| Photo: Green Patriot |
| David Bronner, Dr. Bronner’s Natural Soaps: “Cannabis for me is a daily sacrament and a communion that at the end of each day helps me get past my small petty self and find my moral center” |
With the election less than a month away, the campaign to pass Proposition 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative, is pulling in some high-dollar donations.
The owners of a natural soap company and a hemp clothing store announced on Thursday a $100,000 contribution to pay for a voter registration drive aimed at California’s college students, reports John Hoeffel of The Los Angeles Times. That donation followed the contribution of $100,000 on Monday by Napster co-founder Sean Parker and the recent donation of $50,000 by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, based in Escondido, Calif., announced the $100,000 donation to Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) in The Huffington Post. Bronner put up $75,000, and the founders of Capitol Hemp in Washinton, D.C., kicked in $25,000.
“Something like this will benefit everybody in America, and we just want to do our small part,” said Alan Amsterdam, co-owner of Capitol Hemp. “It’ll trickle down to the rest of the states.”
| Graphic: Two Glasses |
Bronner said in The Huffington Post that his company buys 20 tons of hemp oil from Canada each year to create soap with smooth lather and a moist sensation. Growing hemp, a variety of marijuana with almost no THC, is illegal in the United States, but Prop 19 would allow cities and counties to authorize cultivation.
“We hope to mobilize younger voters who are the primary victims of the war on cannabis,” said Bronner, co-owner of the company his grandfather founded in 1948.
“I want this donation to be a challenge to people who know that cannabis prohibition is a disfigurement of our democracy but have not contributed to Prop 19,” Bronner said.
Bronner also pointed to the medical benefits of marijuana, nothing that he has a friend who used it to survive Hepatitis C and whose dispensary was raided and closed by “drug war zealots.”
“Since the proposition will make it easier for adults to have access to cannabis, citizens will enjoy great improved access to a safe and effective medicine useful in treating a number of illnesses,” Bronner said.
“Cannabis for me is a daily sacrament and communion that at the end of each day helps me get past my small petty self and find my moral center,” Bronner said.
The donation will be used to pay students to register other students to vote by the October 18 deadline, according to Jonathan Perri, associate director of SSDP.
Bronner said he also plans to donate use of his company’s promotional fire truck to make visits to college campuses.
The anti-legalization No On 19 campaign hasn’t received large donations as has the pro-legalization side, but it continues to collect donations, mostly from law enforcement groups. Its largest donations are $30,000 from the California Police Chiefs Association and $25,000 from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians(?!).