Search Results: norml (529)

The UnLockr

It’s time for the cannabis community to be more aware of the stands taken by judges and other public servants when it comes to marijuana, and the NORML Women’s Alliance is taking steps to make that happen in Los Angeles County.
The L.A. branch of the NORML Women’s Alliance (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) on Monday launched a new voter education project focused on candidates for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge in the June 5 primary election.
 
“We at the NORML Women’s Alliance believe that judges hold one of the most important elected offices in our system of government,” said Cheri Sicard, Los Angeles County community leader for the group. “Judges, more than any other government officials, have a direct impact on the daily lives of the constituents they serve. Yet voters are often least informed about the candidates they elect to these important positions. We want to change that.”
 

DFW NORML

Calling all creative cannabis consumers! The Dallas-Forth Worth chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (DFW NORML) has announced a 48-Hour Hemp T-Shirt Design Contest.
In the next 48 hours, the group has to decide on its second hemp t-shirt design. The best design wins $50, two copies of the shirt and a free one-year membership to DFW NORML.
The contest is to perfect the first t-shirt design specifically for Texas marijuana activists — but you do NOT have to live in Texas (or even in the United States) to enter.

NORML Foundation/Russ Belville
Alan St. Pierre, NORML: “We fully recognize that the per se DUI provisions in I-502 are arbitrary, unnecessary, and unscientific, and we argued strongly with the sponsors for provisions that would require proof of actual impairment”

​Executive Director Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has released NORML’s official reply to the group Patients Against I-502, which opposes a Washington state cannabis legalization initiative because of arbitrary DUI limits and other concerns.

“NORML supports (and publicly endorses when requested by the principal organizers) marijuana legalization, regulation, and medical use initiatives that qualify for the state ballot, so long as they move us closer to full legalization, even if they contain provisions we do not believe should be included in a perfect proposal,” St. Pierre said.
“We fully recognize the per se DUI marijuana provisions in I-502 are arbitrary, unnecessary, and unscientific, and we argued strongly with the sponsors for provisions that would require proof of actual impairment to be shown before one could be charged with a traffic safety offense,” St. Pierre said, echoing the concerns of Patients Against I-502.

LOLdrugs
Cheri Sicard started using cannabis medicinally in 2009 after a suggestion from her doctor. She was astonished at how well it worked.

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
Sharing the NORML Women’s Alliance booth this weekend at the High Times Medical Cannabis Cup in Los Angeles will be two notable authors.
First is Cheri Sicard. Cheri spent much of her childhood and early adult life, interestingly enough, traveling the country and the world as a circus performer, magician and mentalist.  Along the way she started writing about travel and food which lead her to become an internet entrepreneur back in the days when it was just a series of tubes.
She is the author of The Great American Handbook: What You Can Do For Your Country Today and Everyday (2002 Berkley Books), US Citizenship for Dummies (2003, Wiley, co-author with Steven Heller, Esq.), Everyday American (2008, Bookspan, ISBN: 1582882975), and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Easy Freezer Meals (2011, Alpha Books, ISBN: 1615640649).

Kyndra Miller
NORML Women’s Alliance West Coast Coordinator Kyndra Miller: “We need help everywhere”

​By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
The NORML Women’s Alliance is looking for many good women.
According to most every poll, cannabis use by mainstream America is on the rise, except for women — their numbers are stagnant. Men are 10 to 16 percent “higher” in their support of legalization and medical marijuana.
The Women’s Alliance is a on a quest to change that. 
This coming weekend I have the pleasure of tagging along with NORML Women’s Alliance as they bring their message to the High Times 2012 Medical Cannabis Cup in Los Angeles. Since its inception a few years ago, from New Jersey to the West Coast, the Women’s Alliance has been reaching out to women via networking groups, parties, movie screenings, conferences and where I first met them, in the streets of San Francisco, marching and protesting. 
When Obama last visited San Francisco, there was a huge demonstration organized by the medical marijuana community to protest the federal crackdown, a complete about-face by the administration, forcing the closure of California dispensaries and blocking safe access to medicine.

Natl NORML/flickr
NORML Board Member Norm Kent responds to criticism of Executive Director Allen St. Pierre’s recent statements about the medical marijuana industry

Editor’s Note: Toke of the Town recently called to task Executive Director Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) for statements regarding the medical marijuana industry.

In the interest of presenting both sides of the controversy, here is a response from NORML Board Member Norm Kent.
Don’t Blame NORML

By Norm Kent
Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive...” ~ C.S. Lewis
It is time to responsibly address the issues raised by Allen St. Pierre in his controversial comments about the medical marijuana programs in California.
First, that requires putting aside those personal issues that have foolishly fractured the dialogue and emotionalized the discussion on the NLC list-serve.  Let’s excise those straightaway.
In short order, we know Mr. St. Pierre has always protected the reputation and stature of NORML, governing the organization with endless energy and managing it with integrity. In his capacity as Executive Director, he has worked tirelessly, sacrificed financially, and committed himself exhaustively to keep the organization alive and afloat. Allen has been a nationally recognized and responsible voice for marijuana law reform for decades. It is an affront for anyone on the Board of Directors or within the list-serve to suggest anything else. Those who have done so do a disservice to NORML and are being disingenuous and unfair to Allen. 
Having said that, let’s start the discussion by assuming the worst; that the statements Mr. St. Pierre made about medical marijuana were inappropriate politically and hurtful personally to many in California working for reform. Were they irreparably damaging or thoughtful and provoking? I suggest the latter. I submit his comments wisely and prudently pushed the needle- moving us in a new direction that may yet prove to be smarter.

Nilo Radio
NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre: “Defending the ‘medical’ cannabis industry is so yesterday”

​NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre has called the medical marijuana industry a “legal farce” and “largely a sham” in an article which hit the web yesterday, creating a backlash among NORML’s many supporters (quite a few of whom likely just became former supporters) in the medicinal cannabis industry.
How many times must we repeat this? Attacking medical marijuana is not a good legalization strategy.
The sadly predictable outcome is that for the next umpteen years, every single time a medical cannabis initiative is raised in any state, the opposition are going to drag out St. Pierre’s ill-considered words as ammunition. “Why are you sitting there trying to tell us this state needs a medical marijuana law when NORML itself has admitted medical marijuana is a fraud and a sham?”
The piece, published by Steve Bloom on CelebStoner (according to NORML’s “Radical” Russ Belville, from private listserv emails sent last October, and without St. Pierre’s permission), is really unfortunate, and is a huge, huge blunder on NORML’s part. The pity of it is, it’s not just NORML that’s going to have to pay for St. Pierre’s mistake — it’s the medical cannabis community which he apparently so disdains.

Photo: Cinema Libre Studios

​Director Rod Pitman’s just-released cannabis documentary, A NORML Life, goes beyond the recitation of facts and figures to capture the beating heart of the legalization movement, in all its passion, its commitment and its excitement.

It’s an extraordinary job by Pitman, producer Doug Ross and a rich cast of cannabis characters including Seattle Hempfest founder Vivian McPeak (who, near the beginning of the show, rightly says America’s marijuana laws are “fixing a problem that never existed,”), and it wastes no time in going for the emotional resonance which is the reason many of us are involved in this movement.
The documentary, which compellingly tells the proud story of advocates fighting for the legalization of marijuana, was released by Cinema Libre Studios on DVD last week. The film presents a strong case that the use of medical marijuana is effective, and that it is a safe alternative to pharmaceutical medicines.

Photo: Another Godless Goddess
Ann Druyan, president, NORML Board of Directors

​Here’s your interesting cannabis fact of the day: Ann Druyan, author, writer, television producer — and widow of astronomy legend Dr. Carl Sagan — was listed as president of the NORML Foundation Board of Directors.

Druyan was co-writer, along with her husband Sagan, of the Emmy and Peabody Award winning television series Cosmos, and served as creative director of the NASA project to design a complex message of music, images and ideas for potential alien civilizations that was placed aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 interstellar spacecraft.
She also wrote and produced the PBS Nova episode “Confession of a Weaponeer,” which covered the life of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s science advisor, George Kistiakowsky.

Photo: Nilo Radio
NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre: “This is the generation that’s going to be at the vanguard of legalization”

​Marijuana initiatives will likely be on the ballot next year in at least four U.S. states — California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — according to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

“I think these states are going to try to pass initiatives in 2012,” St. Pierre told about 80 attendees at a University of Central Florida NORML meeting Wednesday night, reports Katie Kustura at the UCF student newspaper, Central Florida Future.
However, St. Pierre warned, if they don’t reach the “magic number” of 58.5 percent in favor and maintain that support for at least six months, any initiative — marijuana related or not — will not succeed.
One of the reasons that probably led to the failure of California’s Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana there, is the fact that it was “too detailed” and left proponents open to attack from the opposition, according to St. Pierre.
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