Legal pot conference less aromatic than you'd think [NORML]
Attendance is up 30 percent over last year, NORML reps say, thanks to historic changes in American society like the election of a progressive president and the exploding medical cannabis industry in California and beyond. For the first time, NORML has booked up the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown San Francisco and noted speakers are being sent elsewhere.
NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano drew a standing ovation before a crowd of around 400, speaking on the dire need for clinical trials of cannabis therapeutics. It’s easy to joke about pot on Fox News, he said, but journal articles in Nature and Cancer Research show cannabis stops cancer and Lou Gehrig’s disease as well as MRSA. At least 27 cannabis-based drugs are in development by major pharmaceutical companies.
“These corporations are spending billions to brings these drugs to market. They’ve done the math. Cannabis is medicine,” he said, “What we need to do is begin talking about this.”
The 38th Annual NORML Conference continues through 6 p.m. today and all day Friday and Saturday.
Thursday highlights:- 5:30 p.m. – Flip the Switch: A Medical Path to Full Legalization – Steve DeAngelo, CEO, Harborside Health Center
- 9:30 a.m. – California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (author of AB 390)
- 1:30 p.m. – Has Support for Legalization reached a critical mass/tipping point?: Rich Lee, Proprietor of Oaksterdam University and campaigner for ‘The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010’.
- 2:45 p.m. – What would legalization to do use rates?
- 10 a.m. – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) speaks
- 2:45 p.m. – Cannabis as a City Cash Cow
