SAFER Central: An Open Letter to the Drug Czar

by Mason Tvert, Thu Oct 29, 2009

Mason Tvert is the Executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation

On the afternoon of Friday, October 23, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske (aka the Drug Czar) issued a statement declaring the issue of marijuana legalization is a "non-starter" not even worthy of discussion in the Obama administration. In response, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) issued the following open letter to the Drug Czar and launched a petition drive calling on him to base our nation's drug policies on evidence and reason rather than ideology and mythology. 

tags: safer central, activism, activism news, drug czar, drug policy news 15    « add a comment

SAFER Central

by Mason Tvert, Thu May 1, 2008

By Mason Tvert

If you ever find yourself at the University of Georgia, be sure to stop by the campus bookstore and pick up some shot glasses, whiskey flasks or pint or martini glasses featuring the school’s official logo and Bulldog mascot. Just be sure you’re not wearing a T-shirt showing a bulldog using marijuana.

The Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) at UGA was recently threatened with legal action and the possibility of losing their student organization status after they created and distributed T-shirts featuring a caricature of the UGA Bulldog mascot, Hairy Dawg, sitting in front of a campus landmark smoking a joint. The campus group created the shirts – which included the phrase, “Legalize, Equalize, Normalize.”

It wasn’t long before Georgia NORML’s …READ MORE

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SAFER Central

by Mason Tvert, Thu Apr 24, 2008

By Mason Tvert

420 was bigger than ever this year. Major news sources like the Chicago Tribune and MSNBC.com carried stories about how widely recognized and commercialized the marijuana holiday has become, and reports of major demonstrations and public smoke-ins filled newspapers and newscasts all over the country. As usual, the week before the event was filled with editorials and preview stories that portrayed 420 as a nuisance in which people openly defied the law.

Nowhere was the 420 hysteria more prevalent than in Colorado, where thousands traditionally gather on the University of Colorado (CU) campus in Boulder and in Denver’s Civic Center Park.

For example, an editorial in the Daily Camera …READ MORE

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SAFER Central

by Mason Tvert, Wed Mar 12, 2008

By Mason Tvert

Voters in Denver have made it increasingly clear they do not want their city punishing adults for using marijuana.

A majority voted to remove all penalties for private possession under city ordinances in 2005, and an even larger majority voted in favor of doing so at the state level in 2006. Most recently, in 2007, 57 percent of voters approved a new city ordinance directing police and prosecutors to make adult possession their absolute lowest priority.

Although support for reform is on the rise in the Mile High City, the trend in the annual number of citations being issued is moving in the opposite direction.

According to statistics recently unearthed by Sensible Colorado, a statewide marijuana policy reform organization, about 1,600 adults were cited for misdemeanor possession in 2007, an increase of about 18 percent from 2006, 36 percent from 2005, and a whopping 50 percent from 2004. Racial …READ MORE

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SAFER Central

by Mason Tvert, Mon Jan 28, 2008

By Mason Tvert

Marijuana prohibition is not just about weed. It is a weed.

It’s a weed that sprouted more than 75 years ago and spread state to state, enveloping the entire nation as poison ivy would a garden.

In the past 30 years, some branches of the weed have been trimmed down or lopped off in the form of positive legislation or policy changes. For example, a handful of state legislatures decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s, and in the past decade or so we have seen a number of states adopt laws permitting the use of medical marijuana. This is not to mention the growing number of cities that have passed a wide variety of local measures.

But despite such constant pruning efforts of legislators and activists, the prohibition weed remains alive.

Consider for example that annual U.S. marijuana arrests reached an all-time high once again in 2006, and federal legislation that would protect …READ MORE

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