, New Sheriff in town
Beto dethroning Ted Cruz–that’d be Christmas in November.
“Texas ranks as one of the states with the highest arrests rates for simple possession of marijuana, at an estimated cost of 1.5 billion in taxpayer money annually,”
Ted Cruz is okay with that. He’s gotta go!
Worse, Cruz profits from private prisons.
How does Ted Cruz profit off of prisons?
Does his competitor also profit off of prisons?
How about abortions?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.attn.com/amp/stories/1092/2016-candidates-private-prisons
Click on the link. Scroll down to Ted Cruz. Read up on “kids for cash,” “Bill Mill” and how ALEC is tied to Cruz the two largest private prison contractors, Geo Group and CCA.
All I did was google “Cruz profit private prisons.”
Even a four year old could have found the answers you willfully deny. Thats partly because Cruz profits off imprisoning four year olds in immigration detention centers without due process.
And NO; Cruz’s competitor, (Beto Orourke… it’s written on the title to this blog… )
Beto does NOT accept a dime of money from private prisons. He might receive a small donation from prison guards or employees of private prisons who have seen the inhumanity and failure and corruption and the weavils in the processed “food” Geo and CCA serve, and want someone who will reform the quotas on prison for profit like Beto. But getting purchased for evil, unconstitutional detainment policy agendas is for spineless politicians (mostly Republicans, but there are a few Democrats like Debbie Washmoney Shultz) who just can’t “SAY NO” to prison for profit money. And for locking up fathers for life for smoking a joint or children without education? Those same politicians should serve time in the prisons they built. If you don’t believe that, you should to.
Uh oh, Gumbo Jo, Julian hit you with facts. Fake news right?
Sure, I will vote for socialism so that I can smoke weed.
Democrats want open borders, abolishment of the second amendment and higher taxes.
Why not throw away the constitution for some good bud?
Gumbo Joe you wouldn’t know what the hell socialism is if you held it in your hand! I guess you love your macho Texas cops pulling people over and terrorizing them because they possess weed. You are no friend of cannabis you Vichyite!
The other part of the reason a four year old could figure out what you willfully deny is because you are a useless troll, Gumbo Joe.
Socialism is alive and well in our US military and the defense contractors that receive our corporate welfare. Good luck finding a Republican that doesn’t support that. At least Democrats don’t support nationalist socialism like Republicans do. Now THAT isn’t only anti marijuana that’s anti-American.
Which part of the constitution mentions closed borders? Please don’t tell me that you’re reinterpreting the constitution.
Trump is a traitor to the constitution.
Keep on fighting o’Rourke . Best of luck to you and the fine people of Texas. I’ve always thought Ted Cruz was a piece of shit. We are still fighting hard here in Virginia with norml.