Legalize in Your State

[APTUtah]

Would anyone like to start a Medical Marijuana Initiative in their local city? I'm willing to help out as much as I can from a distance. I'm working on an initiative for Salt Lake City, UT right now and if we could form a network of a few capital cities and get Medical Marijuana on the ballot for a big list of cities for the same year of within a year, and then their respective states soon after, than we could have a major impact on the medical marijuana situation in the U.S. as a whole.
I'm working full time on this effort in Utah and it wouldn't be hard for me to check into local initiative requirements and current marijuana laws in other cities. This way each city can form a plan of action for their own local Med MJ initiative.

Check out this website to see if your state has an initiative process

www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i&r.htm (http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i&r.htm)

Email me or reply to this thread if you are interested in having medical marijuana in your state [email protected] ([email protected])

[RevRayGreen]

dude I'm in starting a safer choice campaign in Des Moines IA and the state for legal Medical Marijuana. My email is [email protected] .

My medical marijuana initiative will be titled I- M13 (MEDICAL 13). I am working to get
a web-site up soon, selling shirts to support the campaign.


MAKE MY MEDICINE LEGAL NOW !!!!!


PUTT OUT THE BUTT
LIGHT UP A BLUNT

Having a safer choice could save one meth addict or alcoholic..............
we all know one that could be saved.............a loved one.
Are you a savior ?

[GiveMeThatBuzz87]

lol i def would like to start something in my area of NH not just medical but social to..just legalized in general....its so ludacris that its not legal when alcohol is... my email is [email protected] so send me some info on how to do what ur doing in ur state for mine i looked at that site and my states not in the red? so any help to get me started would better all of the cannabis users in the country. thanks JD

[APTUtah]

I talked with Roger Goodman of the King County Bar Association Drug Policy, in Washington (he worked to make small marijuana crimes the lowest level priority enforcement in Seattle. He said the reason that Denver had so much success with its recent battle to legalize up to one once for personal use in the city, was because the campaign came out of nowhere and their was no time for personality conflicts on the legalization side. He said lots of time those who want to legalize have their own views of how it should work and the level of fame they want, this is a problem because then you run in circles around each other and get nothing done. This is the reason all states don't have medical marijuana. Because the "old hippie" generation that has been doing this for the last 20 years all have their own visions of medical marijuana and fame. In Denver, two guys had this idea and they did it. Not an organization got together and discussed and voted on what to do.
In Denver they only used one controversial billboard, a picture of a women who had just been badly beaten in domestic violence with a caption like "Do you want this?" Their message was that cannabis is a safer alternative to alcohol and if alcohol is legal and it causes so much damage than why is cannabis, that doesn't cause that damage illegal. And they won; the vote was 54% in favor. Close call, but controversial methods.
It is insane alcohol is legal and marijuana isn't. Yet the poll numbers show that americans don't support full legalization, for now. But the polls do show that about 80% nationwide for medical and near that in every state (78% Utah). So why then does cannabis remain illigal for medical use? Idiots in our dumb government.

Chris

[APTUtah]

1. The first thing to do is to check and see if there is already a medical marijuana organization in your city or state. They might be halfway there already.

2. If not then, you need to form an organization. You, personally, become powerful when you name your organization and place power to all those who wish to be a part of it. Advocates for Progressive Therapy is just the name, what we are is a bunch of people pissed off about this injustice and we are doing what we can to stop it. If anyone would like to take APT into his or her own state, and form APT(yourstate) feel free, but a name is just a name and anything works. When forming the organization you need to consider making it a 501c3 (irs tax exempt). This limits what you can say and do (can't advocate petition initiatives, but you can get more grants) so with APT we are just a grassroots group of activist friends, so anyone is welcome to join, or take APT to whatever level you want to in your state.

3. Find support in your area. Make flyers and hang them up in all the coffee shops and head shops ect. Contact local bands and see if they will let you set up a signature flyer and handouts on their CD and T-shirt sales table at club concerts. Hang out in alternative areas of town and hand out flyers and talk to anyone interested. Use myspace, check out www.myspace.com.aptutah Geocities gives you a free website to www.geocities.com check out www.geocities.com/aptutah
(I'll make you a website if you want me to)

4. Hold meetings. Get everyone together from your signature flyer list and all your friends and family and anyone else you can manage to bring to a meeting. Have a raffle for a glass pipe or a short movie about MJ or some thing to catch everyoneâ??s eye. At the meeting there will be those that just show up and those that are into it. Focus on those who are into it, but don't forget to tell those that aren't about the next meeting, the more people the better.

5. Either check laws yourself or find a lawyer. I looked at the city and state codes to see exactly how marijuana is illegal in Utah, and then looked at other cities that have passed medical marijuana initiatives, then at SLC city code webpage at ordinances that have been passed but not yet coded. I don't have any legal experience at all and I just kind of filled in the blanks to write an initiative. I then contacted Marijuana Policy Project and other major organizations to see if their lawyers could check it for me. MPP called me back and said they would basically re-write it for me so that it is fully legal. I've been told the legality of each cities initiative is the biggest challenge a campaign can have.

This is where APT Utah is at right now. Our next step is to form a Political Issues Committee (like a Political Action Committee), which is just a tax-free way to raise funds. This can be used as the website to sell t-shirts and stickers on. This may be different for every state, but let me know if you need help finding out legality on funding. My plan is to start going door to door to raise funds. This is a crazy idea, but if only 10% of people donated just $5 then I'd be able to raise about $100 a day (with 10 canvassers that's $1000 a day). I'm lucky, I don't work normal jobs and can use my time to start this door to door campaign, then after a week or two by myself, I'll be able to hire a small team to work with me. They will basically have to raise a certain amount every week or they will be asked to move on. This is how PIRG's collect funding. If this works, the amount of funding APT will have will be only limited by the number of canvassers we can manage, hopefully limitless.

We do not, however, need to raise any funding; this is just the logical step to take. After we get the initiative wording back from MPP, it will be submitted to the city clerk for fiscal budget review, then 28 days after that be back in my hand ready for signatures. Here is my logic: I can knock on 200 doors a day, if 50% of people sign the petition (with 78% in support I know it will be more than that, but I want to estimate low) than it will only take about 2 1/2 months for just me to collect the signatures. I've already had offers to help collect signatures, so I'm sure 2 1/2 months is all it will take.

From when we submit the signatures to the date of the election we will do what we can to educate the public about medical marijuana, maybe even form a sister organization that IS 501c3 to get grants to run TV and newspaper ads. Some may disagree, but I think anytime medical marijuana hits the ballots it will win.

Lets get this going big, even if it is just symbolic and doesn't get anywhere it is still movement in the right direction. If we can form APT Iowa and APT NH, then I don't doubt that we will be able to get national media coverage, then even if it is just symbolic, it's a big symbol and it will start the next step toward the legalization that WILL happen.

Chris
if you have any more questions or need more direction let me know, I'm so into this I'll come to your state to help if needed, I'm even willing to collect the signatures needed to get this on the ballot in any state that it can happen.

[doctahdoobie]

Tennessee totally needs some help. This place is crawling with people that smoke cannabis but won't do anything about it.

[HIGHDRO]

The main problem is that it is hard to find a group that is organized enough to make something happen. I think the effort in Colorado needs to grow. With time, marijuana will become legal in other cities as well. This might take a while, but it will happen.

[Crispyfried]

New Mexico is probably going to legalize medical marijuana in a few weeks. And it's not a thing that the people vote for, but a bill that's passed by the state government. Check out the bill here:

http://legis.state.nm.us/Sessions/06%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0258.pdf

[latewood]

I'm interested...will have to read more on this when I have time...meanwhile, I am posting a rant on Citgo, Chavez and America