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405 - Marijuana At Your Corner Store

Jul 02, 2014, 57 min read

Program Notes

Guest speaker: Sarah Lovering

Today we travel back in time once again to the 2013 Burning Man Festival where Sarah Lovering gave a Palenque Norte Lecture detailing her work with the Marijuana Policy Project. It was MPP that led a coalition of cannabis activists over a several year period leading up to the legalization referendum in Colorado. Sarah not only explains how that campaign unfolded, but she goes on to describe the community’s long term plans for the ultimate legalization of cannabis in the U.S.

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Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic

00:00:22 ►

Salon.

00:00:24 ►

Well, lately I’ve been talking to some of the people who will be traveling to Burning

00:00:29 ►

Man this year and will be helping with the Planque Norte lectures.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I won’t be going to the Burn this year, but I am most definitely

00:00:37 ►

looking forward to being able to podcast some of this year’s lectures, which reminded me

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that I still haven’t finished podcasting all of last

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year’s Planque Norte lectures, and so I’m going to get a few of the remaining talks out to you as

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soon as I can. In fact, the talk that I’m going to be playing for us in a minute was originally going

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to be one of the first of last year’s talks that I podcast. But finally, here we are, so now let’s

00:01:02 ►

join the group of burners at Camp Soft Landing and listen in as Pez introduces our featured speaker for today.

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And please keep in mind that this talk was given in August of 2013, almost a year ago.

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And while a lot has happened in the world of cannabis regulation since then,

00:01:21 ►

nonetheless, I’m sure that you’re going to find Sarah Lovering very

00:01:25 ►

informative. All right. Up next, we have Sarah Lovering from the Marijuana Policy Project.

00:01:32 ►

I’m sure some of you are familiar with MPP and their work. They have been responsible for many

00:01:38 ►

of the states that have legalized medical marijuana and also the most recent legalization

00:01:42 ►

effort in Colorado to be the first

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state to actually legalize marijuana for everybody over 21. So they do great work.

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And Sarah is one of their fundraisers and is going to talk to you a little bit today about

00:01:56 ►

marijuana at the corner store and the future of marijuana. So with that, I’ll give it off to Sarah.

00:02:02 ►

So with that, I’ll give it off to Sarah.

00:02:05 ►

Thank you, Pez.

00:02:06 ►

Hello.

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Okay, so I’m going to talk to you today about marijuana at the corner store,

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meaning will we eventually see marijuana at the corner store all around the country the way we do with alcohol,

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or will law enforcement, government, public opinion, you know, eventually shift and roll back the current trends that we’re seeing. So I’m going to start out by telling you

00:02:34 ►

a little bit more about myself and the organization I work for, and then I’m going to go into the

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current status of marijuana law around the country, kind of a state of the union of marijuana.

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And then I’m going to talk about some of the trends we’re seeing in the media, in public

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opinion, and then in the law enforcement and government response to some of the new laws.

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And then I’m going to look into my crystal ball and answer the question, will current trends continue? Will legalization

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continue to progress and evolve? Or will the tide turn and will we see kind of a clamping down

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on legalization efforts? After that, I’m going to talk about what’s next. What are the reform

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organizations planning? You know, what do we think the trends are going to look like in the next 10

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years? And what does this mean for the country? Are we going to go to hell in a handbasket? Are

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we going to see addiction rates skyrocket? Or will it be all cupcakes and rainbows?

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So first off, me. My name is Sarah Lovering. I am a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project.

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My name is Sarah Levering.

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I am a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project.

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We are the largest single organization working on this issue.

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We’re not the only one.

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We’re the largest one dedicated solely to marijuana law reform.

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Like, we don’t work on any other drug.

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I started working for MPP in 2006. I had been in corporate America before that,

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but this issue had been important to me

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since I was in high school when one of my best friends was busted for using marijuana during

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school hours, not on school property. But she was kicked out of school, did not finish high school,

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and that just struck me as the most absurd response to a potentially troubled teen and um

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and it did impact her life and and things like that have impacted many people and and harmed

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many lives and um and you know on top of that there was a lot of drinking in high school and

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i observed people just behaving idiotically with alcohol harming themselves harming others

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and i really i saw very little of that with marijuana.

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It was mostly, you know, lots of laughing and cooking fantastic meals.

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So I got, I just became very interested in the issue and followed marijuana law.

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And in 2005, just started really needing a life change

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and started kind of figuring out that there were career paths

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in the marijuana reform movement.

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And I took the plunge eventually.

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I took a 50% pay cut to leave my job and go work for MPP.

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And it’s been very, very rewarding.

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I’ve worked with really interesting people.

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I’ve helped to carry out really profound change in our country.

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I’ve made some awesome relationships with our donors.

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One of our board members is,

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I think he’s the brains behind this whole camp,

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John Gilmore.

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Really fascinating guy.

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And he’s the one who asked me to come here today.

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So an MPP, you know,

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Pez mentioned some of our recent accomplishments.

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We passed the legalization initiative in Colorado last year.

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Earlier this year, we passed a decrim bill in Vermont, for example.

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We legalized medical marijuana in Delaware and New Hampshire.

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And we’re gearing up for a whole lot of things over the next three years.

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And I’m going to go into those in more detail in a minute.

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up for a whole lot of things over the next three years. And I’m going to go into those in more detail in a minute. So what is the current status of marijuana law around the country?

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Okay, so the current state of marijuana around the U.S. The Marijuana Policy Project was born

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in 1995. So a lot of that’s going to be my frame of reference. In 1995,

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there were no medical marijuana states. Medical marijuana was not legal anywhere. In 1996,

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it became legal in California. We only helped a little bit with that. We were such a nascent

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organization. We had a very small role in that. But today, we have 20 medical marijuana states, including the district, or not

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including the District of Columbia. Marijuana is decriminalized in 15 states. There are two states

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that have taxed and regulated marijuana, Washington and Colorado. They’ve taxed and regulated similar to alcohol. And in 2013, 18 other states were considering medical marijuana legislation.

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Nine others considered decriminalizing marijuana.

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And taxing and regulating marijuana was introduced in 12 states already this year.

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So there’s been a lot of activity on marijuana and medical marijuana.

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Let’s talk about some trends in marijuana.

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Because that also very much speaks to what will happen legislatively and legally on marijuana.

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So public opinion is at an all-time high now.

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Since 1969, Gallup has been polling on public opinions

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regarding legalizing marijuana,

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and we now have over a majority of support for it and that is a first.

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The last peak we saw in support was in 1977 and for the next few years after that support

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actually decreased and then it stagnated for a really long time. Does anybody in the room know why that happened or one of the reasons?

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Yes. He said the war on drugs.

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And there are a few kind of figureheads who had a big role in that.

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Can you name any of them?

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Ronald Reagan and his wife actually played a very huge role

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with the Just Say No campaign.

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So that really did.

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That impacted public opinion significantly.

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They had government funding to run all these scary commercials

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with eggs being fried in frying pans and saying,

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this is your brain on drugs.

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So yeah, public opinion was very much influenced by that

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and really stagnated for a long time.

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We saw the D.A.R.E. program come to life.

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You know, kids being really misinformed about marijuana’s effects and all drugs, you know, what they are, what they do, what they’re going to do to you.

00:09:18 ►

Okay, so another public opinion kind of milestone that we’ve seen recently and this is from an opinion

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leader Sanjay Gupta who was going to be he was Obama’s first pick for surgeon general which means

00:09:34 ►

you know he’s he’s got some clout he came out on CNN recently on a little documentary that he did

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and actually apologized to the world for his prior opposition to marijuana and its

00:09:47 ►

medical use and just did an about face. He said, I’m really sorry I’ve misled you. I was misinformed.

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I was mistaken and I’m wrong. And that’s huge. That’s really huge. He had millions of viewers listening to that message

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and reading about it on Facebook and on Twitter.

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So that’s really huge.

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And in the media in general,

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we’re seeing story after story after story about marijuana.

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We’re seeing reality shows about growers.

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And, you know, we’ve got major TV shows themed around marijuana. We’re seeing reality shows about growers.

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We’ve got major TV shows themed around marijuana. Marijuana has appeared in the media

00:10:32 ►

for sure over the last 50 years.

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It’s being portrayed more and more as just kind of a normal thing.

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In fact, often these days you’ll see

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a character in a show or a movie using

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marijuana, and that’s not even like the point of that scene. It’s a, it’s kind of a, just an aspect

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of their character. So that’s really big. That, that speaks to the public’s position on marijuana, really. And finally, law enforcement and the government.

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What is their stance on marijuana? How are they

00:11:11 ►

reacting to marijuana?

00:11:15 ►

So the answer to that is kind of varied.

00:11:19 ►

In Washington, the Seattle PD

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recently did a really big PR stunt

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in order to inform the attendees at HempFest about their rights under I-502,

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the new legalization initiative.

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They just wanted to make sure everybody knew just because marijuana is legal now

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doesn’t mean it’s okay to drive with it,

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doesn’t mean it’s okay to shotgun it to somebody under 18.

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And they did this by putting stickers on 100,000 bags of Doritos and handing them out at the festival.

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So I think that, you know, really,

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it shows at least that the Seattle PD is not,

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they’re not trying to weigh in on the issue.

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They’re rolling with it.

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And they’re rolling with it in a very

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positive manner.

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In other states, we’re seeing a pretty good response

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in terms of states that have actually

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regulated marijuana well. So look at Colorado. Colorado has a

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very well regulated medical marijuana system.

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Stores are licensed.

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Growers are licensed.

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They get inspected.

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Very, very few federal actions in Colorado.

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And the few that there have been have,

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many of them have been focused around, you know, stuff going out of state.

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So, and we’re seeing that around the rest of the country too the states that have

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regulated medical marijuana at the state level are seeing almost no federal interference like

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look at new mexico for example i i can’t even think of one story from new mexico about a dea

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raid it’s probably happened but it wasn’t big enough to make it into the news.

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Nevada has dispensaries for the first time now. Their legal, yeah,

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their medical marijuana law was passed 12 years ago

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and all this time the state

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legislators have been obstructing the full implementation

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of the law which required that the state establish and regulate a system for distribution to its patients.

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And MPP, my organization, and several other organizations recently,

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this whole past year we’ve been lobbying to finally get dispensaries regulated and allowed in Nevada.

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And it finally passed.

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regulated and allowed in Nevada and that it finally passed and this is going to be huge because Nevada’s system will actually allow the dispensaries to sell to out-of-state patients as

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well which is going to generate a lot of tax income which will help build support for a future

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legalization initiative there and I’ll get to that in a minute. It’s obviously it’s not it’s not good for you know PR

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or for just a well-regulated system to have people abusing a system so we’re going to see some of

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that in Nevada especially since they’re going to allow out-of-state cards. There will be some media

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reports about you know various shifty folks raking in the millions not paying their taxes and selling

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to out-of-state, or selling to minors,

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or whatever. But the benefits will outweigh the costs, and I think the state’s going to make some

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good tax money off of it, and the people of Nevada, even better, are going to see, hey, this kind of

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works, actually. It’s not so bad. So the one place you might have on your mind in terms of a negative federal response, and one

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that I know has affected many people, is in California, so a lot of people think of California

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as kind of like the weed capital of the nation, and for all I know, it may be in terms of use rates,

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I don’t know, but California’s medical marijuana law was the first to be passed. And so the people

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of California didn’t have anything to compare it to. They didn’t know what would work, what wouldn’t

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work, what was too vague. And it was passed by initiative too. And so sometimes in an initiative,

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you don’t have the opportunity to make tweaks to a piece of legislation before it goes final.

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You know, it’s an initiative.

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Once it’s on the ballot, that’s what you’ve got there.

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So, yeah, we have a lot of trouble in California.

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We have no state regulation of the medical marijuana system at all.

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Growers are not licensed.

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Dispensaries are not even authorized by the law they’re not licensed

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they may be licensed by local municipalities um in some places like oakland and berkeley

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but there is no state regulation and the federal government has said in various instances

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you know hey we’re gonna lay off if you regulate And that’s clear that they’re doing that in other states.

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And so California desperately needs to regulate its system.

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And that probably won’t happen via the legislature.

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There was an attempt to do so this year.

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And the California Police Chiefs Association

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and the California Narcotics Officers Association

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lobbied heavily against it and killed it.

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And they will continue to be a threat to any legislative efforts.

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And so our best shot in California is to legalize marijuana via initiative

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because we do have the appropriate level of public support for that.

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I’ll speak more to that in a minute, where we’re going in the future.

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Okay, so what does the crystal ball say?

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Will legalization continue to evolve and to progress around the nation,

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or will a future Republican president or public opinion or a Nancy Reagan admirer just bash the whole thing back and screw things up?

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So I want to see a show of hands.

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Who thinks we’re going to keep going in the right direction?

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Here, here.

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Okay, and who has some grave concerns about what might be happening?

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Okay, so the crystal ball says, yes, we will continue evolving and going in the right direction

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if, if, if the organizations and the people who back them continue fighting very hard for what we’ve achieved so far and what we’re planning to achieve.

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And I say that because, for two reasons.

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One, not a single thing that MPP does or the Drug Policy Alliance or Students for Sensible Drug Policies,

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not a single thing that they do is possible without, you know,

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A, funding from the people who really care about this,

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and B, the people who are willing to take nonprofit jobs

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and who are really passionate about just seeing these ridiculous laws change

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and just plugging away at it and plugging away at it.

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Our initiative in Colorado that passed in 2012,

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that was expensive,

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and it took a lot of pounding the pavement,

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asking for money,

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and bringing together the right campaign team

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and begging for money to run ads.

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Ads are critical in a campaign.

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And thankfully, we do have people on board like John Gilmore

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and David Bronner of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps

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who support what we do at a significant level

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and really help to see that we achieve what we set out to achieve,

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that we do the right polling so that we don’t go in and try to do something in a state where we just don’t have a chance,

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make sure that we’re using the right messaging.

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And then my other qualification was, yes, the trend will continue if we continue to establish a vision and fund it and move forward and know that legalization is not inevitable.

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And I’m going to give you an example of a time when people did think legalization was inevitable.

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And I talked to a fair number of people today who are quite jaded because they’re folks who were probably in their 30s in the 70s.

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They remember the first Prop 19 in California in 1972.

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They remember Cheech and Chong.

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They remember all the momentum and excitement

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around the idea of legalizing marijuana

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that our nation had in the early to mid-70s.

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And we even had President Carter say that

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marijuana should be legalized. So in

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1977, well between 1969

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and 1977, public support for legalizing marijuana rose

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from a mere 12% to 28%

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over those years. So that’s a pretty significant rise in public opinion. Right now we’re seeing about

00:20:24 ►

a 1% gain each years. So that’s a pretty significant rise in public opinion. Right now we’re seeing about a 1% gain each year. So that was over nine years and they had a 16 point gain. So that’s

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pretty good. It was going up and up and up. Timothy Leary had his trial in 1971. I don’t know if you

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guys know the story. Marijuana is more or less illegal because of Timothy Leary.

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He got busted for having a joint when he was trying to cross the Mexican border. It was actually his daughter’s. He took the fall. This was in Texas. I think he got sentenced to 10 years

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in prison. And he thought that was absurd, as he should have. And so he took his case all the way

00:21:02 ►

to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, yeah, you’re right. You know, it’s impossible to comply with our current marijuana laws because

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you have to show this tax stamp to show that you did comply with the law, but nobody’s actually

00:21:15 ►

generating the tax stamp. And even if anybody was making the tax stamp and you purchased it,

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then you would be implicating yourself in a crime, potentially. So in 1977, public support started decreasing and stagnated all the way until about 1999.

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So, you know, Nancy Reagan did a lot of damage in that time. We had the alleged crack baby epidemic,

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which we know now is totally not an epidemic at all.

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And so I think a lot of people, you know, they kept on saying legalization is inevitable,

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it’s inevitable. And, you know, no, it’s not. There were no organized, no funded organizations

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during that time working on this issue. So when my boss, Rob Campia, founded the Marijuana Policy Project in 1995, there were no funded organizations or activists lobbying Congress or state legislatures.

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There were activists, and some of them were working very hard, but they had very little funding, and without funding, it’s exceedingly difficult to make any progress, especially lobbying.

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I mean, right now, it costs $25,000

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a month to lobby Congress, our federal government. That’s a lot of money. That’s just to hire your

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standard lobbyist that’s got some decent connections on the Hill. In a state, you know,

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it could cost $5,000 a month to lobby a legislature. MPP passed a medical marijuana bill in Illinois just a month ago it took us 10 years of lobbying

00:22:49 ►

there hammering away every time getting closer and closer a few more votes you know that that’s

00:22:57 ►

not really something you can do without a machine fueling your efforts sending out email alerts to

00:23:02 ►

the people in key legislative districts letting them, hey, you really need to call your legislator or this is just not going to happen.

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So we have been plugging away and will continue to plug away at it,

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but nothing that we do will succeed at all if we don’t have the people behind us

00:23:18 ►

who believe that our marijuana laws should be different, enabling our work,

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calling their legislators, sending emails to their legislators, letting them know,

00:23:27 ►

hey, I’m not going to vote you out of office if you support this legislation.

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I actually do think this is great legislation.

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We see less and less fear in legislators of looking soft on crime

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in terms of allowing for loosening of marijuana laws,

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but there still is fear.

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There is still a fear of being

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in a re-election campaign

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being labeled a soft on crime. They need to

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hear from us. They need to know that

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we support this. We think this

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is good.

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What’s next?

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Where are we going?

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We are going somewhere.

00:24:02 ►

The Marijuana Policy

00:24:04 ►

Project is hoping to legalize marijuana in seven to eight states in 2016.

00:24:12 ►

Similar to the laws that we just passed.

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We passed Colorado.

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We didn’t work on Washington.

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And we’ll pass a legalization initiative in Alaska next year.

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We’re collecting signatures for that right now.

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2014 is not really a desirable year to do any of that work.

00:24:34 ►

Does anybody know why?

00:24:35 ►

Midterm election.

00:24:37 ►

Yeah, so of course, yeah, we would love to see marijuana legalized

00:24:40 ►

in those seven to eight states in 2014, of course.

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But it’s a midterm election year,

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which means fewer young people will come out to vote.

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And it’s the young people who are most statistically supportive

00:24:53 ►

of the work that we do.

00:24:56 ►

That’s one reason.

00:24:57 ►

Another reason is it’s going to be freaking expensive.

00:25:01 ►

We need time to raise that money.

00:25:04 ►

We need time to develop a campaign strategy and bring

00:25:07 ►

together all the right people. So yeah, we would love to do all this in 2014, but we have a war

00:25:13 ►

chest to build up. So the states that we’ll be working on in 2014 and 2016, I already mentioned

00:25:22 ►

Alaska. We’ll be finished collecting signatures there in January.

00:25:28 ►

California, we’ll be working on California.

00:25:30 ►

Who lives in California?

00:25:31 ►

Nevada, Arizona, Maine.

00:25:35 ►

In Maine, we’re actually working on that right now.

00:25:40 ►

All of these states, in every state I’ve mentioned to you,

00:25:42 ►

it’s not like we swooped in the year that we had our great success and bam, we did it.

00:25:47 ►

In almost all of those states, we’ve been doing things each year to kind of keep this issue in the media and keep the public thinking about it, keep the media talking about it.

00:25:57 ►

In Maine, we’ll be running a legalization initiative in 2016.

00:26:02 ►

But right now, we’re running local legalization initiatives for example the

00:26:06 ►

city of oregon on november 5th they’ll be voting on a city-wide ballot to legalize marijuana in

00:26:13 ►

portland maine portland is the biggest city in maine this is significant you might be thinking

00:26:19 ►

like well okay a legalization initiative at the local level well like big deal isn’t that still

00:26:24 ►

going to conflict with state law?

00:26:26 ►

Like, aren’t people still going to be snagged by the prohibition at the state level?

00:26:31 ►

Well, very few people is the answer.

00:26:34 ►

99% of all marijuana arrests take place at the state and local level,

00:26:39 ►

but most of those at the local level, right?

00:26:41 ►

You know, if you get busted in your city, it’s by a city cop, usually.

00:26:46 ►

So this is actually very significant for cities to pass legalization initiatives,

00:26:51 ►

and we’re actually seeing the same thing in Michigan right now.

00:26:55 ►

So this is the kind of thing that our donors are supporting at the moment.

00:27:01 ►

We’re working on a decrim bill in the District of Columbia. Their medical marijuana

00:27:06 ►

program was just recently implemented, which is going to help shift public opinion. You know,

00:27:10 ►

the public is going to see, like, I think they have four allowed dispensaries, and so they’ll

00:27:15 ►

see these dispensaries and kind of realize ain’t no thing, ain’t no big deal, and just become

00:27:22 ►

increasingly supportive of it. And the D.C. City Council actually just passed,

00:27:29 ►

or they just put out a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.

00:27:34 ►

So it actually came from the City Council.

00:27:37 ►

In Delaware, we’re continuing to help implement

00:27:39 ►

the medical marijuana law that we passed there.

00:27:42 ►

And this is significant.

00:27:44 ►

MPP has a lobbyist in Colorado

00:27:46 ►

right now helping them to develop the best possible regulations for the new law there.

00:27:51 ►

And this is really important because like in Colorado, for example, the new law said

00:27:55 ►

municipalities can ban retail sales of marijuana if they want. And what we didn’t want to see was

00:28:02 ►

most of the major cities banning retail sales because we need some of them to allow them so that the people of Colorado realize this is working.

00:28:10 ►

Look at all this great tax revenue we’re collecting.

00:28:12 ►

So there have been a few states where MPP has passed legalization,

00:28:17 ►

or I’m sorry, medical marijuana laws in the past,

00:28:20 ►

and then didn’t have the funding to stick around and work on implementation.

00:28:23 ►

and then didn’t have the funding to stick around and work on implementation.

00:28:28 ►

And, you know, it became pretty clear that’s not a good idea.

00:28:33 ►

Bad things tend to happen, like in Montana and Michigan.

00:28:40 ►

So now, you know, when we raise money to pass a medical marijuana or a legalization measure,

00:28:47 ►

we’ve got to stay there afterwards and make sure that the vision that we were initially trying to make a reality really will become the great reality we think it could be.

00:28:53 ►

Okay, I want to talk about what does this mean for the country? Are we going to go to hell in

00:28:58 ►

a handbasket? Are addiction rates going to skyrocket? Are DUI rates going to skyrocket?

00:29:07 ►

rates going to skyrocket? Are DUI rates going to skyrocket? How will public opinion continue to shift around this? What does this mean for all of us? Well, you know, yeah, there are a lot of

00:29:15 ►

people out there raising all these alarm bells. We’re going to see a lot of DUI. And in fact,

00:29:19 ►

we’ve seen states like the state of Colorado, unfortunately forth a I don’t remember was a zero tolerance but a really bad DUI bill for marijuana and you know I I know in my own

00:29:32 ►

work for MPP I’ll I’ll talk to people even people who support this my side of the issue

00:29:38 ►

will say things like yeah well we need better testing for impairment. Oh, not for impairment, but for

00:29:45 ►

how stoned you are. And I disagree with that. I think a mere impairment test, like, what are your

00:29:53 ►

motor functions? What is your alert time? What is your response time? I think that should be

00:29:57 ►

sufficient. You know, I don’t think it matters how many nanograms of THC I have in my blood, but rather, am I driving okay? Am I safe on the road? Am I alert?

00:30:08 ►

So that’s one thing that we’re, you know, seeing a lot of people talking about. But

00:30:13 ►

yes, marijuana use rates are going to increase, which means that some of the badness associated

00:30:20 ►

with marijuana will increase. You know, yeah, there are people out there

00:30:25 ►

who have problematic relationships with substances,

00:30:28 ►

who make poor decisions about when they’re good to drive.

00:30:33 ►

So yeah, we’re going to see some increases

00:30:36 ►

in negative effects associated with marijuana.

00:30:41 ►

But we do what we do because the benefits

00:30:44 ►

far, far outweigh the negatives the

00:30:48 ►

the fewer people whose lives are needlessly ruined or damaged by an encounter with marijuana

00:30:55 ►

prohibition um i was actually busted for marijuana possession my first year here at burning man

00:31:02 ►

i didn’t even know that was possible.

00:31:11 ►

My life was not ruined, thankfully. My life was not ruined. But there are people who have suffered far worse than that. People who’ve lost their lives over a suspected, you know,

00:31:19 ►

bag of weed. And that’s absolutely unacceptable.

00:31:29 ►

So, and then, yeah, public opinion is increasing.

00:31:31 ►

I was just telling you public opinion is increasing by about a percentage point a year.

00:31:35 ►

In a presidential election,

00:31:36 ►

we get about a three percentage point boost.

00:31:40 ►

As we have more and more states who have…

00:31:42 ►

What do they have right now?

00:31:43 ►

The percentage is about 63%.

00:31:46 ►

It depends on exactly how the question is phrased.

00:31:49 ►

According to the most recent Gallup poll, I think it’s 55%.

00:31:52 ►

And then if you’re polling about medical marijuana,

00:31:56 ►

the percentages are much higher.

00:31:57 ►

You know, people are much more comfortable with medical marijuana, per se.

00:32:01 ►

So, and then all of us have a role in that as well. You know, I know that in

00:32:07 ►

the past few years, I’ve kind of come out to my parents about my marijuana use, which doesn’t

00:32:12 ►

mean I went to them all sheepishly and was like, I use marijuana. But rather, you know, when I

00:32:19 ►

might normally use marijuana, if we were hanging out together and visiting. I just did it. And it wasn’t a big deal.

00:32:28 ►

And they saw that it wasn’t a big deal. And they, you know, they got more comfortable. They could

00:32:33 ►

see the substance and see like, oh, this is, you know, it’s not the scary thing I kind of imagined.

00:32:40 ►

That really helps too. You know, the baby boomer generation is one of the least supportive groups on this issue.

00:32:47 ►

But as they get older and older, they are going to become more supportive.

00:32:51 ►

A, you know, just because that’s kind of the trend around the nation,

00:32:54 ►

but B, because they’re going to get sicker and sicker,

00:32:57 ►

and they’re going to discover that marijuana does have some really cost-effective,

00:33:02 ►

great health benefits without all the horrible side effects of

00:33:06 ►

the pharmaceuticals that most seniors are popping. So at this point, I really want to open this up

00:33:15 ►

for a discussion. I don’t want to ramble at you forever. I want to take your questions. I want to

00:33:19 ►

take your comments and see where we go from there.

00:33:27 ►

Okay, so to restate that for everybody through the microphone,

00:33:31 ►

he was saying that he’s been having a nightmare about Texas’s Rick Perry,

00:33:35 ►

the governor of Texas, potentially cracking down on this issue and what would be really bad is if he ran for president or something like that

00:33:39 ►

and carried that attitude.

00:33:43 ►

And then the other was, what role does culture play? You know, films,

00:33:46 ►

documentaries, whatever. So with regard to Rick Perry, we’ll see over the next two years how Rick

00:33:56 ►

Perry responds to that. Rick Perry did actually come out and make a really supportive statement

00:34:00 ►

about medical marijuana at one point. He basically said he thought medical marijuana should be legal.

00:34:06 ►

Oh, okay, so the nightmare is actually that he steals the issue from the Democrats.

00:34:10 ►

Actually, it would be awesome if the conservatives stole the issue from Democrats.

00:34:16 ►

We need that to happen, really, before the next president after Obama.

00:34:21 ►

And we’re seeing that anyway.

00:34:22 ►

We are seeing increased conservative support for this issue. I mean, that’s pretty much how we got this passed in Illinois. We had to get a bunch

00:34:30 ►

of conservatives on board in Illinois, and we did. We sent medical marijuana patients to the Capitol.

00:34:35 ►

We paid to bus them there. And these are real people who have real ailments and are risking

00:34:41 ►

prosecution because they’re using a substance that’s currently, or was until recently, illegal.

00:34:47 ►

And that’s really impactful when a legislator meets with somebody who’s like,

00:34:52 ►

man, I can’t even get up, you know, I can’t move, or whatever, I can’t function without this substance.

00:35:00 ►

So, okay, and then the role of culture.

00:35:02 ►

The role of culture is important.

00:35:04 ►

It is important.

00:35:05 ►

In fact, I brought with me the June issue of The Rolling Stone.

00:35:10 ►

The main story in it is how we won the war on pot by Bill Maher.

00:35:18 ►

That’s a little bit cheeky because Bill Maher said on his talk show

00:35:24 ►

right before we passed our initiative in Colorado

00:35:27 ►

that if we brought a campaign to California,

00:35:30 ►

he would pony up some cash,

00:35:33 ►

and he so far hasn’t done that,

00:35:35 ►

but he has time.

00:35:37 ►

Bill Maher, please, we need you.

00:35:39 ►

Culture is important.

00:35:42 ►

You know, obviously,

00:35:44 ►

public opinion leaders in particular play a big role, like Nancy Reagan did.

00:35:51 ►

You know, Nancy Reagan wasn’t necessarily speaking for government.

00:35:54 ►

I mean, obviously, a lot of what she did was government-funded.

00:35:57 ►

But she generated a whole culture around just say no.

00:36:02 ►

You know, there were T-shirts.

00:36:03 ►

There was this whole ethos out there of just say no. You know, there were t-shirts, there was this whole ethos out there of

00:36:05 ►

just say no. On the other hand, culture can be damaging at times too. We’re seeing a lot of

00:36:11 ►

reports about dabbing right now and how it’s kind of the crack of marijuana. If you guys don’t know

00:36:17 ►

what dabbing is, I just saw a puzzled look. Dabbing is, it’s kind of like freebasing marijuana. It essentially is freebasing marijuana.

00:36:26 ►

You use what’s called a rig and there’s a metal pin on it and you, you use a marijuana extract,

00:36:33 ►

like a, it’s called wax or earwax and you heat it up to the point that it becomes a thin little

00:36:38 ►

wispy smoke and you, um, you can smoke it through a thing that looks like a bong and it’s very strong

00:36:45 ►

a lot of people are doing it with very very high

00:36:47 ►

THC strains and THC

00:36:49 ►

is the substance in marijuana that makes you really

00:36:51 ►

stoned

00:36:52 ►

so we’re seeing

00:36:55 ►

a lot of negative reports about dabbing right

00:36:57 ►

now and that could have somewhat of a negative

00:36:59 ►

impact we might see dabbing banned in

00:37:01 ►

places who knows

00:37:02 ►

I know I’ve been to a number of events where people have dabbed and then dropped.

00:37:09 ►

And it’s just not nice to see someone smash their face into the ground.

00:37:14 ►

And so that paints a little bit of a negative picture for marijuana.

00:37:19 ►

So we have to be a little bit careful too. We have to make sure we develop some good regulations really around,

00:37:28 ►

just like we do with alcohol.

00:37:30 ►

We don’t let people make bathtub gin anymore,

00:37:33 ►

and those who do do it get in trouble.

00:37:38 ►

So yeah, culture can really go both ways.

00:37:43 ►

What, the involvement of LEAP?

00:37:47 ►

Okay, so LEAP, he’s asking what has been the involvement of LEAP? LEAP is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. It’s mostly

00:37:53 ►

retired law enforcement officials. I don’t know, there might be one or two active ones. Obviously,

00:38:00 ►

it’s pretty risky if you’re active, if you’re an active law enforcement member to come out against prohibition

00:38:05 ►

because it could be seen as a conflict of interest with your work.

00:38:10 ►

It is a conflict of interest.

00:38:13 ►

LEAP is a great organization.

00:38:16 ►

One of the really great things I’ve been seeing them do is sending speakers to press conferences.

00:38:24 ►

I just saw something about Diane Goldstein,

00:38:26 ►

who’s one of their female members. She used to be a

00:38:28 ►

Redondo Beach police officer.

00:38:31 ►

She’s giving a

00:38:32 ►

pretty big talk

00:38:33 ►

at some event

00:38:36 ►

coming up. I’m not sure. But anyway,

00:38:38 ►

the point is, they’re getting out there.

00:38:40 ►

And because they’re former police officers,

00:38:42 ►

by the way, they look like former police officers,

00:38:46 ►

that’s influential.

00:38:49 ►

That’s people coming out and saying, like, I was wrong.

00:38:55 ►

I busted all these people, and that was really lame, and they weren’t really the troublemakers, in fact.

00:39:06 ►

Jim Gray, Judge Jim Gray, he’s one of the most articulate proponents for ending marijuana prohibition and he was a former federal judge and he locked up a whole bunch of people for our you know various drug laws and he’s very

00:39:12 ►

a very persuasive proponent of of taking a new approach to this judge jim gray yes search him

00:39:21 ►

on youtube he he can he’s so smart like everything just comes out of his mouth like it’s been burbling around up there for centuries.

00:39:30 ►

So yeah, Leap is playing a great role. I volunteered on the Prop 19 campaign in California in 2010.

00:39:39 ►

And they were at all the press conferences and they always had really good statements and I’m sure that will continue to be the case especially as we approach 2016 and are

00:39:48 ►

working with the media again in probably eight different states

00:39:52 ►

on legalization. That’s a fabulous question.

00:39:56 ►

Okay, so to boil it down, he’s saying, okay, MPP works at the

00:40:00 ►

state and federal level, right, to change laws and that’s accurate. We don’t usually

00:40:04 ►

there are things to be done at the state and federal level, right, to change laws. And that’s accurate. We don’t usually,

00:40:10 ►

there are things to be done at the state level, at the local level, I’m sorry. Sometimes we do that,

00:40:15 ►

but most of the time we work to change laws at the state and federal level. And then he’s saying,

00:40:21 ►

you know, in some states you’ll see these kind of small groups be like, oh, we really need to run a legalization initiative this year. Let’s make it happen. And

00:40:25 ►

they’ll try to fundraise and they’ll, you know, frankly, they just won’t succeed in gathering

00:40:32 ►

together all the necessary resources to run a successful initiative campaign. I mean, for

00:40:37 ►

example, in California, you really need at least $10 million to run a successful initiative. And

00:40:44 ►

that’s even for an issue that has a majority public support.

00:40:48 ►

When you run an initiative, you’ve got to pay to collect all those signatures,

00:40:52 ►

and then you still need tons of money after that in order to let people know,

00:40:57 ►

hey, this is on the ballot.

00:40:59 ►

And even though our opposition is saying this,

00:41:02 ►

you still need to come and vote on it, and here’s why.

00:41:04 ►

So that’s advertising, that’s, you know, public outreach.

00:41:08 ►

So, yeah, so, for example, right now in California, there’s a very small group that is trying to put together a 2014 legalization initiative.

00:41:17 ►

Well, they’re not going to gather the funding that they need.

00:41:22 ►

I’m a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project, and so I know

00:41:25 ►

not all, but a lot of the major funders for our work in California. And they’re politically savvy

00:41:34 ►

people. Okay, a person with a lot of resources doesn’t throw those resources around for the

00:41:39 ►

most part. I’m sure there are some out there. But the people who are funding political work,

00:41:43 ►

they keep an eye on what’s going on with their money,

00:41:46 ►

and they ask the experts for their opinion,

00:41:50 ►

the experts being the pollsters, my boss,

00:41:55 ►

the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

00:41:57 ►

The folks who have been working on this for a long time

00:42:01 ►

know what works, what doesn’t work.

00:42:04 ►

So they’re not going to get together sufficient funding to do what they need to do.

00:42:08 ►

And they just also don’t have enough time.

00:42:10 ►

It takes a lot of time to prepare for a big campaign like that.

00:42:14 ►

You need to get a lot of resources into place.

00:42:18 ►

You need to build a coalition.

00:42:23 ►

There are risks involved.

00:42:25 ►

Obviously, we saw Prop 19 in California in 2010

00:42:29 ►

and MPP strongly advised against the running of the initiative at that time.

00:42:37 ►

Obviously we want marijuana to be illegal as soon as you all do,

00:42:41 ►

as soon as the people running Proposition 19 did.

00:42:43 ►

But we also don’t want to waste our money, and we don’t want to blow a really precious

00:42:47 ►

opportunity like a presidential election in 2012.

00:42:52 ►

So yeah, I think Prop 19, it blew it for 2012.

00:42:59 ►

Unfortunately, it probably opened some doors in other areas.

00:43:05 ►

And to be fair, it did raise a lot of awareness in California.

00:43:08 ►

Definitely, it got a pretty good turnout.

00:43:11 ►

It got a pretty good turnout at the polls.

00:43:15 ►

But they only raised about $4 million in the end.

00:43:20 ►

And the campaign didn’t even raise all of that.

00:43:21 ►

That was all of the different yes on 19 campaign committees. $4 million just not going to do it in California it’s just not going to do

00:43:29 ►

it so yeah sometimes when I hear stories about you know so and so wants to do something in Oregon in

00:43:36 ►

2014 that could mess things up that could mess things up yeah okay so she’s asking about amendment

00:43:44 ►

64 in Colorado, which was passed

00:43:45 ►

in 64, and kind of what was the language of that initiative, and is that something that could be

00:43:50 ►

done in California? So yes, my organization drafted the bill for Colorado and spearheaded

00:43:56 ►

that whole campaign, and we will be using nearly identical language in the other states where we

00:44:01 ►

pass legalization initiatives. You know, the only things that might change are improvements that need to be made to it um the drafting for that

00:44:10 ►

probably won’t even start till 2015 but um it’ll be very similar yeah um 21 and older you know

00:44:18 ►

amendment 64 also legal is that legalize the possession, and sale of marijuana paraphernalia,

00:44:26 ►

which is really huge.

00:44:30 ►

I do a lot of fundraising from the smoke shop accessory industry.

00:44:36 ►

And those are hardworking people that just want to make a living.

00:44:37 ►

They just want to sell a water pipe.

00:44:41 ►

They just want to sell a bubble bag.

00:44:44 ►

They just want to sell some stuff to clean your pipe with. They’re not looking to harm anybody.

00:44:47 ►

They’re looking to make a living, make a nice product,

00:44:51 ►

have a nice time at work.

00:44:53 ►

And some of them face prosecution for what they’re doing,

00:44:57 ►

and many of them have been prosecuted,

00:45:00 ►

whether it’s for paraphernalia or another marijuana-related crime.

00:45:07 ►

That’s really ridiculous.

00:45:08 ►

This past year, a legislator in Florida, a former crack addict,

00:45:12 ►

to just deepen the irony,

00:45:14 ►

proposed a bill that would make all pipes in Florida illegal,

00:45:21 ►

even those that were overtly for tobacco.

00:45:24 ►

A group of Florida smoke shops

00:45:26 ►

actually band together. They formed the Florida Smoke Shop Association and they lobbied against

00:45:31 ►

the bill. And they got it changed to basically what the situation would have been if the bill

00:45:35 ►

hadn’t passed. So that’s a huge improvement. You know, if a person has the right to use marijuana,

00:45:42 ►

they should have the right to possess the implement

00:45:45 ►

that they’re using marijuana with.

00:45:47 ►

So that’s just one of the aspects of that language

00:45:51 ►

that we’ll continue to use.

00:45:53 ►

Oh, okay, so one thing I don’t want to forget to say.

00:45:56 ►

So we were talking about earlier,

00:45:58 ►

like, what’s the future going to look like with marijuana?

00:46:03 ►

Well, this is a great question, right? What’s MPP’s goal?

00:46:06 ►

What are we working toward? We would like to see the federal government pass the buck to the states,

00:46:14 ►

just as it has with alcohol. We would like to see the federal government say, okay, states,

00:46:19 ►

this is your thing. Decide what you want to do or not. We’re not going to pay attention to this issue anymore. So my boss predicts that Congress will pass a state’s rights bill doing just that around

00:46:32 ►
  1. And increasing support for that is our main federal policy objective at this point. We have a
00:46:44 ►

federal lobbyist, a full-time federal lobbyist,

00:46:46 ►

and so this is his main objective right now, to build support for that.

00:46:52 ►

In 2019, somewhere around six to ten states will have legalized marijuana,

00:46:58 ►

and that’s going to really help to shift that public opinion to get that state’s rights bill passed.

00:47:06 ►

That’ll be key.

00:47:08 ►

Yeah, so he’s asking what we’re planning prior to that federal change to change state law.

00:47:14 ►

So we have talked about that a little bit.

00:47:17 ►

We’re going to run legalization initiatives and also stuff through the legislature.

00:47:22 ►

Between now and 2016, we’re doing something in Alaska in 2014,

00:47:26 ►

a legalization initiative.

00:47:28 ►

And then in 2016, California, Nevada, Arizona, Maine, among others,

00:47:35 ►

those will all be legalization initiatives.

00:47:38 ►

So, yeah, we’re going to be working really hard on this.

00:47:42 ►

He’s asking if we work with the Tenth Amendment Center

00:47:44 ►

on any of these state-level issues.

00:47:46 ►

The answer to that is I don’t know.

00:47:48 ►

We work with a lot of allies.

00:47:50 ►

So on a lot of this stuff, you know, I’ve told you, like we spearheaded the law in Colorado.

00:47:54 ►

That doesn’t mean I don’t want anybody to think we did that all by ourselves.

00:47:58 ►

By no means.

00:48:00 ►

The Drug Policy Alliance kicked in some funding for Amendment 64.

00:48:03 ►

the Drug Policy Alliance kicked in some funding for Amendment 64.

00:48:09 ►

I think that LEAP and SSDP did a lot of on-the-ground outreach in terms of building on-the-ground support.

00:48:12 ►

So this is absolutely a coalition effort.

00:48:16 ►

I don’t know particularly about that organization,

00:48:18 ►

but I know that in California in 2016,

00:48:20 ►

we’ll be working with the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance, for example.

00:48:25 ►

I’ll try to speak to that.

00:48:26 ►

So he’s asking, he’s saying back during the civil rights era,

00:48:29 ►

states’ rights was kind of like a mantra of the folks

00:48:33 ►

that didn’t want to see equality for everybody

00:48:36 ►

because they wanted their state to be able to do whatever they wanted,

00:48:40 ►

and whether there was a concern that we would see some sort of movement like that

00:48:44 ►

around the issue of loosening marijuana laws. I haven’t heard of any concerns about that

00:48:52 ►

or any, I really haven’t heard anybody talk about that particularly being an issue.

00:49:01 ►

You know, I think some of our biggest issues are just, they’re going to start arising from, like, safety concerns, like DUIs and teen use.

00:49:09 ►

Although we have some really good responses to teen use, actually.

00:49:13 ►

In Colorado, for example, Colorado passed its medical marijuana law.

00:49:19 ►

Colorado began regulating its medical marijuana industry in 2010.

00:49:23 ►

And according to the CDC, between 2009 and 2011,

00:49:28 ►

teen marijuana use actually went down,

00:49:31 ►

while it went up everywhere else around the nation.

00:49:35 ►

And we actually have reports like that from a couple of other states too,

00:49:40 ►

like regulating medical marijuana helps control young people’s access to it.

00:49:47 ►

Okay, that’s really good.

00:49:48 ►

What are the top three or five things I say to debunk various marijuana beliefs I encounter out there?

00:49:53 ►

Well, one thing that I hear a lot is that legalization is inevitable,

00:49:58 ►

which just riles me because it’s like, really?

00:50:01 ►

Like, who ran that initiative in Colorado then?

00:50:04 ►

That didn’t just happen. and I might mention this remember I mentioned the Gallup poll earlier that back

00:50:10 ►

right um in 1977 support was increasing dramatically um and then a reverse course

00:50:17 ►

um another throw it throw a myth at me marijuana is a. Okay, this is what I say to those people. Marijuana is a gateway

00:50:27 ►

drug in the sense that if you’re having to buy it from an unregulated black market salesperson,

00:50:35 ►

they might have other substances to offer you. And while that might be okay for you and me,

00:50:41 ►

what if somebody’s 15-year-old kid is in that situation and they’re suddenly, now they’re being offered a substance? We really don’t want a 15-year-old

00:50:48 ►

kid to ever encounter. It’s a gateway drug in that sense. In, you know, the addiction sense,

00:50:54 ►

there’s never been any evidence for marijuana increasing a person’s, you know, propensity to

00:51:01 ►

use another drug or to become addicted to another drug. One more myth and then we got to end. What’s that? It makes you dumb. That’s great.

00:51:11 ►

And I’ve also had people say it ruins your memory, which is something similar.

00:51:16 ►

No, the evidence shows marijuana impacts your short-term memory, but not your long-term memory.

00:51:23 ►

And it definitely, it doesn’t kill brain cells.

00:51:26 ►

What I might say to somebody is that

00:51:28 ►

if you overindulge in marijuana,

00:51:31 ►

I mean, this is really true of any substance.

00:51:33 ►

If you spend too much time in a particular mental state,

00:51:36 ►

you’re not sharpening this tool up here.

00:51:39 ►

So yeah, in that sense, you know,

00:51:40 ►

marijuana might, it might affect you in a negative way,

00:51:43 ►

but it’s not killing brain cells.

00:51:45 ►

It’s not damaging your long-term memory.

00:51:47 ►

So, okay, you guys, today I told you about the current state of marijuana

00:51:52 ►

and a lot of trends around marijuana

00:51:55 ►

and why I think the crystal ball says the trends will continue.

00:52:01 ►

And remember, I put a big if in there,

00:52:03 ►

and the if was it will continue

00:52:05 ►

if we continue chipping away

00:52:07 ►

at the wall of prohibition

00:52:09 ►

and we only are able to do that

00:52:12 ►

because people like y’all

00:52:14 ►

think that prohibition is more harmful

00:52:16 ►

than marijuana itself

00:52:17 ►

and so I encourage you to check us out

00:52:19 ►

and support us at whatever level you can

00:52:21 ►

you’re what makes this happen

00:52:24 ►

and then I told you I told you can. You’re what makes us happen. And then I told you about

00:52:28 ►

where we’re headed. And if you want to follow that in even more detail, you can go to our

00:52:32 ►

website, mpp.org, and sign up for our email alerts. You can sign up for state-specific

00:52:37 ►

alerts and follow what’s happening in your state. And that’s all. Thank you so much for

00:52:42 ►

attending. Have a freaking awesome burn. Woo-hoo!

00:52:48 ►

And thank you, Pez.

00:52:53 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

00:52:56 ►

where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

00:53:00 ►

Yes, thank you, Pez.

00:53:02 ►

And if you’re new here in the salon, I should point out that Pez is Christopher Pezza.

00:53:05 ►

And he has become the point man for the Planque Norte lectures at Burning Man now.

00:53:10 ►

In fact, the other day, Bruce Dahmer called me to say that he and Pez had been lining up a truly wonderful lineup of speakers for this year’s lecture series.

00:53:19 ►

And eventually, you and I are going to get to hear them ourselves, even if we can’t make it to Burning Man this year.

00:53:26 ►

Of course, I’m going to have to do a little better job of getting these talks out to you

00:53:30 ►

in a much more timely manner.

00:53:34 ►

Now, a few minutes ago, you may remember Sarah mentioning the fact that

00:53:38 ►

the baby boomer generation is not too supportive of legalization.

00:53:42 ►

She then went on to optimistically say that she thought, though, that the situation was changing.

00:53:48 ►

And from what I can tell, she’s correct.

00:53:51 ►

First of all, just to set the record straight, I am not a baby boomer.

00:53:56 ►

I’m actually older than the boomers.

00:53:59 ►

Being born in 1942, I think I was what was called a war baby.

00:54:03 ►

But for those people who are actually older than

00:54:05 ►

me, I’ve noticed that their views on cannabis are beginning to change rapidly. At the recent

00:54:11 ►

Cannabis Therapeutics Conference in Portland, there was a very favorable report of cannabis

00:54:17 ►

use among elderly patients in assisted living facilities. And the reports are very encouraging.

00:54:24 ►

The patients were gradually able to wean themselves

00:54:27 ►

off of the prescription drugs that essentially had them semi-comatose all day. And instead,

00:54:32 ►

they became cheerful, sociable, and guess what? Their appetites improved considerably.

00:54:39 ►

Who would have thought, huh? And down here in Southern California, there is significant work being done in finding the right mixture of THC and CBD for use with the elderly.

00:54:51 ►

My point is that over the next 10 years or so, I’m guessing that those over 60 are going to be joining those under 30 to change the law in regards to so-called recreational use of cannabis.

00:55:27 ►

Thank you. to bring some sanity to the world’s drug laws. And I’ll put links to MPP in the program notes for today’s podcast,

00:55:30 ►

which you know you can get to via psychedelicsalon.us.

00:55:34 ►

Also, in case you’ve never visited our program notes blog,

00:55:37 ►

in the right sidebar, about halfway down the page,

00:55:41 ►

you’ll find the news feed from the Drug Policy Alliance’s website.

00:55:45 ►

And my guess is that you’re going to find a lot of interesting links there. Well, just a quick announcement this week, but the first of the thumb drives from our

00:55:51 ►

fundraiser have now been shipped. It’s going to probably take a couple more weeks for me to get

00:55:57 ►

them all out, but at least I’m getting closer to mailing yours. And for the fellow salonners who

00:56:02 ►

have asked about giving away copies of these thumb drives,

00:56:06 ►

well, the answer is yes, of course. If you’ve been around me for a while, you’ll discover that

00:56:11 ►

my days with the internet go back to the decade before the web, and our mantra back then and now

00:56:16 ►

is information wants to be free. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

00:56:24 ►

Be well, my friends. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

00:00:00 ►

Be well, my friends. you

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