The most important on-screen toke since Easy Rider

I don’t have cable TV anymore, so my viewing choices on free TV are limited. Tonight on this Friday before Election Day there was ABC News 20/20 with an exposé on teenage heroin addicts (guess what drug they tried first!) and CBS with a crime drama of a teenage heroin dealer in the high school. I guess it’s a bit more subtle anti-Prop 19 electioneering than LA Sheriff Baca warning parents about marijuana candy, but you can hardly blame the networks… that Big Pharma advertising revenue is fairly important for staying in business.

So I was thrilled to read the news in the Twitterverse that Zach Galifianakis, the hirsute comedian who starred in “The Hangover”, appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, live on HBO, and during a segment discussing Prop 19, casually lit up a joint to address “the taboo”.

http://www.whosay.com/BillMaher/videos/4631;jsessionid=160E45B44B9DFC3440DDC4000FC8609A

Click here to view the embedded video.

Will it help or harm the Prop 19 campaign?  I can come up with arguments for both sides of that question.  But in my heart, I see it as one of the most important acts of civil disobedience I’ve seen on this issue.  The reaction of the two guests closest to Maher wins the day for me, because the juxtaposition of their smiles and their shock illustrated just how silly it is to be shocked by marijuana smoking in the first place.

Did anyone else hear Lawrence O’Donnell asking for Galifianakis to “pass that over to this side?”  It’s a shame the first two guests don’t know pot etiquette… maybe we could have had two tokers live on screen.

And Bill… why haven’t you contributed more than a wedding present to the campaign?  Even Soros is in now… how polarizing do you think your donation would be at this point?

It sure can be difficult to raise funds when celebrity members of your advisory board are constantly criticizing you instead of cutting a check. "That's why the marijuana movement hasn't really ever gone anywhere."

Once again, Bill Maher recently criticized NORML, this time during a conversation with board member Ann Druyan.

On the Sept. 24 edition of Real Time, Maher introduced Druyan, who is Carl Sagan’s widow, as the “head” of NORML. Druyan clarified that she’s chairman of the board of directors. Both were wrong. Maher should know that executive director Allen St. Pierre is the “head” of NORML. And Druyan chairs the NORML Foundation, not the NORML board of directors.

When Druyan attempted to explain that NORML runs things “loose,” Maher launced into his tired refrain: “That’s why the marijuana movement hasn’t really ever gone anywhere. The people in charge set their own hours. We need a Karl Rove type lobbyist to move this.”

Read more at Celebstoner.com…

Druyan chairs the NORML Foundation, which is the source of this blog, our live show, and our podcast, and therefore, half my paycheck (NORML pays the other half for Outreach Coordinator duties – I work two jobs for NORML, like most of us do).  I’m in charge here and I set my own hours.  Here’s the breakdown of a typical slacker weekday, Bill:

• 7am – waking up, often from a phone call coming from the East Coast (I’m on the West) from a chapter in need of assistance or an activist looking to form a NORML chapter;
• 8am – in front of my computer, reading, researching, and analyzing the cannabis news of the day.  I will usually write 2,000-10,000 words a day.
• 11am – my dog may have persuaded me to get out of my chair to walk him by now.  This next two hours is spent prepping for live interviews, composing show graphics, downloading and uploading the music.
• 1pm – performing my daily show (not weekly, Bill) which lasts two hours (not one, Bill) that has had one vacation of two weeks in two years (not four long breaks per year, Bill), with the help of two part-time and ten occasional volunteers (not a paid union HBO crew, Bill) donating their efforts to help end marijuana prohibition.  (I bet you make more in one episode than I make all month… maybe all year!  But to be fair, your production values and guests blow mine away.)
• 3pm – My break for the day – a half hour to walk the dog and get lunch…
• 3:30pm – Back to the computer, now reading and answering personally the 100-200 emails I get per day and writing more stories for tomorrow’s show
• 8pm – 10pm – Sometime in the latter hours of the evening I finally finish up with writing articles, answering emails, building charts, analyzing laws and initiatives, organizing activists nationwide.

That’s easily a twelve-hour day I spend each weekday, plus the meetings I attend on weekends and the almost monthly flights to cover an event somewhere in the US, like next weekend when I’ll be in San Bernardino.

Meanwhile, Bill Maher sits on our “advisory board”, but the only advice we ever get is insulting jabs on his talk show about “stoners not getting up for that 8am meeting on Capitol Hill” and us needing to hire a “Karl Rove-type” lobbyist, which might be a salary we could pay if our well-heeled celebrity supporters would kick down a check now and then.  Since he’s been on that advisory board, he spoke for us once at a national conference in 2002 and… well, that’s it, and we had to pay him for that to happen.

While Bill Maher is insulting us, we’re actually working to reform marijuana laws and not just making stoner jokes on HBO.  For example:

• Oregon NORML is generating international headlines by opening up a cannabis cafe in the Pacific Northwest, passing an industrial hemp bill, and getting commitment to introduce a legalization bill in Oregon in 2011;
• PhillyNORML is working with Pennsylvania lawmakers to introduce medical marijuana legislation;
• Joplin (Missouri) NORML is passing lowest-law-enforcement priority initiatives;
• California NORML is advising Assemblymember Ammiano to introduce legalization bills, and providing crucial analysis supporting Prop 19;
• Colorado NORML is involved in bringing marijuana education (cannabis colleges) to the state;
• Montana NORML is working to protect legal medical marijuana patients from freakin’ firebombings!;
• NORML New Jersey is fighting the Christie Administration to implement the medical marijuana law the last governor signed.
• MassCann/NORML, Madison NORML, Washington NORML, Kansas City NORML, Southern Oregon NORML, and many other chapters are holding public events to educate the public about marijuana law reform;
• Chapters have formed this year to educate people in some of the most marijuana-resistant areas of the country, in Alabama, Lousiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and even Utah!
• National NORML’s been working with Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Ron Paul to introduce medical marijuana, decriminalization, and industrial hemp legislation; our deputy director co-authored a very popular book claiming marijuana is safer than alcohol; our director and legal counsel do thousands of interviews a year with everyone from the Washington Post to the Paducah Sun; and we present two legal seminars and a national conference every year where the top minds in reform network and strategize.

It might be a bit easy for us to lobby if our own celebrity supporters weren’t painting us all with the tired stoner slacker stereotypes our opponents offer.  And say, where’s that big check from Bill Maher in support of Prop 19?  Where’s that “Bill Maher for Prop 19″ web ad?  Every free minute and dollar I have goes into NORML’s mission of ending marijuana prohibition… what about you, Bill?

Oregon NORML Boardmember Linda Mason demonstrates use of a Volcano Vaporizer on local TV news

As the executive director of NORML, the leading lobbying organization for pot smokers’ rights, Allen St. Pierre gets asked a lot of strange questions. But the one he’s been getting lately is, “What is that metal thing they use on Weeds?”

The answer is the Volcano Vaporizer, a smokeless inhalation device that has recently shown up on both the Showtime series and HBO’s Bored to Death, in which a sexy stoner played by Jenny Slate lures Jason Schwartzman into her bedroom to test one out. (“Just squeeze down on that nipple and suck in the vapors,” she coaches him.) It’s even used at the renowned Chicago restaurant Alinea, albeit unconventionally, to pipe aromas of nutmeg and coffee to diners as they eat dessert.

“If you live in Ohio, or if you’re a baby boomer who has no problem with cannabis, and you see them using that, you’re asking, ‘What’s going on?’” says Pierre. “There’s a veneer of sophistication to it. This is not your daddy’s bong.”

Indeed, the Vaporizer wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. With its sleek, brushed-aluminum chassis and digital temperature gauge, it could be mistaken for a device that steams milk. And, perhaps not incidentally, the $700 Volcano is growing in popularity with the cappuccino crowd—highly educated strivers who demand nothing but the best. “If you’re buying this, you are either an aficionado, or you are well-read in the best ways to deliver cannabis to your body as science currently tells us,” says Pierre. “Otherwise you’d have to have a lot of vanity to drop this much money.”

If you’re going to be a lifelong cannabis user, then the investment in a good vaporizer is a must.  One of the points that prohibitionists make about pot smoking is that smoke contains harmful carcinogens.  While the data currently don’t support marijuana smoking as a serious cancer risk, inhaling any smoke from burning vegetable matter isn’t exactly healthy.  So a cannabis user looking to maintain optimum health should definitely get a vaporizer.  In 2001, NORML and MAPS teamed up to run a scientific study on vaporization and found that vaporization “produced THC at a temperature of 185° C. (365° F.) while completely eliminating three measured toxins – benzene, a known carcinogen, plus toluene and naphthalene. Carbon monoxide and smoke tars were both qualitatively reduced by the vaporizer…”

Also, considering what marijuana costs, it makes economic sense to invest in a good vaporizer.  In 2003, NORML and MAPS again found that “the Volcano® vapor was remarkably clean, consisting 95% of THC with traces of cannabinol (CBN), another cannabinoid.  In contrast over 111 different components appeared in the gas of the combusted smoke, including a half dozen known [carcinogens]. Non-cannabinoids accounted for as much as 88% of the total gas content of the smoke.”  In other words, when you’re toking up vapor, 95% of it is getting you high; when you’re toking up smoke, 12% of it is getting you high.  Your weed purchases will last much longer with vaporization.

By 2007, mainstream medical researchers are confirming what we’ve known for a decade: vaporization is safe and effective.  You can see demonstration of vaporization from Oregon NORML’s Cannabis Café in news video that appeared last week on local Portland TV news.

Click here to view the embedded video.

New to DVD today is Humboldt County, an introspective character piece by novice writer/director duo, Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs (both also act in the film). The film follows disenchanted medical student, Peter (Jeremy Strong), as he spends a summer lost within the confines of a marijuana commune hidden deep in the backwoods of Northern California. via DVD Review: Humboldt County – LAist: Los Angeles News, Food, Arts & Events.

Darren and Danny joined us as interview guests in the Sep 26, 2008 Stash.  I really loved this movie and my wife watched it for the first time last week and loved it, too.  This is not a “crazy dope comedy”, so if you’re looking for that, go rent Pineapple Express or Harold & Kumar.  This is a movie that explores the essence of the cannabis community as Peter exits “Babylon” and experiences the interaction of the Humboldt family – “fish out of water” tale.  This film features some of the most realistic depictions of pot farmer characters I’ve seen in a long time.

And besides, it’s got that lady from Six Feet Under (Frances Conroy) and the doctor from Deadwood (Brad Dourif), two of my all-time favorite HBO shows, so you know the acting is good.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tonight is the premiere of the HBO Documentary Films presentation of “Ganja Queen”.  The movie tells the story of Schappelle Corby, which I’ve detailed before on the Stash and on my own blog.  Corby was landing in Bali on a flight from Australia when airport officials discovered nine pounds of marijuana in her bags.  Corby claims the marijuana was not in her bag when she left Australia.  The defense claims she was the victim of a airport smuggling ring that used unsuspecting passengers’ bags – a smuggler working in baggage at the Australian airport would put the marijuana in the bag and a smuggler working in baggage in Bali would off-load the marijuana from the bag.  There was even testimony from a Bali prisoner who claims to have overheard two other prisoners discussing how they had botched a similar smuggling assignment from Australia to Bali.

But the Indonesian courts aren’t very forgiving of drug crimes – smugglers and dealers can be given the death penalty.  Prosecutors wanted the courts to sentence Corby to life in prison.  Instead, for smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into Bali, she was sentenced to twenty years in prison, where she still sits today.

Download audio file (schappelle-corby-doc-trailer.mp3)

Just for comparison: I thought you’d also like to know that the same month Indonesian courts were sentencing Schappelle Corby to 240 months in prison for nine pounds of marijuana, they were also sentencing Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for his role in the 2002 Bali [nightclub bombing] blasts that killed 202 people.  The Indonesian court upheld his sentence of thirty months.

Got that?  Conspire to kill hundreds, you get 2½ years; smuggle pounds of pot, you get 20 years.

(TIME Magazine) We write a television show. Measured against more thoughtful and meaningful occupations, this is not the best seat from which to argue public policy or social justice. Still, those viewers who followed The Wire — our HBO drama that tried to portray all sides of inner-city collapse, including the drug war, with as much detail and as little judgment as we could muster — tell us they’ve invested in the fates of our characters. They worry or grieve for Bubbles, Bodie or Wallace, certain that these characters are fictional yet knowing they are rooted in the reality of the other America, the one rarely acknowledged by anything so overt as a TV drama.

[T]his [drug] war grinds on, flooding our prisons, devouring resources, turning city neighborhoods into free-fire zones. To what end? State and federal prisons are packed with victims of the drug conflict. A new report by the Pew Center shows that 1 of every 100 adults in the U.S. — and 1 in 15 black men over 18 — is currently incarcerated. That’s the world’s highest rate of imprisonment.

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,” wrote Thomas Paine when he called for civil disobedience against monarchy — the flawed national policy of his day. In a similar spirit, we offer a small idea that is, perhaps, no small idea. It will not solve the drug problem, nor will it heal all civic wounds. It does not yet address questions of how the resources spent warring with our poor over drug use might be better spent on treatment or education or job training, or anything else that might begin to restore those places in America where the only economic engine remaining is the illegal drug economy. It doesn’t resolve the myriad complexities that a retreat from war to sanity will require. All it does is open a range of intricate, paradoxical issues. But this is what we can do — and what we will do.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

The writers of The Wire are referring to jury nullification, an American right of juries to decide the fairness of a law and not just the application of that law. A jury can choose not to enforce a law even if they believe a defendant is guilty. This check on legislative power dates back to colonial times even before our Independence Day; however, modern courts have refused to allow defense attorneys and judges to even mention to jurors that they have this power. For more information on jury nullification, visit the Fully Informed Jury Association at www.fija.org.