Building a Movement in Maryland

March 20, 2008

Tony Bowles was a plaintiff in ASA’s successful lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. He has taken action time and time again on behalf of patients in need of medical marijuana. He now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he is working hard to help improve Maryland’s medical marijuana law. Tony can be reached at tonebowles@sbcglobal.net Last week, ASA, in partnership with the Drug Policy Alliance, kicked off our Patients for Access campaign in Maryland, which I first wrote about here in January. The campaign is designed to build grassroots support and identify potential leadership to support future legislative reform efforts. More than a dozen people came out for our first Medical Marijuana Teach-In and Know Your Rights Training. I think we gave an astounding presentation and I was pleased to see many familiar and new faces. The crowd was incredibly diverse and the feedback portion of the training indicated that they sincerely appreciated the information and the training. "Dynamic", "Necessary", "Informative", and "Enraging" were just a few of the descriptions used during an oral evaluation. Little is known by the public about the state’s medical marijuana law and a few attendees were not even aware that Maryland has a medical marijuana law. We believe our first training raised awareness and provided a foundation to build on. Everyone at the training signed our petition to protect Maryland medical marijuana patients and many also signed up to participate in a field trip to meet friendly state legislators next Month in Annapolis. A few took the information, sign-up sheets, and membership forms to get their friends and family involved. We were fortunate to be hosted at a really great space in Baltimore's Charles Village inside an old Methodist Church which now serves as a noncommercial, cooperatively managed space for radical politics and grassroots culture -- a project sponsored by a local co-op, 2640. We are conducting similar teach-ins throughout the month of March. This week we host trainings in Salisbury, Maryland (Eastern Shore) and Silver Spring, MD (Montgomery County). Our final training occurs in Western Maryland on the March 25th. For more information and to keep updated about our continued efforts to improve Maryland’s medical marijuana law see: http://www.drugpolicy.org/statebystate/maryland/ http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org/maryland