NORML drops affiliation of Connecticut Chapter

(The News-Times) DANBURY — An e-mail that allegedly threatened a local lawmaker landed an official of a marijuana advocacy group in jail.

State Sen. Toni Boucher, a Republican whose district includes Bethel, Redding and Ridgefield, said she was first informed about the “disturbing” e-mail Thursday.

It was written by Dominic Vita, 28, of Somers, vice president of the state chapter of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a nonprofit lobbying group working to legalize marijuana.

When news of the e-mail broke, officials of the national organization promptly withdrew the chapter’s affiliation.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of NORML, said they immediately withdrew the state chapter’s affiliation from the organization after hearing about the arrest.

“As you can imagine it’s really hard to reform marijuana laws in America,” he said. “It’s even harder if someone is sending threatening e-mails to policy makers — even if they did do it by mistake.

“NORML takes a (Mohatma) Ghandian approach. Even when we do confront legislators, it’s never with violence.”

St. Pierre added that the incident will likely have a negative impact on proposed legislation before the General Assembly to decriminalize marijuana in Connecticut.

The legislation is scheduled for a vote on Tuesday before the legislature’s finance committee, of which Boucher is a member.

The lawmaker said the incident Thursday was not the first time she’d been threatened over marijuana legislation.

After an explosive debate held locally on a medical marijuana bill that was proposed last year, Boucher said she was approached by someone from a national lobbying group when leaving the event.

“He said, ‘We will win this and you better watch your step,’” Boucher said. “At the time I thought it was just someone trying to be a bully.”

Oh, how I know that feeling, to be so right about the facts, to have the cause of justice, to be the compassionate one trying to protect the weak, screaming at the top of your lungs to everyone who will listen about the futility and cruelty of our marijuana laws, and to be ignored or mocked or opposed by those in power who casually dismiss the idea with worn out tropes about children and gateways.  I know the feeling, or to quote one of our last three presidential tokers, “I feel your pain.”

In those moments with legislators, I try to remember these pearls of wisdom:

• “In explanations of human activities, both muddling through and incompetence are under-estimated, and both rational optimizing and conspiracy over-estimated.” — Edward Tufte
• Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
• Grey’s Corollary: “Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.”
• “‘No’ means ‘Next’” – my wife.

Don’t get mad at these legislators who oppose us.  Smile at them, educate their constituents, and get them voted out of office!  That’s one of the great things about democracy; if you don’t like the job they are doing, you can work to get them fired.