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Cheryl Shuman Article - National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Launches NORML Women's Alliance

?The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the nation's oldest cannabis advocacy organization, today announced the launch of the NORML Women's Alliance.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/01/national_organization_for_the_reform_of_marijuana.php

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Launches NORML Women's Alliance
By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ in Culture, Legislation, News Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 11:07 am


NORML.org
Professional women across America and the world are coming out of the cannabis closet.
?The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the nation's oldest cannabis advocacy organization, today announced the launch of the NORML Women's Alliance.

The NORML Women's Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition of educated, successful, high-profile professional women who believe that cannabis prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends mixed and false messages to young people, and destroys the principles of personal liberty and local self-government, according to the organization.
"The prominent role of women in the effort to end marijuana prohibition is pivotal, necessary, and long overdue," said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML. "According to recent national opinion polls by Gallup and others, the dramatic rise in the public's support of marijuana law reform is being driven primarily by an increase in support among American's women."

According to St. Pierre, "The NORML Women's Alliance will bring a contemporary approach to the public policy debate, and will proudly represent the interests of modern, mainstream women who believe that the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition far outweigh any repercussions from marijuana consumption itself."


NORML.org
Film producer Ann Druyan, charter member of the NORML Women's Alliance
?Charter members of the NORML Women's Alliance include NORML Foundation chair and film producer Ann Druyan; "Republican mom for marijuana," attorney and political activist Jessica Corry; editor Shelby Sadler; best-selling author and Time magazine columnist Barbara Ehrenreich; Beverly Hills NORML director Cheryl Shuman; NORML Foundation board member Jeralyn Merritt, Esq.; cannabis activist and author Mikki Norris; Cannabis Action Network and Berkeley Patients Group founder Debby Goldsberry; NORML board member and director of Oregon NORML Madeline Martinez; law professor Marjorie Russell; and former ACLU president Nadine Strossen.

The founding group of women also includes physicians, researchers, business leaders, editors, publishers, mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers.

The NORML Women's Alliance holds the following positions:

1. The NORML Women's Alliance believes that the fiscal priorities of marijuana prohibition are wasting billions of dollars on a failed policy.

2. The NORML Women's Alliance believes that marijuana prohibition violates states' rights, and improperly expands the reach of government into the families and personal lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

3. The NORML Women's Alliance advocates for an open, honest conversation about marijuana with America's youth that is void of all propaganda and misleading information.

4. The NORML Women's Alliance endorses the science-based evidence regarding the therapeutic applications of medical marijuana as well as the continuation of research into the subject.

5. The NORML Women's Alliance strongly opposes the sexual exploitation and objectification of women in pot-culture and business marketing.

"A marijuana policy that fosters children selling marijuana en masse must immediately change, and be replaced by one that effectively stops children from trafficking in marijuana," said Sabrina Fendrick, coordinator of the NORML Women's Alliance.

"The NORML Women's Alliance seeks to replace a failed, tax coffer-draining and child endangering 73-year-old cannabis prohibition with functional, tax-producing and youth-friendly cannabis policies consisting of legal and social controls that are not at all dissimilar to our existing, common-sensible and ever-evolving alcohol policies," Fendrick said.

More information about the NORML Women's Alliance is available at http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8059.
Tags: culture, legislation