cannabisnews.com: Billboard Campaign Urges Support for Pot Guru





Billboard Campaign Urges Support for Pot Guru
Posted by CN Staff on March 07, 2003 at 08:11:19 PT
By Josh Richman, Staff Writer 
Source: Oakland Tribune 
A Massachusetts-based nonprofit group is placing 150 billboards in Oakland and San Francisco to urge support for convicted marijuana grower and activist Ed Rosenthal. The billboards, of various sizes, have two slogans. One is "Free Ed. Free The Jury. Free America," and the other is "Vote Your Conscience. Free America." The signs are the work of Change the Climate Inc., a Greenfield, Mass., educational nonprofit group.
"Change the Climate is a national organization primarily of parents and business people," said executive director Joseph H. White Jr. "Our perspective is that existing marijuana laws for the most part are really counterproductive, they're a waste of tax dollars, ... and as a parent, they put my children at risk." The all-volunteer group has run ad campaigns in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere calling attention to the government's huge spending on prosecution and imprisonment of marijuana offenders. California law allows medical marijuana use, but federal law still bans all growing, possession and use. Rosenthal, 58, of Oakland, was arrested in 2002 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Jurors at his federal trial were not allowed to consider his status under California's medical marijuana law, and were not told of his protection by an Oakland ordinance. "When the stormtroopers of the federal government busted in while he was doing the city's good work, and the judge would not allow any consideration of a law now supported by over 80 percent of Americans, it cried out for justice, and that's why we chose the case," White said. White, 47, is a father of three and a co-founder of Share Group Inc., a telemarketing firm that does fund-raising, voter outreach, customer service and grass-roots organizing for progressive nonprofits and socially responsible companies. Among Change the Climate's directors is Mal Warwick, founder and chairman of a direct-mail fund-raising business in Berkeley. This is the largest billboard campaign Change the Climate has mounted so far, White said, estimating its cost "in the tens of thousands." White said the group's funding "comes from business executives like Peter Lewis -- chairman and CEO of insurance giant Progressive Corp. -- and others" as well as parents and others who see the ads. Lewis has helped bankroll drug reform efforts across the nation, including California's 1996 medical marijuana initiative. Financier George Soros and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, who often pool their money with Lewis' for drug reform efforts, are not donors to Change the Climate, White said. The group's 2001 tax return shows revenue of about $34,000, of which $31,000 came from just two donors whose names are blanked out; White said he doesn't recall who they were. "We don't have a lot of contributors -- we have a handful of well-off individuals who are often the kind of people who help fund new organizations, whether they be in marijuana reform or other social issues," he said, adding that more donors have given since 2001. "One of our larger contributors over the last two years is a well-known Bay Area high-tech entrepreneur."Note: East Coast nonprofit bankrolls Bay Area ads backing cannabis reform.Complete Title: Billboard Campaign Urges Support for Oakland Pot GuruSource: Oakland Tribune (CA)Author: Josh Richman, Staff WriterPublished:  Friday, March 07, 2003 Copyright: 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc. Contact: triblet angnewspapers.com Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Change The Climatehttp://www.changetheclimate.com/Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmChange The Climate Begins Advertising in Calif.http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15650.shtmlJuries and Judges What's Relevant? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15606.shtmlThe Feds vs. Ed Rosenthal - Counter Punch http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15383.shtml
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Comment #2 posted by billos on March 07, 2003 at 13:25:58 PT:
Virgil's comment
I agree.. .. however the flags we display should be the American flag, just fly it upside down. It signafies that you are in trouble. And, that's just what we are all in. America is in trouble. The DEAth agents should change to a standard uniform though. Make it all brown with knee-high black boots and adapt the goose-step when they parade in front of john walters.
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Comment #1 posted by Virgil on March 07, 2003 at 10:56:28 PT
The disappointment that America has become
The $34,000 budget for 2001 would not even match the costs of one of Walter's trips to Nevada to lie his *ss off. At least they did not tall to the ONDCP so they could parrot out a phrase of "a well funded effort on the part of three billionaires" into the situation. Compare that to the $3 million dollars spent for Super Bowl Ads, with matching time in the bargain- http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n162/a04.htmlThe upshot: The taxpayer-funded agency, which has agreed to spend close to $3 million for a total of 60 seconds of commercial time, will get free matching spots of equivalent value at another time -- though not during the Big Game. In other words, it will enjoy some of Madison Avenue's most expensive advertising time for half price. 
Congress will have to soon acknowledge the national debt is over $6.4 trillion when they authorize a higher ceiling. Even in times of surplus these ads would be a waste of money, but their expenditure now is excess even for a valid campaign. The educational system is being pushed to raise test results that can only be met by teaching the test at the expense of broader understanding and critic analyzing skills. Kids are indoctrinated instead of inspired to a lifetime of learning. And now we have Enron accountants teaching the government to hide reality in numbers. The national debt clock says we are already $58 billion over the current authorized limit- http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/Nero may have well fiddled while Rome burned. Of course Americans have been fiddled all along into being entertained with reruns and 16 minutes of commercials every hour while the treasury burns and the Constitution is being shredded for tender to start the fire that makes Americas middle class peasants before the law and the work boss that rivals what we have done to South America all along.I am now disappointed in just the average Joe Citizen that think buying a Chinese-made flag would solve something. People should be putting out flags with swastikas instead of stars and wake everyone up.
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