NORML Women's Alliance Hosts Clothing Swap for Portland Women in Need

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has formed the NORML Women’s Alliance (NWA), a nonpartisan coalition of prominent, educated, successful, geographical diverse and high-profile professional women.

The NWA believes that marijuana prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends a mixed and false message to our young people, and destroys the cherished principles of personal liberty and local self-government.

To raise awareness for the group, a clothing swap and clothing drive will be held on Sunday, March 20, 2011 from noon until 3:00pm. In collaboration with the Oregon NORML Women’s Council, the event will take place at the World Famous Cannabis Café at 322 SE 82nd Ave, Portland, OR 97216.

A sister event will take place in Salem via Salem Oregon NORML at 2021 25th St SE, Salem, OR 97302 at the same date and time.

Entry is free with five pieces of clean, gently used clothing and is open to the public.

“My hope is to include women – and men – both within and outside of the medical cannabis community,” says Anna Diaz, event coordinator and member of the NWA Steering Committee. “We want to let all cannabis consumers know that we are here to help in our neighborhoods in addition to our work to end cannabis prohibition for adults.”

“We are thrilled to open up to the public for this special event,” reports Madeline Martinez, owner of the World Famous Cannabis Café and a founding charter member of the NWA.

“We appreciate the chance to show the café to those who may not be able to visit under normal circumstances and to support everyone in our community, not just Oregon Medical Marijuana Program participants.”

Sponsored by local businesses Brothers with Glass, Stoned Made and Urbage Designs, all clothing swap proceeds will benefit local women’s groups. With many human service programs suffering from severe budget cuts, the NWA and local business supporters anticipate more events like this to help those in need.

“These women are doing important work locally with the clothing swap and nationally through the NORML Women’s Alliance,” said Scott Gordon of Urbage Designs. “It is an honor to be able to help this special group succeed in their mission.”

For more information about the clothing swap in Portland or the NORML Women’s Alliance, please contact Anna Diaz through the Oregon NORML message line at 503-239-6110 or by email at anna@ornorml.org. For the Salem swap, please leave a message for Emily at 503-400-9679 or email salemnorml@hotmail.com.

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Leonard Krivitsky, MD February 23, 2011 11:04 am (Pacific time)

When we advocate against Cannabis prohibition, we must stress not just the "denial of good" which it entails, such as the remarkable medicinal properties of the plant, its violence-suppressing potential, or its ability to induce calm and relaxed state which is "worlds apart" from the effects of alcohol and many "legal" prescription drugs. Cannabis Prohibition is an unadulterated evil, as it pushes the people to engage in a dangerous substance use, such as the stories with alcoholic caffeinated drinks just explicitly demonstrated. The cruelty and senselessness of the prohibitionists have also been made obvious recently, when an Oklahoma mom received 10-year sentence for $31worth of Cannabis, when the medicinal Cannabis providers and patients continue to be raided and harassed. What more evidence of political piracy can be presented than when the dogmatic "politicos" want to directly trample the Will of Montana voters with respect to Medicinal Cannabis, which Citizens lawfully enacted in their state, or when Las Vegas police and DEA continue to harass the Medicinal Cannabis establishments? To what level of hypocrisy and spiritual degradation can one descend when the medicinal Cannabis patients are persecuted in the city where alcohol abuse and compulsive gambling are rampant?! My only hope in the midst of all this prohibitionist outrage is that its collapse is philosophically inevitable. In particular, when the DEA and its allies blackmail politicians into voting against Medicinal Cannabis, they do so on the basis of an unreal "entity", the so-called "gateway drug" theory that is fully discredited by now as "half-baked"! How can our so-called "representatives" be talking about massive cuts in social programs when these same people continue to waste tens of millions of dollars on the so-called "marijuana enforcement" opposed by most of the country? The Cannabis prohibitionists are guilty of crimes against humanity, they will get their own "Tahrir Square" sooner or later, and I would give a lot to be a witness to THAT!

Leonard Krivitsky, MD February 22, 2011 9:32 am (Pacific time)

Medical (and recreational) Canna-business will grow and flourish, regardless of all the obstacles thrown it way. From the Holistic point of view Cannabis is markedly pro-evolutionary, as it increases appetite, induces rest, suppresses violent urges and enhances sexual experience. Cannabis is not physically addictive, as it lacks the documented "physical withdrawal" syndrome, necessary for a physical dependence determination. The so-called "gateway drug" theory has already been determined to be invalid, and the recent scientific study declared it "half-baked". Drug Marinol is NOT medical marijuana (and it would seem that any reasonable person would understand this), as the whole plant has over 70 active compounds, therapeutically interacting with one another in many intricate and complex ways. It is very important to stress again and again that Cannabis use, as opposed to alcohol use, suppresses violent urges and behaviors, and that any increased anti-Cannabis repression in this country will be accompanied by increase in drinking, hard drug use, and violence, including among young people. Now, to say that Cannabis plant does not have medicinal properties is the same as to say that the earth is flat, and this would simply not be considered a "rational" statement. Would then the fact that Shafer Commission recommended an immediate decriminalization of marijuana back in 1972, or the fact that Judge Francis Young called marijuana "one of the safest therapeutically-active substances known to man" really surprise anyone? I don't think so. To win this struggle, just like with all Civil Rights struggles, we will need to overcome the "consciousness of fear", and repeat the TRUTH about Cannabis again and again, until the necessary "qualitative shift" occurs in our common consciousness, and we will be amazed that the ridiculous Cannabis prohibition really lasted for as long as it did!

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