NORML Lied about First US Cannabis Cafe!
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RollmeoneKenobi
Member
Don't let your ideals of perfection destroy progress! So, what a little fib that generates media attention towards our goals. We don't have news anymore; we have 'infotainment'. Comedian Eddie Izzard said it best: "It's 75% how you look, 20% how you say it, and 5% what you said". Right now we need to stay on tv, on people's mind or we might fall off the 'flat earth'.
0
02020
The problem with norml, or any other lobbying group for that matter, is they begin with a nobel idea, legalization/ decriminalization... medicine for the sick. They gain support for this idea and grow, more chapters across the country, more lobbyist...more money...To the point where the achievement of their goal becomes counter-productive to the organization. Norml, has vested interest in its own survival, it appears that this interest outweighs its stated purpose. Its nothing personal, its just capitalism.
T
TroubleGuy
"Its nothing personal, its just capitalism."
indeed it is and where one organization fails there's room for another to take it's place. remember that fellow stoners. we could have something much better.
indeed it is and where one organization fails there's room for another to take it's place. remember that fellow stoners. we could have something much better.
RadicalRuss
New member
NORML hasn't lied about anything, blame the NY Times
NORML hasn't lied about anything, blame the NY Times
Pot, I'd like you to meet my friend, Kettle...
Ironic for people to cite poor fact-checking without checking the facts themselves. Oregon NORML and NORML have never said in any of their press releases that the Cannabis Café was the first marijuana café in the nation. Here's National NORML's press release, dated 11/19/2009:
And why does that argument never apply to PETA, Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club? "Oh, PETA doesn't really want to end animal cruelty, because then they wouldn't have jobs!' "Oh, Greenpeace wants whales to be harvested so they can have all that fun on the open water!" "Oh, the Sierra Club doesn't really want to end pollution because their lawyers make so much money off lawsuits!"
As for not being able to trust NORML about marijuana? Pothead, please. You'll find no more honest brokers of marijuana news, science, medicine, research, polling, and culture than the fourteen years of archives available at NORML.org. Our executive staff, Allen St. Pierre and Paul Armentano, have done more interviews on newspaper, radio, and television than you can possibly read, hear, and watch. They and other NORML members are repeatedly called upon as expert witnesses in trials, where lack of honesty can get you jailed (unlike, say, a cannabis bulletin board in cyberspace.)
As for the "National Organization for Referral to Marijuana Lawyers" jibe, you say that as if it were an insult. When you get busted, you need a lawyer. You want just any old lawyer out of the book who may still believe marijuana today is super potent "Pot 2.0" that leads to heroin addiction, or would you like one who is dedicated to marijuana law and marijuana users and attends two national seminars annually dedicated to nothing but how to keep marijuana consumers out of jail? Many times for certain cases our NLC members will work pro bono to free a marijuana prisoner. Just this last year Paul Armentano's testimony regarding urine testing science kept a woman out of five years of prison for failing not one, but nine urinalyses while she was on probation. And he did that for free, even paying for his own gas to drive to Los Angeles from the Bay Area.
Back to the "first" marijuana café... why, if there were so many other "firsts" before it, did nobody at Associated Press, USA Today, New York Times, Times of London, Guardian UK, and so many media outlets not know that fact? Could it be because so many of these other cafés are, in fact, just a couch and some cookies at a marijuana dispensary? Could it be that none of these cafés wanted any limelight so they kept their existence on the down-low? Could it be that Madeline Martinez is a world-class organizer and marketer who got the press that these other cafés couldn't? Beats me, but it sure seems awful petty to denigrate such a monumental success in reforming marijuana laws, a place where you can pay a membership fee and a cover charge and inhale some of the finest of fifty different strains of Oregon bud from Volcano Vaporizers, all day long if you like, get a sandwich and some munchies, play pool, foosball, Wii, board games, and card games, watch high-definition cable TV, take a class in cultivation and the law, and also, on top of all that, attend two meetings per month where you receive donated medicine and a clone, all in safe, secure, well-lit, comfortable, tobacco-and-alcohol-free venue. Your kind of sour grapes would do better in a wine than a whine.
If you want to know what NORML is really about, find a local chapter or start one yourself. Meet the people who are volunteering to help folks like Jacki Rickert in Wisconsin get medical marijuana protection before she dies. Go talk to Chris Goldstein, pro bono lobbying legislators in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, making repeated trips between Trenton and Harrisburg. Look up Linda Adler in the US Virgin Islands who is moving legislation to fully legalize in the tropical island paradise (no passport required!) Google "Clif Deuvall" out in Waco, Texas, who is getting media coverage deep in the Lone Star State to pass medical marijuana. From Portland to Orlando, San Diego to Bangor, Salt Lake, Denver, Springfield, Indianapolis, Little Rock, and all points in between, there are dedicated unpaid volunteers who are working their butts off so people like you don't have to go jail.
Or you can just email me at stash 'at' norml.org and come visit The NORML Stash Blog, the source for all the local happenings from NORML volunteers across the nation and around the world.
Russ Belville
NORML Outreach Coordinator
Portland, Oregon
NORML hasn't lied about anything, blame the NY Times
Pot, I'd like you to meet my friend, Kettle...
Ironic for people to cite poor fact-checking without checking the facts themselves. Oregon NORML and NORML have never said in any of their press releases that the Cannabis Café was the first marijuana café in the nation. Here's National NORML's press release, dated 11/19/2009:
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'[/FONT]
True, as this is, indeed, this state NORML affiliate's first cannabis café. Oregon NORML had never opened one before. If a NY Times editor doesn't read beyond the headline, don't blame us.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Portland, OR: Oregon NORML, a state affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), on Friday opened the state's first café catering to state-authorized medical marijuana patients. Over 250 people attended the café's grand opening, which received international media coverage from the Associated Press, Reuters News Wire, and the New York Times.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Patrons of the café, who must be in good standing with the state's medical marijuana program as well as a member of Oregon NORML, may consume cannabis on the premises. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Unlike conventional marijuana dispensaries that operate in states like California and Colorado, medical cannabis is not sold on the premises, nor is the primary function of the café to dispense marijuana. "This is not a medical marijuana dispensary with a café; this is a café for medical marijuana patients," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon NORML Executive Director and a member of NORML's Board of Directors. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Presently, over 24,000 Oregonians are authorized by the state Department of Health to use cannabis medicinally.[/FONT]
It's been fun reading the comments here. The notion that NORML doesn't really want to end marijuana prohibition because we have a vested interest in our jobs is always an amusing one to read. 98% of what you call "NORML" is volunteers who donate their time and energy to raising media awareness of the issue by doing things like opening a cannabis café. They not only don't get paid, they actually sink their own money into fliers, gas, posters, websites, picket signs, and more. For the few of us who do get paid, NORML Staff and NORML Legal Committee, I can assure you we're not driving Cadillacs and looking down from our opulent penthouse suite on K Street in DC. Personally my income is now one-third of what it was compared to my use of the same skills and education in the for-profit sector. I know three lawyers personally who left six-figure corporate law to become five-figure pot lawyers, serving people who often wouldn't be in trouble if they had common sense and kept their mouth shut.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Patrons of the café, who must be in good standing with the state's medical marijuana program as well as a member of Oregon NORML, may consume cannabis on the premises. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Unlike conventional marijuana dispensaries that operate in states like California and Colorado, medical cannabis is not sold on the premises, nor is the primary function of the café to dispense marijuana. "This is not a medical marijuana dispensary with a café; this is a café for medical marijuana patients," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon NORML Executive Director and a member of NORML's Board of Directors. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Presently, over 24,000 Oregonians are authorized by the state Department of Health to use cannabis medicinally.[/FONT]
And why does that argument never apply to PETA, Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club? "Oh, PETA doesn't really want to end animal cruelty, because then they wouldn't have jobs!' "Oh, Greenpeace wants whales to be harvested so they can have all that fun on the open water!" "Oh, the Sierra Club doesn't really want to end pollution because their lawyers make so much money off lawsuits!"
As for not being able to trust NORML about marijuana? Pothead, please. You'll find no more honest brokers of marijuana news, science, medicine, research, polling, and culture than the fourteen years of archives available at NORML.org. Our executive staff, Allen St. Pierre and Paul Armentano, have done more interviews on newspaper, radio, and television than you can possibly read, hear, and watch. They and other NORML members are repeatedly called upon as expert witnesses in trials, where lack of honesty can get you jailed (unlike, say, a cannabis bulletin board in cyberspace.)
As for the "National Organization for Referral to Marijuana Lawyers" jibe, you say that as if it were an insult. When you get busted, you need a lawyer. You want just any old lawyer out of the book who may still believe marijuana today is super potent "Pot 2.0" that leads to heroin addiction, or would you like one who is dedicated to marijuana law and marijuana users and attends two national seminars annually dedicated to nothing but how to keep marijuana consumers out of jail? Many times for certain cases our NLC members will work pro bono to free a marijuana prisoner. Just this last year Paul Armentano's testimony regarding urine testing science kept a woman out of five years of prison for failing not one, but nine urinalyses while she was on probation. And he did that for free, even paying for his own gas to drive to Los Angeles from the Bay Area.
Back to the "first" marijuana café... why, if there were so many other "firsts" before it, did nobody at Associated Press, USA Today, New York Times, Times of London, Guardian UK, and so many media outlets not know that fact? Could it be because so many of these other cafés are, in fact, just a couch and some cookies at a marijuana dispensary? Could it be that none of these cafés wanted any limelight so they kept their existence on the down-low? Could it be that Madeline Martinez is a world-class organizer and marketer who got the press that these other cafés couldn't? Beats me, but it sure seems awful petty to denigrate such a monumental success in reforming marijuana laws, a place where you can pay a membership fee and a cover charge and inhale some of the finest of fifty different strains of Oregon bud from Volcano Vaporizers, all day long if you like, get a sandwich and some munchies, play pool, foosball, Wii, board games, and card games, watch high-definition cable TV, take a class in cultivation and the law, and also, on top of all that, attend two meetings per month where you receive donated medicine and a clone, all in safe, secure, well-lit, comfortable, tobacco-and-alcohol-free venue. Your kind of sour grapes would do better in a wine than a whine.
If you want to know what NORML is really about, find a local chapter or start one yourself. Meet the people who are volunteering to help folks like Jacki Rickert in Wisconsin get medical marijuana protection before she dies. Go talk to Chris Goldstein, pro bono lobbying legislators in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, making repeated trips between Trenton and Harrisburg. Look up Linda Adler in the US Virgin Islands who is moving legislation to fully legalize in the tropical island paradise (no passport required!) Google "Clif Deuvall" out in Waco, Texas, who is getting media coverage deep in the Lone Star State to pass medical marijuana. From Portland to Orlando, San Diego to Bangor, Salt Lake, Denver, Springfield, Indianapolis, Little Rock, and all points in between, there are dedicated unpaid volunteers who are working their butts off so people like you don't have to go jail.
Or you can just email me at stash 'at' norml.org and come visit The NORML Stash Blog, the source for all the local happenings from NORML volunteers across the nation and around the world.
Russ Belville
NORML Outreach Coordinator
Portland, Oregon
