Posted by KCC on Jan 1, 2018 in Blog
Once again it is time to take a look back at another tremendous year for cannabis reform in Pennsylvania and the role that Keystone Cannabis Coalition played.
What a year 2017 was! Once again KCC was right in the center of all the action. It was our busiest year yet and that’s saying LOT because we have been extremely busy since our birth as an official 501(C)4 non-profit organization in July of 2014 and even the two years prior when we were working unofficially as Pennsylvania Hempland Security.
We’ve done so much over the last few years it would make your head spin and on an individual human level I have to tell you how profoundly fulfilling it has been to have been right there for the headiest of moments as we achieved unimagined heights of success. It’s been intoxicating and though we have a sense of tremendous pride in what we’ve accomplished and have been a part of we also have a sense of humility and humbleness as we realize how far we have to go yet.
To understand the year of 2017 you have to understand the foundational work that it took to get here. The past, the present and the future are a seamless web and where we’ve been, where we are now and where we are going is all connected.
If you want to know what we’ve done to get here read this year-end review of 2015 and you will start to realize how much we’ve done and the quality of our work.
If you read the report for 2015 and that kind of blew your mind then read the year-end review of 2016 and you will be even more amazed.
But 2017 was the busiest and most amazing year we have ever had! It was intense. It was profound. In some ways we fulfilled lifelong dreams and changed the landscape, both political and physical forever.
We have had many cannabis reform accomplishments but more than anything, 2017 was the year of hemp. If you read the reviews of 2015 and 2016 you know that Erica McBride and I are the ones who got the hemp legislation introduced and we walked it through every step of the way all the way up to the day it was signed by Governor Wolf into law.
When we were several months into our legislative hemp journey we were joined by Geoff Whaling and we also had a couple dozen volunteers helping us. Geoff helped us tremendously to advance the hemp legislation so Erica and I worked with him to organize another organization, the Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council in December of 2015. Geoff is the President, Erica is the Executive Director and I am a Board Member along with Riley Cote and Adam Thompson.
When we work on hemp issues we are PAHIC. When we work on cannabis issues we are KCC. But, I consider the work one and the same because when we started KCC our mission was to work on four distinct areas of cannabis reform – industrial hemp, medical cannabis, decriminalization of cannabis and the full legalization of cannabis. Therefore I include the work we did for PAHIC and our work with hemp in this review because it is all profoundly important to our overall mission.
Of course, even though we did a LOT for hemp this year we did not neglect our mission to decriminalize and legalize cannabis in Pennsylvania and our accomplishments in that regard are impressive. In the following article you will learn about the strides we have made in both hemp and cannabis reform in 2017.
We are based in Exeter Twp. in Berks County, Pennsylvania, right outside of the city of Reading. All journeys begin from there.
January 6 Erica and I drove to the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture building in Harrisburg to put in our permit applications to become a part of the first legal wave of hemp farmers in over 80 years. It was exciting but nowhere near the excitement that was yet to come.
January 10 Erica and I did a press conference at the Pennsylvania State Farm Show in Harrisburg with Representative Eric Nelson of Westmoreland County. Nelson is a strong supporter of hemp and he is gung ho about developing the hemp industry in the western part of the state. Here is a short slide show of the event.
January 19 we held a Town Hall in the city of Reading on the decriminalization of cannabis with Representative Mark Rozzi. Participating in the panel discussion was Reading City Council members Donna Reed, Marcia Hinnershitz, Reading City Council President Jeff Waltman, Derek Rosenzweig and a woman representing a rehab center. It was a successful event with about 60 people in attendance, all of them in favor of decrim/legalization. You can watch the event here:
Part One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw63UTMfwwA
Part Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csP-IUqHbd0
Part Three: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zZIEthP8e0
January 26 Erica and I drove to King of Prussia to do an event for the Pennsylvania Cannabis Association. The name of the event was People Power and Pa. Cannabis Advocacy. We conducted a class on effective lobbying and talked about the cannabis reform bills currently being considered by the Pa. legislature. Although the audio is not great, you can watch a video of the event.
Earlier, on the same day I got the rare and unique opportunity to teach a college class to a group of students in Temple University. My good friend Chris Goldstein teaches a class there called Marijuana and the Media and he invited me via Skype to give a lecture on the history of hemp and cannabis in Pennsylvania. I enjoyed it greatly and I think the class did too.
January 30 Erica met with Governor Wolf’s Chief Policy Advisor Secretary Gallbally. They pressed our message to the governor that Pennsylvania had to put forth a bolder vision for the hemp program. We impressed upon the administration the great importance this industry could have to the state.
February 4 Erica and I travelled to Penn State for the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). Erica gave a great presentation about the Pennsylvania hemp program for 2017. Interest was strong and her lecture was well attended.
February 6 I travelled to the Borough of West York to speak in favor of a cannabis decriminalization ordinance that had been introduced by West York Mayor Shawn Mauck. Here is local coverage of the meeting.
February 8, Erica and I met with Pa. Secretary of Agriculture and other representatives of the PDA to discuss our concerns with the hemp program. Specifically, we wanted to end the five acre cap and we wanted the ability to get seeds from Kentucky instead of being forced to get seeds from Canada.
After our meeting at the Dept. of Ag we went to the Capitol and met with the Chief of Staff for State Senator Chuck McIlhinney. McIlhinney is the Chairman of the State Senate Law and Justice Committee. The purpose of our meeting was to persuade the committee to hold hearings of SB213, the bill for full legalization of cannabis introduced by State Senator Daylin Leach. At the end of the meeting it was clear that there would be no hearings on the bill this year. They were not receptive to our pleas.
February 27 and 28 Erica and I traveled to Washington D.C. for a two day lobbying event for industrial hemp. We represented the Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council and were joined by Geoff Whaling. We set up a table in the Rayburn building along with hemp organizations from around the country and we were joined by host Congressman Jared Polis and Co-hosts Congressman Earl Blumenauer, congressman Thomas Massie, & Congressman James Comer with Honorary Co-host Senator Ron Wyden.
We broke up into teams and collectively visited with many members of congress. The goal was to advance federal hemp legislation that will blow open full blown commercial production of hemp nationwide. Among the meetings we attended was with Congressman G.T. Thompson, who we later successfully persuaded to sign on as a cosponsor to HR3530.
Another successful meeting was with our Congressman from Berks County Ryan Costello. He also signed on as a cosponsor to HR3530. On the 28th we met the sponsor of HR3530, James Comer of Kentucky.
March 20 West York Borough Council held their second meeting on their proposed cannabis decriminalization ordinance. I was there once again to speak in favor of the measure. You can find coverage of it here .
March 26 we worked locally in the city of Reading. Erica spoke at a meeting for Indivisible Berks and joined a panel discussing successful activism and lobbying. We also had a table there for KCC.
April 3 we had a very important event. We organized a Lobby Day to advance the decriminalization bills currently being considered in the House Judiciary Committee. We were joined by leaders and members of Philly NORML, the Pennsylvania Cannabis Association and volunteers from KCC. We broke into teams and collectively had over 20 meetings with state reps and members of the Juidiciary. Adrienne Leasa, Skip Shuda and I met with the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Ron Marsico. In addition to our meetings we dropped off dozens of information packets with dozens of others including all 24 member of the House Judiciary Committee. All of our meetings were positive and everyone was receptive to our message.
April 17 was the one year anniversary of the signing of the medical cannabis legislation so we went to Harrisburg to the celebration event led by Governor Wolf and joined with State Senators Mike Folmer and Daylin Leach and other leading champions and advocates who fought hard for the bill.
April 19 we had our biggest day of the year and our most important event for cannabis reform. We held the Pennsylvania Marijuana Decriminalization Rally in the Rotunda of the State Capitol in Harrisburg. We were joined by Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale who made a strong call for full legalization of cannabis, State Representatives Ed Gainey and Mark Rozzi, Patrick and Theresa Nightingale of Pittsburgh NORML, Chris Goldstein and N.a. Poe.
The rally was a huge success and we got lots of great coverage. Please take some time to scroll through the posts on the event page and you will see some great pictures and videos from the rally along with the reports seen in the media.
April 21 to April 22 we headed out to Pittsburgh for a two day event called the World Medical Cannabis Conference. We had a booth where we again represented PAHIC and told everyone about the Pa. hemp program. While there Erica participated in two panel discussions, hosting one and speaking on another. She spoke on “Industrial Hemp and the Opportunities Beyond CBD” and hosted on “Ag Tech and Sustainability”.
April 23 We woke up in the morning and made the five hour journey to Scranton for the Pennsylvania Cannabis festival organized by Jeff Zick of BigYield Hydroponics. We set up a stand for KCC and it was an amazing, important and profound event! It was absolutely beautiful to see around 5,000 people gathered to celebrate cannabis. Make sure you attend this important event in 2018.
Next year’s festival on April 22 in Scranton promises to be the biggest and best yet with 17,000 people who say they are “going” and 120,000 who say they are “interested”. If you don’t go you will be missing out on something really special. KCC will be there and we will be speaking as well.
May 25 Erica did a one hour television show on BCTV (Berks County Television) with Representative Mark Rozzin on the subject of effective lobbying in Harrisburg.
May 31 was certainly a day to remember. Erica and I went to Harrisburg to pick up 670 pounds of hempseed, enough to plant 15 acres of hemp for our approved trials. Here is the photo album of that day.
June 1 we made history! We planted five acres of hemp in the Lehigh Valley! Although a few ceremonial seeds were planted by our friends in Montour County and some seeds got into the ground in Mifflin the day before, ours was the first entire field of hemp legally planted in Pennsylvania in perhaps 80 years! Check out the pictures of our planting
June 3 we planted a few more acres of hemp at Pinchot State Forest just outside of Wilkes Barre. The site was on an abandoned anthracite mine and the goal was soil remediation/land reclamation. If we can make it successful there we may have the opportunity to remediate one million acres of similarly damaged land in the state! We had a lot of volunteers to help us. Here are photos of the day.
June 5 I attended and spoke for the third time at the West York Borough Council meeting on their proposed cannabis decriminalization ordinance. The meeting was intense and our side was outnumbered. Council voted after much heated discussion and the ordinance was defeated narrowly on a 4-3 vote, much to the disappointment of Mayor Shawn Mauck who was anxious to sign it.
June 6 I spoke in front of the York City Council meeting along with activists from KCC in support of the cannabis decriminalization ordinance introduced there. We kicked ass, determined to not be defeated as we had been in the borough of West York.
June 8 One week after planting, we check our field in Lehigh and to our happy surprise the hemp was sprouting! It was a thrill to see the little baby hemp plants populating the five acre field. Here are pictures of the first batch of hemp sprouting in the state.
June 10 we held an event called the Hemp History Day and Celebration. We were joined by State Senators Judy Schwank and Mike Folmer, Representative Russ Diamond, Pa. Secretary of Agriculture Russ Redding and other members of the PDA and many others. We had live music and events, a hempcrete workshop, hempseed oil pressing and other hemp businesses represented and we led a group to visit our field to see the young sprouting hemp.
June 12 – We checked out the project in Pinchot State Forest and were thrilled to see hemp sprouting throughout the field. To learn about this important project click on this link to see the photos and a description of what we are attempting to do there.
June 15 was the two week anniversary of our first hemp planting so I stopped by the field in Lehigh to check out their progress. It was thrilling to see them growing.
After checking on the hemp I headed over to the city of Easton where I spoke at a meeting of the Lehigh Valley NORML. I gave a pep talk to the organization, explaining the work that we have been doing on cannabis reform and giving tips on how to be effective lobbyist for cannabis reform locally and in Harrisburg.
June 21 we checked the plants in Pinchot and were disappointed with the results though were impressed with the stubborn plants still hanging in there
June 22 we attended the PA Abandoned Mine Reclamation Conference. The theme of the conference was “The Future of Reclamation in PA”. Erica gave a power point presentation about the hemp project we are doing in the nearby Pinchot State Forest on the site of an abandoned anthracite mine.
The same day on June 22 we checked the Lehigh field to see their progress at 3 weeks
June 25 we did a second planting with volunteers at the site at Pinchot State Forest.
June 28 Erica and Geoff Whaling went to Washington D.C. to meet with United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to discuss official department policy concerning federal hemp regulations.
July 2 We visited both fields. The field in Pinchot and the field in Lehigh where we found our prediction of “knee high by July” to be true.
July 5 Erica was named the Executive Director of the National Hemp Association in addition to her duties as Executive Director of PAHIC and the Secretary/Treasurer of KCC.
July 10 we visited the hemp field in Lehigh and installed bee hives to help pollinate the hemp and to make succulent honey.
July 15 we visited the site at Pinchot State Forest to dig up soil samples to be used in experimental growing over the winter to find what works and what doesn’t.
July 16 we visited the field in Lehigh to find plants up to seven feet tall!
Check out the updates from July 23, July 30 and August 2 when the plants were 10 ft. tall.
July 18 Another historic day! I spoke at the York City Council meeting again along with KCC activists in support of the decriminalization ordinance. A vote was taken that night and guess what – WE WON!!! Cannabis is now decriminalized in the city of York! Here is a video of the council meeting. I come on at the 13:30 mark.
August 4 Erica and I set up a stand for KCC at the Hemp Heals Festival in Philadelphia at Festival Pier. We both made a speech from the main stage in front of about 6,000 people. We took with us a 10 ft. stalk from our Lehigh hemp field.
August 12 we visited our friend’s five acre hemp crop in Perry County grown by the Perry County Land and Cattle Company.
August 15 was Ag Progress Days at Penn State. I gave a one hour lecture and powerpoint presentation about the history of hemp in Pennsylvania and Erica gave a one hour presentation on our current hemp projects.
While we were there we checked out the hemp crops being grown by researchers at Penn State
August 25 we were there for another historic day! We witnessed the first legal hemp harvest in Pennsylvania done by the Rodale Institute in Berks County!
September 1 was another historic day as we watched our friends in Montour County harvest their hemp along with the Pa. Secretary of Agriculture along with other members of the PDA and state reps.
September 2 – Finally it was OUR historic day – the harvest of our hemp crop in Lehigh! It was a thrilling day.
September 6 Deb Guy of Lancaster NORML and I met with Lancaster City Mayor Richard Gray to discuss the decriminalization of cannabis in Lancaster.
September 9 I went to the Democratic State Committee meeting in Harrisburg to help Derek Rosenzweig persuade state committee members to vote Yes on the resolution to direct the state Democratic Party to support the legalization of cannabis in Pennsylvania.Derek barely needed my help. He already had the situation well in hand. He had already laid the foundation. When the vote was taken the strongly worded resolution passed UNANIMOUSLY! It’s official – the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania now officially supports the full legalization of cannabis! You can read the full resolution.
http://www.padems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Resolution-Signed-Cannabis.pdf
September 10 – We had a KCC picnic in Kirby Park in Wilkes Barre. It was an informal get-together and we discussed strategy to advance cannabis reform in Pennsylvania.
September 12 and September 13 – Erica and I spent two days in Washington D.C. Erica and Geoff met with Senator Bob Casey. ‘GT’ Thompson and Ryan Costello and persuaded them to sign on as a cosponsor to HR3530, the federal hemp legislation. They also met with members of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and NIFA. I joined up with NORML and lobbied several congressman and along with the group met with Senator Cory Booker to discuss his Marijuana Justice bill recently introduced in the Senate.
September 16 We were thrilled to have the opportunity to set up in the Homegrown Village at Farm Aid this year. We teamed up with othe National Hemp Association, Limeworks and Hemp Heals Foundation. It’s always a wonderful thing to have such an opportunity to educate not only the general public but also farmers. Our friends at Limeworks conducted a full, hands on hempcrete workshop.
October 9 In September of 2016 Erica and I along with Brianne Archer successfully got a cannabis decriminalization ordinance introduced to Reading City Council. Although we had majority of support on council the mayor refused to sign the ordinance so the bill died. So, after that we took up the next best thing and got a Resolution of Support for Statewide Decriminalization introduced. On October 9 it passed by a 4-2 vote!
October 13 we helped set up a stand for Jefferson University at the DVIRC Greater Manufacturing Summit. We let the manufacturing community know all about the exciting opportunities with industrial hemp.
October 16 Erica and I spoke at the press conference in the State Capitol in Harrisburg organized by the Pennsylvania branch of the ACLU about the full legalization of cannabis. The press conference addressed the recent ACLU report where they found gross racial disparities in rates of cannabis arrests for minorities.
October 24 We attended the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture stakeholders meeting. There, all of hemp farmers participating in the first year of trials gathered to share our experiences and discuss how we can do better in year two. We made recommendation for how the PDA could improve the program for 2018.
October 25 Erica and Geoff went to DC to have a meeting with top several congressmen and then met with top DEA officials to discuss the Hemp Statement of Principals and the impact is it having on states implementing their hemp programs.
November 27 We attended a fundraiser for Kentucky Congressman James Comer in Philadelphia. Comer is the prime sponsor of federal hemp legislation, HR3530.
December 5 Deb Guy of Lancaster NORML and I met with Lancaster City Councilman John Reichenbach. Our meeting lasted two hours. We discussed plans to introduce a decriminalization ordinance to the city of Lancaster which we expect to occur within the next several months.
So there you have it, a short summation of our activities in the year of 2017. Although the list is impressive I am only telling you half the story. The work behind the scenes was way more than this. Erica especially has been super busy with hundreds, if not thousands of emails and phone conversations to put together all the moving pieces. We met with many people over the course of the year.
Another big part of our year was Erica’s tremendous efforts as a part of two teams, one going for a medical cannabis growers license called Bunker Botanicals and another team going for a dispensary license. Both efforts involved a tremendous amount of work and planning but ultimately both efforts failed. Still, a lot of valuable insights and experience was gained in the effort.
Erica also travelled to Amsterdam and Germany to witness the processing of hemp and meet with interested parties who may be interested in doing great things in Pa.
We had a tremendous year in 2017. We brought back hemp to the fields of Pennsylvania, we won the decriminalization of cannabis in the city of York, got a resolution of support for decriminalization of cannabis in Reading and laid the groundwork for decriminalization of cannabis in Lancaster and successfully influenced the expansion of the Pennsylvania hemp program for 2018, got cosponsors for federal hemp legislation and laid the foundation for a great hemp industry in the state.
None of our accomplishments would have been possible without the generous support of KCC activists. We did all this on a very tight budget. We raised about 6 ½ thousand dollars in 2017 and spent just over 4 thousand dollars. We used that money for signs, advertising, batch of t-shirts, gas, parking and information packets etc. We go into 2018 with a slight surplus.
In addition to our achievements we are consulting with others such as Art Leopold, who is working on a decriminalization project in the city of Erie. Their decrim ordinance is expected to be passed in just a few weeks! Also we are consulting with Jeff Riedy of Lehigh Valley NORML who is working to pass a decrim ordinance in the city of Easton. Their ordinance is expected to pass shortly as well. He is also attempting to pass similar ordinances in Allentown and Bethlehem as we all work together to pass statewide decriminalization of cannabis as soon as possible.
If you believe in our work and want to help us make 2018 and even more incredible year of accomplishments please make a generous donation to KCC. All money donated goes directly into the fight for the full legalization of cannabis with the right to grow our own.
Thank you KCC and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Together let’s make 2018 the best year yet!
Les Stark
Executive Director, KCC
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Posted by KCC on Jul 25, 2017 in Blog
In the Pennsylvania legislature there are some members who wield a tremendous amount of power. Some of those are men like House Majority Leader Dave Reed, House Speaker Mike Turzai and several others.
Some of the most powerful members are the chairs of the committees.
All bills that are introduced are assigned to a committee. A committee can have anywhere from 12 to 24 members. Senate committees are smaller than House committees.
In any committee, although each member has one vote, there is only one person who really wields the power and that is the chair of that committee. In the House Judiciary Committee that man is Ron Marsico.
Right now, there are two bills for decriminalization of cannabis that are sitting in the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Representative Ron Marsico.
KCC supports HB195, which was introduced by Representative Ed Gainey. It is a very good bill. It eliminates the threat of jail for possession of up to an ounce of cannabis, lowers the maximum fine to $100, reduces the charges from a criminal misdemeanor to a summary offense and removes the threat of losing your driver’s license.
The other bill that sits in the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Marsico is HB928. It is very similar to Rep. Gainey’s bill but the max fines are higher. KCC does not enthusiastically support HB928 but we do not oppose it. If it passes it will be a major victory for us and will put us in a much more tolerable position while we work for the full legalization of cannabis that includes the right to grow our own.
The last I checked, HB195 had two dozen cosponsors. 23 of them were Democrats. Although KCC supports HB195 we also realize that the state senate and house are both controlled by large Republican majorities. Every single head of every single committee is a Republican. Democrat bills, especially on matters relating to cannabis are a steep climb.
The path of least resistance is probably HB928. It was introduced by Representative Barry Jozwiak of Berks County. Jozwiak was a career law enforcement officer until he became a lawmaker just a few years ago. He is the type of champion that conservative Republicans like, a law and order man proposing a more reasonable approach. They can get behind that.
Rep. Jozwiak introduced HB928 at the behest of Berks County District Attorney, John Adams. That also bodes well for us, an endorsement from a law and order District Attorney. Most of the cosponsors of HB928 are Republicans.
In April, we met with Chairman Marsico to discuss moving these bills to pass them out of committee so we can debate and get a floor vote. We suggested that the House Judiciary Committee hold hearings on HB195 and HB928.
Chairman Marsico and his chief of staff both seemed open to holding hearings on the bill but said that they were busy until at least June, which they indicated would be the earliest time to schedule such hearings. Chairman Marsico did not tip his hand but all three of us who attended the meeting agreed that he seemed to be ON OUR SIDE. The arguments we made in favor of decriminalization seemed to make sense to him and he seemed to agree that the time has come to address the need to take away the threat of jail and reduce penalties.
Well, here we are in July and still no word on hearings. No news of anything happening with HB195 or HB928. It’s just sitting there, in the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Ron Marsico.
In our conversation, Chairman Marsico admitted that HB928 had a far greater chance of passing than HB195. He seemed to be in favor of HB928. The problem was, HB928 had already been referred to the House Transportation Committee. We wanted that bill in Marsico’s committee and he did too, so he made a motion to have the bill re-referred to the Judiciary Committee and it was done. Now he has it and has complete power over it, to let it die or to pass it on to the House.
A couple weeks after our meeting with Marsico and his staff, we held the Pennsylvania Marijuana Decriminalization Rally in the Maine Rotunda of the State Capitol in Harrisburg. One of our speakers was Representative Ed Gainey, prime sponsor of HB195, the bill supported by KCC. Gainey took us to CHURCH with his soaring Martin Luther King-esqe rhetorical oratory. He stirred the passions in the 400 people who gathered to support immediate decriminalization and full legalization of cannabis.
Given our movements embrace and support of HB195 we think Representative Gainey has earned some serious political clout.
If the Republicans want to pass Representative Jozwiak’s HB928, they need the support of Ed Gainey and all of his cosponsors.
We are hoping to see some form of compromise between Gainey’s bill and Jozwiak’s bill. Maybe they can meet in the middle and come up with something that everyone can support. When hearings are held hopefully it will lead to the committee adopting language that we all can support.
When we passed hemp legislation the key were the senate and house Agriculture and Rural Affairs committees. We were told that most members of the legislature know nothing about agriculture, so if the ag committees pass on a bill it is almost always certain to pass.
In the same way, if the House Judiciary Committee passes on the billto the House it will be as though they baptized the bill, blessed it and passed it on with a strong recommendation of passing it. If we can get a floor vote, we will win. If we can win in the House then we will definitely win in the Senate and we know that Governor Wolf will sign it.
How do we get to that point though? What do we have to do to make this happen? We have to educate our lawmakers and press them to support and take action on HB195 and HB928. This is the order of importance of who we must convince.
1. Chairman Ron Marsico – Although every single committee member must be educated and asked to support HB195 and HB928, Marsico is the man who we must persuade to move this legislation. He is the man who wields ALL the power to move or to kill any bill in his committee. He represents Dauphin County and his cousin is the DA of Dauphin County, Ed Marsico. Ed Marsico was a supporter of the decriminalization ordinance passed by Harrisburg City Council in July of 2016. Call Ron Marsico’s office and ask him to hold hearings on HB195 and HB928. You can reach him at his Harrisburg office at (717) 652-3721 or his capitol office at (717) 783-2014.
2. Every member of the House Judiciary Committee – Next to Marsico, the next most important person to reach is Demoratic Chair Joseph Petrarca. All members of the Judiciary Committee must hear from citizens, must be educated and persuaded to support decrim and taking action in their committees. None of them wield the power of the chairman but we will have to count on their Yes votes. You can find Judiciary Committee members and their contact numbers on this site.
3. Every member of the General Assembly – Start with your own state senator and your own representative. Your state senator cannot cosponsor HB195 or HB928 because those are House bills. They still must be educated and their support for decrim must be achieved. Right now, most of our focus is on the Representatives in the House. Once the bill is passed out of committee and voted on and passed in the House then it will be time to focus all efforts on the Senate.
4. Public support – Without focused attention on dealing with the legislators in the General Assembly all the public support in the world won’t mean anything. However, although the most recent F&M poll showed that 56% of Pennsylvanians support full legalization of cannabis, there is still LOTS of resistance and some districts where support for legalization is lower than the state average. For this reason, continuing education of the public is absolutely necessary. To accomplish this, it is useful to write letters and op-eds to the newspapers, write blogs, share articles on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and anything else you can think of to educate as many people as you know why decriminalization and legalization are good policies.
I saw a story today called Despite Growing Support for Marijuana, Legalization Faces Rocky Road on Pewtrusts.org. It contained this quote:
“G. Terry Madonna, a public affairs professor who coordinates polling for Franklin and Marshall College, says legislatures are unlikely to take up legalization because most are controlled by Republicans who are less likely to support marijuana legalization and because supporters of legal marijuana don’t care enough about legalization to pressure lawmakers into voting for it.
“The question I always ask is, ‘Do [voters] care about it?’ ” he said. “What’s the level of concern that they have. And right now, for the vast majority of Americans, it’s not a cutting-edge issue.”
Sigh. “Supporters of legal marijuana don’t care enough about legalization to pressure lawmakers into voting for it.”
Is that true? Are our supporters too apathetic to win? There has been some truth to this so far. Lots of people have been doing work on this issue and KCC is on the front lines. We appreciate all of those who have stood with us and fought the battles so far. If we are going to win the next victory though it is going to take the continued effort of all of us AND we must grow our movement.
The decriminalization bills in the House Judiciary Committee are not dead. We have until the last day of December of next year before the bills are dead. Our goal has been to pass a decrim bill by the time the medical cannabis dispensaries open up. We are racing to meet that goal. If not, we MUST pass it before the current two year legislative session is up. Failure is not an option.
I hope you can help KCC by joining in our efforts to persuade Chairman Marsico to hold hearings on HB195 and HB928, gain the support of every member of the Judiciary Committee and to garner enough support to win on the floor votes.
You can support the efforts of KCC by making a generous donation today.
Thank you, together with your help we WILL win!
Les Stark
Executive Director, Keystone Cannabis Coalition
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Posted by KCC on May 23, 2017 in Blog
The editorial staff of the Reading Eagle must be smoking the most mind-crippling substance around. Somewhere, somehow, they got too big of a whiff of the old reefer madness.
The editorial board wrote an editorial that they published on May 22, 2017 called: “Editorial: Marijuana legalization wrong, regardless of poll results”
The Issue: A recent survey finds more than half of Pennsylvanians support allowing recreational use of pot.
Our Opinion: Changing the state’s policy on this issue would be bad for public health.”
The editors of the Reading Eagle do not believe that just because the majority of people want legalization that we should have legalization. They opened up their editorial with:
“While a recent poll found increasing support in Pennsylvania for legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, we urge legislators to hold their ground on this issue and avoid a knee-jerk reaction that they could very well regret. According to a Franklin & Marshall College poll, 56 percent of registered voters favor legalization, marking the first time the survey has found more than half of Pennsylvanians take that view. In 2006, just 22 percent favored legalization.”
Knee-jerk reaction? I’ll tell you what a knee-jerk reaction is – making this stuff illegal in the first place. In 1846 Dr. Isaac Hiester cured a man named Charles Sassaman of lock-jaw with cannabis in Reading. By the 1850’s cannabis was sold in the pharmacies of Reading. In 1865 famous Reading resident Herman Strecker wrote about his use of hashish for medicine and rebuked those who stuck their nose in his business for doing so and called them asses.
Cannabis was used in Reading up until the 1920’s. That’s when Mexicans started flocking to Reading to work in their industrial plants. A local Reading police officer was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. He hated these new arrivals. They brought cannabis with them. On the streets of Reading one day Officer Knopp arrested a Mexican man who resisted and slashed him across the face. Knopp blamed it on “marihuana”.
In November of 1932 a Berks County man from West Lawn named Chester A. Mohn was elected as a freshman state representative and took office in January of 1933. He had heard the story of Knopp’s altercation with the Mexican man on Penn Street and introduced a bill to make “marihuana” illegal in March of 1933.
There was very little debate. The newspapers were printing reefer-madness hysteria. It was a slam dunk. It took about two months to pass it. The bill was signed into law by prohibitionist Governor Gifford Pinchot on May 22, 1933 and went into effect on September 1, 1933. All because of a story he heard about in Reading. Now THAT’S a knee-jerk reaction.
The editors went on to write:
“We recognize that this poll result is part of a national trend of changing views on the subject, but we remain strongly opposed to legalization. Our state does not need to make it easier for people to obtain this potentially addictive, mind-altering substance. Mainstream medical organizations including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and American Psychiatric Association still oppose legalization because it represents a danger to public health.”
Make it easier to obtain? Seriously? Do they not know how easy it is to get now? A danger to public health? I’ll tell you what’s a danger to public health – putting people in jail for association with a plant.
They continued:
“Marijuana is a mood-altering drug capable of producing dependency,” the American Society of Addiction Medicine wrote. “While popularly thought to be a fairly benign ‘drug,’ marijuana can have adverse effects on memory and learning, perception, behavior and functioning, and on pregnancy.”
The editors are dependent themselves. They are dependent on lies and lunacy. They thought that reefer-madness was benign, not realizing the negative effects on their memory, learning, perception, behavior and functioning. They have no memory, no knowledge of history. Their perception is way off.
The institutionalized ignorance continued with:
“We are quite familiar with the argument that if liquor is legal, marijuana should be as well. We disagree. Our culture struggles to deal with the ill effects caused by alcohol abuse and drunken driving as it is. Putting another addictive, mind-altering substance on the market will only make matters worse. We are particularly concerned about the possibility of more minors trying the drug once it’s legalized.”
Putting another substance on the market? The whole reason journalists exist is to uncover the news, to investigate, to report on what is going on, to know the community. Yet they so blindly have failed to pick up on the fact that cannabis is everywhere and always has been. It’s been a rite of passage in our culture for a couple generations and is firmly entrenched part of our American culture. It’s always been here, still is and it’s never going away. Ever.
Those minors. Always concerned with those minors. Oh no, what if they smoke pot! Horrors! Do they not even know that kids have been smoking pot for over 80 years? They ought to know, they’ve been telling us for over 80 years. That’s why they banned it in the first place back in the 30’s, because kids were getting it on the school ground. Then the 40’s came and they were alarmed because the kids were smoking it. Then the 50’s came, rock and roll happened and the authorities were alarmed that more kids were smoking it than ever. Then came the 60’s and we all know what happened in the 60’s. They said they had an epidemic of kids smoking cannabis. Then the 70’s came and they said more kids were smoking it than ever. I graduated in 1984 and half my class smoke or tried pot. I knew people that graduated in the 90’s and they told me there was plenty of pot in high school.
Now they think that if we legalized cannabis, taxed it and regulated it, set the age at 21 and strictly enforced it, somehow THAT’S going to get kids smoking it. This kind of foolish idiocy hurts us all. The kids are smoking it now and always have because the reefer-madness fools don’t want to regulate it.
They continued:
“The results in Colorado since marijuana was legalized there suggest supporters should have second thoughts. According to the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, Colorado now leads the country in past-month marijuana use by youth, and states with legal marijuana are experiencing higher rates of traffic deaths from driving while high and more marijuana-related poisonings and hospitalizations. And the group reports that the black market for marijuana remains strong even in places where the drug can be purchased legally.”
Their first mistake was trusting anything put out by “Smart Approaches to Marijuana”. Just because something says “smart” doesn’t make it so.
Anytime I go somewhere out of state and I see a place selling “authentic Philly cheesesteaks” I know it’s not going to be authentic. When the guru tells you he is wise, run from the guru. When someone tells you “I’m smart, I have a very good brain,” that’s when you know you are listening to a blathering pretentious fool.
Don’t ask Smart Approaches. Ask Governor Hickenlooper. Here’s what he told The Cannabis a few months back:
“We haven’t seen a spike in teenage use. We haven’t seen a giant increase in people’s consumption of marijuana. Seems like the people who were using marijuana before it was legal, still are. Seems like the people who weren’t using marijuana before it was legal, still aren’t.”
Hickenlooper continued:
“I don’t think there’s much question the old system was a disaster. We sent hundreds of thousands — millions — on a nationwide basis, millions of kids to jail for non-violent crimes. We inducted them into a high probability of a lifetime of crime, strictly by sending them to prison for something that was a non-violent crime. This new system, where we may not be completely sure of (whether) we’ve solved all the problems and that we’re going to be successful in this grand experiment, it does offer certain advantages to the status quo of the previous system. Now we have tax revenues.
Some people complain about the black market, “You’ve got this black market, this large black market. How do you address that?” Well, you know five years ago, it was a huge black market. Everything was black market, right? It was all illegal. Everything was being paid in cash and under the table. At least now we have some tax revenues that we can use to market to teenagers and make sure they understand that they could lose permanently a piece of their long-term memory.
Almost every brain doctor I’ve talked to feels there’s a very high probability — if your brain is still rapidly growing during your teenage years … there’s a high probability, it’s more than just risk, you’ll lose a sliver of your long-term memory every time you smoke this high-THC marijuana. Most kids don’t realize that. But we now have money we can advertise for that. We can provide more money to public safety to crack down on this gray market that turns into a black market. Each year we’re changing the regulatory structure to make it I think a little better.”
The Eagle editorial board seemed confused. They wrote:
“Furthermore, until we have a national consensus on how to deal with this issue, there is going to be a serious challenge. With the White House and Justice Department looking to take a tougher approach to drug enforcement, having conflicting federal and state laws concerning marijuana is bound to cause problems and considerable confusion.”
There doesn’t have to be confusion. The states are moving forward on legalization and the people have already reached a national consensus. All scientific national polls show that the American people favor legalization of cannabis. Now the elected representatives need to catch up to the people. What’s confusing about that?
The Reading Eagle seems unable to follow the madness of their position to its logical conclusion. They write:
“Just because we don’t favor legalization of recreational use does not mean we believe in filling our jails with people charged with marijuana offenses. People caught with small amounts of the drug should not face harsh punishment. When it comes to the issue of drug use and abuse, treatment-based solutions are far preferable to mass incarceration.”
Wow, how generous they think they are by saying those charged with possession should not get jail. They think anyone caught with cannabis needs TREATMENT. No. Absolutely not. Someone needs to sit down with them and explain to them that the earth is not flat, science has advanced in leaps and bounds since Medieval days and that we know so much more now than we did in the 1930’s. Cannabis consumers don’t need treatment they need FREEDOM!
Look, if someone really thinks they have a problem with smoking too much cannabis, or if they have a problem with any drug, then by all means get treatment. The vast majority of people who get caught with cannabis don’t need treatment. We can’t afford it anyway. The state has a 3 ½ billion dollar structural deficit. We arrest 20,000 people a year for possession of cannabis in Pa. Where are we going to get the money to treat 20,000 cannabis users a year? No, really, think about it.
Now, if you are REALLY concerned with funding rehabilitation of people addicted to hard drugs I’ll tell you how to do it – legalize, tax and regulate cannabis! You’ve got to be really thick-headed in 2017 to not be able to see the clear answer sparkling right in front of your eyes. We’ll make 500 million dollars in tax revenue every year in addition to the 30,000 jobs it would create. We could apply that money to the General Fund, to fund education, to fix roads, to fund drug rehab and legitimate law enforcement concerns.
Calling for rehab for cannabis consumers is social engineering at its worst. It’s another tax and spend feel good measure that doesn’t even feel good. It stinks. What are they going to tax next in order to throw all the pot smokers into rehab? It’s terrible to witness the intellectual meltdown of the desk-jockey pundits advocating such blatantly stupid policies that would require a huge tax to carry out. Sending 20,000 cannabis smokers a year to rehab is just as stupid as sending them to prison. It’s a burden we can’t afford. Don’t take our money for such a foolish endeavor. Tax the cannabis we buy instead and use some of it to help the heroin addicts.
The Reading Eagle editorial board concluded with:
“At this point we’re not particularly worried about Pennsylvania changing its marijuana law. As F&M pollster G. Terry Madonna said after the survey results came out, the conservative Republicans who control the state Legislature are not likely to go along with this idea. Nevertheless, we feel obligated to remind them that they should resist any temptation to govern based on poll results. Public opinion can be fleeting, and the job of lawmakers is to do the right thing, even if it isn’t necessarily popular.”
The Reading Eagle has sided with the prohibitionists. History will judge them harshly. It will be known that when change was breaking out all over America, they resisted. They advocated drastically failed policies that were not only wrong, cruel and immoral but blatantly stupid as well. The status quo simply cannot be maintained and change is so obviously coming that it can be seen by all – even those who oppose it.
The people defending this destructive policy are fighting a rearguard action that is doomed to fail. They are like Hitler in the bunker, refusing to surrender as Berlin was being destroyed by the defenders of freedom all around him.
They urge our legislators to do what is right, whether it is popular or not. KCC also urges our legislators to do what is right. In this case it is something that is both right and popular and it is popular BECAUSE it is right – legalize cannabis in Pennsylvania!
Gloating that the Republicans in the Pa. legislature control things and will never go along with legalization is beneath their dignity. Eventually, even Republicans will favor legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis. It will happen or they will no longer keep control.
We know that the General Assembly is not ready to do the right thing and legalize cannabis. However, we believe that there is strong bipartisan consensus that our laws are wrong and they must change. The agreement is with a form of decriminalization or downgrading of charges from a criminal misdemeanor to a summary offense.
Coincidentally, Berks County representative, Barry Jozwiak has introduced a bill to do just that. It is called HB928 and was just recently passed from the House Transportation Committee to the House Judiciary Committee chaird by Reperesentative Ron Marsico. Jozwiak introduced the bill at the behest of Berks County District Attorney John Adams.
84 years ago today, a Berks County representative got the bill signed into law. The next year he was soundly defeated in a landslide election by the people of Berks who rejected him as completely out of touch with their concerns. Today a Berks County representative is leading the way to downgrade penalties for personal possession of cannabis.
It all started here in Berks County and it’s coming to an end here in Berks County.
Les Stark
Executive Director, Keystone Cannabis Coalition
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