It's
a Protest, Not a Pot-Fest-
MMM 2004
By Preston Peet-
for DrugWar.com
May 2, 2004
Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion and
DrugWar.com editor Preston Peet
May 1 was a beautiful Spring day, perfect
to spend outside in Battery Park at the lower end of Manhattan
in New York City, where an estimated one to three thousand people
attended the 2004 Million Marijuana March and rally in support
of medical marijuana and Drug War reforms.
Battery Park in Manhattan- May 1, 2004
Dana Beal
"The repressive cloud of the Rudolph
Giuliani regime has blown out to sea," Dana Beal of Cures-Not-Wars
said. "I was bummed out last year due to the low turnout
of people and angry police attitudes, but this year I'm really
happy with the way things have gone." Beal noted that it
was a "protest not a pot fest," and specifically pointed
out how few officers there were raking the crowd for victims to
take downtown.
With just three arrests-one for possession,
one for having an open container, and one activist with Cures-Not-Wars
arrested for using a bullhorn-this year was remarkably peaceful
in terms of police actions. While the march itself, which stretched
a good three city blocks, was covered by the usual compliment
of hundreds of police officers hemming in the marchers along the
entire route, the police presence at the subsequent rally in the
park was, compared to recent years
past, non-existent. There were a few park police in green
uniforms, and a small number of uniformed cops, but there were
no blatant undercover officers picking out the unwary who might
be brave enough, or simply unaware of the danger, to light up
in the park.
"Put it out" said the officers to
these two very lucky blunt-smoking gentlemen before they walked
away without arresting them.
To put the icing on the cake, while chucking
around a Frisbee with some fellow pot protestors and friendly
strangers, I myself saw a group of black guys gathered under a
tree twisting up a blunt not five feet away from me. What I did
not see were the two uniformed NYPD officers approaching until
they were right on top of the group, now smoking their twisted
blunt. To both my own surprise and that of the smokers, the two
cops simply told them to "put it out," then walked away
from making an extremely easy arrest. I and the smokers all about
fell down on the lawn in shocked surprise, considering how violent
and aggressive the NYPD has been at past years' events, not to
mention every day life in the Big Apple, where more people are
arrested for marijuana offenses each year than just about anywhere
in the country-despite the fact that marijuana use and personal
possession are merely civil offenses in New York, since New York
is one of eleven U.S. states which have decriminalized marijuana
use since the 1970s.
"This is my first protest in NYC,"
said event coordinator and Cures-Not-Wars public relations person
Karen Tuominen. "The march was great, with lots of people
there. The police are pretty much being friendly."
Robbie Robinson
"This year's event was much better than
last year's," said event organizer Robbie Robinson, who works
with NY
Cannabis Action Network and NY
NORML. "We actively promoted this as a non-smoking event.
One woman affiliated with the NYPD here today pulled me aside
to thank me for stressing that to the crowd. Overall I'm very
happy with the day."
Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion
"I'm glad to be here, and happy to participate,"
said Infamous Los, a rapper who came to the event with Ed
"NJWeedman" Forchion of Camden, New Jersey, to perform
and represent for marijuana reforms.
Cornell Dixon and Infamous Los
"We live in a police state," said
NJWeedman, who later told the crowd about his own numerous battles
with the state of New Jersey over pot and the stifling of his
freedom of speech. "It's hard to get people out to participate
in protests like this," he said, remarking on the relatively
light crowd of about a thousand still in the park at exactly 4:20
in the afternoon.
"The fact that under federal law people
can smoke marijuana for religious purposes on federal property
isn't getting media coverage, so it isn't getting out to the people
in general," said Cornell Dixon, who accompanied NJWeedman
and Los to help bring attention to the dire anti-pot situation
in New York's neighboring state of New Jersey. He was talking
about the Freedom
of Religion Restoration Act of 1993, a little known federal
law which basically legalized the use of marijuana for religious
purposes on federal property. Dixon himself is facing 6 felony
charges for a variety of marijuana-related offenses in New Jersey,
so has a strong personal stake in ending the perpetual war on
marijuana. "Now we have federal marijuana sanctuaries,"
continued Dixon, "which is ironic considering the outrageous
current federal efforts to lock up medical marijuana using patients
around the country. It would be nice to get a lot of these people
here today to come to the religious events at the Liberty Bell
we hold every third Saturday of the month."
"We're trying to turn Liberty Park,
(Independence National
Historical Park) where the Liberty Bell is on display, into
Peace Pot Park," added NJWeedman. "The fact that the
Bell
is there makes it very symbolic. We set up, say a prayer, then
partake of our religious sacrament."
Burton Aldrich
"I'm not too familiar with NYC,"
said Burton Aldrich, an wheel-chair bound activist with New
Yorkers for Compassionate Care, a group pushing hard for medical
marijuana reforms in New York, "but I wish more people had
turned out. There must be more smokers in NYC than this,"
he said, also remarking on the fairly thin late afternoon crowd.
"There are times, like right now, when I'm in serious pain
and would like to smoke, but can't because I could get arrested.
Fortunately there are medical marijuana candies and chocolate
around today. When more people realize that it's possible to eat
marijuana and not smoke it, perhaps this will change people's
perspective."
Chris Conrad and Mikki Norris
"They're calling for zero tolerance,"
said Chris Conrad
about prohibitionists who insist that medical marijuana is just
a foot in the door to full on legalization of marijuana. "Any
time we can get patients out of harm's way it's a good thing and
we must do so."
Mikki
Norris agreed both with compatriot Conrad and with the prohibitionists'
statement about medical marijuana being a step towards legalization.
"Medical marijuana is beneficial for so many reasons to so
many people, and the medical marijuana laws that have passed around
the country have demonstrated this. Patients are dispelling the
myth that pot is purely a demon weed, which should help non-smokers
to realize how harmless marijuana really is compared to most legal
drugs, such as alcohol. We want to tax and regulate marijuana,
to eventually sell it out of licensed businesses to adults. There's
no reason alcohol drinkers should have the right to drink but
we can't have the right to smoke pot. It is flat out un-American."
Conrad and Norris, hard working California activists and co-authors
of "Shattered
Lives- Portraits from America's Drug War," both took
a turn addressing the crowd, informing them of the many victories
large and small around the country and in California, stressing
that despite the seemingly slow pace of reform, things are happening
in marijuana reform and are moving towards sanity.
Steve Bloom, Bobbie Steele, and DW Editor Preston
Peet
"It would have been nice with more people,"
said Steve Bloom, a senior editor at Grow
America and High
Times magazines, "but the speakers and performers
are all really good this year." Appearing on the main stage
in addition to Bloom himself were NJWeedman; Valerie Vande Panne,
news editor at High Times magazine; Norris and Conrad;
Paul Gilman, member of the coordinating committee of the New
York Green Party; Playthell G. Benjamin, WBAI
Radio Commentator; Julia Walsh, Village of New Paltz, Village
Trustee (reading a statement from New Paltz Mayor Jason West);
Burton Aldrich, Medical marijuana patient and activist with New
Yorkers for Compassionate Care; Bonnie Tocwish, Activist, Cancer
Survivor; and Don
Silberger, a Libertarian US Senate candidate from New York.
Performers included Arj Barker, Doug Benson and Tony Camin, the
writers/performers of the "hit" show The Marijuana-Logues,
currently playing at NYC's The
Actors' Playhouse; and music by Bobby
Steele (formerly of the Misfits); the David
Nelson Band; Stir
Fried; rapper Infamous Los; and hip-hop group Grand Finale.
On the second stage The Subtle Chaos put on music for a mini-rave
with a variety of DJs spinning the beats, inspiring most of the
small crowd into dancing themselves silly in the sun.
This was a pleasant day in the sun, with
easy vibes and friendly attitudes everywhere to be found. The
two seperate stages drew the attendees into two distinct groups,
with those interested in hearing the speakers and live bands gathered
at the main stage, and those who wanted to dance and play gathered
at the second. Although there were very few who had the nerve
to light up, the mood was light and cheerful, even optimistic.
Playthell G. Benjamin
As it does each and every year, it occurred
to me and many others I spoke with that if all those who came
out today to call for an end to the War on Marijuana Users actually
got themselves to the voting polls in November, we might see an
end to the War in our lifetime. Until then, pot users will continue
holding these rallies and marches, demonstrating to the world
the fact that a lot of us use pot and we like it a lot, that this
does not make us criminals, and that we do not want our tax money
funding continous warfare waged upon our neighbors, friends, families
and ourselves.
