While 4/20 has become an national phenomenon of sorts, and is the launch date these days for numerous commercial products and services directed at America’s cannabis consumers, this remarkable day in my view has lacked a certain degree of needed gravitas– with ‘4/20′ looking more like a ‘party in the park’ than genuinely organic socio-political events that elected policymakers and the media should take seriously.
However, I’d like to highlight the Colorado University chapter of NORML for not only holding the largest organized annual ‘4/20′ event in the world–but for recognizing this year, a year marked so far by an ever-growing voter sentiment about the need to legalize cannabis–that ‘4/20′ provides cannabis law reform advocates a prime annual opportunity to do far more than just protest in the park by convening a day-long, substantive conference in advance of ‘celebrating cannabis’ the next day by exploring logical and effective alternatives to cannabis prohibition.
NORML encourages college chapters of NORML and SSDP to follow CU NORML’s lead by organizing ‘marijuana forums’ on their campuses next week, as college students are disproportionately arrested at higher rates than most other subgroups of Americans for cannabis possession charges and can be denied access to federal loans for college if convicted of a single cannabis possession offense.
Despite President Obama’s unfortunate inability to take Americans’ current calls for cannabis law reforms seriously, there is nothing funny about cannabis prohibition in America. Next weekend at The University of Colorado at Boulder, students, activists, professors, lawyers and doctors, as well as proponents of cannabis prohibition will engage in serious-minded discussion and symposiums about how to move forward into the near future by crafting functional cannabis policies at the state and federal level.
National Marijuana Forum
April 18-20, 2009
University of Colorado, Boulder
For a complete schedule, check out NORML@CU!
Cannabis experts from all over the country will converge in Boulder,
Colorado from April 18-20 for the 2009 National Marijuana Forum, which will
bring together local and national experts to discuss cannabis reform. The
events will culminate on Monday, April 20 with the celebration of 4/20:
International Cannabis Day.
The National Marijuana Forum will be the foremost assessment on the current legal, scientific, environmental and social issues related to cannabis. Experts from all fields including marijuana law reform activists, law enforcement officials, medical experts, environmentalists, journalists and awarded scientists will participate in panels and lectures. The forum will serve to educate, enlighten and empower members of the CU and Boulder community on all current issues regarding marijuana in an unbiased
environment.
—————————————————————–
DATE: Saturday, April 18. 2009
LOCATION: Mathematics 101
Near the intersection of Colorado and Folsom
TIME: 7:00pm
TOPIC: Keynote Address
Jessica Peck Corry – Executive Director of the Colorado Civil Rights
Initiative
Keynote Political speaker Jessica Peck Corry will participate in an open
discussion regarding the legal status of marijuana. The speaker will
discuss current reform and federal drug enforcement surrounding marijuana.
They will also discuss the legal channels in which reform
—————————————————————–
Read more…
Tags: 4/20
Posted by Russ Belville NORML Outreach Coordinator on Apr 10, 2009 in
Cannabis and Culture,
Cannabis and Drug Testing,
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US Government,
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marijuana use The US Government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) is a treasure trove of information from the National Surveys on Drug Use & Health 2001-2007. I’ve always been uncomfortable discussing most marijuana statistics from this and other reports because the data so often cover marijuana use from age 12 and older. NORML stands for the responsible adult use of marijuana, so I wanted to know the facts on age 18 and older (some may wish for numbers age 21 and older; I only picked 18+ because the first data column is age 18-25).
The essential caveat: these are the people who will tell these things to a stranger for a government survey.
First of all, how many adults in the United States have ever smoked weed? The Survey breaks down the data by age categories and gives the percentage of the sample (Unweighted N) that answered yes or no to the question. Then they extrapolate, based on US adult population demographics, how many people in the United States (Weighted N) would answer yes or no.
| AGE GROUP |
WEIGHTED N |
PERCENT OF POP.
|
| 18-25 YEARS OLD |
16,790,928 |
51.3% |
| 26-34 YEARS OLD |
17,579,601 |
49.8% |
| 35-49 YEARS OLD |
34,676,635 |
53.1% |
| 50 OR OLDER |
26,869,808 |
30.1% |
| TOTAL |
95,916,972 |
40.4% |
US Adults Who Have Ever Used Marijuana by Age
That’s 95 million folks who’ve smoked herb. The percentage is how many within that age group have used – a majority of 18-25s and 35-49s and real close on the 26-34s. Or look at it this way: If you see someone under age fifty, flip a coin. Heads, they’ve smoked pot, tails, they haven’t.
When you look at the population of adults who have ever used marijuana, we find that young people (18-34) and middle-aged people (35-50) are equally represented at 36% of the population.
More fun with government numbers and Excel 2007 after the break…
US Adults Who Have Used Cannabis, by Race/Ethnicity
Well over two-thirds of people who have ever smoked pot are white, and only one-fourth are black or Latino. This is an interesting fact to note when compared to the proportions of white, black, and Latino people arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for marijuana. (Hint: those brown pie slices get a whole lot bigger.)
While Latinos make up the second largest share of adults who’ve used cannabis, that is primarily due to their numbers in the overall population.
Adults Who Have Ever Used Cannabis by Race/Ethnicity
When broken down by racial/ethnic groups, we find that Hispanics are actually less likely to have used cannabis than any other group but Asians (about 1 out of 4 Latinos have used marijuana and only 1 out of 6 Asians… no matter what Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar may have led you to believe.)
US Adults Who Use Marijuana Annually by Age
Concentrating only on the 22,003,805 estimated American adults who have used cannabis at least once in the past year yields some interesting figures as well. As expected, younger people are the most likely cannabis consumers. A full 28% of people aged 18-25 use cannabis annually, and over 11% are using cannabis more than 100 days per year, more than the 9% who use less than monthly. But by ages 26-34, all those figures drop by half or more (so much for the new Pot 2.0’s addictive powers.) By ages 35-49, even though chronic and occasional/rare use drops by half again, there are still one out of twelve middle-aged Americans using marijuana at least once per year.
US Adult Chronic Marijuana Use by Age
36.9% of all annual adult marijuana smokers use marijuana more than 100 times per year, meaning there are an estimated 8,120,045 chronic tokers out there. Almost half of these users are aged 18-25.
So remember, dear marijuana smoker, you are not alone. 95,916,972 American adults have used marijuana. 22,003,805 American adults have used marijuana this year. 8,120,045 American adults have likely used marijuana today. If only 1% of people who smoked pot today donated a dollar to NORML, we’d beat our advertising fundraising goal four times over.
Tags: California, Connecticut, demographics, Government, Kentucky, marijuana use, Massachusetts, Medical Marijuana, Montana, New Hampshire, Raid
Posted by Allen St. Pierre NORML Executive Director on Apr 9, 2009 in
Barack Obama,
Government,
Growing,
Legalization,
Marijuana,
NORML Feed,
News,
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economic,
economy,
marijuana use,
tax and regulate By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board of Directors
On March 26, in a town hall meeting-style format, President Obama ginned up a laugh that is still ringing, a week-and-a-half later. Obama’s attempt to address the fact that cannabis legalization questions keep pushing their way to the top of his online political issues polling lists, that marijuana legalization had even popped up in the area of economic development. He looked aside at the crowd, “I don’t know what this says about the on-line audience…” Wink, wink…and the people around the President cracked up. “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy,” Obama chuckled along with them.
Humor is based on tension; a joke releases it. Obama’s pot ha-ha has released a powder keg of tension. The national commentary on the topic of marijuana driven from his laugh has been far reaching: Time Magazine, The Week, Town Hall, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Boston Herald, etc…
Mr. President, do know what all your ‘cannabis friendly’ Internet polls really say about “the online audience”? What? You don’t recognize us, “the online audience”? We’re the very people that helped get you elected, helped raise all those millions on the Internet–people like my wife and I, both 60-years old, parents and grandparents, business owners, taxpayers, involved in our community, we are the people who want you to end marijuana prohibition, the worst American public policy since slavery.
The question to you, Mr. President, is this: After the 20-million marijuana arrests since 1965, what’s so damn funny???
Tags: Connecticut, economic, Illinois, Jim Webb, Legalization, Massachusetts, Medical Marijuana, Montana, Police, Robert Gibbs, Smoking, tax and regulate, Updates
