Stashers, I’m packing up the studio and hitting the road tonight. Cannabis Karri and I are driving from Portland to Boise, stopping for a day to visit family and friends, and then it is off to Denver, Colorado for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
So if you’re wondering where the new Stash is… it isn’t. I’m so slammed busy with these trips that my posts will be few and far between this week.
I have captured all my digital photos, video, and audio from Hempfest and I’ll do what I can to get some of that online this week from my laptop, using the cell modem as I travel the 24-hour drive. Ah, technology!
Today on the Stash NORML Founder Keith Stroup joins us to wish Dr. Lester Grinspoon a happy birthday. Keith calls him the “intellectual leader” of this movement, beginning with his groundbreaking book, Marihuana Reconsidered (back in the day before they put the “j” in!) and to this day he advocates for the medical uses of marijuana and the end of adult marijuana prohibition.
Also joining us today is Mason Tvert from SAFER in Denver. After a rash of air rage incidents involving alcohol intoxication diverted flights to Denver, Mason asks, “why not allow marijuana smoking in the airport smoking lounges as a way to relieve the stress of air travel?” A novel idea, eh?
Plus you get another dose of my pal Chief Greenbud, along with another episode of Reefer Madness coming from West Virginia.
So go get the four-footre, it’s time for your NORML Daily Audio Stash!
Cigarette smoking at Denver International Airport and other airports across the country is restricted to smoking lounges.
Members of the Denver-based organization Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) will ask the government Tuesday to allow pot in airport smoking lounges.
The group says in a press release that the idea will address the growing number of in-flight problems involving drunk and disorderly passengers. Members claim marijuana is a better alternative to alcohol to help more fliers relax and deal with the anxiety of air travel.
Denver voters approved a measure that made possession of one ounce or less of marijuana in the city legal. That happened almost three years ago. It was the first city in the nation to pass such a law.
Possession of marijuana remains illegal under Colorado state law as well as federal law. Denver city attorneys can still use state and federal law to prosecute marijuana possession cases in the city.
Would a marijuana smoking lounge at the airport help me be more comfortable cramming my super-size body into those gymnast-sized seats?
This last weekend was my first time in Aspen, Colorado. My flight took me from Portland to Denver, then there was a 90-minute layover, and then onto the prop plane that would jump us from Denver to Aspen.
Problem was that the weather in Aspen was unforgivably rainy and cloudy that day. We approached the Aspen runway, then pulled up, circled, approached again, pulled up, and then went back to Denver, for the pilot had no safe possible landing in Aspen. After getting off the plane and back on to it, we flew to Aspen again, approached the airstrip again, pulled up and circled again. I was beginning to contemplate where I was going to spend the night when we flew back to Denver again when the pilot finally got a clearance and we landed.
Good day friends and listeners! I have returned from the NORML Aspen Legal Seminar with so many memories and so much new information. Like, did you know that when you smoke marijuana in Aspen, Colorado, you will get 8,000 feet higher than when you smoke it in Portland, Oregon?
It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I packed the whole home studio into a new case and set it up at the conference. I’ve got over ten hours of digital video waiting to be edited featuring the finest legal minds working in marijuana law defense and reform to date.
Then there were the parties - what happens when you let loose a hundred or so NORML attorneys and activists into a resort mountain town on a perfectly gorgeous weekend?
Over this next week, in lieu of my regular two interviews I’ll be giving you highlights from the presentations at the seminar. Here is some of who and what you’ll be hearing over the next five days:
Gerry Goldstein on the most important new court decisions at the state and federal level impacting marijuana;
Paul Wright of Prison Legal News on Prisoner Litigation and Prisoner Constitutional Rights;
NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano on the Latest DUID Research;
Natman Schaye on Teaching Ethics to Prosecutors;
Douglas Hiatt, Warren Edson, and William Panzer on current Medical Use Issues;
Dan Monnat on the failures of Drug Dogs;
Jerri Merritt of TalkLeft.com on New Crack Cocaine Sentencing Bills;
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, on Roadside Search and Seizure;
Scott Jurdem on Reasonable Doubt
And Marjorie Russell on Preparation to Bring Your Case to Life (featuring the live reenactment of the Keith Stroup Boston Freedom Rally Pot Bust!)
These seminars will also be made available in video format (DVD, YouTube, download, we’re still working out the tech details) sometime soon, and the complete audio will be available for download at our NORML Special Events feed at http://www.norml.org/rss/normlevents_podcast.xml (or just find the liks in the right sidebar)
I also have some exclusive, behind-the-scenes insider access to some of the fantastic social events that took place at The Gant Hotel (home of the happiest staff in Aspen), the Aspen home of attorney Gerry Goldstein, and the NORML Cookout at Owl Farm, the legendary home of Hunter S. Thompson.
Then there are all the new friends made and old friends revisited that make these NORML events so memorable. The NORML Staff and Board of Directors were well represented and there were many of us from the West Coast, but I got to meet and befriend activists and attorneys from Wisconsin, Ohio, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Florida, and even Japan and Poland (by way of LA). There are probably a few states and countries I’m forgetting; that can be the downside of a NORML event (If you can remember it, you weren’t there?… that’s why God made digital tape!) Howdy to all y’all and see you at Hempfest!
Check out more pictures from Owl Farm in the Gallery below…
Now that June has arrived it is time to start looking at the Summer Festival Schedule. I’m going to open this up with a look at the summer festivals I’ll be attending in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest. I’m going to depend on you marvelous Stashers to keep me informed on what’s happening in your area. Just send me an email at stash@norml.org and I’ll be glad to promote your area’s summer festival. The Northwest schedule is listed in the Full Story below:
Friday is Cannabis Community day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re speaking with our regular guest Steve Bloom, the webmaster at CelebStoner.com. Steve was out on the road this week in Colorado autographing copies of his latest book, Pot Culture, The A to Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life. We’ll get his report on the nation’s largest 4/20 smoke-in at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Next, Cannabis Karri brings us a group called Supersuckers for our musical break today. This Seattle band by way of Tucson sings a song called “Can Pipe”, something we’ve all constructed in those desperate days when pipes and papers aren’t available.
We wrap things up today with some more cannabis comedy from the new movie “Totally Baked”. The sketch is a typical cable news talking heads show where our sincere marijuana law reformer is attacked on all sides by the host and guests. You can get your copy of the DVD at totallybakedmovie.com. 10% of the proceeds benefit NORML, and you can get a 25% discount by entering HIGH as the promo code online.
Finally, don’t forget that every Saturday we’re now posting the NORML Weekend Music Stash, where you can get all of the last ten songs from our daily musical breaks in one podcast, suitable for your weekend party pleasure. If you have a band that would like to be featured on our podcast, please send us an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.
So sit back and relax with your favorite strain and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…
And around 4:20 p.m. on the University of Colorado campus, the sky grew unusually hazy.
Cheers erupted along with a heavy cloud of smoke as an estimated 10,000 people - mostly CU students joined by friends from out of town and some local residents - lit up to celebrate at an annual pot-smoking rally.
Some said they were there to advocate for the legalization of marijuana. Others - including some who came just to watch - said it was all for fun.
“It’s like, why do people drink beer on St. Patrick’s Day?” said a 22-year-old “super senior” who didn’t want to give his name. “It’s a holiday. Like the Fourth of July.”
CU police monitored the gathering, with 15 campus officers and six Boulder County sheriff’s deputies stationed around the perimeter and directing traffic.
According to a news release, the focus was to “maintain a safe environment and discourage potentially hazardous activities.”
No citations were issued and there were no arrests, although there were four medical incidents and two people were transported to local hospitals, the release stated. One person was treated for a seizure, the other for dehydration.
Organized crime groups and the drugs they deal are moving into Colorado at a quicker rate.
“I think they believe it’s a good market and I think the case could be made that it is a good market,” said Jeffrey Sweetin, the DEA special agent in charge of Colorado.
Sweetin said it’s in part because of Denver’s law making marijuana legal in small amounts and a state-wide initiative to legalize medical marijuana.
The DEA says when it comes down to it, statistics show marijuana is the most widely abused drug in Colorado.
Actually, I believe the most widely abused drug in Colorado is Coors Light. Oh, wait, sorry, alcohol doesn’t count, even though it killed 207 Colorado drivers in 2006. And to prove that there is an increase in organized crime, Special Agent Sweetin pulls figures from the Department of Right Outta My Ass.
It’s hard to understand how Denver’s law allowing personal possession has enticed organized crime, since Denver police are ignoring that law and arresting cannabis consumers anyway under state law.
The only enticement to organized crime is the continued prohibition of marijuana that makes it very profitable for criminals to sell. The only way Colorado’s medical marijuana program could possibly contribute to that is due to the fact that there is no legal medical marijuana distribution system, so patients are forced to buy from the black market.
Do you really want to deal a blow to organized crime? Tax and regulate marijuana like we do whiskey and force the criminal in the dark alley to compete with a safe legal liquor store.
NORML.ORG US CO: Preparing For 4/20 Pot Smoke-Out
Student smokers, in perhaps the cliched easy-going fashion associated with marijuana, are getting ready for the annual 4/20 celebration on the University of Colorado campus.
Official smoke-out T-shirts sold online simply say: “University of Colorado. April 20. Farrand Field.”
Every year, thousands of people gather on the CU campus April 20 for the unofficial pro-pot celebration — and at 4:20 p.m. a cloud of smoke mushrooms above the crowd. The event is said to have grown from a northern California tradition.
CU police this year are bracing for a large crowd.
Alex Douglas, who does public relations for NORML’s CU chapter, said there also will be a screening of the documentary “Super High Me” in Cristol Chemistry Building, Room 140. The group plans to rally for the legalization of marijuana with signs and banners on Norlin Quad.
CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said the department will likely need to pay overtime to its officers to monitor the event, given the possibility that the smoke-out could be heavily attended.
“We will obviously have a presence,” Wiesley said. “We certainly don’t condone, support or otherwise sanction this event.”
In past attempts to snuff out the event, campus police have turned sprinklers on the crowd and taken pictures of student smokers, posting them online and offering rewards to those who could identify them.
Wiesley, though, was mum on this year’s planned tactics.
“We don’t give our playbook to the other team before the game,” he said. People have the right to protest for marijuana law reforms, “but, breaking the law in order to change the law is not how our democratic society works,” he said.
Uh, Commander Wiesley, if I may enlighten you with a quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
…Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.
Marijuana prohibition is one of those unjust laws. The power majority made our use of an intoxicant (marijuana) illegal, but keeps their use of an intoxicant (alcohol) legal. Dr. King was addressing the social and legal segregation of blacks and whites; I’m addressing the social and legal segregation of tokers and drinkers. Breaking unjust laws in an act of civil disobedience is a long tradition in this nation… even for us cannabis consumers.
Today is Cannabis and the Law Day here at the Stash and coming up after the news we speak with Attorney Adam Wolf of the ACLU ’s Drug Law Reform Project. He just argued a case before the Alaska Supreme Court that questions the Ravin v. State decision that over thirty years ago declared that the personal possession and use of cannabis at home is protected under the privacy rights outlined in the Alaska constitution.
Then Cannabis Karri brings us a great tokin’ tune from a Pacific Northwest band called Ivy League… uh, how do you get Ivy league when your band members are from Seattle and Provo? Anyway, they’ve got a song called “Let it Burn” for your musical marijuana enjoyment.
James and Pam Fleming of Fort Collins are opening EnerChi Healing Center, 1502 S. College Ave., on Monday. The center will have 20 practitioners who offer acupuncture, reflexology, yoga, meditation and other holistic treatments.
James Fleming wants to offer the services below market value, and he will supplement their costs with the medical marijuana revenue.
Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana through Amendment 20 in 2000, which authorized using the drug to treat debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma or AIDS.
Authorized users must have a doctor’s recommendation and obtain a registry card issued by the state health agency.
Marijuana users at EnerChi need to list the clinic as their caregiver on the registry card, James Fleming said.
EnerChi’s marijuana is supplied by a coop of growers. Buyers can purchase it at the clinic, but they can only “medicate in private setting that is most comfortable to them,” not in the clinic, he said.
My sources in Colorado tell me this is not the only coop that is operating in Colorado, but that most of them like to keep a pretty low profile. It remains to be seen how the feds will respond to this very public intention to sell medical marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law, and, to the best of my understanding, questionable under Colorado’s Amendment 20 that regulated medical marijuana. There is a statute that reads:
Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, no person, including a patient or primary care-giver, shall be entitled to the protection of this section for his or her acquisition, possession, manufacture, production, use, sale, distribution, dispensing, or transportation of marijuana for any use other than medical use.
So does that mean Colorado residents who are patients or caregivers are protected in the sales of marijuana for medical use? It’s an interesting question, and one that I will be following-up on with one of our NORML Legal Committee attorneys from Colorado on tomorrow’s Stash.
Join NORML In Berkeley For Our 2008 National Conference Register Today To Take Advantage Of Discounted Rates; Congress Fails To Adopt Appropriations Bill - No Opportunity to Vote on Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment; California: Medical Pot Statute Does Not Conflict With Federal Anti-Drug Laws; San Diego Supervisors To Appeal Ruling; interview with SSDP's Kris Krane
Members Of Congress Demand An End To Federal Pot Possession Arrests; National MS Society Makes Recommendations Regarding Therapeutic Use Of Cannabis; The Tragic Death Of Rachel Hoffman -- And The Tragedy That Is Pot Prohibition; Interview with Rep. Barney Frank.
Pot Compound Enhances Efficacy Of Anti-Cancer Agents, Study Says; California: Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act Qualifies For November Ballot; New Orleans: District Attorney Charging Minor Pot Offenders With Felonies; Kelly Maddy on Joplin MO Decrim Effort.
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, describes the case precendent in roadside traffic stops and search and seizure.
Seattle, Washington attorney Doug Hiatt explains the latest medical use issues in Washington State, including denial of transplant organs for medmj patients.
