After the submission of 2505 ideas and 209,950 votes, we’re happy to announce the 10 winners of the Ideas for Change in America competition.

The winning ideas illustrate that the issues important to people across the country are much broader than those few that consistently dominate debate in Washington. Because they challenge the status quo, these ideas will face resistance from many in power. This is why citizen-driven initiatives like Ideas for Change are so important; by connecting more than one hundred thousand people from all 50 states around ideas that do not always gain national attention, we’re taking an important step toward building a powerful movement for change on these issues. And we’ve only just begun.

Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Ideas for Change in America:

1. Legalize the Medicinal and Recreational Use of Marijuana by Spencer Pearson and Larry Talley. Spencer is a sophomore at the University of Missouri where he’s focusing his studies on the impact of drugs and drug policies on society, having been inspired by the positive impact of medical marijuana on the health a family member. Larry, a retired member of the US Navy from Flower Mound, TX with over 20 years of service, spent much of his military career working to eradicate drugs both domestically and in South America. But, after observing the futility of his efforts and the violence endemic to the black market drug trade, he became an active member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
2. Move to Amend: Constitutional Rights for People, Not for Corporations – Abolish Corporate Personhood by Move to Amend, a grassroots coalition in Madison, WI
3. Increase Federal Good Time Allowances by FedCURE of Plantation, FL
4. Send the Tobacco Treaty to the Senate for Ratification by LIVESTRONG, in Austin, TX
5. Create 1.5 Million American Jobs by Fixing Our Crumbling Schools by USAction of Washington, DC
6. No Farm No Food: Save the Land that Sustains Us by American Farmland Trust from Washington, DC
7. Good Food For All Kids: A Garden at Every School by Ethan Genauer
8. End Chimpanzee Experiments, Pass the Great Ape Protection Act by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, in Washington, DC
9. Establish a U.S. Department of Peace-building by Ted Nunn
10. 25 Million+, It is Time to Care About Rare Disease by Catherine Calhoun from Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Now that the voting has concluded, the hard work of real change begins. We will be presenting these ideas to relevant members of the Obama Administration and Congress, and subsequently helping to initiate national campaigns behind each winning idea.

I’m not surprised that our idea won yet again in nationwide voting on important issues.  What I note is that six of the top ten ideas were presented by issue advocacy non-profits, three from Washington DC, while our issue was presented by a student and an a retired military man.  (Also, Larry Talley has been a guest recently on NORML SHOW LIVE.)

‘Money Can Grow On Trees,” Marijuana Legalization Group Announces

Washington, DC: “Money can grow on trees.”  That is the message of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML) in a 15-second digital ad scheduled to debut in New York City’s Times Square next week.  The advertisement, produced and paid for by NORML’s educational arm, The NORML Foundation, will air on the CBS Super Screen through May 31, 2010.

NORML's "Money Tree" Ad in Times Square should appear on Monday or Tuesday. We're trying to have it play at... wait for it... twenty after the hour.

“Regulating the adult use of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol could raise over $30 billion annually in new tax revenue, while saving an additional $15 billion per year in law enforcement costs,” NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said.  “This tax season, why not ask your elected politicians why the federal government continues to spends billions of tax dollars enforcing this failed and archaic public policy.”

Fifty-three percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, according to the results of a December 2009 Angus Reid survey of over 1,000 adults nationwide.

The NORML Foundation’s ‘Money Tree’ ad will appear eighteen times per day on the CBS’s digital billboard, located on 42^nd Street.  Approximately 1.5 million people walk by the billboard each day.

In January, CBS and the NORML Foundation entered into a contractual agreement to air the NORML Foundation ad, beginning on February 1, 2010.  However, representatives from CBS and Neutron Media abruptly pulled the ad prior to its scheduled airdate, stating that its content did not comply with the network’s outdoor advertising standards.

Last month, representatives from the political advocacy organization Change.org organized an online petition targeting CBS Broadcasting and demanding the network to reverse their decision.  Nearly 10,000 people signed and sent the petition.

CBS formally changed their position shortly after receiving the petitions.

“NORML would publicly like to thank Change.org for taking on this important political and First Amendment issue,” St. Pierre said.  “We would also like to thank the thousands of concerned citizens who contacted CBS on NORML’s behalf.  Without your participation, this important NORML ad campaign would not have been possible.

“Finally, NORML would also like to extend its appreciation to the CBS Corporation for responding to the will of its viewers, and acknowledging that marijuana law reform is a topic deserving of such a prominent public forum.   Over 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations since 1965. It is time to end 70-plus years of federal marijuana prohibition with a policy of legalization, taxation, regulation and education.”

The ‘Money Tree’ is anticipated to be the first of two planned ad buys.  The second advertisement is scheduled to debut in Times Square on April 20, 2010 – in conjunction with the informal marijuana celebratory holiday ‘4/20.’

Founded in 1970, NORML is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization advocating on behalf of marijuana law reform.  The NORML Foundation was founded in 1997 to support public education, research, stake holder organizing and impact litigation.  In 2009, NORML Foundation launched the first-ever nationwide television ad campaign calling for the regulation of marijuana by adults.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500, or at: director@norml.org.  The NORML Foundation ad is also available online from NORML’s youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/natlnorml?blend=4&ob=4.

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Hemp Headlines

1. America’s longest-serving first-time non-violent drug offender pleads to President Obama for clemency
2. New Mexico adds new condition to it’s qualifying list for medical marijuana
3. DEA agents raid home of Denver medical marijuana grower

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Sahra Kant Photography

• Electric Tuesday: Darling of the Dead – “THC Dreaming (original hashish mix)”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Interview with Donna Lambert, victim of San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Operation GreenRx

Cannabis Conversations

• Change.org petition to CBS to take NORML advertising and discussion of CBS’s new “Black Babies” billboard ad

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Hemp Headlines

1. Cannabinoids show promise in treatment of post traumatic stress disorder
2. Rebutting Change.org’s “Pot and the Safe Driving Myth”
3. Not Your Father’s Woodstock Booze: States push for higher potency beer

Daily Toker Tunes

• Medical Marijuana – “Medical Marijuana”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• Cannabis and driving – a scientific look

(Change.org Criminal Justice) Advocates for marijuana reform frequently argue that the drug should be legalized because it’s safe. This is generally true, and I support legalization for this and many other reasons. But when it comes to driving and safety, legalization advocates often go a step too far — claiming that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous and that marijuana causes zero deaths each year. These misleading arguments are harming the reform movement.

In the next couple of paragraphs the author calls out the authors of “Marijuana is Safer”, so I’ll leave that to Paul Armentano to cover.  I’ve never claimed that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous, though I have pointed out how it is safer than driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while text-messaging.

I also am increasingly perturbed by a society that thinks nothing of parking lots at bars and .08 BAC laws having zero tolerance for the notion of cannabis-using drivers.  The fact that we have a per se standard of .08 BAC for alcohol-using drivers means that at below .08 BAC, the state has to prove you were actually too impaired to drive, not simply that you’d been drinking.  We tolerate the idea that a big guy like me (6’0″ 260lbs.) might be able to drink one beer and be OK to drive, but the notion of driving after one puff off a joint is unthinkable?  We tolerate people driving their cars to bars for the express purpose of becoming impaired knowing full well that not 100% of them have designated drivers, but were supposed to worry that legalizing pot will lead to blood on the highways?

So, I want to say to the commenters who frequently write here and elsewhere that driving under the influence of marijuana is not risky: you’re wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you’re spreading a dangerous myth that could cause deadly accidents and will hurt the chances for marijuana reform in the United States. To those who cite that stat that alcohol causes 75,000 deaths each year in the U.S. and marijuana causes zero: you’re wrong, too. Marijuana causes far, far fewer deaths than alcohol (maybe 0.1%) , but the number is not zero. Fatal accidents like this one and this one confirm that.

It’s always funny to me how one or two stories of people being helped by medical marijuana are just anecdotes that don’t scientifically prove anything, but one or two stories of a person pleading guilty to a fatal marijuana DUI wreck proves how dangerous marijuana and driving are.

The author, I believe, is purposefully excluding the context under which most of us say “marijuana never killed anyone”.  I am always referring to marijuana being non-toxic and incapable of overdose.  I try to be careful and only cite the 35,000 alcohol deaths from chronic conditions like the 18,000 whose livers fail or the 4,500 who suffer strokes and heart attacks or the 2,200 who get cancer.  I try not to include the 40,000 whose alcohol use causes acute conditions like the 14,000 who wreck their car, boat, or plane or the 19,000 who fall, commit suicide, or are murdered, or the 2,200 who freeze, burn, or drown.

If we want to include all of the ways in which marijuana might lead to death of its users, then, indeed, it is false to say nobody ever died from marijuana.  First we’d have to add in all the people who’ve been shot by police, murdered by dealers, or died choking on their own vomit due to lack of medical marijuana in a prison cell.  We’d have to include people like the two drivers in the examples above, plus all the people who fell off a cliff because they tripped while stoned and the people who die of a heart attack from the obesity they got from the munchies.  As you admit, that number is still probably 0.1% the deaths compared to alcohol under all conditions, which is why we are also careful to say marijuana is not harmless, but it is far less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.  (Even that percentage is high, I think, as that would be 75 pot-related deaths per year.)

To show that we’re serious about responsible reform, marijuana reformers need to take a stand against driving under the influence of pot. Each of us can do our part.

Fine, I’ll take that stand: if your consumption of marijuana has led you to be as impaired as someone with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 or above, do not drive a car.  If you’re at a public event, wait to drive for as long as they force the beer drinkers to wait before you get behind the wheel.

As the popularity of the marijuana issue in these [Change.gov & Change.org] polls indicates, there is a significant, vocal and identifiable minority of American society that wants to see an end to America’s archaic and overly punitive marijuana laws. Politicians, particularly progressive politicians, would be well-advised to acknowledge this interest group and respond accordingly.

Further, a majority of the American public is ready and willing to engage in a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing the use of cannabis by adults, even if their elected officials are not. One only has to log on to the thousands of public comments, both for and against, marijuana legalization on the message board of Change.gov and Change.org to see that Americans are pining for, if nothing else, an honest review of our nation’s so-called war on drugs.

These results shouldn’t be surprising. According to a national poll commissioned by CNN and Time magazine, 80 percent of Americans support the physician-supervised use of cannabis, and some 3 out of 4 say that adults should be fined, but not jailed, for using pot recreationally.

In short, marijuana-law reform should no longer be viewed by legislators as a political liability. It isn’t. Instead, for the new administration and for 111th Congress, it is a political opportunity. The sooner our federally elected leaders recognize this fact, the sooner we, and they, can begin to undo the damage caused by America’s longest and costliest war, the so-called war on drugs.

Read the whole post, Marijuana Reform Is Part of the Progressive Agenda, So Why Are Obama’s Drug Cops Already Making Pot Raids? on AlterNet.

Except, of course, the one we care about.  The one voted to the top of Change.gov three times and the top of Change.org as well.

A search of “marijuana” at whitehouse.gov returns:

Search was unable to find any results for marijuana, you may have typed your word incorrectly, have entered an empty phrase or are being too specific.

Perhaps we have just entered an “empty phrase”, huh?  I tried “cannabis”, even “drugs”, same result.

We are not welcome.

This website presents the most inclusive administration ever.  Pages of vision and specific policy proposals on Civil Rights, Defense, Disabilities, Economy, Education, Energy & Environment, Ethics, Family, Fiscal, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Homeland Security, Immigration, Iraq, Poverty, Rural, Seniors & Social Security, Service, Taxes, Technology, Urban Policy, Veterans, and Women, and we don’t even get a bone thrown to us in Additional Issues.

The slightest bit of mention of our issue is found on the Civil Rights page:

Expand Use of Drug Courts: President Obama and Vice President Biden will give first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.

“Changing bad behavior.”  You’re being “bad”.  ’Cause drugs ‘r’ bad, mmmkay?  OK, if it’s your first time, and we find it “appropriate”, we’ll call you an “addict” and sentence you to rehab.  Sure, you’ll still have a criminal conviction that would keep you from ever becoming president, but there must be some punishment for your “bad behavior”.  If you continue your “bad behavior” a second time and we catch you, then it’s off to prison for you!

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Today’s Stash celebrates the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the end of the Bush Administration, and the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.  Despite some misgivings over Change.gov and cabinet appointments, I am so excited to see the new day dawning in America.  Yes, there are dark clouds hovering over us and worse storms ahead, but I can’t help but see the silver lining – that we just can no longer afford to arrest and lock up taxpayers for their cannabis use anymore, and we can no longer overlook an untaxed ecofriendly fuel-producing billion dollar crop anymore.  As Obama has said, this wasn’t about him, it was about us.  As Change.gov and Change.org have shown, we are ready to talk about legalization of marijuana!

It’s as if enough people who think the war on drugs is stupid have realized that enough people think the war on drugs is stupid.  We’ve realized that it’s OK to ask “Why are we arresting potheads?” and “How come we don’t just sell and tax pot?” without everyone thinking we, too, are potheads and even if we are, realizing that nobody gives a damn if you are so long as you do your job, pay your taxes, and be civilized.  Enough people have either smoked it, do smoke it, or know someone who smokes it to know the government is peddling nothing but lies to prop up a failed bureaucracy.  People know that one slacker stoner, but they also know ten more who are just regular working folks who toke.  People also know alcoholics and know they’d rather hang out with the slacker stoner, given a choice, and figure if we can tolerate alcohol, we can tolerate weed.

My guest today is Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United (check ‘em out at http://mtpfu.org*) who is here to warn Big Sky listeners and rally Montanans to contact their state legislator to protest Senate Bill 212, which would strip medical marijuana patient protections for life if convicted of new cannabis DUI standards so strict no patient could ever pass.  In short: choose your drivers license or your marijuana license.

Then my full reading (with music and everything!) of my Cannabis Civil Rights essay posted below, if I may indulge, and in doing so, thank George Rohrbacher for inspiring me…

*That URL always cracks me up because the show Meet the Press is often abbreviated “MTP” on progressive lefty blogs I inhabit.

EL PASO — South-West city Rep. Beto O’Rourke has been in the hot seat since he successfully lobbied the rest of City Council to approve a resolution that included an amendment that asked for an open and honest debate on the legalization of narcotics.

The resolution by the Border Relations Committee called for federal intervention to quell the crime wave in Juárez that claimed 1,600 lives in 2008. O’Rourke added the part of a debate on legalizing narcotics, the rest of council agreed with him but Mayor John Cook vetoed it.

After making national headlines, being on the losing end of the veto and taking on a congressman, O’Rourke discussed the interesting week-and-a-half he has had.

Q All city representatives said they received a lot of calls and e-mails on this issue. Can you share some of the feedback you received?

A Right off the bat most of my correspondence was split 50/50 pro and con. Later on, I got more 70 percent pro and 30 percent con. Someone at my Monday morning breakfast meeting said that when they first read the headline he wondered what I and the rest of City Council were doing. But that then, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that we were right. That all options needed to be on the table.

Q Is it your belief that El Paso would have lost federal and state funds if the veto had been reversed on Tuesday?

A The honest answer is I don’t know. And part of why I don’t know is because the congressman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) and his office and the state House delegation offered no specifics or facts. In fact, what they did offer was speculative. It’s speculation. There is no specific threat, no specific dollar amount or no specific project that is in peril. 

via Rep. Beto O’Rourke: 70% now back drug legalization resolution – El Paso Times.

The American People are ready to talk about legalization.  Every call for issues to discuss through Change.gov and Change.org has seen marijuana law reform rise to the top of the list, over concerns with the economy, foreign policy, the environment, and war.  It is not because marijuana law reform is more important than those issues, it is because those issues are at least allowed to be talked about.  

Americans recognize the fundamental unfairness and unAmericanness of silencing any discussion on this issue.  Americans have recognized that not only has the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs failed to stop any American who wants to use drugs from doing so, but that it has wasted billions of dollars, ruined millions of lives, and created the unintended harmful consequences resulting in the erosion of our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 14th Amendment rights, America as the world’s largest prison state, and the creation of needless violence and despair.

We’ve tapped into this energy with our Ideas for Change in America, and today we held a press event at the National Press Club in Washington DC to announce the winners of the competition. The 10 winning ideas reflect the diverse interests of the millions of people calling for change across the country, and include ideas for securing universal heath care, LGBT rights, and sustainable green energy. All winning ideas can be viewed at www.change.org/ideas. 

Hmm.  Health care was #3 & #7, LGBT rights was #9, and green energy was #4 & #10.  Is someone working real hard here to avoid the elephant in the room?  Your #1 idea – legalizing marijuana – beat all other ideas by a minimum of 4,536 votes!  I can understand health care and green energy being mentioned, as there were two questions each in those general topics, and I’m fine with LGBT rights being mentioned, as it is a very hot topic right now.  

But how can you say  ”the Ideas for Change initiative has shown the widespread interest across the country in renewed civic participation and direct engagement in policymaking” and not mention the idea that garnered the most civic participation and direct engagement?  I’d dismiss this email as just a careless oversight, except that on the Change.org website they went out of their way to “present the top 10 ideas for change (in no particular order)” which you reach by clicking the link that during the voting showed you all the votes in descending order.

Why is it I get the feeling that at both Change.org and Change.gov, there is a lot of back-slapping over this fabulous direct civic engagement tool, but amidst the celebration, concerned Very Serious People are wringing their hands wondering what to do about all the “potheads” winning their surveys?