Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-02-23

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-02-23.mp3)

Today was another one of those breaking news days where I’m juggling a couple of stories and tracking down three interviews on stuff happening in real time. Today in both Pacific and Eastern Time, at roughly the same few hours. I’m telling you, we’re riding a growing wave that is washing over a culture that has had “Enough!”.

Pictured at left is Jim Miller and Ken Wolski from the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey. They’re inside the senate, with some of the 16 NO votes milling in the background behind them. Chris Goldstein from Active Voice Radio called in to the Stash right after the hearing and got Jim and Ken to report on the 22-16 victory on S119 in the Senate. We also have audio from testimony at that hearing on today’s Hemp Headlines. The buzzing noise you hear is either the energy of the medical marijuana boosters in the crowd or the lousy wiring in the New Jersey Senate chambers, which, as Chris notes at his blog, are the second-oldest continuously running state legislative chambers in the United States. (Good for them. Buy some mic cables.)  Also notable: S119 did not pass at 4:20pm Eastern… it was 4:23pm.

Also, California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer joins us prompty after the press conference where Assemblyman Tom Ammiano announced AB 390, the California Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, with his evaluation of the bill’s chances and the effect it would have on California’s budget crisis.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-01-29

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-01-29.mp3)

I’m getting some great suggestions from the Stashers out there – keep ‘em comin’!  And if you want to contribute your own two-minute MP3 reports on cannabis news in your area, you could be played on the Stash as our Regional Correspondent (I’m sure I’ll think of a Stashy-sounding title by then.)

Today’s Stash features a conversation with Michael Crawford, from the board of directors for MassCann/NORML and the musical director of the Boston Freedom Rally.  Even though Massachusetts passed Question 2, making possession of marijuana a $100 civil fine, city leaders are proposing local ordinances to create additional fines of up to $700.  Why can’t elected officials understand that 65% approval for $100 fines is a landslide!

Then Tere Joyce brings us the latest from Southern California.  She has an intriguing idea for helping stimulate the American economy, and it’s not weed!  Tere brings along medical cannabis dispensary employee Jim Wilson, to tell about the experience the recent Tahoe Raid victims probably felt, because he went through a raid along with Tere a couple of years ago.

It’s my penultimate day of fortyhood!  Any excuse to use the word “penultimate”.