^ State Afliate of the

"We shall by and by^lftlant a world of hemp more for our own consumption." John Adams, 1763
T H E 2 0 1 3 M A S S C A N N / N O R M L FA L L M E M B E R S ' M E E T I N G

NORMLL Reform of Marijuana Laws

S National Organization for the

NOVEMBER 23 FROM 1:00 UNTIL 4:00

At Demos Restaurant, 64 Mount Auburn St., Watertown (617) 924-9660 Iminute walk from Watertown Square

DIRECTIONS The public is welcome, Greek salad to die for www.DemosGreekCuisine.com

DRIVING - From the Mass Pike take the Watertown exit 17 at Newton Corner and follow the

signs for Galen St. You will travel north on Galen about Vi mile before coming to a bridge over the Charles River and a large conjunction known as Watertown Square. Take a soft right onto Arsenal St. and park. Demos is on the left at #64

TRAIN or BUS - Travel to Harvard Square Station on the Red Line. Take the #71 Bus to Watertown Square. Walk up Arsenal St. about 150 yards. Demos is on the left.
Check the date above your address Bay State Repeal announces a

2016 Statewide Ballot Question that will I your membership either has or will
T*
Release; Campaign committee launched to end marijuana prohibition in Massachusetts in 2016

on the envelope. That date is when

Repeal Cannabis Prohibition rene^ your membership today.

expire.

Either

w a y,

please

Reading, MA - Bay State Repeal led the necessary paperwork with the state earlier this week to form a ballot question committee seeking repeal of the state's marijuana prohibition. Bay State Repeal is lead by local veteran advocates for marijuana law reform with decades of experience in Massachusetts politics. With

voter attitude evolving rapidly and the deadline for ling over 21 months away the exact wording of the
proposed initiative is a work in progress.

Bay State Repeal's intention is to construct the nation's simplest and least restrictive plan for marijuana law reform focused on preventing non-medical distribution to children. To explore public opinion. Bay State Repeal intends to present a variety of public policy questions around the state in the election of 2014;

Committee member Terry Franklin of Amherst explains, "Recent initiatives in other states resulted in overly
burdensome rules and excessive costs to businesses and consumers to support bureaucrats and present grave danger of political collusion and monopolistic practices. Our objective is to nip such restrictiveness in the
bud."

Committee member Bill Downing of Reading, who currently serves as Treasurer of the Massachusetts
Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann/NORML) notes that "in 2011 a DAPA Research poll of registered

voters commissioned by MassCann/NORML found 58% support for legalizing marijuana and regulating it in the same manner as other agricultural commodities with sales prohibited to underage persons."

The Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition/NORML, Inc.

P.O. Box 211, Reading, MA 01867-0311
Voice - (781) 944-CANN (2266), www.MASSCANN.org

Committee member Attorney Steven Epstein of Georgetown has spent parts of four decades advocating for marijuana law reform. He hopes that, "the Legislature, or if it fails to act the voters on Election Day 2016, will replace prohibition with a law that treats the adult cultivation and commerce in marijuana as the herb it is and punishes the non-medical distribution to children. It will also free Massachusetts farmers to produce raw materials for bio-fuels, textiles, paper, construction and insulation materials, plastics and composites,
foods, body-care products and industrial oils." For more information contact; Bill Downing, 857-210-5930, Bay State Repeal, PO Box 211, Reading, MA 01867
i nfo @ bavstaterepeal .or g www. bavstaterepeal. com

Family Law & Cannabis Alliance announces its formation

MASS GRASS Columnist and long-time cannabis activist Sarah Arnold posted this announcement: Hello from Central MA! Just wanted to let you guys know of two exciting developments: 1. Jess Cochrane & I have launched the Family Law & Cannabis Alliance (FLCA), a national nonprot

organization headquartered right here in the Commonwealth. We provide information, assistance, advocacy,
and activism regarding the issue of marijuana use and Child Protective Services (CPS) & family court. Of course, MA was in our rst batch of state proles & is involved in much of our writing! Please check out our website, www.calliance.org, like us on Facebook (/calliance), & follow us on Twitter (sahrakant). 2.1 wrote a vitally important expose on CPS & cannabis use published in Ladybud Magazine yesterday at http://www.ladvbud.eom/2013/l 1/05/child-protective-services-familv-court-the-last-gasp-of-the-drugwar/. Long, but crucial. Please read & share!
Best,

Sara Arnold (aka Sahra Kant), Co-Founder, Family Law & Cannabis Alliance (FLCA)
h t t p : / / w w w. t 1 c a l l i a n c e . o r g / Facebook: flcalliance & @SahraKant Tw i t t e r : f l c a l l i a n c e & @ S a h r a K a n t

Featuring

f HE KINC Of POT
wiiniit.tliekin90i0LC0iii' ^

A note on the passing of our good friend and fellow activist

THE KING OF POT

The cannabis activist community in general and in Massachusetts in particular, suffered a terrible loss with the recent death of Michael "KOP" Malta - The King of Pot, Mike was a strong middle-aged man and his sudden death was completely unexpected. The Massachusetts cannabis community extends our deepest condolences to Michael's wife, former MASS CANN/NORML Board Member, Valerie Malta. KOP worked hard for our cause. He broadcast our message far and wide. He dedicated himself and his money on behalf of our effort selessly. Michael had a great and terrible story and he told it to everyone who cared to listen. Page 2 of 6

As best as I can recall, here is my version of KOP's story :

How Mike Malta became The King of Pot

My son Andrew and I enjoyed sitting around talking with KOP when KOP was able to stop by on his way home from work. KOP and Andrew shared a special bond. Andrew, KOP and KOP's Mom Vera all suffer or suffered from debilitating obsessive/compulsive disorder (OCD). Andrew's OCD left him socially isolated and sharing with KOP as a fellow sufferer was more valuable than a millionaire's money could buy. Though there has never been any hope for a cure for OCD, KOP described for us in great detail treatment regimen, including cannabis treatment, he had found effective after many years of trial and error. Andrew
and I have been following KOP's advice ever since and we all are much happier for it.

KOP prefaced his advice with his personal journey, which is a compelling narrative. This is how Michael
Malta became the King of Pot. As was mentioned before, Mike suffered from debilitating OCD as did his beloved Mother. He had been hospitalized more than once and was prescribed very dangerous psycho-drugs some of which caused frightening hallucinations, panic attacks and sobbing ts. Though these drugs could treat his symptoms by forcing him to sleep or lightening depression caused by such a condition, they never had any effect what-soever on the root issue - OCD. The truth is, there is no known effective treatment for OCD, but for one.
Cannabis.

So Mike was going through drug trial after drug trial until Mike was near suicide and his doctor became so absolutely desperate he tried the one thing doctors hate most to try. He enrolled Mike in a medicinal cannabis trial. Mike knew nothing of medicinal cannabis. He was not yet the KOP. Mike knew pot as a street drug and was very skeptical. After a few weeks in the trial, Mike's life had changed much for the better. As he learned about this trial drug that was the only drug that ever had an effect on OCD, his skepticism turned to wonder. He began to wonder, if cannabis is so much safer than Haldol and Resperidol and Guanfacine, why is it tried as a last-ditch effort? Why is the government spending billions to tell us cannabis fries your brains - when it is so not true? The scales fell from KOP's eyes. He saw The Matrix for what it is. He knew that government drug propaganda had kept him from the only medicine that could save him. He told Daddio. Realizing how cannabis could positively impact KOP's Mom, KOP and his Daddio convinced Vera to try cannabis. Getting her to try it was not easy. She had swallowed the Reefer Madness Kool-Aid served-up by our federal government. Vera tried cannabis once and said it didn't help her. Everyone around her noticed a positive change immediately. Despite great encouragement, KOP's Mom never tried cannabis again. Not too long afterward.
Ve r a d i e d o f a h e a r t a t t a c k .

KOP, logically, was convinced Vera's heart attack resulted from decades of stress due to the constant anxieiies associated with OCD. He r^alize^ the cure Jiad heen^^t hand all her life, but that politics held sway over medicine. That he and she - all OCD patients - and the entire medical community were being actively, needlessly deceived. He consulted with Valerie, Daddio and his friends. He built a website. He became
involved in the cannabis movement.

KOP followed the maddening prosecution of Mark Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine. Emery was extradited from his home in Canada by our DEA on a bogus drug dealing charge for selling cannabis seed to Americans, which is not illegal where he lived in Canada. For his activism, Emery had been dubbed The Prince of Pot. In fellowship with the imprison Emery and with the consent of Emery's wife Jody
Michael became The King of Pot.

KOP and Valerie made huge commitments to the movement. KOP built a video production company - KOP Productions. He committed lots of time and resources assuring the nest streaming video ran on his site www.TheKingofPot.com. He and Valerie brought the KOP production crew to every cannabis event in the
US he could afford to, and many he could not.

Page 3 of 6

KOP and Valerie became involved in MASS CANN/NORML. Valerie eventually ran for and earned a position as Director. When he heard MASS CANN/NORML's greatest single expense, other than rally expenses, was printing, KOP offered to get MASS CANN/NORML its printing and that he would pay for it himself. Few people have made such a magnanimous donation to our organization. KOP started doing audio blogs with his recording partner Rich FU and invited me to host a segment called Downing on Drugs. Though my forte is cannabis, my teenage years during the drug laden 1970s has left me not unacquainted with other drugs as well. We recorded segments concerning LSD, speed and mushrooms and had plans for many more. There was a period when both KOP and Valerie took a break from activism. KOP's OCD was aggravated by stress and cannabis activism can, unfortunately, lead to stressful situations. The period passed and KOP
eventually was back as strong as ever.

Since then we have had a few Freedom Rallies and everyone who saw KOP at a Freedom Rally could tell he was swimming in glory. One constant shit-eating grin. Video-taping every pot personality with unmatched verve. Remembering everybody's name and greeting everyone as though they were an old friend, whether
they were an old friend or newly acquainted. That was just the way he was. In 2013 it was as true as ever. KOP and Mike CANN had the KOP Productions crew videotaping everything at the Freedom Rally from the stage to the crowd, to the vendors and to MASS CANN/NORML rally organizers. KOP was ecstatic.

Freedom Rally 2013 was the last time I and most MASS CANN/NORML people saw KOP. I will always cherish my memories of KOP from that happy day. Less than a month later KOP died suddenly and unexpectedly from a massive heart attack while at home with Valerie. The horric news sent shock waves through the cannabis community. KOP's funeral was a very difcult experience for everyone involved. Though his life was disappointingly short, KOP accomplished much good and earned the adoration of a very large group of us, his friends. Though many of us, other than through this story, might never realize it, all of us who work for reform owe deep gratitude for all that KOP did, which was an awful lot indeed, to expose
the injustices of the war on cannabis users. Bill Downing

Jenn Kush Childrens'Memorial Fund

The death of The King of Pot is not our community's only recent tragic
loss. Jenny "Kush" Monson, a fellow cannabis activist in Colorado, was killed by a drunk driver on August 10. Jenny leaves behind four newly orphaned children. An online fundraiser is collecting donations at https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/dapAc and they need our help.

The campaign is struggling to raise a paltry $100,000 (for four kids!!!). They have only raised $15,000 so far. MASS CANN/NORML has been offered a matching gift opportunity. As soon as we raise $500 for Jenny's kids our donor will give another $500 bringing our total contribution to $1,000. We all have many, many responsibilities but few rise
to the level of our responsibility to protect orphaned children, particularly orphaned children born of those in our cannabis activist community. I expect few, if any, of us knew Jenny, but

let's not let that stop us from appreciating the plight of four orphaned children and giving tangible meaning to our feelings of compassion for these poor, lonely, frightened children. Every dollar you give will be matched with another dollar, dollar for dollar, until we raise the $500 our donor has pledged to double to $1,000. Please mail a donation today to MASS CANN/NORML, POB 211, Reading, MA 01867. Make
your check payable to MASS CANN/ NORML, but note on both your check and envelope your donation is for the Jenny Kush Fund.

Page 4 of 6

Published on AlterNet

By Paul Armentano (Paul is NORML's Deputy Director)

Don't Buy into the Fear Campaign About Dangers of Marijuana Smoke
November 1, 2013 As public support for amending America's antiquated and failed cannabis criminalization policies continues to grow to record levels, [3] stalwart prohibitionists - predictably - are doubling down on tried-and-true propaganda tactics to

attempt to turn the tide. One of their most common strategies is to emphasize alleged health risks associated with
marijuana consumption, in particular the claim that cannabis smoking causes cancer and other tobacco-related respiratory risks.

A recent example of this argument appeared in an October 29, 2013 Seattle Post-Intelligencer commentary [4], entitled
"Marijuana smoking and the risk of lung cancer" by Eric Vallieres of the Swedish Cancer Institute. (Sweden, as a nation, imposes strict anti-drug prohibitions relative to most jrf Eujrope.) Predictably, his alarmist commentary is heavy on rhetoric but woefully short on facts. Of course, no one argues that the ingestion of combustive smoke, whether it is tobacco smoke or cannabis smoke, is

healthy. However, it is inaccurate to allege that the risks to the consumer posed by these two substances are equal. In
fact, the most recently available peer-reviewed science clearly rebukes the allegation that cannabis is as equal to or more

dangerous than tobacco. For example, writing in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)

in 2012, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco reported that occasional to moderate cannabis consumption was not associated with the adversely pulmonary risks associated with tobacco smoking. Investigators "conrmed the expected reductions in FEVl (forced expiratory volume in the rst second of expiration) and FVC (forced vital capacity)" in tobacco smokers. By contrast, "Marijuana use was associated with higher FEVl and FVC at the low levels of exposure typical for most marijuana users. With up to 7 joint-years of lifetime exposure (e.g., 1 joint/d for 7 years or 1 joint/wk for 49 years), we found no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function." The full study may be read online here [5].

The ndings in JAMA were hardly a surprise. Previously, the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the
respkatory effects of marijuana smoking reported that cannabis use was not associated with lung-related cancers, even

among subjects who reported smoking more than 22,000 joints over their lifetime. Summarizing the study's ndings in
The Washington Post, lead investigator and pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA concluded [6], ""We

hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association

would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." The full study is available here [7]. (Notably, pot propagandists such as Dr. Vallieres try to in vain to undermine these ndings by citing a 2008 New Zealand study, which some purport to denitively demonstrate a link between cannabis use and lung cancer. In reality, that study [8] only reported a positive correlation in 14 heavy using subjects - a sample size far too small to draw any conclusions from and a result that has, to date, never been

replicatedriii-^y l^ge-^eale population case-controHnodets. Moreover, the same sludy also found that light^brisk of cancer.)

moderate lifetime cannabis consumers, who consisted of the majority of the trials' participants, possessed no increased

More recently, this past May presenters at the annual meeting of the American Academy for Cancer Research reported that subjects who regularly inhale cannabis smoke possess no greater risk of lung cancer than do those who consume it occasionally or not at all according to an analysis of six case-control studies, conducted between 1999 and 2012, involving over 5,000 subjects (2,159 cases and 2,985 controls) from around the world. They concluded [9], "Our pooled results showed no signicant association between the intensity, duration, or cumulative consumption of cannabis smoke
and the risk of lung cancer overall or in never smokers."

Most recently, an editorial in July published in the journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society concluded [10]: "Cannabis smoking is not equivalent to tobacco smoking in terms of respiratory risk. ... [C]annabis smoking does not seem to increase risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or airway cancers. In fact, there is even a suggestion that at low doses cannabis may be protective for both conditions. ... This conclusion will affect the way health professionals interact with patients, parents with teenagers, and policy makers with their constituents. ... Efforts

Page 5 of 6

to develop cleaner cannabinoid delivery systems can and should continue, but at least for now, [those] who smoke small amounts of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes can breathe a little bit easier." Why have scientists not identied a cannabis smoke/cancer link? The answer may be because cannabis, unlike tobacco, contains anti-cancer causing agents [11] - a fact most recently reafrmed this week in Newsweek on October 29 under the headline "Marijuana might kill cancer." Reports the storv [12], "In a paper published in October's Anticancer Research, Wai Liu, a senior research fellow at St. George's University of London, reports that he found six cannabinoids - active components of the cannabis plant - that can slow or outright kill cancer cells." Previous peerreviewed assessments of the properties of cannabis smoke and tobacco smoke further acknowledge [13] that the pharmacological activities of these substances differ in such a manner that they are by no means equally carcinogenic. It is true that some studies of cannabis smoke and pulmonary function indicate [14] that chronic exposure may be associated with an increased risk of certain respiratory complications, including cough, bronchitis, phlegm. That said, the ingestion of cannabis via alternative methods such as edibles, liquid tinctures, or via vaporization [15] a process whereby the plant's cannabinoids are heated to the point of vaporization but below the point of combustion virtually eliminates consumers' exposure to such unwanted risk factors and has been determined [16] to be a 'safe and effective' method of ingestion in clinical trial settings. Cannabis smoking is certainly not without potential risks. But these risks should not be overstated, nor should they be asserted as a justication for a public policy that continues to criminalize and stigmatize responsible, adult cannabis
c o n s u m e r s .

HELP END jVlARIJUANA PROHIBITION SUPPORT IVIASS CANN/NORIVIL

MONEY = POLITICAL POWER

When you contribute at least $15 to MASS CANN/NORML, you receive our newsletter MASS GRASS, the chance to help educate fellow citizens,
notice of Members' Meetings, the right to be heard at MASS CANN/NORML meetings and a renewed sense of hope for a sane and

peaceful world. When you contribute at least $25 you receive the above and the right to vote
at Members' Meetings.

[ / ] SIGN ME UP! I'm tired of repugnant laws that criminalize millions of people and
prohibit cannabis/hemp for any purpose! [ ] Here's $40 for my annual dues and a hemp blend members' tee shirt size (S, M, L, XL,
2XL, 3XL)
P L E A S E I N D I C AT E S I Z E

[ ] Here's $25 for annual dues with voting rights [ ] Here's $15 for annual dues without voting rights [ ] Here's an additional contribution of to help the cause
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PO BOX 211, READING, MA 01867-0311 Page 6 of 6