CA Assembly Committee Passes Marijuana Legalization Bill

Unfortunately, it's likely the bill won't go any further after today's monumental 4-3 victory in the Public Safety Committee. The bill needs to make it into the Health Committee before a legislative deadline this week and it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

But so what? We won! This is the first time that any legislative body in the nation has voted to legalize and tax marijuana for recreational use. In October, SSDP members from SJSU and UC Berkeley attended the first hearing on the bill and participated in the public opinion, voicing their support for the bill and citing specific harms caused by marijuana prohibition.

SSDP had a strong presence at this hearing too and it was exciting to be in California's capitol as the Assembly Committee on Public Safety voted YES to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana throughout the state.


Afterward, we attended the press conference organized by law enforcement and the California Alliances for Drug Free Youth condemning the Assembly's vote. They gave a lot of scary reasons to fear legalizing pot. Some of these people are well intentioned. Others I'm not so sure about. But they're both wrong.

What I liked about AB 390 was that it would have taken tax dollars from marijuana sales and put them into drug education and prevention programs for youth. These types of programs are underfunded as it is and if they are realistic and honest (not DARE) they can make positive differences in young people's lives. So naturally it seemed absurd to me that Republican Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, who voted nay on the bill, expressed his distaste for that particular aspect of the legislation:

''We're going to legalize marijuana, we're going to tax it, and then we're going to educate our kids about the harms of drugs?'' said Gilmore, a 31-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. ''You've got to be kidding me.''

We're not joking. But that sure is a funny position to take when we know that this is exactly what some states do with alcohol and tobacco taxes. And it works. A study at the University of Florida showed “statistically overwhelming evidence” that raising taxes on alcohol reduces the level of drinking. As alcohol gets more expensive, people will drink less frequently and drink less when they do.

Just think about that. AB 390 would impose a $50 tax per ounce! $50 per ounce folks. So not only would the price be going up dramatically and likely to increase over years but the tax dollars go toward prevention programs! Seems plain as day to me...

Check out this video for a great rundown of what happened today (you even get to see me start things off by fumbling some words!).

The Peppermint Police: Coming to a Middle School Near You

I sure am glad that I'm not a parent. America's elementary and middle schools are filled with horrifying dangers that terrify parents each morning as they send their children off to school. Gangs. Drugs. STD's. Peppermint oil.

That's right. A ten year old student was suspended from a New York school after she brought in peppermint oil and gave some drops to her fifth grade friends to flavor their water with. The school called the peppermint oil "an unregulated over-the-counter drug.”

Parents of other students in the school must be comforted that the swift suspension carried out by school officials will keep peppermint oil away from their children and send a strong message to the student body. After all, what better way to teach a 10 year old right from wrong than by kicking her out of school? For sharing peppermint oil...

I'm just glad it wasn't citrus folks. It starts with peppermint and before you know you it these kids are flavoring water with slices of lemons. Maybe some lime juice. And you know your kid has a problem when he's on the grapefruit. That stuff is bitter!

This incident is both an example of absurd zero tolerance drug policies and a growing effort to "police" children of all ages. School administrators enforce arbitrary policies with a heavy hand and much like law enforcement, they seem to never feel the need to apologize when they are clearly wrong. Watch this movie: The War on Kids

SSDP's Top Ten Explosive Stories of 2009!

No matter how you slice it, 2009 was a monumental turning point for Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and for the drug policy reform movement as a whole.

I love the "Top 10" lists that our friends at the Drug Policy Alliance, the Marijuana Policy Project, and StopTheDrugWar.org compiled, summarizing the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs.

They are stories that will be taught in high school civics classes in years to come. But there are hundreds of stories you may not have heard about in 2009: unsung heroes on campuses worldwide, playing a pivotal role in ending the destructive War on Drugs.

It was hard to pick just ten, but here they are...

Students vs. The Drug War: SSDP's Top Ten Stories of 2009
Help make more stories like this possible in 2010! Contribute a one-time donation or sign up as a monthly sustainer at: http://ssdp.org/donate

1) Students Triumph Over Bad Drug Law in Congress: On September 17th, the congressman who wrote a 1998 law that denies financial aid to students with drug convictions proclaimed: "I knew I was probably going to lose today." And he did. Two days earlier, it appeared that Rep. Souder's amendment would pass, which would have left his anti-education law fully intact. But after SSDP chapters across the country inspired tens of thousands of people to call Congress in less than 48 hours, the tables quickly turned, and Rep. Souder was forced to back down and compromise. Once the bill passes in 2010, hundreds of thousands of students with drug possession convictions will be able to go back to school!

More: http://ssdp.org/victory

2) SSDP Chapters Lead the Demise of Marijuana Prohibition in Rhode Island: In September, the Providence Journal published an article entitled, "Brown, URI students played key role in R.I. marijuana debate," which told the story of how SSDP chapters led the way for Rhode Island to become the third state to establish legal medical marijuana dispensaries. SSDP chapters in RI have been so successful at building relationships with key policy-makers that the state's senate is now taking a serious look at fully legalizing marijuana!

More: http://bit.ly/H3mBG

3) Students Display Courage in the Face of Violence in El Paso, TX: In January, SSDP member Nubia Legarda testified at a city council debate on legalizing drugs to stop the violence in Mexico. Nubia's family lives in the bordering city of Ciudad Juarez, a place that has been torn apart by the bloody wars between rival cartels. After Nubia's moving testimony received media coverage and thousands of views on YouTube, her SSDP chapter quickly became a driving force leading the debate over drug policy in El Paso.

More: http://ssdp.org/elpaso

4) Students Protest Police Shooting of Fellow Student: In March, campuses in Michigan erupted after Derek Copp, an unarmed Grand Valley State University student, was shot and nearly killed by police over a gram of marijuana. SSDP chapters across the state ensured that the media framed this as an inevitable consequence of a violent War on Drugs rather than as an avoidable mistake made by police. They also helped to raise hundreds of dollars to assist Derek with his medical bills.

More: http://ssdp.org/derek

5) U.S. Students Stand with Mexico on Cinco De Mayo: In May, dozens of SSDP chapters stood in solidarity with the people of Mexico to protest the bloodshed caused by drug prohibition. A TV news spot covering the University of Maryland's action (which is one of the best pieces of news coverage I've ever seen generated by an SSDP chapter) was viewed by countless residents of the Washington, DC area.

More: http://ssdp.org/cincodemayo

6) Drug Policies Reformed at Campuses Nationwide: All year long, SSDP chapters worked on "campus change campaigns," and more than a dozen chapters successfully altered their campus's polices. These changes include removing police patrols from dorms, reforming unfair judicial systems, and enacting life-saving Good Samaritan Policies.

More: http://ssdp.org/campuschange

7) SSDP Chats with the Drug Czar: In an unprecedented show of diplomacy, President Obama's "Drug Czar" invited leaders of the drug policy reform movement (including myself) to a conference call in which we discussed our vision for the future of drug policy. While it remains to be seen whether the White House will take cues from the conversation that was had in October, this represents a significant step in the right direction.

8) The Grassroots Student Movement Rapidly Expands: For the first time in SSDP's history, SSDP's supporters donated enough money to employ three full-time outreach directors - and just in the nick of time! In the past year, our chapter network has grown to include more than 200 chapters, half of which are new chapters receiving official campus recognition this year. We currently receive more than three new chapter startup inquiries every day.

More: http://ssdp.org/chapters

9) An International Drug Policy Reform Movement is Born: In 2009, SSDP's U.S. and Canadian networks welcomed the establishment of international affiliates in the United Kingdom and Nigeria, and we've worked to build budding networks in areas of South America, Asia, and Europe. Former SSDP Executive Director Kris Krane participated in high-level U.N. meetings on drug policy in Vienna, and received a standing ovation for his mediation of a conflict with opposition groups.

More: http://ssdp.org/unitednations

10) Chase Cheats SSDP Out Of Charity Competition, Thousands Drop Chase in Response: In 2009, SSDP's website was viewed nearly half a million times, while more than 400,000 people joined our networks on Facebook, and our YouTube videos reached more than 400,000 views. So it was no surprise that SSDP dominated an online charity competition in which Chase Bank asked Facebook users to vote for nonprofits to receive grants of $25,000 to $1 million. However, when Chase deceptively cheated SSDP out of the winnings, SSDP slammed Chase in the pages of the New York Times, and more than two-thousand SSDP supporters pledged to drop their accounts with Chase.

More: http://chaseboycott.com

Finally: Let's celebrate the progress we've made in 2009. But let's also not forget that we need to keep working twice as hard in 2010. Worldwide, millions of people sit behind bars for what they've put into their own bodies; entire communities are torn apart by the violence and corruption caused by the black market; and drug cartels grow more rich and powerful than ever before.

Here's at least one story that I hope to report at the end of 2010:

1) Hundreds of Small Donations Fund a Growing Grassroots Movement: Despite the recession forcing many of SSDP's major donors to cut back on their funding in 2010, hundreds of SSDP alumni and supporters pitched in online this year, comprising nearly $52,000 of our budget, and tripling the amount of small donations received in 2009. Because of your generosity, SSDP's staff has continued to expand in proportion to the growing movement for reform.

More: http://ssdp.org/donate

Happy New Year!
Micah

Micah Daigle, Executive Director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Help Fitchburg Help Fitchburg!

Fitchburg State College has emerged as one of SSDP's more active chapters. I'm proud that chapter leader/founder Jeff Anderson first joined SSDP as a member of my chapter at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire before transferring to Fitchburg State.

The chapter at Fitchburg State put together a great video that they hope will inspire some to donate to their conference scholarship fund. The video features fantastic editing skills and was a project that all chapter members participated in. They're trying to raise awareness about the drug addiction problem in Fitchburg and help people in their community realize that prohibition has only made the problem worse.

Fitchburg, MA is a long way from San Francisco folks and these students could use every penny you can spare. Please click below to help Fitchburg SSDP help Fitchburg!

Seattle Mayor-Elect is Pro Legalization. So is Everyone Else.

Mike McGinn is the first to point out that his support for the legalization and regulation of cannabis is nothing new. The Seattle Mayor-Elect shares the same point of view as former Seattle Police Chief turned Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speaker, Norm Stamper. Then you've got Seattle Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson who just introduced a bill to legalize and tax in Washington state.

Under her bill, marijuana would be sold in Washington state's 160 state-run liquor stores, and customers, 21 and older, would pay a tax of 15 percent per gram. The measure would dedicate most of the money raised for substance abuse prevention and treatment, which is facing potential cuts in the state budget. Dickerson said the measure could eventually bring in as much to state coffers as alcohol does, more than $300 million a year.

The 3 of them share the same common sense point of view as the majority of Americans; 53% according to this recent poll support ending marijuana prohibition. And we now have 4 states that have introduced taxation/legalization legislation. Obviously public opinion has changed rapidly on the subject (or more are just choosing to voice a longtime view) and lawmakers are kind of starting to step up to the plate.

Of course, you can count on your state narcotic officers association to come in and cause a hullabaloo by scaring the bejesus out of everyone with the same ol' scare tactics. Since the economic argument for legalization has gained so much support, I've heard some law enforcement spokesmen come up with some creative ways to try and counter, but Ron Brooks, President of the National Narcotics Officers Association has a good one:

State lawmakers, he said, need to ask themselves "if they believe we really will make all that revenue, and even if we did, will it be worth the suffering, the loss of opportunities, the chronic illness or death that would occur?"

I think he may have confused marijuana use with the bubonic plague.

A SSDP Christmas for MSSU

Here at SSDP, we hope you and your families had a wonderful holiday and we look forward to the new year to bring about more sensibility to policies surrounding drugs.

If you have a little extra Christmas cheer you'd like to spread, please donate to the Missouri Southern State University (MSSU) SSDP chapter and help them come out to San Francisco on March 12, 2010 for This is Your Brain on Drug Policy: SSDP's International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

The chapter at MSSU has been one of SSDP's most active and talented chapters to date. Just check out all the cool stuff that comes up after a google search of MSSU SSDP. You'll be impressed.

MSSU also submitted this downright hilarious yet heartwarming video of chapter members hoping that Santa Claus will bring them what they truly want for Christmas.

Help Send Students to San Francisco

With SSDP's International Conference rapidly approaching, some SSDP chapters are looking for donations to help them make it out to San Francisco. Each week, I'll be posting a different video from an SSDP chapter or member asking for your help to get them to the conference.

You probably heard about SSDP getting scrooged by those grinches at Chase Bank. The $25,000 we should have won in that contest would have been used for our conference scholarship fund to help bring SSDP chapters out to San Francisco March 12-14 so they can network with hundreds of other SSDP members from around the world and learn A-Z about drug policy and activism.

If you can spare even $10, please make a donation to SSDP's conference scholarship fund. You can even make your donation go to a specific SSDP chapter.

Boycott Chase Bank

It's not because we didn't win. In fact, we're quite positive we did win and that we were disqualified because Chase doesn't agree with our mission. We're boycotting Chase because they refuse to explain whether SSDP and MPP were disqualified from the contest based on the subject matter we work on. (read the previous post to learn more about the contest)

This isn't a case of sour grapes. We know we made it in the top 100 and simply want Chase to admit that SSDP was one of the top 100 organizations voted for by the public and explain that we were disqualified because Chase disagrees with our mission (which they have the right to do).

The New York Times caught wind of the story and talked with Micah Daigle, SSDP's Executive Director and Alex Koroknay-Palicz, Executive Director of the National Youth Rights Association. Just two days before the contest ended, Chase took down the vote counters on each organization's page so it was impossible for any group to tell how many votes they have. Micah and Alex explain how we had to have made the cut:

So some participants created informal leader boards. For instance, the National Youth Rights Association, a tiny nonprofit that works to teach young people about their rights and how to protect them, compiled voting data on almost 400 contestants, and 82 of the organizations that it tracked were among the 100 winners Chase named.

“For the most part, the organizations Chase picked were exactly the organizations we expected to win, because we had spent a lot of time and effort tracking it,” Mr. Koroknay-Palicz said. “So the biggest surprise was SSDP and a couple of pro-life groups, as well as the organization called the Prem Rawat Foundation, didn’t make it, because they had been doing pretty well.”

According to the leader board he created, Students for Sensible Drug Policy collected 2,305 votes through Dec. 9, when organizations no longer could track their votes or see who had voted for them.

At 2,305 votes, SSDP was in 14th place just a few days before the end of the contest. It's very unlikely we were surpassed by so many other organizations. By eliminating us, Chase is trying to send the message that no one cares about the work that non-profits like SSDP are doing. But drug policy reform is no longer a fringe issue; nationwide support for marijuana legalization is greater than ever before, a majority feel the drug war has failed and SSDP's chapter network is growing exponentially.

Most importantly, a giant corporation like Chase should not be presenting the public with a list of organizations it will be donating money to while pretending that all of those groups were selected by voters alone and not by the almighty hand of Chase.

What's so ironic about the whole thing is that SSDP has used Chase Bank for over 3 years - so they have no problem doing business with us but don't want us to participate in their contest. If you're feeling unhappy about Chase's lack of transparency in this contest, then make sure you Pledge to Boycott Chase!

If you're going to boycott Chase, please also consider making a donation to SSDP. If just 1,000 people donate $25, we'll have earned the $25K Chase wouldn't give us. And that's some funding we could use for our upcoming conference!

10 Second Activism - Help SSDP Win $1 Million

That's right folks. In under 10 seconds and with just a few clicks of your mouse you can help SSDP win $1 Million on Facebook!

Just go to Click for Reform and follow the easy-as-pie steps. There's 2 rounds of voting. The 100 organizations with the most votes will each win $25,000 and make it into the 2nd round for a chance at winning $1 Million! (you will have to allow the causes application to be installed)

After you've voted, make sure you join the I Voted for SSDP to Win $1 Million facebook event and set the below image as your Facebook profile picture!

Please share on Facebook, Twitter it, and get the words out any way you can!

The Adventures of SSDP Man!

Please check out the many fantastic videos we received for the the Seeds of Reform conference scholarship party. You'll find a wide spectrum of creative submissions from chapters all around the country letting you know why they need to come to SSDP's 11th Annual International Drug Policy Conference. The students at our UMD chapter tried their hand at rapping about drug policy, Fitchburg State College hopes to lend a helping hand to a community in need, and Northern Virginia Community College introduced the world to the most needed super hero yet, SSDP Man!



In case you're wondering, the Seeds of Reform Party was a huge success and raised over $20,000 for SSDP's conference scholarship fund! I'll post more details and pictures from the party shortly.