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Diane Fornbacher with her family. Photo by Kevin Monko

On Mother’s Day, we celebrate and honor those who gave us life. However as a mother, every day I am reminded of a terrible war that is destroying the fabric of our families and putting our children at risk. The so-called War on Drugs happens all around us, but it is mostly a war on cannabis consumers. Today I hope that mothers will join me and pay attention to some peaceful solutions for marijuana.

As a compassionate and reasonable society, it is time to legalize cannabis for responsible adult use. Drug dealers do not card children. Prohibition has only kept our youth in constant contact with pot instead of putting it safely behind the counter. Cannabis belongs in a controlled environment where taxpaying and responsible adults can purchase it.

Let me be clear – I do not want my kids to use or abuse cannabis. But I certainly don’t want them going to jail or losing their chances at a college education if they end up getting caught with a joint. Prisons do not protect children, parents do. By legalizing marijuana we can begin to have more truthful conversations with our kids and teens about using it.

Anne Davis, mother of two young girls, agrees, “Mothers who are actively involved with their children have open, honest relationships with non-judgmental communication. They strive to be positive role models. These qualities will serve the best interests of our youth, not the failed policy of prohibition.”

Further legalizing marijuana will keep families together. Mothers do not deserve to be persecuted in the courts or in the delivery room for having small amounts of marijuana. Children should not be separated
from their parents over pot. Hardworking Americans should not lose good paying jobs because they medicate or recreate with cannabis.

Mothers ended alcohol prohibition almost a century ago. I hope mothers
will join the growing effort to end marijuana prohibition today, for the sake of us all but mostly for the children.

Diane Fornbacher has been a cannabis law reform activist for 15 years. She has worked with some of the top reform organizations (NORML, Drug Policy Alliance, Americans for Safe Access, The November Coalition, Vote Hemp). Fornbacher is the current Vice Chair of the NORML Women’s Alliance and serves on the board of The Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey (CMMNJ). When she isn’t working to change the cannabis laws she enjoys photography, writing poetry being a mother and performing spoken word with local bands. Contact: grassroots { at } freedomisgreen.com

NORML Women’s Alliance on Facebook

Steve Bloom’s latest article at CelebStoner.com addresses the proliferation of T & A (that’s “tits and ass” for those living in a monastery) in most marijuana trade magazines and websites. Does it serve the movement (um…how could it?) or does it reduce it to a frat-level boys club, where women are reduced to mere poster fodder?

According to Bloom:

I’m not a prude, I just don’t think it’s appropriate to fill up a pot magazine with images strictly for male readers, essentially turning off the female base. The few woman on the staff [of High Times] would occasionally suggest that a sexy guy should be on the cover. Never happened. I’d regularly hear from women in the movement who’d distanced themselves from the magazine because of the racy content.

Another issue has long been the use of scantily-clad women in advertisements. That certainly has not changed. Take look at most marijuana mags and websites and you’ll inevitably be confronted by objectionable ads, like the legalbuds.com banners  or the BC Bud Depot two-page spreads. These are tacky trade-magazine ads that diminish the overall quality of any publication that accepts them. But they also pay the bills,

Now that I’m a website publisher, I encounter the same issues High Times faces, just on a smaller scale. We’ve built CelebStoner as a counter to High Times and Skunk – a sexist-free environment where readers don’t have to be worried about being offended by salacious ads and editorial content. We’ve rejected numerous ad banners that were deemed offensive. High Times doesn’t turn any advertiser away.

Elsewhere on the web, you’ll find plenty of “buds & babes” sites, such as 420girls.com, Girls4ganja.com, ganjaporn.com, girlsgoneweed.com and so on. Women smoking pot with little or no clothes on? Clearly, these are men’s sites. Just like with porn, if women allow themselves to be photographed nude for the purpose of male and (and certainly in some case) female arousal, that’s their choice. Let’s assume no one is being forced to do anything. The same with bud babes. Still, these sites demean women who otherwise would not be featured if they didn’t play the part of sexy sirens.

Been to a cannabis trade show lately? The floors are crawling with barely-clothed women pitching products. People shrug and say that’s what happens at trade shows, but why does that have to be the case at our shows? Are we not different and better? At KushCon II in December, the NORML Woman’s Alliance (NWA) made a stink about the woman in question and a dress code was hastily ordered (and of course not followed).

These issues sparked the forming of the NWA last year. Women in the movement are tired of being harassed, bullied, taken for granted and advantage of, not considered for leadership positions, and objectified. The NWA got together for a tasteful photo shoot to show how they want to be seen – as elegant, powerful woman, not cheesecake girls flaunting their assets.

Read more.

Quotes are kinda like quick and easy snack food for the brain. Here’s some mental potato chips for your mind munching, thanks to the good folks at Baked Life.

1. “Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”- William F. Buckley Jr.

2. “Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.” – Jay Leno

3. “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast” – Ronald Reagan

4. “The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it.” – J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada

5. “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot.” – Darryl Gates Head of Los Angeles Police Department, United States Senate Judiciary Committee

6. “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” –Bill Clinton

7. “When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” – Barack Obama

8. “Now, like, I’m President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? I bet if they did, I hope I would say, ‘Hey, get lost. We don’t want any of that.” – George W. Bush

9. “I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.” – Andy Warhol

10. “I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk.” – Steve Martin

BONUS QUOTES!!!  BONUS QUOTES!!! BONUS QUOTES!!!  BONUS QUOTES!!!

“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I use to, too.” -Mitch Hedberg

“Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.” – Thomas Jefferson

Editor’s Note – The TJ quote was unattributed – LINK. The following however is fully attributed.

“Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!”
George Washington in a note to his gardener at Mount Vernon (1794), The Writings of George Washington, Volume 33, page 270 (Library of Congress)