Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
Chris Goldstein (far L) and the board of NORML NJ
Toms River 7/2/09: NORML-NJ, the New Jersey Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, held a series of activist gatherings on June 27, 2009 that included an official meeting of the Board of Trustees followed by a well-attended Open Meeting. The non-profit group filled its governing Board, created new committees and initiated new campaigns to increase cannabis reform activity in the Garden State.
NORML-NJ is pleased to announce the installation of an Executive Director and the addition of the following new Board Members as of 6/27:
William Buckman, Esq. – Mr. Buckman is a criminal defense attorney based in Moorestown who also specializes in civil rights litigation. Mr. Buckman won a landmark case involving racial profiling of drivers by the NJ State Police.
Rick Cusick – Mr. Cusick is the Associate Publisher of High Times Magazine; his writing on the topic of cannabis is known around the world. He plans to be very active on the NORML-NJ Board.
Chris Goldstein – A longtime marijuana advocate and founder of NORML’s Daily AudioStash podcast. He has been very active with the medical cannabis effort in NJ and PA. Mr. Goldstein was selected to serve as Executive Director of NORML-NJ.
These new additions join the standing NORML NJ Board Members, a distinguished group of attorneys and advocates:
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More retrospectives today with NORML CON panelists. High Times Associate Publisher Rick Cusick talks about the passing of George Carlin and NORML Board Member Norm Kent talks about Pushing 60 with Pot.
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It’s a special comedy edition of the Daily Audio Stash! Tere Joyce (Last Comic Standing, Hollyweed Live) is joining us now on Thursdays as our Cannabis Comedy Correspondent. Each week she will put us in touch with the best up-and-coming comedians who are on the cutting edge of reefer comedy.
Tere kicks off the segment by describing the incident that turned her from being just another stand-up to being a committed cannabis crusader – a DEA raid at the first medical marijuana dispensary she ever visited! Now she works with the Patients Advocacy Network and performs benefits for those who have been victimized by the War on Marijuana. You can see her next at the Castle Inn in Landers, California, on July 12th (a week from this Saturday).
Then we visit with the Associate Publisher of High Times Magazine (and co-defendent in the Keith Stroup Massachusetts Joint-Smoking trial) Rick Cusick. Rick remembers his conversations with the late George Carlin and how Carlin was instrumental in getting Cusick his job at High Times.
Light your fireworks tomorrow – light a doobie now and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…
Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 9:16 am | By: Radical Russ
[The latest upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1 has wiped out my style sheets. So that’s why the Stash site looks funny today. I’m working hard on getting it fixed, please be patient.]
The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Law Prof Argues Marijuana Trial
Most marijuana users who get caught smoking a joint summarily pay a fine, but when an undercover police officer detained Richard E. Cusick and R. Keith Stroup, the two chose instead to challenge the constitutionality of Massachusetts laws banning marijuana for the first time in 30 years.
Arrested for sharing a marijuana cigarette at the annual Boston Freedom Rally in September, Cusick and Stroup turned to Harvard Law School professor Charles R. Nesson for legal counsel. Nesson and his clients acknowledged that they had used the illegal drug, and decided upon an unusual defense: they argued that the statute outlawing marijuana in Massachusetts has no “rational basis,” and that the jury has the power of jury nullification, or ruling a defendant innocent while recognizing that he or she had violated a law.
Both co-defendants built their careers around marijuana: Cusick is associate publisher of the well-known marijuana magazine, High Times, and Stroup is the founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. They said that they do not believe marijuana to be a social ill.
Nesson said he had hoped that several experts—including Lester S. Grinspoon, an associate professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School, and Jeffrey A. Miron, director of undergraduate studies in economics—would be allowed to testify to the harmlessness of marijuana.
But the defendants were not granted an evidentiary hearing, and the jury found them guilty of marijuana possesion after deliberating briefly. The judge sentenced them to one day in prison, which they had already served the day they were arrested.
“The idea that they were found guilty of a crime was just crushing to me,” Nesson said in an interview yesterday.
Although Nesson plans to file an appeal, it is unlikely that an appellate court will rule to change the verdict.
Be sure to download today’s Daily Audio Stash for my conversation with Keith Stroup about his sentence and conviction.
Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 4:51 am | By: Radical Russ
NORML Blog » Blog Archive » High Times Publisher and NORML Founder Mount Legal Challenge to Massachusetts Pot Laws!
On Saturday, September 15, 2007, NORML Founder Keith Stroup and High Times associate publisher Rick Cusick were arrested for smoking a joint at the 18th annual Boston Freedom Rally on the Boston Common. This is an event held each year to protest the continued arrest of responsible cannabis consumers in that state, and depending on the weather, it attracts from 15,000 to 50,000 supporters to the Common.
Keith and Rick have candidly acknowledged that they were sharing a joint, but they have pleaded not guilty and announced their intentions to challenge the constitutionality of the Massachusetts marijuana laws, and to argue for a jury instruction informing the jurors of their common law power to refuse to convict an individual, if they do not believe the offense should be a criminal matter. This long-held power of jurors is generally called jury nullification.
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm | By: Radical Russ
Marijuana Laws on Trial – NORML WHAT: A Press Conference on a Constitutional Challenge to Massachusetts’ Marijuana Laws and a Request for a Special Jury Instruction
On March 20, 2008, Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and Rick Cusick, associate publisher of High Times magazine, will discuss the constitutional challenge they are mounting to the marijuana laws of Massachusetts. This challenge is part of their defense against the charge of possessing a joint on Boston Common last fall at a public gathering to protest marijuana’s prohibition. Stroup and Cusick will also discuss their plans to request a special jury instruction on the right to jury nullification.
Their attorneys — Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School, Matthew Feinberg of Feinberg and Kamholtz, and Steven Epstein from Georgetown, Massachusetts — will join Stroup and Cusick at the press conference. Retired Harvard Medical School Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D., who is providing expert medical testimony in support of the constitutional challenge to the state’s marijuana laws, will also be available to answer questions.
WHEN: Thursday, March 20, 2008 — at the conclusion of the pre-trial motions hearing, which is scheduled to begin at 9:00am in Courtroom #10 at the Boston Municipal Court, 24 New Chardon Street, Boston, MA 02114.
WHERE: The press conference will take place less than a mile from the Courthouse, at the Batterymarch Conference Center, 60 Batterymarch Street (inside the Hilton Financial District Hotel), Second Floor, Boston, MA 02110.
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
Stash Founder Chris Goldstein elected Executive Director of NORML NJ
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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