Here at NORML we get some amazing letters from all over the country. Some of them tear at your heart and reaffirm your commitment to ending the injustice of marijuana prohibition. Others are shocking and embarrassing and make you cringe when you realize just how much ignorance and hatred are out there.
In the comments of this page I will occasionally paste in some of the letters and my responses to them. Be forewarned: I do not clean up these letters for profanity, spelling, or logic.
Yea same problem here. Podcast does not work
Hey Russ,
I usually listen to the Stash by podcast only. Ever since the 6/2 show none of the episodes will download into my itunes on my mac. Did you do something new that might be causing this? I unsubscribed and then re-subscribed and I still cant get my daily stash. Any suggestions on what to do? Love the show and I also play bass!
I wrote senator Bill Nelson a letter asking him to reconsider legalizing marijuana / hemp (not “decriminalizing” and not “medical marijuana” – but all hemp) and this is what he replied:
Please do not reply to this e-mail. If you need to send another message to Senator Nelson, please use the form on his Web site: http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm#email
Dear Mr. David:
Thank you for contacting me regarding proposals to legalize marijuana.
I oppose legalizing this dangerous drug. At this time, no legislation is pending in the Senate to decriminalize the possession or use of marijuana. If such a proposal is introduced I will keep your thoughts in mind.
Your communication is important and enables me to better serve you in the Senate. Please contact me again with any input or concerns you have.
Sincerely,
Senator Bill Nelson
So I went back to his website and asked him to consider other sources, such as this:
http://youtu.be/3HLzmH9VB6A, so that he and his staff get more educated on this topic and also consider the growing evidence in favor of marijuana’s economic viability.
Also, I suggested that he drafts an amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting anyone in the future to make a plant illegal (unless it’s genetically modified).
So now I’m waiting for another reaction from his staff regarding this “dangerous drug”.
Russ, I got this from the Huffington post: a Republican busted for Pot who claimed a medical issue.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The top Republican in the Rhode Island House, who was arrested in Connecticut two weeks ago on charges of driving drunk and possessing marijuana, was voted out of his leadership position Tuesday.
Republican lawmakers decided Rep. Robert Watson will be replaced as minority leader by Rep. Brian Newberry.
Police arrested Watson at a police checkpoint in East Haven, Conn., on April 22. Watson smelled of alcohol and marijuana and performed poorly on field sobriety tests, according to a police report documenting the stop. The officer who detained him said he found a bag of marijuana and a wooden pipe in his pocket.
Watson, who is from East Greenwich, a wealthy town of 13,000 residents in the center of the state, drew criticism in February after he gave a speech to the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce in which he said facetiously that state lawmakers had their priorities right “if you are a Guatemalan gay man who likes to gamble and smokes marijuana.”
Watson declined to address the specifics of his ouster but said he plans to keep his House seat.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to be the same voice that I have always been,” Watson told The Associated Press. “I’m proud of the role I have played.”
Fellow Republican Rep. Joseph Trillo, of Warwick, said he didn’t anticipate further sanctions. He said it was up to Watson’s constituents whether he survives the next election cycle.
“If I were one of his constituents, though, I would be concerned about this,” said Trillo, who has worked with Watson for 11 years.
Watson, who has served as minority leader since 1998 and was first elected to the House in 1992, said last week that he uses marijuana to treat recurring pain from a severe bout of pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas, which hospitalized him last fall. However, he insisted he hadn’t smoked any on the day of his arrest.
Rhode Island has a medical marijuana law, but Watson said he never sought a marijuana prescription because he wanted to keep his use private.
That explanation persuaded only two of Rhode Island’s 10 House Republicans to side with him in Tuesday’s vote of no confidence.
The Providence Journal reports:
Another — Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt — left the room in anger after an earlier “vote of no confidence” in Watson, stating: “I can no longer serve with the members of this caucus.
“It’s a disgraceful group of people,” Ehrhardt said. “Rep. Newberry has organized a group to overthrow Rep. Watson’s leadership of this caucus. It’s a dark day for the state of Rhode Island. It’s a dark day for the caucus and for the Republican party….I have no wish to be associated with this group of people at this point.”
Newberry was one of six House Republicans to vote against Watson, and one was absent.
“He had illegal drugs on him in Connecticut. You can’t get around that,” Newberry said. “When our own leader gets involved in that – that reflects badly on us all.”
A second vote, to install Newberry as the new Republican leader in the House, was 6-2, he said, with Watson casting one of the votes against him. Newberry, who is from North Smithfield, a small town in the northern part of the state, said he hopes to delegate more tasks to other members of his caucus and to reach out more often to Democrats.
On April 26, a day after reports of Watson’s arrest surfaced, his House colleagues unanimously voted to retain him as minority leader.
At that point, Newberry said, none of the politicians had had “a chance to digest things.”
“We hadn’t even had a chance to talk to one another,” Newberry said. “The safest course of action was to keep the status quo.”
Watson said last week that he had consumed “several” drinks at the time of his arrest but wasn’t drunk. An alcohol breath test performed at the East Haven police station determined that Watson’s blood-alcohol level was 0.05, below the state’s 0.08 limit. He still faces drunken-driving charges after failing the field sobriety tests.
Watson said police targeted him, adopting a more aggressive attitude once they saw a legislative ID in his wallet. East Haven police called that claim “ridiculous.”
Watson was released on $500 bond. He faces a May 11 court date in Connecticut.
1. No. Washington will not recognize a California recommendation.
2. Yes. That is a federal issue with the Higher Education Act. It’s been amended of late so that it only affects you if you’re currently in school and get caught with pot.
Hey Russ,
I just recently started listening to your podcast and I love it! I listen to it on my way to work. I did have two questions that I was wondering if you could answer.
1- I have a CA medical recomendation and I will be going to WA this summer (for the National Rainbow Gathering) for about 2 weeks. Can I be busted if I’m in WA because my recomendation is written from a CA doctor or is it still valid? I will not be going to any dispensaries while I am there, I’m just curious incase, since I would never consent to a search..
2-Is it true that if you live in the state of CA and you are busted for pot, does it impact / deny you financial aid for college because you have a drug arrest?
Anyway that is all, keep doing the work and I will keep listening.
We must be more than responsible cannabis users. We must accept the fact that many people do not know much about mj.The only way to legalize is to show how we are good citizens of this country and we want what is best for the future of our nation.
What Russ said!
Wow, five “fucks” in one email? Did you study extra hard to compose that one?
I think you just answered your own question as to why you were banned. While that sort of discourse may be standard at BongTV, at NORML we’re actually trying to convince the rest of America that we should re-legalize cannabis. Part of that includes providing a forum for discussion that your average intelligent non-cannabis-using adult would find welcome.
For the record, you were banned on a day when I had numerous {Generals} and {Colonels} and {Majors} from some alleged “Stoner Army” who, rather than pestering their legislators in the middle of the afternoon, felt it necessary to flood into our forum to advertise BongTV. This was in retaliation for me setting a policy that there will be no advertisements on our show unless the advertiser wants to pay for them like all the rest.
Perhaps you didn’t do anything worthy of a ban, but while I am doing a live show I don’t have the time for lengthy decision making. On that day, whenever I saw a {Rank}, I just banned it.
I might have been lobbied into letting you return, before I received an email full of “fucks” (and a “prick”, “shit”, and “asshole”, too!) that just confirmed my original instinct.
Have a nice day and enjoy the show where teens and young adults trade profanities in chat while watching someone riding around in a car taking bong hits on our public streets. That’s really helping us convince voters in Peoria that we’re responsible adults who enjoy cannabis and it should be re-legalized.
Russ Belville
NORML Outreach Coordinator
—–Original Message—–
From: General Mitch
Sent: March 1, 2010 9:01 PM
To: NORML SHOW LIVE
Subject: what the fuck ??
wtf is yalls problem with bongtv we been around longer than you assholes and for the record i joined the room to ask nicely your ppl to stop spamming us while at the same fucking time iwas asking ours to stop goin in your room to start shit but no yall are fucking pricks and banned me the instant i joined fuck you assholes have a nice fucking day!