"THESE LAWS ARE SO FUCKING STUPID"

Fresh off a Masterfully Played Rout of the T, Change the Climate's Joe
White is Continuing to Change the Way Joe Sixpack Thinks About Weed
Reform in America

Though it took Joe White four years and two rounds of litigation to
force a stubborn MBTA into posting his advertisements advocating
marijuana reform, White, a Greenfield, MA, resident who heads the
marijuana advocacy group Change the Climate, knew the region's
transportation agency was fighting a losing battle as soon as its
lawyers deposed him.

"They knew this was a clear-cut free speech case, and they knew they
were going to lose," White boasts. "They were just milking the T for
money-I mean, their lawyers were pot smokers!"

Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit confirmed
what White knew all along, ruling that the T had violated White's
First Amendment rights when it refused to run three Change the Climate
ads in 2000. The appellate court soundly rejected the T's argument
that the ads encouraged minors to smoke marijuana, instead finding
that the T had unconstitutionally silenced Change the Climate for
criticizing government drug policy. Soon, White promises, Change the
Climate will parlay its win against the T into a provocative,
high-profile ad campaign.

The victory over the T is just the latest in a series for White, who
runs Change the Climate almost single-handedly (and on top of a
full-time job, to boot.) Over the last four years, Change the Climate
has defied the Bush administration's offensive against marijuana,
recording a string of otherwise rare victories for drug reform, while
drawing the ire of state and federal authorities. And in the process,
he has redefined how pot activists do business.

At first blush, Greenfield would seem an ideal place to launch a
marijuana advocacy group-that is, if Greenfield did indeed live up to
its name's narcotic connotation, with rolling fields of marijuana
swaying in the breezes of Western Mass. As it is, though, Greenfield
is remarkable only in its unremarkable nature. It's a
wholesome-looking old mill town in the middle of nowhere, boasting a
main drag-Main Street, if you believe it-that's lined with banks,
bakeries, war memorials and small-time department stores. From
Boston, it's reached by running a gauntlet of auto parts stores and
farmers' co-ops. When I stumbled into the local Dunkin' Donuts, I was
greeted by a group of local youths, cutting school to sing Christmas
carols, of all things.

But in that same Dunkin' Donuts parking lot, I also spied the first
MoveOn.org and Human Rights Campaign stickers I'd seen in an hour.
Despite the aw-shucks veneer, Greenfield is represented-in the State
House and in Congress-by strident liberals.

The town's paradoxes shine in Joe White. White doesn't cavort around
town in a three-piece hemp suit and a marijuana leaf crown, nor did he
found Change the Climate as a way to promote the Ideology of Freedom,
man. But, as the MBTA and the Bush administration have discovered, he
is shrewd, sophisticated and relentlessly dedicated to his cause.

"It's amazing how large this issue has become in my personal and
professional life," White explained from his home office recently.
"And it's amazing how unashamed I am of that fact."

White is also unashamed of how markedly he stands out among marijuana
activists. He readily confesses to projecting "a certain conservative,
preppy look," to not listening to the Grateful Dead "as much as I
should" and to staying far away from High Times - "I'm not in that
part of the consumer movement," he explains. And, although both he and
his 16-year-old son attended this year's rain-soaked Freedom Rally,
neither smoked.

"I've been more of a non-activist over the years," White said. "I got
involved with this issue partially as a business endeavor, but really
in response to my teenager, who's now 23, asking me why adults lie to
kids about marijuana. He's part of the DARE generation, the generation
that's been bombarded by ads that make marijuana out to be the most
dangerous substance on the planet. He told me that he didn't smoke,
but his friends did, and if we weren't telling them the truth about
marijuana, maybe we weren't telling them the truth about other drugs,
more dangerous drugs.

"And once I started learning how much money is spent on arresting and
prosecuting people for marijuana-how much money is spent disseminating
inaccurate information about marijuana-the more obsessed I became
about telling people the truth and educating the public about what a
huge fiasco this is. It costs us billions of dollars a year. Plus,
it's easy for me - I smoke pot. I'm fighting against stupid laws that
go against my self-interest. Nobody ever died from smoking marijuana -
that's why these laws are so fucking stupid."

Whatever steep odds marijuana reform faced when White founded Change
the Climate in 2000 have swelled exponentially under George W. Bush,
who has made what White calls the "demonization" of marijuana the
centerpiece of his administration's drug policy. White House Drug Czar
John Walters has called marijuana the most dangerous drug in America;
Bush's anti-drug ad campaign focuses almost exclusively on marijuana,
rather than OxyContin or heroin; and John Ashcroft's Justice
Department has sunk considerable resources into very publicly
persecuting the cultivators and users of medicinal marijuana. Most
recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration forcefully blocked a
UMass-Amherst professor's bid to study the medicinal effects of
marijuana, essentially stymieing any FDA approval of medical marijuana
while the Justice Department extinguishes medical users and suppliers
at the state level.

In the face of all this, Joe White has enjoyed a series of high
profile victories against the marijuana clampdown. White has not done
this by orchestrating public showings of mass dissatisfaction, nor by
pounding his head against the Capitol's walls; instead, Change the
Climate fights for change by funding visible advertisements that weigh
the costs of marijuana laws and then baiting government officials into
highly public confrontations that expose the flaccid rationale behind
those laws.

"We are flexible and entrepreneurial enough to pick and choose our
battles," White explains.

In the first of those chosen battles, Change the Climate-with the
ACLU's legal support-celebrated George W. Bush's inauguration by
placing 560 pro-marijuana reform ads on Washington Metro buses and
subway stations. Initially, the Metro rejected Change the Climate's
submission, "but they backed down when we threatened to sue, and they
realized they'd lose in court." All of which was according to plan,
White says.

"At first, we approached billboard companies, and they politely
declined. But transportation systems are publicly funded, so they're
subject to the free speech provisions of the Constitution." White not
only won a forum for criticizing government drug policy, but he also
garnered national attention for sticking his thumb in Bush's eye as
soon as the boy president arrived in Washington.

Several rounds of advertisements touting drug policy reform followed
Change the Climate's initial Metro salvo. One featured a business
executive rhetorically asking if it's his choice to smoke pot after
his chemotherapy and then being told, "Wrong." Another argued that
"Police are too important ... too valuable ... too good ... to waste
on arresting people for marijuana when real criminals are on the
loose"; and a third asked, "Why do kids go to jail for doing what
politicians did when they were young? Tell us the truth." A fourth
tried to hit Georgetown yuppies in their wallets: "5.2 million
marijuana arrests since 1992. It cost you $4.5 billion. Is it really
worth it?"

Then, in December 2003, congressmen who had been chafing at Change the
Climate's DC-area advertisements suffered a full-blown conniption when
they were greeted with Metro ads saying, "Enjoy better sex! Legalize
and tax marijuana."

"That ad actually came from a conversation I had with one of the
executives who fund our campaigns," White recounts. "He told me
marijuana works much better than Viagra, that people should really try
it."

Ernest Istook, a Republican congressman from Oklahoma, declined this
suggestion, instead labeling the ad "shocking" and pushing legislation
that stripped $92,500 in federal appropriations from the Metro "as a
warning to other transit agencies."

"I must assure [sic] that [the Metro] will learn the proper lessons
from this experience and will only accept appropriate ads in the
future," Istook cautioned.

The congressman subsequently authored legislation that barred any
federally subsidized transit authority from becoming "involved
directly or indirectly in any activity that promotes the legalization
or medical use of any substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of
the Controlled Substances Act," meaning any transit authority that ran
ads from Change the Climate would lose its federal funding.

"This is a right-wing nut in Congress who probably wants unmarried
women to wear chastity belts," White says of Istook. "He was foaming
at the mouth-sex and marijuana! That was one high point in Change the
Climate's efforts-to successfully bait a member of Congress, who had
the audacity to ban all ads from transit agencies around the country
that expressed a different viewpoint than the government's. It was
quite a surprise, and a great opportunity for marijuana reform. I did
not imagine that I'd ever be personally targeted by the Congress, that
I'd sue Bush over free speech. I don't think our messages are too radical."

Radical or not, Istook's attack on Change the Climate garnered
national attention, allowing White to ridicule Istook in The
Washington Post while pushing his case for marijuana reform-for free.
Change the Climate then teamed with the Marijuana Policy Project, the
Drug Policy Alliance and the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality
of Istook's anti-drug stance, suing the Bush administration and its
transportation secretary, Norman Mineta.

Last June, a federal judge overturned the Istook amendment in a
strongly worded opinion, finding that the legislation did "not express
Congress' desire to shield the nation's youth from all conversation
regarding controlled substances but rather eliminates only dialogue
regarding legislative reform of the narcotics laws, and the
prohibition applies to minors and adults alike ... The government has
articulated no legitimate state interest in the suppression of this
particular speech other than the fact that it disapproves of the
message, an illegitimate and constitutionally impermissible reason."

It was a remarkable victory, even more so considering it took place in
the midst of a four-year period that could safely be called a rout of
the marijuana reform movement.

After initially rejecting three Change the Climate ads in 2000, the
MBTA assumed the rising national anti-marijuana wave would pound White
into oblivion. And it nearly did.

In August 2003, a federal judge ruled that the MBTA had not violated
Change the Climate's constitutional rights when it rejected three
pro-marijuana ads; instead, the judge argued that Change the Climate's
ads misled the public, encouraged illegality and targeted children.
But Change the Climate, again with the help of the ACLU ("Probably the
most important organization in America," White argues), appealed, and
in late November, a three-judge panel ruled in Change the Climate's
favor, striking down the T's stance as unconstitutional.

During that appeal, T officials argued that Change the Climate's ads
encouraged teens to use marijuana-arguments similar to the ones
employed by the Transportation Department during the Istook trial. In
one ad, a teenage girl with a baseball cap on backwards declares,
"Smoking pot is not cool, but we're not stupid, ya know. Marijuana is
NOT cocaine or heroin. Tell us the truth ...." In another, a woman
says, "I've got three great kids. I love them more than anything. I
don't want them to smoke pot. But I know jail is a lot more dangerous
than smoking pot."

In the December 24, 2003 issue of the Dig, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo
wrote a letter justifying the T's years-long battle with Change the
Climate by citing both concern for our children and the
not-yet-unconstitutional Istook amendment. "In defending its decision
to reject ads from Change the Climate, the T's legal fees have totaled
less than 1 percent of the amount Viacom pays the T for exclusive
rights to the system's advertising space," Pesaturo argued. "It's a
very small price to pay to protect children and others from harmful
and irresponsible messages that encourage, promote and glamorize
illegal drug activity. Two judges, including a federal one, have sided
with the T. Now, with Congress approving a measure that penalizes
transit agencies that accept pro-drug ads, the T doesn't have to worry
about losing millions in federal dollars."

Five months after Pesaturo's letter, the Istook amendment was declared
unconstitutional; six months after that, Pesaturo's other plank,
defense of our children, was similarly dismissed by a federal
appellate panel that ruled, "The ads do not advocate illegal drug use.
Rather, these two ads make a sophisticated argument that the
criminalization of marijuana imposes worse consequences on society
than would alternatives."

"I'm glad the judges have good taste," White says, "but I'm not happy
that this suit enabled the Commonwealth to squander $1 million, money
that could be better spent on the average T rider. That's a shitload
of money, especially in a losing cause. If the T were smart, they
would've just put the ads up. We would've gotten one day of press, and
then in 30 days, the ad would be gone. But they gave us the
opportunity to talk about the case for marijuana reform for four
years-and we're not done yet."

While White is careful to credit his peers for the work they do,
pointing to collaborations with the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug
Policy Alliance and MASS CANN, and saying, "This issue won't be won by
a single organization or message," it's clear that Change the Climate
has established its own hyper-successful niche in the marijuana reform
movement. That's why it's no accident that, in spite of vehement
federal opposition, Change the Climate has been able to advance its
reformist cause against the Washington Metro, the MBTA and the Bush
administration. Joe White's success stems from taking marijuana reform
to a place it hasn't been in a while-the average American.

"I can't think of many organizations that are talking directly to
citizens about marijuana issues, so we decided to be that voice,"
White explains. "We focus more on popular culture, more on the way
that people get their information-through advertising. We don't have
lobbyists; we don't do publications. One business executive told me,
'I love Change the Climate, because you're on the streets, talking to
the people.' We don't hide our ads in glossy magazines for policy
wonks; our ads are in front of average citizens who know that we're
speaking the truth. We want to communicate information and get people
thinking. And that hopefully motivates people to talk to their
political representatives.

"That's the whole notion behind Change the Climate-in order for there
to be legislative change, politicians need to feel comfortable voting
for change, instead of being chickenshit. If our advertising gets
people talking more, politicians will feel more comfortable voting, or
even advocating, for change. The climate around marijuana needs to
change. We need to de-demonize it. We're looking at the preconditions
for change, not at the change itself, because we need a broader
discussion before there can be any legislative change. Asking for
money to knock on more politicians' doors isn't going to initiate change."