For more than 50 years, NORML has been ‘setting the record straight’ on cannabis. Today, this job is more important than ever.
You’ve no doubt seen the headlines. More and more, sensational claims about marijuana are going unchallenged in mainstream reporting.
Fortunately, NORML is there to respond.
Most recently, editors at the New York Times published a commentary entitled “It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem.” In fact, it is the New York Times that has the problem. Their editorial was riddled with errors. In particular, editors claimed that cannabis products are taxed less than alcohol. (Not true. Cannabis is taxed at a much higher rate than booze.) Elsewhere, editors accused licensed retailers of selling products that mimic popular food brands in order to appeal to children. In fact, state laws explicitly prohibit the production and sale of these types of products in legal markets. (However, these look-alike products are available in unregulated markets.)
NORML promptly provided a comprehensive refutation of the Times editorial on its website. NORML’s Deputy Director also responded to the New York Times directly in a letter, which the editors published days later. NORML was the only marijuana advocacy organization to respond to the Times.
Similarly, NORML also recently placed letters to the editor in two other prominent media markets: The Washington Post (“Cannabis is legitimate“) and The Wall Street Journal (“Should we worry about teen cannabis use?“) In both cases, NORML was pushing back against unsubstantiated claims and making the case for legalization.
That’s what we do. And we do it better than anybody else.
With your help, NORML will continue to wage war against the new reefer madness. We will continue to see that false claims and misrepresentations about cannabis in the mainstream media do not go unanswered. And we will continue to make the moral and empirical case for ending cannabis criminalization.
We can’t do this alone. We rely on contributions from people like you. Your support ensures that we will be there to do the work that needs to be done — in state houses, at the US Capitol, and in editorial board rooms across America.
The fight for legalization doesn’t take a vacation. And neither do we.
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