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( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   About the Issue    |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  Why we fight . . . You must look hard at the news, but you can see the war goes on. So, then, do we. This site was and will continue to be about cannabis law reform. The mission, continues.

( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   Consider this, Portland   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  The government's own statistics show Portland has at least 23,772 marijuana consumers. The same conservative figures show at least 29,930 marijuana consumers in Multnomah County. The 1995 NHSDA and Census Bureau numbers also reveal at least 150,040 marijuana consumers in Oregon. Have you any idea of the taxes you're paying in the ongoing effort to build prisons for them all? Follow those numbers. . . . You can help end the war on drugs just by asking every elected official and candidate for public office for a straight answer to one simple question: Exactly how many drug offenders do you want to put in prison to have the best results? The government's own statistics say that 71 percent of cannabis consumers and other illegal-drug users age 18 and older are gainfully employed, compared to just 63.3 percent of the general population age 16 and older. Are you starting to get the impression you haven't been told the whole story? How is prison going to make marijuana smokers as a whole into more productive citizens? According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 60 percent of American parents have smoked marijuana at least once in their lives. According to NIDA, only 35 percent of the general population age 12 and older has smoked marijuana. So . . . How does imprisoning and fining marijuana offenders and trying to make them unemployed and homeless help to promote "family values"?

( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   The background on hemp . . .   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  . . . includes a strip of hemp canvas. "Canvas" comes from the Latin word "cannabis." All canvas was made of hemp (Cannabis sativa, L.) until the late 19th century. Every ship that sailed until the advent of the steam engine required tons of hemp fiber for its canvas sails, ropes, rigging and oakum, used to caulk seams. No other fiber could withstand seawater so well. Hence to control the hemp market was to control the world's seaways. That is what the War of 1812 was all about. It went like this: Because hemp required so much labor at that time to turn into fiber, Russia, which had the cheapest labor force, eventually produced 80 percent of the Western world's hemp and 90 percent of Britain's. During the Napoleonic wars, Britain blockaded France, which in turn tried to neutralize Britain's fleet by blocking its access to Russian hemp. Napoleon and Czar Alexander agreed to do just that in their 1807 Treaty of Tilset. Although Americans were at first neutral in the conflict, Britain began confiscating American ships and impressing American crews caught trading with the French or their allies. However, the English quietly offered immunity to the Americans if they agreed to bypass the French and bring back hemp from Russia for the British navy. John Quincy Adams, the American consul in St. Petersburg in 1809, wrote that "As many as 600 clipper ships, flying the American flag, in a two week period, were in Kronstadt," St. Petersburg's port. Napoleon, enraged when the Czar refused to stop trading hemp to the Americans for rum, sugar, tobacco and coffee, invaded Russia. The rest of the story is told in Jack Herer's book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." Find out how to order it from our page of links.

( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   How you can help   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  What you can do to help the cause: Write. Contact the media and legislative representatives and tell them how you feel about the war. Write, email, call and fax your concerns on a regular basis. Spread the word. Tell your friends and neighbors about the cause and get them involved. Speak before public interest and community groups. Form/join neighborhood and local organizations. Research. Look up information. Write stories and contribute. Update us with news/info and help keep this Library current and functional. E-mail the Librarian with questions, comments ... or ideas! Please give us some feedback - stop by and sign the Guestbook.

( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   Portland NORML's history   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  Since Portland NORML first went online in 1995, this site has grown to become one of the largest drug-policy-reform resources on the Web, with over 50 megabytes of information in more than 800 files (not including more than 12 megabytes of graphics). Just one of this site's unique features is an immense archive of local, national and international news articles on cannabis and drug policy, spanning a period from about 1999 back to 1992 and even farther. Please take some time to check out the other extensive offerings in our various directories - big as this home page is, it hardly begins to describe the entire site. Whatever your opinions may currently be about cannabis and drug policy, you are guaranteed to find a lot of fascinating and authoritative information here. Portland NORML's original webmaster was Phil Smith, a High Times Freedom Fighter (May 1997) and medical-marijuana patient whose psychiatrist recommends his use of cannabis for major depression and the debilitating side effects from 10 years of toxic FDA-approved chemotherapy. (This tends to discomfit those who would have you believe the "Reefer Madness" myth that cannabis use causes or exacerbates mental illness. As usual, the drug warriors' science is 180 degrees wrong, and of course quite harmful.) Convicted of trying to provide cannabis to other medical-marijuana patients below cost in 1997 in Portland, Smith ended up maintaining this site from exile in San Francisco, where he is not considered a criminal. He has since retired from web duties, but his legacy lives on. Thanks Phil!

( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   Site Map   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  Site Map and Index.  Providing whatever service we can for the Northwest Pacific and beyond.  Contact us for more information. the Library. "What happened?" Archive of stuff built by Portland NORML volunteers and other remains of the old site. News and other items of historical interest. Unique articles about the movement in Oregon and the world at the time. News and info. "What's happening?" Informing and Educating yourself and then others about why we do this. See also ALERTS! and Events.   - Need Help?     > involving medical aspects of cannabis? Medical Cannabis Orgs & info; How to become a cannabis-legal patient, if possible, and other relevent resource info.     > due to politics or the same, old, basic hassle?  Legal info Laws and legal resources org'd by State and Federal. Action! "What you can do about it!" Ideas and Resources.   - Outreach; "Want to help?" Tools for Communicating and Engaging. Places to leave your mark, ways to send your message. Letter writing tools.   - Legislation and other long term change.   Key votes, Tips, Alerts and such.   -  ORGANIZATIONs and other Resources.  Such as ...     The Monthly NORML Newsletter. For printed news and such, for your Cannabis Law Reform Information and Outreach. This unit works in conjunction with others to provide a hardcopy medium of communication for the cause. da Biz -  Bizness Associations; cannabis friendly Sources for products; potential donors, sponsors and supporters of events or ideas; and, someday, cannabis friendly employment guide (at least tell you who/how to avoid!) This will include Bizness DisAssociation, where we boycott those who support the war or any of it's tentacles. -  Hemp for Victory; Not only should we buy hemp and unilaterally support the biz, but work to get a seed planted in the US of A! > Action; Legis *  Media. It's up to us to get the word out. It's up to us to choose cannabis friendly media and communications. * A&E. cannabis friendly Art, Music, Theatre, Literature and all the mediums. The Librarians maintain this site as a matter of compassion, because ... * Cannabis is Medicine. -  Grow Tipz. Grow guide index. -  Medical FAQs. ... and for the sake of industry & environment ... * Hemp Networking. Hemp Clubs of America - student based, political action. Hemp Car Clubs and Cookoffs. Hemp fashion shows and expositions. Combine education with bizness with voter registration and engagement! ... and because it's a matter of basic, equal rights! * Need help?  Legal info and Liberty resources index. For simple possession or even small grows. Also hassles; ie- opening a hemp store, or patient and doctor rights, even crossing the border with literature!   ( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   Search the OpdxNwoL   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  Search the Old pdxNORML Website and Online Library.     Search This Site Keywords Maximum hits to return 10 20 40 80 160 320 substring matching Body Title PDXNORML   ( skip to End )  |   ( next )  |   pdxNORML's mission was ...   |     ( prev )  |   ( go to Top )  Since forming in the fall of 1994, Portland NORML grew steadily. By March 1997, Portland NORML had about 200 dues-paying members and a mailing list of several thousand. Note: Portland (Pdx) NORML became Oregon NORML in the fall of 2001.  This website, http://www.pdxnorml.org/, is preserved by Drug Policy Central for its historic & informational value and is being maintained by volunteers for that purpose.  It is not officially sanctioned by nor the responsibility of NORML or any of its affiliates.  Any opinions and views that may be perceived here are those of past contributors and the current Librarian/activsts. The Portland, Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws supported the reform of laws against the possession and responsible consumption and cultivation of cannabis by adults. Portland NORML also supported reforming laws that prevent physicians from prescribing marijuana as medicine to alleviate suffering. NORML does not advocate illegal behavior or encourage the use of marijuana. In fact, NORML supports policies that have reduced consumption of cannabis in the Netherlands since 1976 to rates well below those here. NORML is not "pro-marijuana" and NORML activists are not "pot proponents" as the mass media and government sometimes put it. Please understand that marijuana consumers are no more interested in promoting marijuana use than people who enjoy an occasional beer are in promoting alcohol use. Medical patients whose doctors recommend cannabis to them are no more interested in promoting marijuana use than people who are prescribed opiates as painkillers are in promoting heroin use. Drug policy reform proponents are no more interested in promoting drug use than anti-Prohibition activists were in promoting alcohol use. It all goes to an undemocratic assumption hidden in prohibitionist thinking: For the vast majority of Americans, we think we can handle alcohol, or whatever, but we're not so sure about the other guy. We don't pass prohibition laws for ourselves. We pass them for the next person, especially the one who is the focus of our suspicions or fears - including our children. As noted by the legal historian, Professor Charles Whitebread, in the conclusion of his speech on "The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States" at the 1995 California Judges Association conference, "Every criminal prohibition has that same touch to it, doesn't it? It is enacted by us and it always regulates the conduct of them." In much the same way, public officials whose family members have drug problems always want treatment for their family, but prison for people in other families. Mass media pollsters show the same hypocrisy when they always frame the question, "Should marijuana be legalized?" A less misleading question would be, "Do you know anybody who smokes marijuana?" together with "Do you think they should go to jail for it?" Treating millions of responsible adult marijuana consumers as them is much more harmful ­ to us as well as to them ­ than their responsible use of marijuana ever could be. We should all want to reduce the harm that can be associated with drug use, whether a drug is legal or illegal. But NORML believes the biggest harm and expense associated with marijuana use is prison. For more details about NORML's policies please go to the home page for national NORML. Portland NORML, like national NORML, was a "big tent" group, and supported various reform efforts. Here in the Rose City (which locals often refer to as "PDX," airline lingo for Portland International Airport), Portland NORML supported the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, as well as the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. The volunteers of Portland NORML have posted a great deal of information in support of reform. Many articles about medical marijuana and just about every other cannabis-related issue can be found linked to the articles and links pages. News and other information about the situation in Portland and Oregon, particularly the period from 1995 to 1997, is linked to our All Politics is Local page. More local news can be found in the 1998 Daily News pages; In addition, many items of historical interest are linked thru the Oregon Services Plundered for Drug War page (which archived information showing why public education and other services needed the tax revenue promised by OCTA) and the History of Oregon Reform Efforts page. Portland NORML also engaged in an ongoing effort to encourage an open and honest public discussion about drug policy. We regularly sought to shake Oregonians' apathy, awake their compassion, and to educate the public, media and government officials about the harm and expense engendered by adult marijuana prohibition and the likely benefits of alternative policies. In the course of these efforts, Portland NORML found itself working to debunk an incredible variety and volume of government and media misrepresentations of fact. We invite you to learn the documented truth from our library of excellent articles on cannabis and drug policy and from our large directory of links to related sites.   About the Page  |   About Us  |    Making Contact   __________________________________________________________  Comments, questions and suggestions? To communicate ideas, changes or requests for further information about these pages -or- for compliments, complaints or to report broken links with the web site in general, you can eMail the Librarian. Also, feel free to visit the Guestbook and leave a note.   Technical support by ... ... Our undying gratitude to them and their fine staff. This site is part of the Drug Reform Coordination Network Online Library. For Affiliate information, contact your local NORML or similar org - you can visit Oregon NORML on-line at www.ornorml.org. ___________________________________________________________ You are visitor # 22019!     (since 12/14/2001)  Thanx for stopping by. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies!   This page ( /about.html ) was last modified on:  Sunday, 29-Sep-2002 20:58:36 PDT click here to return Home to Stashing the seeds of change.   This site ... $10.00 $20.00 $30.00 $40.00 $50.00 $60.00 $70.00 $80.00 $90.00 $100.00 $150.00 $200.00 ... Empowerment Tools - of, by and for the People!