Delaware Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Bill

This morning, Delaware Governor Jack Markel signed the state's medical marijuana bill into law, making Delaware the 16th state to have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The bill received final legislative approval Wednesday. A spokesman said Markell wanted to sign the measure as quickly as possible because of the lengthy time that will be needed to get a state-run system for distributing medical marijuana up and running. 

The new law allows people 18 and older with certain serious or debilitating conditions that could be alleviated by marijuana to possess up to six ounces of the drug. Qualifying patients would be referred to state-licensed and regulated “compassion centers,” which would be located in each of Delaware’s three counties. The centers would grow, cultivate and dispense the marijuana.

Congratulations to Delaware for implementing sensible policy! Now we'll just have to wait and see if Gov. Markel gets a threatening letter from the DoJ...

The Case of Mexico: The Banality of Being Against Drug War Violence

You know the context in Mexico by now.

If not, you can read about a protest SSDP-University of Oregon organized to coincide with Cinco de Mayo. This group used 36 people in a fall-down protest to signal, 1,000 for each person, the number of fatalities in the Mexican-US drug war since 2006.

And follow this sequence of events: Felipe Calderon comes into the presidency in 2006. He starts a war against drug traffickers. Even with, or perhaps partly a result of placing military as police in Mexico's cities streets and highways, the homicide rate soars. The US through the State Department and the Merida Initiative has pledged up to US$1.4 billion for a militarized campaign, and funds to revamp the criminal justice system towards greater openness.

None of these strategies has calmed the violence. By mid-2006 36,000 people have died; a quarter of a million have disappeared; the world's most dangerous city Juarez, on the US-Mexico border, has shed a quarter of a million inhabitants; Mexico is the world's most dangerous place for journalists; and nobody knows how many orphans this violence has produced, and what sort of a response Mexico's psychological services can provide. We know that forensic medical workers are overworked. These statistics and facts mean that more people have become caught up in webs of violent death, many and perhaps most just minding their business while the army, police, and drug trafficking organizations fight over the sovereignty to control an illicit, prohibited market.

These are the broad facts which comprise the context, ever-changing as it tends to be. And of course, since the country is at war, there are many more facts, most of them macabre. Many of them registered as barbarities. And within such bleakness, several protest movements have arisen.

MEXICO'S MASS ANTI-DRUG WAR PROTEST MOVEMENT...WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT ISN'T

It was inevitable. Mexico can sometimes be a country of protests, and when problems become massive and intractable, so resistance to those problems has the likelihood of being large. It happened with the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional from 1994 - 2001, commonly known as the Zapatistas. It happened with the student strikers who shut down the National Autonomous University, the UNAM from 1998 - 1999. These are two massive movements considered to have undermined the Partido Revolucionario Institucional's seventy year hold over power from 1930 - 2000.

Mexico's mass protest movement du jour, popularly known as the Marcha por La Paz, was brought together by Javier Sicilia, a little known poet, writer, and Catholic militant after his son, Juan Francisco, and six other youngsters were killed in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City. It is a tragic case. And perhaps because the case comes from middle Mexico, those not-quite-well to do folk, who live on the precipice of Mexico's political economy including many in the middle class, it played better in the media. After a while, and with discontent in politics at new heights, Javier Sicilia, a drug war victim, embraced the role of reformer of the state. The most consistent demands from Sicilia concern democracy, security, and justice.

Sicilia's demands have nothing to do with ending prohibition, and nobody in his movement has said very much about what happens to Mexican sovereignty when US anti-drug interests rule Mexico's political economy. This means that whatever suggestions Sicilia makes regarding democracy, security, and justice, his protests will have missed explaining why the Mexican drug war exists. In almost all of the news coverage after the march on Sunday, correspondents allowed marchers to describe the problems coonfronting the country through its drug war: the crisis of the presidency, continuing corruption, impunity, no opportunities for young and old. Almost NONE of these articulations concerned dismantling prohibition, a form of organizing the state's violence against drugs which has so clearly undermined democracy, security, and justice in a number of countries around the world.

This means that, in the current Mexican case, being against the drug war does not necessarily mean being against prohibition.

And it means that once again, coalitions -- which includes SSDP -- like those led by the Drug Policy Alliance will want to continue to pressure all political actors in Mexico, those in mass movements, and those in formal politics, of the need for anti-prohibition as the central, complex, rationale, sound, pacific policy choice through which advances in security, democracy, and justice will eventually flow.

Remembering Rachel Hoffman: Third Anniversary

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Today marks the third anniversary of the murder of Rachel Hoffman, a former SSDP member and 23 year old graduate of Florida State University. Rachel was murdered by two drug dealers after the Tallahassee Police Department pressured her to become an informant in an undercover sting operation, promising to keep her safe, only to lose track of her.


Despite only finding 4 ecstasy pills and a few ounces of marijuana in her home, the police department asked Rachel to purchase 1,500 ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine, and a handgun (which was contrary to department policy as it opened the opportunity for the suspected criminals to explain the presence of the gun), using $13,000 cash in a buy-bust operation. She was murdered with the very gun police had sent her to buy. Rachel's lawyer, family, or the state prosecutor were never informed about the operation and after her murder, the Tallahassee Police Department held a press conference to blame her for her own death.


Three years later, this tragic loss of life must serve as a reminder of the need for reform of drug policies nationwide. It must remind those in defense of such policies that they simply don't work. More than that, it must help us all to change our mindsets about the relationship between people and drugs. This drug war has grown so large and seemingly unstoppable that its supporters no longer seem to care about measuring it's success. Rachel was labeled as a being some sort of drug kingpin despite only a few ounces of marijuana being found in her home. Now she's gone and the two drug dealers that murdered her are behind bars for life. If the drug war works, and this is what is called success, then no one should be able to find and use marijuana in Florida anymore right? We all know that's not true.


Margie Weiss, Rachel's mom, fought hard for the introduction and passage of Rachel's Law to help prevent more young people from being taken advantage of by police as informants. The law passed in 2009 and established minimum standards that law enforcement must meet when dealing with informants. Under Rachel's Law, law enforcement must "take into account a person's age and maturity, emotional state and the level of risk a mission would entail." It also prohibits police from promising informers more lenient treatment. 

The Purple Hatters Ball, a music festival to benefit the Rachel Morningstar foundation and celebrate Rachel's life and energy is taking place next weekend in Live Oak, FL. Named after the bright purple top hat Rachel would wear to concerts, the festival features lots of great live music and embraces Rachel's passion for life.

We wish the best for the Hoffman family and thank them for their strength and determination to bring change to Florida's criminal justice system.

Somethin's Happenin' Here: Mexican Youth Congress Formulates Anti-Violence Strategy

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the center of the drug war exists in Washington, D.C. With all the bloviating, all the Congressional handwringing, all the dissimulating by the White House's Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske and all the hardheadedness of the DEA head Michelle Leonhart, the power of prohibition does seem to lie within the DC Beltway.

But what is going on in Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City? And how does it concern youth and students who oppose the drug war?

First, the context: in Cuernavaca, at March's end the son of a somewhat famous poet and writer -- Juan Francisco Sicilia, father Javier Sicilia -- died in despicable circumstances, along with six of his friends, all of whom were dumped in a car in Cuernavaca. In his anguished wrath, Javier Sicilia blamed Felipe Calderon's failure of a drug war. With 35,000 dead and his son and friends more statistics, Sicilia projected publicly a letter to the president which protested all violence, repeating time and again that they were all fed up with a type of imagination in public life that led only to death.

Sicilia soon commanded a massive social movement, whose first action, a march in Cuernavaca, attracted more people than at any time in its history. At the march, Sicilia called for national and international marches against violence and the drug war at the beginning of May.

A vibrant, viable social movement comprised of youth and students has emerged within this context. Last weekend, on 28 and 29 April, youth and students from all over Mexico convened an emergency national congress. In a post from the Americas MexicoBlog, on-the-ground-correspondents reported the proceedings and an outcome. What emerged was a complex document that defines what Mexican youth and students want from their government.

Among other things, the document demands reforms in the following areas:

• Immediate Demilitarization: The War on Drugs is a War Against the People; Its US origins violate Mexican national solidarity; Youth have already won a major victory, curbing national military service and converting it to social service.





• End the Violence and Impunity: The systemic violates human rights, and negatively affects women, young girls and boys, and youth.





• Decriminalization of Drug Consumption: The drug war must be seen as a public health problem; legalization must be debated, and prohibition opposed as it enriches the political class and drug traffickers.





• Lives with Dignity: Death lives among urban and rural marginalized populations, neoliberal policies have inflicted instability and misery in people's lives, making them move, making low-level drug trafficking a survival strategy.





• Art and Culture for All: Decommodifying artistic and cultural expressions.





• Education: Guaranteed access for all and policies that promote human liberation tied to creativity.

The Youth Declaration embraces a new type of anti-prohibition, an anti-violence strategy national in scope and local in significance. It defines the next steps to follow in order to secure the objectives, outlined above.

- Convene a plural, inclusive, democratic space to discuss and construct the proposal of our Pact for Rebuilding the Nation on May 9 at 10 in the morning at the Journalists’ Club (Club de Periodistas) in Mexico City

- Propose to the new forum that a national body be formed to struggle for Peace with Justice and Dignity

- Organize mobilizations at the headquarters of the institutions responsible for the war

- Occupy symbolic spaces and build organizing centers with regular activities that allow us to have a presence and be a point of reference in the fight for Peace with Justice and Dignity

- Build a strategy to consolidate this process we’ve begun today based on the following initiatives.

- Convene a national meeting in Ciudad Juarez within the framework of the Signing of the Pact, which would follow up on youth networking and organizing

- Convene Committees for Peace with Justice and Dignity in every school, neighborhood, community or work center

- Convene a second Youth Meeting for Sept. 1-3 at UNAM’s University City

- Pay homage to the children and mothers killed in the armed conflict on May 10 in Mexico City’s Zocalo

-National Art and Culture Festival for Peace in Mexico, along with a protest march

- Organize an international academic forum for discussion of the armed conflict and the social problem at its root.

No conclusion yet exists to summarize what is happening in Mexico. The Mexican population of various generations and in various parts of the country seems fed up with Washington's security discourse, promoted by the Calderon government. Something IS happening here. And what is happening stands directly in contrast to the drug war policy objectives of Barack Obama's government.

Better to Live: Mexicans Mobilize against the Drug War

The last few months have seen bodies heaped upon bodies in Mexico. In some cases, the heaping is quite literal: drug graves have been opened up in the northern Gulf state of Tamaulipas, the largest contained almost two hundred people. Authorities sent cadavers to Mexico City for identification by forensic specialists. Though killed by drug gangs, investigators in Tamaulipas suggest that the local police was complicit.

And yet the greatest outcry to this uptick in brutality came in the wake of the deaths of several teenagers in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City. Cuernavaca is known as the city of eternal spring, it has an enviable climate: spring, all year round, and is the second home for many Mexico City residents. It's now also known as the place where poet, writer, and journalist Javier Sicilia initiated protests against the Mexican government and its failed drug war policies. Why has Sicilia become an outspokent figurehead for pain? At the end of March, Sicilia had to confront that which all parents fear, the death of his son. Juanelo Sicilia and six other friends were found dead in a car near Cuernavaca, the result of drug war violence.

Deaths in Mexico attributed to the drug war now number 35,000 since 2006. Juanelo Sicilia and his friends are yet more grim statistics. Yet Javier Sicilia decided to use the deaths of his son, and those of his friends, to move people to protest the violence in Mexico, its scope, and President Felipe Calderon's inability to imagine his government acting in ways that do not heighten violence.

At the end of March Javier Sicilia convened a national series of marches. The Cuernavaca march ended up being the largest in the city's history. He also convened more marches for the week of 5 - 8 May. The second Cuernavaca march starts on 5 May and ends in Mexico City's main square, zocalo, on 8 May, a distance of almost 100kms. Many Mexican cities are participating, as are some foreign cities. You can find a list of registered marches, here.

Organizing Tip of the Week: Use Gmail to work smarter, not harder

There are tons of reasons why having a Gmail account is a great idea for your SSDP chapter:

• easy to remember & promote
• presents a professional image of your group
• allows more than just one person to access
• preserves institutional knowledge
• ability to utilize other Google services (many chapters find Groups, Documents, Calendar to be particularly helpful)
• and the list goes on...

It's simple and free to create a Gmail account for your SSDP chapter (ex: RowanSSDP@gmail.com). Then, set it up so that your chapter e-mails get forwarded to your regular e-mail inbox (ex: JaneChapterLeader@gmail.com).

It's easy to forget to check multiple e-mail accounts, so once you've set up forwarding, you'll have all of your messages in one central location. I did this for the first time in 2005 when my @umd.edu e-mail address was created. I didn't like the school's mail program so I had it forward to a @gmail.com account I created and I've never used anything else since.


Share responsibility for managing your chapter e-mail with your other officers. Provide them with the password to access your chapter Gmail account, and show them how to set up forwarding for themselves.

Then you'll all be able to see what messages have been sent, received, and which ones still need to be taken care of. Not to mention, future chapter leaders will likely appreciate having so much institutional knowledge categorized and accessible by searching for key terms or names that appear in older e-mails.


Already an avid Gmail user?
Take organizing to the next level by using Gmail filters to tame your inbox. These are especially useful for managing those useful but often high-volume Facebook notifications.

Sneak a peak inside my own inbox.
Watch this short screencast and you'll see how I set up a new filter, then I'll show you my existing filters --I have more than 50!-- that help me manage my e-mail.

(Sidenote: I used this awesome free screencapture program, Jing, to record this. More on screen sharing and other helpful web tools to come!)

I hope you find this information helpful, stay tuned for more organizing tips of the week by subscribing to the Dare Generation Diary and by joining our community on Facebook.

Easy Star All Stars help spread the PA medical marijuana message

When Trevor Hosterman from West Chester SSDP volunteered to table the April 17th Easy Star All Stars/Cas Haley show at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, PA, he had no idea he'd end up on stage with the band. ESAS and Cas Haley are both in the AMPLIFY project family of artists, but not until now has an artist given our chapters such a voice. Here's what Trevor had to say about his experience:

The musical collective and SSDP AMPLIFY member, The Easy Star All Stars, had just wrapped up their set and walked off the stage, leaving the crowd inside the World Café Live in Philadelphia standing on edge, eager to hear more dubbed out tunes. Periodically, over the course of the show, I had held up a PA Medical Marijuana poster that we had been using while tabling the concert. I now found it appropriate to hold up the sign once more while the crowd waited for the All Stars to take the stage for their encore. It was then, that vocalist Kristy Rock walked out on to the stage and pointed at me and asked me to come join the band. I was dumbstruck, but managed to find my way up onto the stage where I came face to face with the crowd, proudly holding my PA Medical Marijuana poster. Once on stage, side by side with Kristy, she smiled at me, and began to tell a story. She spoke of her mother who lives in Denver, and how she is currently battling cancer, and is enduring the process of chemotherapy. Her mother is also a medical marijuana patient, and uses marijuana to help treat the pain and nausea associated with her chemotherapy treatments. Kristy gave a full endorsement of medical marijuana, and then handed me the microphone to inform the audience of our pending medical marijuana bill. I will ask you the same thing I asked the crowd, for those of us who live in Pennsylvania or have friends and family in the state, please encourage everyone you know to contact their state representative by phone, email, or writing a letter, and lets make Pennsylvania the next medical marijuana state!

This is just one example of how SSDP's AMPLIFY project can help your chapter's voice reach more people. The First Light Tour may be coming to a close soon, but you can always keep track of AMPLIFY shows here.

Feds Send Warning to Rhode Island: Compassion Centers Violate Federal Law

Rhode Island's Medical Marijuana Program has been a shining example of a successful and sensible drug policy. Most importantly, it's supported by the state's voters and legislature. But with three non-profit compassion centers set to open in the next few months, the federal government is now threatening it could prosecute in a three page hand-delivered letter to Gov. Lincoln Chaffee: 

"The Act, the registration scheme it purports to authorize, and the anticipated operation of the three centers appear to permit large-scale marijuana cultivation and distribution," Neronha wrote. 

"Accordingly, the Department of Justice could consider civil and criminal legal remedies against those individuals and entities who set up marijuana growing facilities and dispensaries, as such actions are in violation of federal law."

The Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act was enacted in 2006 by the state's legislature. When then Gov. Donald Carcieri vetoed the bill, the legislature overrode him. The same happened with compassion center legislation. 

The law also has support from members of RI's medical community:

• Rhode Island Medical Society
• RI Academy for Family Physicians
• Rhode Island State Nurses Association
• United Nurses and Allied Professionals
• AIDS Project Rhode Island

Federal government: Rhode Islanders think our medical marijuana law is wicked awesome and you have better things to do then trample our rights and waste federal resources (don't you?). 

Gov. Chaffee and other elected officials: Tell the Department of Justice to back off. 

*I'm from Rhode Island and was once an intern with the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition

Oklahoma Makes Hash Manufacturing a Felony Punishable by Life in Prison

You read that correctly. The Oklahoma legislature just passed a bill that would make manufacturing hash a felony punishable by life in prison.

Sadly, the bill met little to no opposition and is now awaiting the signature of Governor Mary Falin:

The measure sailed through the Senate with little debate, passing on a vote of 44-2. The House also approved the measure by a large margin, passing it on a vote of 75-18. 

The bill, House Bill 1798, creates a new felony of converting marijuana into hash. A first conviction could garner a $50,000 fine and prison sentence of two years to life. And that's a mandatory minimum two years. Second or subsequent convictions would net doubled penalties.

Dan Riffe at the Marijuana Policy Project points out just how absurd this new law is:

Here are some other crimes and their maximum punishments under Oklahoma law:

• Domestic abuse = 1 year

• Drinking and driving with a child in the car = 4 years

• Aggravated assault resulting in "great physical injury" = 5 years

• Assault with intent to kill = 5 years

• Kidnapping a child = 5 years

• Second degree rape = 15 years

• Sexual battery of a child = 20 years

If you're a citizen of Oklahoma, contact Gov. Falin today and tell her to veto this bad bill. 

At 2011 NORML Conference, SSDP & the NORML Women's Alliance announce "Sister-to-Sister"

Last week, Aaron Houston and I represented SSDP at the 40th Anniversary NORML Conference in Denver, CO. Aaron spoke on Thursday's panel, "The Feds, Marijuana and You" (watch the video here).

On Friday, I had the pleasure of joining 4 incredibly inspiring women reformers on the "Closing the Cannabis Gender Gap" panel (full video here, I'm the last speaker beginning ~45:00) See the slides from our presentation on our website. It was there that we announced the launch of an exciting new project that SSDP is proud to be working on with the NORML Women's Alliance.

The purpose and goals for "Sister-to-Sister" Cultivating Female Activists Mentoring Project are as follows:

• To connect women in the marijuana movement with each other in order to facilitate a close-knit community of female drug law reform advocates.
• To make women feel welcomed as part of the larger reform movement by connecting those who have been involved for less than 2-3 years with those who have been involved for more than 2-3 years.
• To build strong professional and personal relationships between women of all demographics who wouldn’t have otherwise been introduced to one another.
• To share skills, information, resources, contacts, and other useful knowledge that will help female reformers be more engaged and more effective as they work toward common interests.
• To empower and instill confidence in women who are interested in seeking leadership positions within their respective groups and organizations.
• To help close the gender gap that currently exists within the marijuana law reform community.

To read more about "Sister-to-Sister" and to find applications for the program visit our website and to learn more about the NORML Women's Alliance, visit norml.org/women.