10 Good Signs for Reform in ‘09
After MPP passed the medical marijuana ballot initiative in Michigan and the marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative in Massachusetts — both on November 4 — I thought the MPP staff might get a little downtime to regroup for the 2009-2010 election cycle. Not so.
In the last four months, the MPP staff and our allies have been working almost nonstop to respond to — and take advantage of — the many opportunities that have been presenting themselves across the country. I’ve never seen so much evidence of positive change in such a short amount of time …
1. Â MARIJUANA THE BIGGEST ISSUE: Â Two huge surveys of citizen activists across the country — one on Change.gov on December 12 and one on Change.org on January 15 — showed that the number-one issue on people’s minds is ending the government’s war on marijuana users.
2. Â BONG HIT SEEN AROUND THE WORLD: Â On February 1, the world learned that Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps had used marijuana a few months before, demonstrating yet again that using marijuana is compatible with being wildly successful in our society. When Kellogg’s dropped its endorsement contract with Phelps — and MPP and other organizations responded by calling for a boycott of Kellogg’s — the public’s perception of Kellogg’s took a nose dive.
3. Â EL PASO RESPONDS TO MEXICAN VIOLENCE: Â Responding to the prohibition-caused violence just over the border in Mexico, on January 6 the El Paso City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for “an honest, open national debate on ending the prohibition of narcotics,” which drew the ire of some Texas politicians but also sparked a great deal of positive media coverage nationwide.
4. Â NATIONAL POLLING HIGHEST EVER: Â Between January 11 and February 14, three different national polls indicated that either 40%, 41%, or 44% of the American people now support ending marijuana prohibition. This is the highest level of support since marijuana was first prohibited in 1937, with support having risen by 1% a year since 1995.
5. Â REVOLT IN LATIN AMERICA: Â On February 12, a commission led by three former presidents from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico released a long-awaited report that blasted the U.S. drug war and called for the decriminalization of marijuana.
6. Â ENDING THE DEA’s RAIDS IN CALIFORNIA: Â On February 25, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA would no longer be raiding medical marijuana clinics in California and the 12 other states where medical marijuana is legal.
7. Â MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILLS MOVING: Â MPP’s medical marijuana bills are moving through the Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and New York legislatures, and the Drug Policy Alliance’s similar legislation is moving in New Jersey. We have a real chance of making medical marijuana legal in four of these six states this year and — in the meantime — it’s very possible that Montana and Rhode Island will expand their existing medical marijuana laws, too.
8. Â BROADER MARIJUANA BILLS MOVING: Â California shook the nation when a bill to tax and regulate marijuana was introduced on February 23. And even before that happened, the Hawaii, Montana, Vermont, and Washington legislatures had already begun considering bills to decriminalize marijuana.
9. Â MPP DOMINATING ON YOUTUBE: Â As of today, MPP’s channel on YouTube.com is the 10th most subscribed of all nonprofit channels, and MPP’s videos are consistently in the top 10 most-viewed of all nonprofit videos in any given week. (And our 65,000 friends on MySpace.com place MPP among the top 10 most popular nonprofit organizations there, too.)
10. Â ONGOING MEDIA EXPLOSION: Â According to the weekly reports we get from Google, MPP has been getting its message into the news in the last month at 10 times the volume of previous months. And four different national TV specials are tentatively scheduled to look at marijuana over just a two-month span: CNBC looked at the marijuana industry in northern California on January 22, NBC’s “Dateline” covered the Rachel Hoffman tragedy in Florida on January 23, ABC’s “20/20″ with John Stossel will be looking at medical marijuana on March 13, and MSNBC with Al Roker will be looking at the multi-billion-dollar marijuana industry on March 15.
Thank you for anything and everything you’ve done to help bring all this attention and success to our movement. If you’d like to help even more, please make a donation today so that we may continue with the onslaught of work that continues to pile up on our plates.
Tagged with: California and DEA and dispensaries and legislation and MPP and Obama and polls and raids and Rob Kampia and victims by the author
21 comments
wooo good job MPP good work for everything u have done =)
you guys motivate the shit out of me!!! thanks so much for the compensated truth we deserve from the past dark days!
i say raise money for commercials
Thanks MPP.!
Thank *you* for your hard work, Rob. Keep telling the truth and shining a light on the ignorance of prohibition. Results like this are why I have a standing monthly pledge to MPP.
These are exciting times we live in and I can’t wait to see what the future brings!
Thanks, MPP for all your work!
I am so excited to think that within a couple years people may know the truth about marijuana and that it may be decriminalized dramatically from where it is now!!! I also agree with another post; MPP needs to start running commercials. Above The Influence does it. Use facts to counter what they put out there. Tell the public the truth!
hey there, i just wanted to make a suggestion, the mpp videos are very good and informative, but u should make them in spanish too, or put some subtitles u know? Make people know the truth…i know a LOT, i mean a LOT of people who would see your videos and think its all fake, just because they cant think something like marihuana can be good for anyone…why it cant be good for anyone? they start talkin like a prohibitionist without even knowing what it looks like…..
im from Monterrey Nl, Mexico, and what i can tell you is that approx. a week ago, a kid got shot on the foot because of a narco fight, my neighbor has a business which has been bought by a big narco organization, and now he has to pay them every month, all his products are now marked…i cant go to the streets now without thinking about the guns, and the cartels and the murders…
i just want to live in peace, and smoke a joint….
go MPP and legalize marihuana, a lot of us from the south are wishing for it to happen on the USA so that it may happen here and stop all the voilence and stupid arrests…..or who knows..it may happen here first….
all the luck in the world…
Medical Marijuana Activist are now, more than ever, heroes of dying patients. The big advancement in medical marijuana will come as people publish their own healing/recovery stories with Hemp Oil and other forms of medicinal marijuana. Hemp Oil is a known cure for cancer and 90 percent of cancer killing cannabaniods are destroyed in marijuana when it’s smoked.
TENNESSEANS FOR MEDICINAL MARIJUANA PRODUCTS
Rob thanks for all your work and leaving Glenn Beck speechless with his “look at me, I’m proof it’s bad for you”.
Yeah,I’m looking at someone who pulls down six-figures a year, if not seven.
Good work MPP. Now it is time to work on Florida, which has taken strong steps backwards and arguably has the most draconian marijuana laws.
Dear Mr. Rob Kampia,
I’ve just started marketing your web site to my associates via hand delivered flyers. Activism heroes are popping up all over now to defend the sick and dying, I direct them to their Tennessee Government Leaders and MPP via recent e-mail alerts from you about the following State Bills. Thanks!
Tennessee’s Current Pot Bills
SB 209 and HB 368 will give many patients life, thanks again.
The State estimates in the Bill July 2009 as a projected deadline for MJ to be regulated under TN law for medicinal use on a County by County program.
This fast growing audience of new activist couldn’t have happened sooner for us in Tennessee with July 09 just around the corner!
Excellent article – keep up the great work!
Im ecstatic to see that so much is being done across the nation for our cause. However I live in the police state that is Texas.. and we love to put people to death and make nonviolent marijuana smokers felons. I fear that any kind of reform for Texas in 09′ or within the next few years in unlikely at best.
Please email Mr. John Lovell, a lobbyist against CA decriminalization, and explain the immoral war being waged against a plant. How can this man live with himself. Oh wait, he gets PAID!
jlovell@johnlovell.com
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I just love you folks.
Fight the good fight! Positive change is in the air. It’s only a matter of time…
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Great work guys. There is another medical treatment that marijuana can be used for and that is insomnia. I for one have had a very hard time being able to sleep for most of my life, up to about 6 months ago I would smoke just so I could sleep, and sleep soundly I would. Now because I am out of work do to these economic times I have to take sleep aides, which many have warnings that they can be addictive, and I still have a hard time getting to sleep. Also there are a lot of medications that I have to take that make me nauseous, yet I have to take them in order to stop the ailments that I have. So these are just some of the medical uses that I for one have not heard mentioned before. Again thanks for your work on marijuana reform.
i have just begun my wayward journey thru the secrete world of abtaining a card.it is so good to know we have 30 years of fighting to be understood only now.i dont know how it works,i just know it works.i only pray it is made easier for others in the future.jugle, stretch,tuck,roll,pray all the qualifications meet scrutniy and hope you find a compationate doctor willing to offer relief that wont get you locked up and taken away from your five teenage children.bless you all,warriores for simple normalcy.
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