National Marijuana Legalization Campaign Launches: Just Say Now

Announcing Our Marijuana Legalization Campaign: Just Say Now
By: Jane Hamsher
August 2, 2010


Today we’re proud to launch both the campaign and the official site: JustSayNow.com. It’s an archive of information on ending marijuana prohibition, a place where people can learn about ongoing efforts across the country. It has opportunities for getting involved, the latest news, and a really cool store.

We’re really excited to be joining together with Students for Sensible Drug Policy on this campaign. The Executive Director of SSDP is Aaron Houston, who has been working on drug policy for years. SSDP has chapters on 150 campuses across the country. It is going to be a very interesting experiment to join FDL’s online organizing abilities with SSDP’s grassroots organizing strength.

Young votes are the key to ending prohibition. There has been tremendous concern that Obama’s 2008 surge voters will just stay home in 2010, but as Ryan Grim reports in the Huffington Post this morning, recent polling indicates that young people are much more interested in voting if marijuana legalization is on the ballot:

Surge voters, single women under 40 and Hispanics all told America Votes pollsters that if a legalization measure were on the Colorado ballot, they’d be more likely to come out to vote. Forty-five percent of surge voters and 47 percent of single women said they’d be more interested in voting if the question was on the ballot. Most of these were energetic, with 36 and 30 percent, respectively, saying they’d be “much more interested” in coming out to vote.

While these have been key constituencies for Democrats in the past, as Russ Belville notes today, the Dems shouldn’t be counting their chickens. With Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama and Diane “Reefer Madness” Feinstein all opposed to marijuana legalization, that leaves the door open for the GOP to revitalize their “pale, stale and male” image by rallying around the issue:

Read the full article at:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/02/announcing-our-marijuana-legalization-campaign-just-say-now/

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About Our Campaign

Just Say Now is a campaign to legalize marijuana made up of a transpartisan alliance of organizations seeking to improve our nation’s drug laws. Our effort is spearheaded by two groups. Firedoglake is a progressive blog and activist hub dedicated to bringing greater transparency and accountability to government. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is an international grassroots organization made up of students who are concerned about drug abuse but recognize the failure that is our war on drugs. Together, our two organizations will work to organize an effective online/offline movement to help pass marijuana legalization initiatives currently on the ballot for November, 2010.

Mission Statement

Our nation’s prohibition about marijuana has cost the country billions, resulted in a massive increase in incarceration rates, funded criminal syndicates, yet failed to stop people from using marijuana. It is a failed costly and misguided policy that must end now. We are a group of all individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and political leans that share the simple convince that the marijuana prohibition must end. That is why we are promoting the legalization and sensible regulation of marijuana through grassroots organizing and direct democratic action.

Advisory Board Members

Bruce Fein

Bruce Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan and is the author of The American Empire: Before the Fall. He writes weekly columns for The Washington Times and Politico.com, and is frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and other major national publications.


Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional law and civil rights litigator and is currently a contributing writer at Salon.com. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The American Conservative, The National Interest, and In These Times. He is the author of two New York Times bestselling books: How Would a Patriot Act (a critique of Bush executive power theories) and A Tragic Legacy (examining the Bush legacy). In 2008, he authored a study, commissioned by the Cato Institute, on the implications of Portugal’s 2001 law decriminalizing all drugs.


Jane Hamsher

Jane Hamsher is the founder and publisher of Firedoglake.com, a leading progressive blog. Her work has also appeared on The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, AlterNet, The Nation, and The American Prospect. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Al Jazeera, PBS, and the BBC. She is the author of the best-selling book Killer Instinct, and she has produced such films “Natural Born Killers” and “Permanent Midnight.”


Aaron Houston

Aaron Houston is the executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Named a “Rising Star of Politics” by Campaigns & Elections’ Politics Magazine in 2008, Aaron is a nationally recognized expert on marijuana law, having appeared on NBC’s Today show, The Colbert Report, FOX News, CNN’s Inside Politics, and NPR, among others. Aaron’s efforts on Capitol Hill were chronicled in a 2007 Showtime original documentary, “In Pot We Trust.” A Bloomberg News review of the film noted that, “Anyone wondering how lobbyists operate will benefit from watching Houston. is…clearly comfortable with political combat.”


Neill Franklin

Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is a 33-year police veteran who led multi-jurisdictional anti-narcotics task forces for the Maryland State Police and ran training for the Baltimore Police Department. After seeing several of his law enforcement friends killed in the line of fire while enforcing drug policies, Neill knew that he needed to work to change these laws that cause so much harm but do nothing to reduce drug use.


Michael Ostrolenk

Michael co-founded and is National Director of the Liberty Coalition, a transpartisan coalition of groups working to protect civil liberties, privacy and human autonomy (2005- present). He is presently the coalition coordinator and public policy counsel for the Campaign for Liberty working on transparency and open government issues. He also sits on the Steering Committee for Openthegovernment.org. Michael is the Executive Director of the Transpartisan Center in Washington DC. He served as President of Reuniting America (2007-2008) as well as Co-Director (2006-2007). He is also a founding member of the Integral Institute.

He has written for a wide variety of publications ranging from USA Today to The American Conservative Magazine and speaks frequently about health-care and national security related issues.


Eric Sterling

Eric E. Sterling is the President of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a private non-profit educational organization that helps educate the nation about criminal justice problems. He helped found a number of drug policy organizations, including the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers, and Forfeiture Endangers American Rights. As a former Assistant Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee (1979-1989), Mr. Sterling was responsible for writing federal drug laws. He has debated U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, Jr.(D-DE), then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III; and other officials about the “War on Drugs.” In 1999 he was honored with the Justice Gerald LeDain Award for Achievement in the Field of Law by the Drug Policy Foundation. Mr. Sterling has also served as an adjunct lecturer on criminal justice, sociology, and drug policy at George Washington University and American University.


Danny Goldberg

Danny Goldberg is president of Gold Village Entertainment, a management company in the music business whose clients include Steve Earle, Allison Moorer, The Cranberries, The Hives, Peaches and Tom Morello. He is author of the books Bumping Into Geniuses and How The Left Lost Teen Spirit, and serves on the Boards of The Nation Institute, Brave New Films, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Americans for Peace Now, and is Chair of the Board of the American Symphony Orchestra.


Bill Adler

Bill Adler has devoted the last 25 years to a career in hiphop during which he’s worked as a journalist, critic, publicist, biographer, archivist, label executive, curator, editor, film documentarian, and teacher. As Director of Publicity for Rush Artist Management and Def Jam Recordings he worked with Kurtis Blow, Whodini, Run-DMC, Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde, the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, Stetsasonic, De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, 3rd Bass, and others.


Scott Morgan

Scott Morgan is associate editor of StoptheDrugWar.org, one of the web’s leading resources for drug policy reform advocacy. Scott serves as the primary contributor to the organization’s popular Speakeasy Blog and his analysis of marijuana and other drug policy issues has been cited in many of the internet’s most popular websites. Scott is also associate director of Flex Your Rights, where he develops and produces innovative know-your-rights educational media. In this capacity, he served as the co-writer and co-executive producer of the highly-acclaimed new film, “10 Rules for Dealing with Police.”


Norm Stamper

Norm Stamper, Ph.D., was a police officer for 34 years. He served as chief of the Seattle Police Department from 1994 to 2000. “The major police corruption scandals of the last several decades have had their roots in drug enforcement.” As a cop dedicated to protect and serve, Norm believes the war on drugs has done exactly the opposite for people. He explains that statement in his new book, Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing.


Joe McSherry, M.D., Ph.D.

Joseph McSherry, MD, PhD, is a professor and neurologist at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine. Dr. McSherry has advocated for and served on various advisory panels to the Vermont Legislature regarding Medical Cannabis since 1980. He also serves as the specialty representative for Neurology/Neurosurgery in the Vermont Medical Society. He has lectured on Cannabis and Pain and Cannabis and Cancer at the College of Medicine and commented on journal articles on marijuana, including a 2005 article on applications for Parkinson’s disease in the journal Neurology. He has also advocated for Medical Cannabis for the New Hampshire Legislature and the Iowa Board of Pharmacy. His friends at Just Say Now simply call him “Dr. Joe.”

http://firedoglake.com/justsaynow/about/

Legalize the damn cannabis - and the taxpayers will be glad to pay the taxes on it.

FDL is so great at organization - whether you agree with all of their stances or not.

in this case, I most heartily agree.

My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

The time is NOW!

next thing you know, we may be growing a renewable resource for fiber and fuel and....



:kick: