Special Guests
Russ Belville, a.k.a. “Radical” Russ is NORML’s National Outreach Coordinator and host of the popular internet talk radio program, NORML SHOW LIVE.
Russ has spoken at national events and presented at international drug policy conferences all across the country. He has also written for numerous marijuana publications such as High Times, West Coast Cannabis, and the West Coast Leaf. Cannapalooza is proud to welcome "Radical" Russ as our emcee for our three day educational symposium. View his blog at http://stash.norml.org
Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of NORML and the NORML Foundation. Mr. Armentano is an expert in the field of marijuana policy, health, and pharmacology, and has served as a consultant for Health Canada and the Canadian Public Health Association. He has spoken at numerous national conferences and legal seminars, testified before state legislatures and federal agencies, and assisted dozens of criminal defense attorneys in cases pertaining to the use of medicinal cannabis, drug testing, and drugged driving. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, and has appeared Fox News. He is a faculty member at Oaksterdam University in Oakland, where he lectures on the medicinal properties of cannabinoids.
Mr. Armentano is a prolific writer on the subject of marijuana and marijuana policy. His work has appeared in over 500 publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor. His writing has been featured in more than a dozen textbooks and anthologies, and he is a frequent contributor to AlterNet, High Times, The Huffington Post, and the Washington, D.C. newspaper The Hill. Mr. Armentano is a 2008 recipient of the 'Project Censored Real News Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.'
In 2009, Mr. Armentano co-authored the book Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? (2009, Chelsea Green), which reached #14 on Amazon.com
Internationally known photographer Kiran Singh has joined the Cannapalooza team and will document the event in pictures. Kiran has published several books illustrating his photographic art and we are excited to have him with us.
James Gierach is a practicing attorney who has experienced the
effect of the war on drugs from both sides of the legal system. As a
Chicago prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in
the early 1970s, Jim scrutinized and perfected search-warrant
complaints for narcotics officers to “make the charges stick” in court.
He also worked “homicide court” and witnessed the violence that
exists as a direct result of drug prohibition.
After 35 years of courtroom and broad-based legal experience, Jim has concluded, “Not only does prohibition not work but it is prohibition (not drugs) that is at the hub of most U.S. crises worth talking about: gangs, guns, crime, prisons, AIDS, health care, corruption, and eroding of our civil liberties.”
As an attorney representing a “zero-tolerance” municipality, Jim once dutifully advised an applicant for street-sweeper that because he failed his drug test for marijuana he was ineligible for the job. However, Jim noted, the test results would not disqualify the applicant from running for President United States. In other instances of drug-war irony: Jim has counseled a lawenforcement juvenile officer who secretly maintained himself for years on a large daily-dose of methadone; seen divorce clients use “zero-tolerance” as a weapon against spouses in custody and visitation battles; represented a millionaire drug dealer, not yet an adult, enticed into the drug dealing because of the “excitement” offered by that life style; watched as a client and business-owner in his 50s, with no criminal history, was sent to the penitentiary because, as the client put it, he was “lured into the drug business by our government, who gave me the chance to make some extra money and I couldn’t refuse”; listened to the anguished story of a distraught mother explaining that her daughter had turned to prostitution in order to afford her drug bills and had eventually been “executed” for failure to pay a $25 drug debt.
Referred to as “Illinois’ preeminent conscientious objector” to the war on drugs, Jim spent the last dozen years fighting drug prohibition as a candidate for Cook County State’s Attorney and Illinois governor in primary elections, and as an author, speaker, and attorney. He has discussed and debated drug-policy issues on television, radio and in many other venues.
Jessica Corry of Denver is well-known as a public policy analyst and political strategist. The Colorado Statesman named her one of Colorado’s top “Movers & Shakers”. She has run for public office, led over 20 civic organizations, and was a featured TV commentator during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Corry rocked the mainstream media with her column, “Republican moms for marijuana: ‘Time to legalize is now’” which appeared in the Colorado Daily. She writes, “As a Republican mother committed to legalizing marijuana, political life can be lonely…. Calling for a new approach doesn’t make me a pothead…. If we believe that smaller government is better government, we must trust people to choose what to put into their bodies. If we support legalized access to alcohol, cigarettes, and 700-calorie cheeseburgers, we should legalize marijuana — a far less harmful substance.” Corry adds a refreshing voice for reform from the underrepresented demographic of conservative women. Despite her incredibly busy career working on property rights issues for the Independence Institute, authoring nationally-cited publications on eminent domain and academia, and speaking at the Libertarian National Convention, Corry still finds time to present speeches at the NORML Aspen Legal Seminar and other marijuana law reform events in Denver. Corry brings professionalism and class to the marijuana legalization movement and exhorts others to do the same. Following CU Boulder’s famous “4/20” smoke-in, she told the gathered crowd, “Just because close to 6 out of 10 people voted against [Colorado’s 2006 legalization initiative], it doesn’t mean all six of those people are against us. It means we haven’t gone out there and done our jobs. We need to lawyer up. We need to put suits on and start playing with the big boys down at the Capitol.” With leaders like Jessica Corry, the “big boys” better take heed.
Madeline Martinez is just a NORML grandma blazing the Oregon Trail in her work as executive director of Oregon NORML. She organizes the largest NORML chapter in the country and co-produces three public cannabis events in Portland: the Global Cannabis March, the Portland Hempstalk festival, and the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards. Her chapter also holds twice-monthly patient-only meetings, distributing cuttings and medicine to the needy. She also lobbied in Salem to protect Oregon’s medical marijuana act from terrible restrictions offered by business, construction, and law enforcement lobbyists.
Martinez is a retired California Peace Officer, a member of the national NORML Board of Directors, and a grandmother who recently garnered international media attention, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Al Jazeera, and the front page of USA Today, for opening the Cannabis Café, the first of its kind in Oregon. While some dispensaries and head shops in medical marijuana states have had areas to medicate, the Cannabis Café is the first to offer free medicine to patients in a purely social atmosphere. “This café primarily serves patients’ social needs,” she explains, “not their medicine or paraphernalia needs. This is a café where people can use cannabis, but it is never bought or sold; it is all given away freely. ”
Martinez runs the café with volunteers and stocks the café with excess cannabis donated by registered medical marijuana growers. Oregon law only allows growers to store 24 ounces, but they may grow six mature plants, often leaving growers out of compliance at harvest time. Since Oregon’s law allows cardholders to exchange medicine and to use “out of public view”, the private club is perfectly legal as long as the medicine is freely given “for no consideration”.
