It can readily be said that 2009 was one of the busiest and most productive years in cannabis law reform since NORML’s founding in 1970. However, it appears as if 2010 is going to be an even busier year–notably marked by the increasing number of actual state legalization bills and a voter initiative in America’s most important state.
Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson will be arguing the appeal of my marijuana conviction for sharing a joint at the 2007 Boston Freedom Rally on the historic Boston Common with High Times associate publisher Rick Cusick. We both took the stand at our trial and testified under oath that we were certainly sharing a joint, and were protesting the constitutionality of the very marijuana laws under which we were arrested.
Check it out on http://live.norml.org – Rick Steves coming up soon, plus discussions from the founder of Oaksterdam, Richard Lee; Dr. Harry Levine on race and marijuana arrests; and California NORML’s Dale Gieringer on the current legal landscape there.
Three hours of live audio from Thursday’s panels at NORML National Conference are now available…
NORML’s new talk radio program, NORML SHOW LIVE, will be streaming for three days at…
Iowa, America’s breadbasket, home to liberal scion Tom Harkin and conservative contrarian Charles Grassley, is vetting the issue of medical marijuana politically like no other previous state has by conducting a series of public testimonies, convened by the Iowa Pharmacy Board (who was ordered by a Polk County judge to do so in April in response to lawsuits brought by medical marijuana patients in Iowa against the IPB).
Hempfest’s massive crowds last weekend spurred Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells and former state Rep. Toby Nixon to pen a bipartisan letter in the Seattle Times on the need for Washington State to join the other 13 states that have ‘decriminalized’ possession of cannabis–as well as the state’s largest population center, King County (Seattle), which effectively decriminalized possession by popular vote in 2003. Checkout this CNN iReport about this year’s Hempfest here (and kudos for the closing shot on the wrap).
During a time of immense cannabis law reforms and major shifts in public opinion in favor of such, emerges now a throwback to the dark ages of America’s war on some drugs from the 1980s: The Congressional Anti-Cannabis Caucus.