MMJ: Activism Isn't Over

I heard you were just at the Portland Hempstalk festival. How was it? - Roald Tripp

It was great. The Portland Hempstalk was just the dose of old-school activism that I needed to recharge my batteries. It was a wonderful thing to walk around with a bag of weed in my pocket and not worry about the police. It sounds like a small deal, especially since California has practically legalized cannabis possession, but there is still the chance that an officer in a bad mood can give you a summons, especially if you are carrying more than a quarter ounce in your pocket.

While a quarter ounce (14 grams) may sound like a lot, remember I was headed to a pot festival. Bringing a quarter ounce to a pot fest is like bringing a case of beer to a house party. You may not need or use all of it, but it’s nice to have around. (By the way, California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act allows adults to carry up to an ounce.)

Small digression: The City of Nashville just decriminalized possession of cannabis. Instead of a $2,500 dollar fine and up to a year in jail, it’s a $50 fine. There’s one small problem: This new law makes the $50 fine an optional thing, leaving it up to the cops whether to issue an infraction or to haul someone off to the hoosegow. Hopefully, the city will do studies and take steps to ensure that this law is not used as a tool to continue to punish minorities while letting the more privileged escape serious repercussions.

Back to Portland: The Hempstalk was held in Waterfront Park near downtown, and Oregon’s clean air laws prohibit smoking of anything in public parks, so no one was allowed to openly smoke cannabis. Park rangers were on hand to issue $273 fines to people smoking weed. In a park. On a beautiful day. What a bunch of buzzkillers. Any other day of the year, hundreds of people openly smoke weed in Waterfront Park without anyone raising an eyebrow. The fact that Portland will allow all sorts of brewfests to get special waivers so people can get drunk in a park, but deny stoners the chance to do what is essentially a safer version of the same thing, reminded me that just because cannabis has been legalized doesn’t mean that activism is over.

The more rights you assert, the more rights you have. Let’s continue to fight for our right to smoke weed in a park on a sunny day.