GONE TO POT: THE PHOENIX GLOBAL MARIJUANA MARCH

"Mommy, I don't want to march!"

The girl's mother was protesting the prohibition of marijuana at
Steele Indian School park. It was hot, it was dry, and her grade
school-age daughter didn't seem very happy about spending her
Saturday walking around central Phoenix with a bunch of people
carrying signs and screaming "Legalize it!" at passing cars.

A "bunch" is an understatement, actually -- several hundred
pro-marijuana supporters gathered at Steele Indian School Park on
Saturday, May 3 for the Global Marijuana March. The march, which
started at 4:20 p.m. (420 being head code for "time to smoke some
marijuana") was Phoenix's contribution to a global event that saw
several cities around the nation and world marching for marijuana law reform.

The Global Marijuana March aims to educate people about the medicinal
and therapeutic benefits of cannabis, protest the prohibition of
marijuana, and encourage people to sign pro-pot petitions. The blog
on the official MySpace page for the march read, in part, "If you
believe you should have the right, as a responsible adult American,
to choose a safer recreational alternative to alcohol or a safer
medication than prescription drugs, please show up."

The march was approved by local law enforcement as a peaceable
assembly - though not licensed by the city - and supporters started
gathering at the park as early as 3:30 p.m. Many people brought signs
with such protests as "Legalize It," "Save a jail cell for some real
criminals," "One acre of hemp = 20 gallons of oil," and "The hippies
were right." Lots of people were wearing tie-dye, too, and there was
plenty of marijuana smoking going on before the march, despite the
fact that several people had their children in tow and at least three
plain-clothed officers were present. Even though their badges and
guns were clearly visible on their belts, people didn't seem to care.
"There are too many people here for them to arrest everybody," said
one march participant, who says the global march every year in Santa
Barbara sees dozens of people lighting up right on the capitol steps.

The history of marijuana prohibition in this country goes back to the
1930s, when Henry Anslinger, Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in
the Bureau of Prohibition (precursor to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms) signed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. While
the bill didn't prohibit marijuana, it did call for a tax equaling
one dollar (an exorbitant tax at the time) on anyone commercially
dealing with hemp, marijuana, and cannabis. Anslinger was married to
Martha Denniston, the niece of Andrew W. Mellon, who was then
Secretary of the US Treasury. Mellon was also a banker who had a
vested interest in the DuPont chemical company and media mogul
William Randolph Hearst's logging business. DuPont and Hearst were
working on a paper-making deal together, and at the time, hemp was a
legal US crop that offered an alternative way of making paper, rather
than using timber. But it wasn't as profitable for someone like
Hearst, who owned a ridiculously large amount of land for logging. In
1938, DuPont patented a process for making paper from wood pulp, and
Hearst's newspapers began running all sorts of sordid stories about
"crazy" marijuana users and the dangers of hemp, often using the
words "marijuana" and "hemp" interchangeably (although marijuana and
hemp both come from the cannabis plant, hemp doesn't contain enough
THC - the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - to intoxicate anyone).

Still, propaganda films like Reefer Madness (which was financed by a
church group and originally titled Tell Your Children) began to
circulate in schools, along with lectures about how marijuana caused
people to steal, rape, kidnap, kill, become prostitutes, etc. In
1952, possession and consumption of marijuana officially became
illegal in the United States with the Boggs Act of 1952, bolstered by
the Narcotics Control Act of 1956.

In the 1970s, the medicinal uses of marijuana came to light, when a
glaucoma patient named Robert Randall sued the government for
arresting him for using marijuana to treat his condition. The judge
ruled in Randall's favor and the FDA set up a program for the
cultivation of medical marijuana. With the support of members of the
medical community, 13 states have since amended their laws to allow
the consumption of marijuana for medical purposes.

Arizona is not one of those 13 states. Protesters at the Phoenix
Global Marijuana March carried signs advertising the benefits of
marijuana and signed petitions pushing for a medical marijuana bill
here in Arizona. More than half of the protesters were in this group
- - older, wiser Americans with Bohemian sensibilities who view
cannabis as a medicinal herb that just happens to have some recreational merit.

The rest of the protesters ran the gamut, from college kids on cell
phones telling their friends "I'm at the pot rally" to neo-hippie
chicks in summer skirts to hip-hop heads with their jeans hanging
halfway off their butts. Members of the local music scene, including
"Scary" Gary from rockabilly band The Toomstoners and AZ Fetish Ball
promoter James Bound, were also present to show their support.

The march got off to a scattered start, with a woman carrying a huge
American flag announcing, "It's 4:20! We're gonna start marching!"
and everybody wandering off into several lines. By the time the
protesters made it to the corner of Third Street and Indian School,
the pack had almost come together, and people in passing cars honked
their horns in support. One motorist even stopped his SUV as the
march was passing so one of his passengers could high-five a
participant, yelling "Right on, man! Smoke that shit!"

Half the protesters crossed Indian School at Seventh Street before
the other half could catch up, prompting one marcher on the north
sidewalk to point across the street and chuckle. "Oh look, they're
having a march, too!"

The people in the march merged again while making their way down
Third Avenue, engaging in two massive jaywalks in the process. "Yeah,
let's stop traffic!" someone yelled. "The more people we get to stop,
the more attention for the cause!"

The media were also out en mass, as news trucks from Channel 5 and
Channel 12 lined up at the entrance to the park. Several
photographers with professional rigs were snapping photos as well.
One marcher looked at a photographer and yelled, "If that shit goes
to my parole officer, I'm gonna be pissed."

20 minutes in, the march was over, with protesters heading back to
the park for some post-march relaxation. While a guy in tie-dye beat
on a bongo drum, volunteers handed out free Otter pops, and a local
representative from NORML (National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws) pushed petitions for people to sign that would bring
forth a bill to legalize marijuana in Arizona for medicinal purposes.
"Arizona is surrounded by Medical states; Nevada, New Mexico,
California, & Colorado all border us and have the rights that we do
not. It is time for all that to change," states the Phoenix Global
Marijuana March MySpace page.

Overall, the march was peaceful. There were no riots, no fights, no
arrests , and supporters stayed until dusk, strumming guitars,
banging on bongos, signing petitions, and screaming "Legalize it!"