cannabisnews.com: MJ Initiative Backers Huff, Puff After Campus Vote










  MJ Initiative Backers Huff, Puff After Campus Vote

Posted by CN Staff on October 10, 2006 at 06:44:39 PT
By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News 
Source: Rocky Mountain News 

Colorado -- He's got long hair, is wearing a black cowboy hat, and the word "wasted" in gleaming silver makes up the belt buckle holding up tattered jeans. And yet, [name redacted] - yes, his real name - said he's not sure which way he leans on Amendment 44, the statewide ballot measure attempting to make possession of an ounce of marijuana for those over 21 legal.
The anthropology student at the University of Northern Colorado said he grew up under the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, the federally-funded anti- drug program that preached to children in schools the risks of marijuana, cocaine and alcohol. Until he started college, he was "pretty anti-drug usage" himself. He's 21 and he's exactly the kind of voter the pot campaign is hoping will turn out in force Nov. 7. "I've been pretty back-and-forth on the issue," [name redacted] admitted. "Right now, I guess I think it's a good thing." [name redacted] was one of 25 registered to vote Thursday at the table outside McKee Hall set up by the Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation. Today is the last day to register to vote. For weeks, SAFER - the driving force behind Amendment 44 - has been showing up on college campuses registering students to vote. According to Mason Tvert, the campaign director, it's part of a concerted effort to target younger voters who, he said, are ignored and could be a big factor in the election. "There is no question we're going after them," Tvert said. "We're not relying solely on them, but they're very, very important." The campaign has also been using means that appeal to younger voters - blogs on Myspace.com tout the initiative, and bright green T-shirts with a marijuana leaf on them are handed out to college students for a $5 or $10 donation, while cigarette lighters are doled out for free. The campaign is also running commercials on 93.3 FM, an alternative rock station whose demographic is 18-to-34-year-olds. Tvert even spent an hour on the Uncle Nasty Show on 106.7 FM KBPI last week to chat about the measure with the host - a man who regularly features porn stars eating pickles on the air and has photos on a Web site asking listeners to pose while sitting on the toilet. "We want to reach out to everyone," Tvert said. The Amendment 44 campaign is the only political group to approach 93.3 FM about 30-second spots, said Mike Bohan, the station's head ad salesman. Bohan said he couldn't remember ever getting the backers of any other political issues or candidates to advertise on the station. The station shares the same age demographic with KBPI, he said. "Our demographic isn't huge into politics," Bohan said. "I think the tendency is they get overlooked." They're also a risky group to bet on, according to Norman Provizer, political science professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. He said Sen. John Kerry's campaign was somewhat successful in turning out younger voters in the 2004 presidential race, and he agreed it was a smart move by Tvert's campaign to try to bring younger voters into the booth. But he cautioned against relying on them too much. "I would not limit my campaign to younger voters - that would be a serious mistake," Provizer said. "There are probably a lot of baby boomers you want to target as well. Robert McGuire, who is heading up the opposition group Save Our Society from Drugs, agreed, and said the strategy might actually backfire. He said college-age students tend to view marijuana as counterculture and might not like the idea of turning it into a legal pop-culture phenomenon. "They're trying to mobilize young people because they think young people are inclined to vote for them, but I don't know there's really any evidence for that," McGuire said. Tyler Metz, a 20-year-old student at Colorado State University, registered to vote at the SAFER booth one afternoon on campus, and said he was torn on the ballot measure, despite giving positive feedback to those volunteering with the pro-44 workers. "I'm leaning more toward against it," he confessed. Metz said "both sides have good points" but he feared there wasn't enough research on how marijuana might be a gateway drug - a point hammered home by the anti-marijuana side. Tvert said it's a constant battle to not only get the law passed, but also to serve as what he believes is as an educator on marijuana. "We want to change people," Tvert said. "When you change people, then you change laws." Complete Title: Marijuana Initiative Backers Huff, Puff After Campus VotersSource: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)Author: David Montero, Rocky Mountain NewsPublished: October 10, 2006Copyright: 2006 Denver Publishing Co.Contact: letters rockymountainnews.comWebsite: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Safer Choicehttp://www.saferchoice.org/Safer Coloradohttp://www.safercolorado.org/Pot Amendment Deserves a 'No'http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22251.shtmlHippie-Hating and Baitinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22244.shtmlAdults Should Be Allowed To Choosehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22225.shtml 

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Comment #19 posted by Sukoi on October 10, 2006 at 16:38:13 PT

Whig
16:19:51 PT is pretty damn close!
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Comment #18 posted by whig on October 10, 2006 at 16:22:29 PT

love these recalcs
When I send a second message, and I know exactly what time I sent it, I can check that time against the clock here and know that the first message was actually sent at 4:20.
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Comment #17 posted by whig on October 10, 2006 at 16:19:51 PT

Interesting
Notwithstanding the time differential and all, that was pretty darn close to 4:20 itself.
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Comment #16 posted by whig on October 10, 2006 at 16:18:33 PT

kaptinemo
Everyone learns at their own pace. Some people are just being exposed to the truth for the first time in their senior years, having been kept in the dark for their entire lives.Have faith.
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Comment #15 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 13:40:29 PT

Dankhank
You got mail. Thanks again.
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Comment #14 posted by Dankhank on October 10, 2006 at 13:24:27 PT:

sheepishly
he asks ...e me snail mail again?to above link?thanx
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 12:13:33 PT

Dankhank
Enjoy the documentary and thank you.
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Comment #12 posted by Dankhank on October 10, 2006 at 12:08:19 PT

DVRs
the dish dvr I have has no burner.I can output to a burner, unless it's in the shop, as now.a week or two to produce DVDs again, but all that stuff is on the net, and as I am more adventurous, some would say foolhardy, I just go and get what I want.I think I got distracted by events, but they are ready to go. I have to go to the post office, but can't leave the anarchist Doc, even though I am saving to the DVR.I will go soon, the letters I must mail need to go out ...Peace ....
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 12:02:05 PT

Dankhank
If you can sometime send me Weeds the first season it would be nice. You sure don't have to do it for me. One of these days I'll get another recorder but my first experience with a DVR wasn't a good one so I'm gun shy. I figure the longer I wait the better they might get plus the prices come down. 
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on October 10, 2006 at 12:00:51 PT:

Whig, I am well aware of the supposed value of 
a college education...having received one. But my point was that I was encouraged to think for myself long before I ever arrived at my dorm. If only because I had been the recipient of lies told purely to benefit those who told them...at my and other's expense.I began to question history, for example, when I read a book review in the Washington Post back in the early 1970's. The review covered civil rights activist Dick Gregory's No More Lies. I was lucky enough to find it in the junior high school library and read it from cover to cover. It gave a non-homogenized version of historical events and personages that surprised the hell out of me. I had never been exposed to the 'flip side' of history before, and it caused me to examine what I was being taught as being 'factual'. In doing so I learned a lot about the seamy underside of history that isn't made public, and for good reason. So, in that fashion and from other incidents, I began to question what was supposedly verboten to question, and began to try to figure things out for myself. But that spark of an 'enquiring mind' had to be there to begin with. I daresay we here all possess that spark or we wouldn't be advocating what we do. It requires work to research and to educate one's self...and that young man doesn't seem to possess the needed spark, or he wouldn't have made the statement he did. I can only hope that he acquires it, for our fate as a reform movement is circumscribed by such fencesitting, ignorant people, simply because their curiosity - or lack of it - will be a factor in either ending this drug prohibition, or continuing it, simply because they outnumber activists by tens of thousands to one. Sad but true; it's not enough to be right, one must have enough numbers to make that obvious...and obvious that it's political suicide to go up against such numbers.
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Comment #9 posted by Dankhank on October 10, 2006 at 11:48:31 PT:

too sad ...
Hope my burner returns soon ...was I gonna send you something?think it was Weeds, season 1 that run on computer?let me know
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Comment #8 posted by paul armentano on October 10, 2006 at 11:43:53 PT

snipped: LA Times on NORML Arkansas Initiative
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pot10oct10,1,5421412.story?coll=la-headlines-nationArkansas Hamlet Puts Pot's Priority to a Vote
Misdemeanor arrests for marijuana might sink low on the list for the Eureka Springs police.
By Lianne Hart, Times Staff Writer
 
October 10, 2006EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. — Here in the heart of the Bible Belt, where local laws often restrict the sale of liquor, grass-roots campaigns to decriminalize marijuana have gone nowhere. But to the surprise of pot enthusiasts across the state, residents in the small tourist town of Eureka Springs will vote next month on whether to make misdemeanor marijuana arrests the city's lowest law enforcement priority. Local leaders of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the group that collected the signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot, can hardly believe their day has come.Volunteers have been circulating petitions for years, but "it's been like talking to a brick wall," said Glen Schwarz, NORML's Little Rock director. "The jails in Arkansas are full of pot smokers caught by people who think they've arrested Al Capone…. Maybe this will crack open the door."
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 11:38:42 PT

Dankhank
That sounds interesting but we don't get it on DirecTV.
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Comment #6 posted by Dankhank on October 10, 2006 at 11:22:44 PT

on documentary channel dish 197
History of Anarchystarting very soon ...
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 11:21:27 PT

potpal 
I'll be so glad when elections are over. I don't want to wish time away because life is too short but the anticipation of any hope can be dashed again for me like in 04 and I don't like to lose when I really believe in something. If we continue in the direction we are going I doubt we'll see any positiive change on our issue for many years.
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Comment #4 posted by potpal on October 10, 2006 at 11:10:39 PT

Eureka
Needs a chapter of SAFER to change 'dem thar (police) state laws'...The Rocky Mountain story was accompanied by a story on the heavy voter registration going on...
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on October 10, 2006 at 10:03:08 PT

UPI: Ark. Town To Vote on Marijuana Laws
EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark., Oct. 10 (UPI) -- A petition to get a marijuana reform measure on the ballot in Eureka Springs, Ark., has ended in success with a vote scheduled for next month. Leaders of the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws collected the signatures to get the measure, which would make possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana similar to a minor traffic violation, on the ballot, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. Petitions have been circling in the town for years, but "it's been like talking to a brick wall," Glen Schwarz, NORML's Little Rock director, said in the Times report. "The jails in Arkansas are full of pot smokers caught by people who think they've arrested Al Capone ... Maybe this will crack open the door." However, local police have said the vote will have little real effect because state drug laws take precedence over local ordinances. "A lot of people here don't see anything wrong with marijuana but it's against the law to possess it in Arkansas. Until they change the state law, we're going to uphold it," Sgt. Shelley Summers of the Eureka Springs Police Department, told the Times. Copyright: 2006 United Press International, Inc.http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061010-120046-6905r
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Comment #2 posted by whig on October 10, 2006 at 09:14:42 PT

kaptinemo
For some people, college is the first opportunity to get away from an environment that prevents independent thinking altogether.
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on October 10, 2006 at 08:38:18 PT:

Sit. Stay. Rollover. Beg. Speak!
Metz said "both sides have good points" but he feared there wasn't enough research on how marijuana might be a gateway drug - a point hammered home by the anti-marijuana side.Ah, yes. Intellectual laziness, personified. The kind of person who shouldn't be wasting Mom and Dad's college fund. Because if he hasn't mind enough to do his own research on the issue, and realize to what extent he's been trained to think in a certain way by the very forces that seek to derail this legislation (and maintain him in ignorance for their benefit and no one else's) then he's the sort who will bark his rote programming on cue every time he hears his master's dog-whistle. Pa-thet-ic. I had more intellectual stones at thirteen than this young 'adult' demonstrates. 
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