April 20 is the most widely celebrated day in cannabis culture. This 4/20, we have plenty to celebrate.
For the first time in nearly a century, over 50 percent of Americans reside in a jurisdiction where marijuana is state-legal!
Moreover, millions of Americans – many of them young adults – are no longer being arrested for possessing a substance that is objectively safer than either tobacco or alcohol. According to the FBI, the annual number of Americans arrested for marijuana-related offenses has fallen by over a half-million in the past decade!
Contrary to critics’ claims, more kids aren’t using cannabis. In fact, data published this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics reports that teens’ use of marijuana, alcohol, and e-cigarettes has fallen post-legalization.
Marijuana legalization works and most Americans know it. According to recent nationwide survey data compiled by the Pew Research Center, 88 percent of adults say that marijuana ought to be legal for either medical or adult use.
Since NORML’s founding, we have successfully moved public opinion and we have advanced cannabis freedom. That’s worth celebrating!
But there still is plenty to do. Our political adversaries haven’t gone away. Rather, they have pivoted their message in efforts to roll back our progress. For instance, they’ve increasingly pushed to recriminalize certain higher-THC products, like concentrates, in legal states. And they have ramped up their rhetoric – falsely claiming that cannabis is linked to violent crime and that today’s marijuana poses unique harms to public health.
NORML, our chapters, and our members are pushing back against these efforts – all the while continuing to advance the cause of cannabis freedom. But we need your help.
NORML is the only organization advocating solely on behalf of you – the responsible cannabis consumer. We represent your interests, not those of the commercial industry. And we depend upon your generous support to do the work that must be done – lobbying Congress and state governments, educating the public, pushing back against “Reefer Madness” rhetoric in the mainstream media, fighting for consumer rights in legal states, and consistently making the case that a policy of legalization and regulation is preferable to one of criminalization, incarceration, and discrimination.
That is why we are asking you to help us today in celebration of 4/20. Your generosity keeps us – and the cannabis freedom movement – moving forward. Together, we are making history.
