Members of NORML Wyoming hold signs supporting weed.
Cannabis legalization activists spread their message to students passing through the Union yesterday.
The Wyoming chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is working on a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana, said the chapter’s Executive Director Chris Christian.
“My goal is to spread the information that NORML will have an initiative on the ballot,” she said. “I want to let people know it’s okay to speak about cannabis in public.”
The initiative, which will focus on legalizing just medical marijuana and hemp, rather than recreational marijuana, is a first step toward the group’s goal of changing the Cowboy State’s drug laws.
“We don’t think that the state’s rights should overrule the rights of the people,” Christian said. “I’m for state’s rights too, but not when they overrule my right to choose.”
Marie Petersen, a NORML activist who tabled with Christian, said the fight for safer alternatives to prescription drugs and alcohol is a personal issue for her.
Petersen’s sister died three years ago after struggling for years with addiction.
“If my sister had been able to use cannabis, instead of being addicted to all those prescription pills, she’d probably be alive right now,” Petersen said. “She was taking anything she could get, anything she could get her hands on to get a buzz.”
It’s about offering a safer option, Petersen said.
“I’d rather my kids and my grandkids smoke weed than drink alcohol or take prescription drugs,” she said.
The table, littered with pamphlets, bumper stickers and green bracelets that read “Wyoming NORML 2016…Turning a Red State Green,” drew in a lot of curious students.
Alec Britt, an agro-ecology major, said he supported NORML’s cause.
“I think that marijuana prohibition is a nonsense policy and it unfairly prosecutes certain demographics,” he said. “This is definitely something I would support.”
Britt said the initiative’s addition of hemp, which is cannabis that can be refined into paper, cloth, fuel and other products, could help diversify Wyoming’s economy.
“I think it’s great they’re working on hemp too,” Britt said. “I could see that working in Wyoming.”
Philip Pelkey, president of the college democrats RSO, stopped by the table to discuss the cause with Christian and Petersen. He said he is in full support of the chapter’s mission.
“It’s gotten to the point where the law is causing more harm than the thing it’s trying to prevent,” Pelkey said. “Medical is a good place to start.”
Students who approached the table were generally supportive of the cause and the NORML representatives talked to them about how to register to vote.
The initiative will have to be supported by a petition signed by 25,673 Wyoming residents (15 percent of the number who voted in the last election). Before NORML can circulate the petition around the state, it must be approved by the secretary of state’s office. Christian said she hopes to have a petition ready for signatures by June.
