Hang tight, NORML SHOW LIVE fans. A new Mothership PC is on its way to RoLLaJaY Studios. We’ll be back just as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I found this gem on the internet – jamming with Bill Panzer at Hunter S. Thompson’s place in 2010.

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See y’all soon! –”R”R

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Just the right side of the fully-packed hall in the UCF Student Union for Russ Belville's "Marijuana Facts" presentation.

It has been a busy travel year for me as NORML’s Outreach Coordinator and I couldn’t be happier.  The enthusiasm I see nationwide for marijuana law reform has never been, ahem, higher.  This year I’ve been traveling monthly, starting in March, to Columbia (MO), Denver, Austin, San Francisco, Missoula, and yesterday, I landed in Orlando.

I was a guest of the University of Central Florida’s NORML Chapter, NORML@UCF (Go Knights!)  This chapter is truly amazing.  Formed in 2001, they have expertly navigated the politics of student government and appropriated student funding for their mission.  That translates into a Speaker’s Budget, where they fly in the top speakers in marijuana activism for presentations, lectures, and discussion.  Previous guests include NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, Federal Medical Marijuana Patients Elvy Musikka and Irv Rosenfeld, HIGH TIMES Associate Publisher Rick Cusick, Cannabis Café Founder Madeline Martinez, and now, for the second time, me!

I delivered my PowerPoint of slides from my Big Book of Marijuana Facts and the response was overwhelming.  The lecture hall was completely full and as I looked at all the faces, I realized this may be the first time I have ever been the oldest person in a packed room.  I warned them that my presentation was a bit like getting a drink from a fire hose – there’s a lot to talk about in the War on Drugs! – but they were thrilled to learn that all the presentation and more is contained in the Big Book.  In appreciation of their fine work, I told them I was leaving them the very first prototype copy to use in their weekly tabling outreach on the quad.  After 90 minutes of jam-packed graphs and my presentation, the room erupted in applause and I received the first spontaneous standing ovation of my career.

After the presentation I was escorted by chapter leaders to an after-hours party at one of the officer’s houses.  I got to have so many discussions with so many young people.  It was really invigorating.  After six years now of fighting prohibition and reporting on the horrors of the War on Drugs I’ve become a bit jaded and cynical.  The optimism and enthusiasm of these young Knights was just the medicine I needed.  I realized I was talking with a generation of young people who were barely approaching first grade when medical marijuana became a legitimate public policy.  A generation weaned on Facebook and Google that can no longer be force-fed reefer madness lies.  More than a few told me that when the older generation passes and they take over, things will be different, and this time I didn’t feel the need to say “That’s what the Summer of Love generation said, too.”

We talked about Florida’s most-draconian pot laws.  A mere twenty grams in possession is a felony.  Growing one plant is a felony and over 25 plants is considered a major marijuana operation with extreme mandatory minimum sentences.  Once convicted of a felony, a Floridian loses the right to vote while incarcerated, while on parole, while on probation, and forever afterward.  You can apply to a clemency board to be re-enfranchised, but only after a 5-7 year waiting period following the end of incarceration/probation/parole.  This has contributed greatly to 9% of all Floridians and an astonishing 19.8% of African-American Floridians disenfranchised.  It’s a bit more difficult to change marijuana laws when a big chunk of your base supporters can’t vote.

Meanwhile, the Knights told me, Florida is awash in “pain clinics” where OxyContin is doled out like… well, the way they described it, it sounded like the image our opponents paint of medical marijuana in California.  ”Yeah, you can go to a shady little fake clinic,” one young man told me, “complain about pain, get a script from a shady doc, and get yourself 500 OxyContin pills, no problem.”  Another told me of a friend of his who gets the OxyContin to sell so he can buy the ridiculously overpriced marijuana in Florida.

Speaking of which, it was good, not great.  I asked what strain it was and one young lady replied sadly, “We don’t really get to know which strain, we’re just lucky to get something that’s not brickweed.”  Ah, I replied, it’s like my old days in Idaho when there were two strains of weed: “Got Some” and “Don’t”.

Keep fighting, Knights.  With education and dedication, we’ll get that regulation for legalization.  I believe you are the generation to achieve weed liberation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Before…

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With apologies to Keith Olbermann…

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Russ Belville. More or less "radical" without the hat?

I recorded seven videos for the latest round of Obama’s Open for Questions (now called “Your Interview with the President“.  In the comments, RW delivered this critique:

The biggest mistake we could make when asking for any serious change in policy is coming on youtube looking like a fool with a tie, creepy facial hair, and a marijuana leaf hat.

Ahem.

Chuck Todd. Creeping out the mainstream since 2007.

I don’t know that a marijuana leaf hat is any stranger than the tea party hats being worn lately and the mainstream media and politicians seem to give them quite a bit of consideration.  I also didn’t know that my Van Dyke was “creepy” and impeding any serious policy discussions; I guess I’d better call NBC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd.

The pot leaf hat has become my “signature” and I have had so many great conversations with strangers about reform that would never have occurred without it.  ”It’s 100% hemp!” I say to the passer-by who says, “Nice hat.”  I tell them I’m with NORML, give them a card, and the discussion is on.

It really came about from vanity.  I’m just sensitive about my oddly-patterned male baldness and a hat is easier than the comb-over pictured above.  I used to just shave my head but once I got my talk radio show I let it grow because otherwise I looked like another bald white talker named Michael Smerconish.  The Van Dyke is just easier than a lot of shaving and it “butches up” my soft fat round face.

However, as I move out of podcasting and radio and blogging, where image isn’t important, to television and video, where image is king, I’ve been considering the impact of how I look as much as what I say and write.  BW’s comment just brought the consideration to the surface.

I’m still making a decision over the next week and I’m really interested in what the Stash community thinks.  I want to be your Voice of the Marijuana Nation and I want to represent you as positively as possible.  So what do you think?

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Hemp Headlines

1. Officials in the Netherlands are proposing limits on THC potency in the coffeeshops
2. Protests arise over law enforcement raids on Michigan medical marijuana providers
3. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition press conference supporting Prop 19

NORML Newsmakers

• Russ Belville’s presentation: The Box Canyon – Does Medical Marijuana Lead to Eventual Legalization or Permanent Medicalization?

I will be appearing as part of a panel on marijuana politics at the Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas on Saturday, July 24th.  Netroots Nation was formed five years ago and originally called YearlyKos.  It was born from the DailyKos website, the highest-traffic progressive blog on the internet, and is now the annual convention for the entire progressive blog and activism community.

The progressive blogs, like DailyKos, Huffington Post, Think Progress, and Talking Points Memo have often featured stories on the futility of the War on Drugs, but this year the blogs have begun taking more of an activist role.  The FireDogLake blog polled its readers as to whether they should take a more activist role in supporting the legalization of marijuana and the positive response was overwhelming (click the link to join their “Just Say Now” Legalization campaign).

I’ll be on a panel alongside Maj. Neill Franklin from LEAP, Stephen Gutwillig from DPA, Jon Walker from FireDogLake, Ryan Grim from Huffington Post (and author of This is Your Country on Drugs), and Jill Harris (I don’t know her affiliation yet).  Here’s the info from the Netroots Nation website:

MARIJUANA POLICY & POLITICS
SATURDAY, JULY 24TH 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM

PANEL, MIRANDA 3-4

With a wave of populist energy upending the old political coalitions, bloggers have a leading role to play in redefining the political playing field. One of the openings is drug policy, with marijuana policy in the lead, pulling together the libertarian elements of the Tea Party movement, small-government conservatives and progressives. Medical marijuana is now legal in 14 states, and several more are considering taxing and regulating marijuana for non-medical use. Ballot measures are being considered in several states for 2010 and 2012. By embracing marijuana as a serious issue to be addressed in the context of a broader populist movement, bloggers can help to take it out of the policy and political ghetto where it normally resides and could make genuine progress.

My bosses at NORML remind me that I do earn two weeks of vacation every year. It’s weird for me to think of taking a vacation from a job where I already work from home and I’m reading, writing, and talking about cannabis. It’s not like I don’t get to travel, either, having covered events in the past year at Seattle, Madison, Boston, Orlando, Aspen, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Tacoma, Boise, and Albuquerque.

Not doing the show and the blog and finding something else to do for two weeks seems like more work to me.

But alas, bookkeepers keep track of a “vacation hours” field and I’ve got too many of them, apparently.  Since my last real two-week vacation took place in 2005, I am required to burn some of those hours.

So I will be away from this cyberspace home for a couple of weeks.  Posts and new live shows will return July 12.  In the meantime, we’ll be running our Daily Toker Tunes Megamix as well as some of our best Radical Rants and Cannabis Conversations from previous shows.  Ganja Jon & Cannabis Karri may stop in from time to time to say “high”.  Have a great Independence Day Weekend (remind your friends that those fireworks represent the hemp farmers who believed in freedom and privacy)! — “R”R