I am proud to announce the creation of the NORML North American Chapter Map in Google Maps. The map will locate all the State, Regional, Local (subchapters) and College NORML Chapters in the US and Canada. Click the icon for a chapter and you’ll be linked to their website. As I continue updating the database, more information will be added to the map, such as meeting times and locations, public events, and email contacts, as well as each chapter’s logo.

View the NORML Chapters Map at http://tr.im/NORMLmap.

If you use Google Earth, you may open the NORML.kml file, which will link to the database and retrieve the latest updates. You can save that link to your “My Places” and it will always show an up-to-date map when you open Google Earth.

View Larger Map

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It used to be that if you went to Google and typed in “medical marijuana info”, you’d get our NORML page on medical use as the top hit.  Now it seems the Department of Justice has hijacked that ranking for this page that questions medical marijuana:

California Medical Marijuana Information

* The assertion that all medical marijuana is headed for seriously ill patients is misleading. Statistics from the California Branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) shows that a survey of Californians reports the top three reported uses of medicinal marijuana:

40% Chronic Pain
22% AIDS-Related
15% Mood Disorders
(23% All other categories)

Because, after all, people with chronic pain and HIV/AIDS aren’t “seriously ill”.  DOJ knows that because of all that medical expertise they picked up in law school.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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But the politicians ain’t a-listenin’.

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The latest evidence that The People¹ are way ahead of the politicians on this one comes from our friends at “the Google”.  Google Trends is a feature that allows you to map the prevalence on a search request on the internet through Google.  In human terms, it tells you what people are looking for².

When we plug in the search term “legalize marijuana”, and limit it to the United States, we get a chart that looks like this:

What we’re seeing here is 2004-2006.  This chart shows the searches relative to a baseline average, which is 1.0 on this chart.  Every year, searches for “legalize marijuana” spike in the spring (around 4/20, I’ll bet) and winter, which is usually election time.  

When the chart hits 2.0, that’s twice as many searches as average.  Around election time, it spikes to triple in 2006 and five-times the average searches in 2004 and 2005.  But when the chart dips to 0.0, searches for “legalize marijuana” are far worse than average, right around summer time. 

However, when we take a look at the last two years, something interesting has happened.  In 2007, interest in “legalize marijuana” stayed relatively constant, with a slight spike in spring and winter.  In 2008 the trend continues but shows spikes in the middle of summer – the primary season – and a huge increase in interest around this presidential election without the drop to 0.0 we saw in 2004.

As I read the explanation for the math behind this (and recognizing I’m no Danica McKellar, either), it seems that if “all numbers are relative to total traffic”, and the total traffic on the internet is rising a thousand times every five years, then if “legalize marijuana” is staying at or above the relative average of 1.0, then interest in the topic has been rising steadily since late 2006!  No 0.0’s in nine straight quarters!

Also, the steady line of this graph shows me that “legalize marijuana” is becoming more mainstream, as it is not just spiking when there’s a 4/20 or an election that might show spikes due to us dedicated activists.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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