Pubdate: Mon, 20 Apr 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Kevin Moloney
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Cannabis - Popular)

MARIJUANA ADVOCATES POINT TO SIGNS OF CHANGE

SAN FRANCISCO -- On Monday, somewhere in New York City, 420 people 
will gather for High Times magazine's annual beauty pageant, a 
secretly located and sold-out event that its sponsor says will "turn 
the Big Apple into the Baked Apple and help us usher in a new era of 
marijuana freedom in America." Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This 
Image Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

David Perleberg sold pro-marijuana T-shirts at the forum, including 
one that shows the university's buffalo mascot inhaling.

They will not be the only ones partaking: April 20 has long been an 
unofficial day of celebration for marijuana fans, an occasion for 
campus smoke-outs, concerts and cannabis festivals. But some 
advocates of legal marijuana say this year's "high holiday" carries 
extra significance as they sense increasing momentum toward 
acceptance of the drug, either as medicine or entertainment.

"It is the biggest moment yet," said Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and 
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, who 
cited several national polls showing growing support for 
legalization. "There's a sense that the notion of legalizing 
marijuana is starting to cross the fringes into mainstream debate."

For Mr. Nadelmann and others like him, the signs of change are 
everywhere, from the nation's statehouses -- where more than a dozen 
legislatures have taken up measures to allow some medical use of 
marijuana or some easing of penalties for recreational use -- to its 
swimming pools, where an admission of marijuana use by the Olympic 
gold medalist Michael Phelps was largely forgiven with a shrug.

Long stigmatized as political poison, the marijuana movement has 
found new allies in prominent politicians, including Representatives 
Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Ron Paul, Republican of 
Texas, who co-wrote a bill last year to decrease federal penalties 
for possession and to give medical users new protections.

The bill failed, but with the recession prompting bulging budget 
deficits, some legislators in California and Massachusetts have gone 
further, suggesting that the drug could be legalized and taxed, a 
concept that has intrigued even such ideologically opposed pundits as 
Glenn Beck of Fox News and Jack Cafferty of CNN.

"Look, I'm a libertarian," Mr. Beck said on his Feb. 26 program. "You 
want to legalize marijuana, you want to legalize drugs -- that's fine."

All of which has longtime proponents of the drug feeling oddly 
optimistic and even overexposed.

"We've been on national cable news more in the first three months 
than we typically are in an entire year," said Bruce Mirken, the 
director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, a reform 
group based in Washington. "And any time you've got Glenn Beck and 
Barney Frank agreeing on something, it's either a sign that change is 
impending or that the end times are here."

Beneficiaries of the moment include Norml, the National Organization 
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which advocates legalization, and 
other groups like it. Norml says that its Web traffic and donations 
(sometimes in $4.20 increments) have surged, and that it will begin a 
television advertising campaign on Monday, which concludes with a 
plea, and an homage, to President Obama.

"Legalization," the advertisement says, "yes we can!"

That seems unlikely anytime soon. In a visit last week to Mexico, 
where drug violence has claimed thousands of lives and threatened to 
spill across the border, Mr. Obama said the United States must work 
to curb demand for drugs.

Still, pro-marijuana groups have applauded recent remarks by Attorney 
General Eric H. Holder Jr., who suggested that federal law 
enforcement resources would not be used to pursue legitimate medical 
marijuana users and outlets in California and a dozen other states 
that allow medical use of the drug. Court battles are also 
percolating. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 
heard arguments last Tuesday in San Francisco in a 2007 lawsuit 
challenging the government's official skepticism about medical uses 
of the drug.

But Allen F. St. Pierre, the executive director of Norml, said he had 
cautioned supporters that any legal changes that might occur would 
probably be incremental.

"The balancing act this year is trying to get our most active, most 
vocal supporters to be more realistic in their expectations in what 
the Obama administration is going to do," Mr. St. Pierre said.

For fans of the drug, perhaps the biggest indicator of changing 
attitudes is how widespread the observance of April 20 has become, 
including its use in marketing campaigns for stoner-movie openings 
(like last year's "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay") and as 
a peg for marijuana-related television programming (like the G4 
network's prime-time double bill Monday of "Super High Me" and "Half Baked").

Events tied to April 20 have "reached the tipping point in the last 
few years after being a completely underground phenomenon for a long 
time," said Steven Hager, the creative director and former editor of 
High Times. "And I think that's symptomatic of the fact that people's 
perception of marijuana is reaching a tipping point."

Mr. Hager said the significance of April 20 dates to a ritual begun 
in the early 1970s in which a group of Northern California teenagers 
smoked marijuana every day at 4:20 p.m. Word of the ritual spread and 
expanded to a yearly event in various places. Soon, marijuana 
aficionados were using "420" as a code for smoking and using it as a 
sign-off on fliers for concerts where the drug would be plentiful.

In recent years, the April 20 events have become so widespread that 
several colleges have urged students to just say no. At the 
University of Colorado, Boulder, where thousands of students 
regularly use the day to light up in the quad, administrators sent an 
e-mail message this month pleading with students not to "participate 
in unlawful activity that debases the reputation of your university 
and degree."

A similar warning was sent to students at the University of 
California, Santa Cruz -- home of the Grateful Dead archives -- which 
banned overnight guests at residence halls leading up to April 20.

None of which, of course, is expected to discourage the dozens of 
parties -- large and small -- planned for Monday, including the 
top-secret crowning of Ms. High Times.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, where a city supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi, 
suggested last week that the city should consider getting into the 
medical marijuana business as a provider, big crowds are expected to 
turn out at places like Hippie Hill, a drum-happy glade in Golden Gate Park.

A cloud of pungent smoke is also expected to be thick at concerts 
like one planned at the Fillmore rock club, where the outspoken 
pro-marijuana hip-hop group Cypress Hill is expected to take the 
stage at 4:20 p.m.

"You can see twice the amount of smoke as you do at a regular show," 
said B-Real, a rapper in the group. "And it's a great fragrance." 
Next Article in US (5 of 17) A version of this article appeared in 
print on April 20, 2009, on page A13 of the New York edition.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom