Marijuana Policy Project

Tickets Available for the Marijuana Policy Project’s 10th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles, May 9th

Marijuana Policy Reform Activist of the Year Award Winner Announced

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—Tickets go on sale today for the Marijuana Policy Project's 10th Anniversary Fundraising Gala in Los Angeles on May 9, 2005, at the Sheraton Delfina Hotel in Santa Monica. Tickets are available at www.mpp.org/galas or by calling Blue Room Events at 310-491-1401. The event will celebrate MPP’s victories over the past 10 years and commemorate the progress of the entire marijuana policy reform movement. Talk show host Montel Williams is serving as the honorary chair of the event. Williams, who uses medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, has advocated energetically for protection of patients on his television show, in personal visits to Capitol Hill and the New York state capitol, and in a February 14 column in the Chicago Tribune.

Honored at the gala will be Angel Raich, the noted medical marijuana activist. Raich, who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, a seizure disorder, nausea, and several chronic pain disorders, was partly paralyzed until she started using marijuana. As a result of Angel and co-filer Diane Monson’s lawsuit against the federal government, both are now legally allowed to use, possess, and grow their own marijuana under California state law and federal law. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Angel and Diane this spring, the federal government would be blocked from arresting medical marijuana patients whose activities are legal under state laws anywhere in the country. Raich and Monson have been voted the Marijuana Policy Reform Activists of the Year (2004) by MPP’s membership.

Actor Tommy Chong will receive the Courage Under Fire Award at the gala. Chong recently spent nine months in federal prison for paraphernalia trafficking, the only one of 55 people arrested in a nationwide bust to serve time.  This Justice Department endeavor, Operation Pipe Dream, used $12 million of taxpayer money in the immediate aftermath of the events of 9/11, not to track terrorists, but to chase Internet sales of water pipes. Chong, who took the fall for his son’s company, was used as an example by John Ashcroft’s Justice Department.  All others targeted by Operation Pipe Dream received probation or house arrest. An upcoming documentary by filmmaker Josh Gilbert explores the ramifications of Chong’s ordeal, and a clip will be shown at MPP’s event.

Another gala will take place in Washington, D.C. on May 5, at which U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) will be honored.

With more than 17,000 members and 150,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana—both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is imprisonment. For more information, please visit MarijuanaPolicy.org.

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