The Indiana Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
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Brothers and Sisters: The Indianapolis version of the GMM was excellent! For those who may not know, the GMM is the Global Marijuana March, sponsored by our good friend Dana Beals of Cures-Not-Wars. Doing anything in Indianapolis during the month of May is fraught with problems unless you are connected with the 500 mile race. The “Mini Marathon” ran past the store and tied up traffic until just before the event. That may have kept our numbers down. We teamed up with commercial shop “High on the Hill” run by NORML members Geri Twitty and Angie Carter, both long time activists and close friends of mine. We used the field next to the store. About 60 to 100 people attended, which isn’t bad for Indianapolis. The biggest demonstration in the city’s history occurred a couple of weeks ago with the immigration laws protest which drew close to 3,000. Even during Vietnam, we usually only turned out 300 to 400. So this was a good turnout. We had a lot of energy from the crowd. There was a lot of good energy everywhere. Our keynote speaker was Steve Dillon, Chairman of National NORML’s advisory board and Chairman and Founder of Indiana NORML in 1974. I MC’d and read a statement on the status of efforts to relegalize medical Marijuana in Indiana from Dr. Clark Brittain, who couldn’t be in attendance. We had Ted Coahran who has until recently, been involved with the compassion clubs in California and is now living near Indianapolis. We also had Ross Thomas, an Indiana NORML board member and lawyer speak about how to deal with the police. Gary Minor of Columbus addressed why Cannabis should be accepted by religion. Marion County Green Party Co-Coordinator Kathleen Dobie spoke on how the Green Party views relegalization. A last minute personal emergency stopped Republican Mayoral candidate Michael Simpson from being there, and the Democrats nor Libertarians responded to our requests for speakers. Southwestern Indiana NORML was represented by Steve Eisenhauer who spoke on recreational use. He also updated us on progress SWINORML is making in the toe of the state. They are growing by leaps and bounds. We ran two ads in the local, ahem, “Alternative” newspaper Nuvo. It’s the best we’ve got locally. WISH-TV, Channel 8 in Indy recorded my Hemp presentation, and ran the story last night. WIBC radio, 1070 AM ran stories after interviewing Steve Dillon. We sold T-shirts, Gatewood Galbraith’s “Last Free Man in America Meets the Synthetic Subversion,” bumper stickers, etc. We made enough to fall short of break even by $50. We signed up 15 new members and made a bunch of new friends. Skywolf
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