About Marijuana Resolve

Cannabem Liberemus – Peaceful Resolve Through Awareness and Choice

Marijuana Resolve, Inc. is a Vermont nonprofit organization

Mission:

Our mission is to sponsor a public dialogue to bring about a reasonable and peaceful resolution to the marijuana and hemp conflict that has deprived us of our freedom and harmed responsible adult Americans far too long and to help dissolve the intransigent causes of our state and national drug policy discord.

Board of Advisors:

Dan Riffle
Legislative Analyst
Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

Jim Maxwell
Former Deputy State’s Attorney, Windham County 1994-1999
Attorney at Law

Joe Bushey
Board of Directors
Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV)

Police Captain Joseph H. Brooks (Retired)
Speakers Bureau
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Richard Davis, R.N.
Ex Officio, Executive Director
VCCH Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health

Shela Linton
Advocate for Social Justice
Brattleboro, Vermont

Steve Silverman
Executive Director
Flex Your Rights, Inc.  

Board of Directors: 

Daryl Pillsbury, Secretary

Paul Bennett, Treasurer

Vidda Crochetta, President

History of Marijuana Resolve
(In the business to put ourselves out of business)

~ Vidda Crochetta

“Our current focus is decriminalization of marijuana. Decrim can achieve the fastest results, but it’s not the ideal situation. However, Decrim is a step that state legislators are more likely to enact. Decrim quickly removes people from harm’s way by treating adult marijuana users as noncriminal (this is contingent on the number of stops…you know, the old “1st Offence, 2nd Offence” type of law) Decrim is also an effective means to protect medical marijuana people. With the stroke of Governor Shumlin’s pen, adults with small amounts of marijuana in Vermont would face a fine but no jail time and criminal record.”

Shortly after the March 2010 Brattleboro town elections, a photo in the Brattleboro Reformer of Daryl Pillsbury holding a “Legalize Marijuana” placard caught my eye. A friend I called to ask about him said that he is someone I should talk to. I cold-called Daryl and we met for lunch the next week.

The upshot of our meeting is that we soon formed an unincorporated association that held public meetings. Since the current legislative session was ending, we agreed to target, as a single-issue, the failure of the House to schedule a hearing on the then pending bill to decriminalize marijuana. We also agreed that we didn’t want to be another self-perpetuating drug reform group and that we were in the business to put ourselves out of business.

I didn’t learn that Daryl had been elected as a Brattleboro Select Board member until two weeks later. In the meantime we applied for a local conference room in late April to call the first public meeting to discuss the future of decriminalizing marijuana in Vermont. Daryl was the guest speaker and I moderated a lengthy questions and comments period. That would be the template to use at subsequent meetings. While the guest speakers would be important, it was the audience participation that we most desired.

Daryl and I saw our job as getting Vermonters who support the repeal of marijuana and hemp laws to come out of the closet. We publicly announced that we do not hold marijuana user meetings, but meetings for the public and officials to discuss the social, political and economic effects of continuing to criminalize marijuana and hemp.

Our second “decrim” meeting at the River Garden on June 9, 2010 featured Senator Jeanette White, Jerry Levy and Daryl Pillsbury as speakers and included significant audience participation. It was at this meeting that Senator White spoke of Senator Peter Shumlin’s support for medical and decriminalized marijuana.

By this time, we knew we should have an organization name for ourselves and selected Marijuana Resolve for its simplicity and clarity of intent. 

Additionally, Paul Bennett joined Daryl and me to form the Board of Directors. Paul works for a foundation in New York City and is on the Board of Directors for Flex York Rights in Washington, DC.

Shortly after our June “decrim” meeting in Brattleboro, we extended an invitation to Senator Shumlin, who was campaigning for governor in the Democratic primary, to be the featured speaker at our August “decrim” event at the University of Vermont in Burlington. The senator’s office gave Marijuana Resolve a firm date and we arranged the meeting with the UVM Events Coordinator. After agreeing to speak at UVM, VPR reported on June 19th that the senator publicly supported decriminalizing marijuana as a part of his campaign platform.

The Times-Argus reported June 27, 2010, “Vidda Crochetta, the state coordinator for Marijuana Resolve, a new Brattleboro-based group that has emerged to push decriminalization, said it is in final talks to schedule Shumlin to speak at the UVM event. Crochetta, who has jumpstarted this effort with former state Rep. Daryl Pillsbury, a Brattleboro independent, said the UVM event likely will feature a question and answer session with Shumlin and interested members of the public who want to see marijuana possession treated as a civil infraction, not a criminal one. When Shumlin talked to the Vermont Press Bureau about this issue earlier this month, he made it clear that legalization of marijuana is not something he supports. But he said it is wasteful to spend taxpayer money throwing people in jail for possessing it.”Vermont’s second-fastest area of budget growth is prisons,” Shumlin said at the time.”

Previously, on June 10th I received an email from Dan Riffle, Legislative Analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), who wrote, “I was contacted by a Vermont Public Radio correspondent about your organization recently and found your posting on the iBrattleboro events calendar. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with my organization, but we’re the lead organization lobbying for the passage of an effective marijuana decriminalization law in Vermont.  It’s unfortunate that I’m just now hearing about your organization as I could have sent out an email alert to our subscribers in Vermont about the meeting tonight as well as the prior meeting. Nonetheless, I’m glad to hear about your efforts. I understand that former Rep. Pillsbury is one of the leaders of your effort and that he had responded positively to an NPAT survey question on decriminalizing possession many years back. I’m sure you know that Chairman Lippert in Judiciary is our chief obstacle, at least in the House, and would be happy to discuss with you any plans that you have for overcoming his opposition during the next legislative session. Please do have a representative from your organization reach out to me so that we can be on the same page regarding your efforts.”

The members of Marijuana Resolve understood the importance of a gubernatorial candidate supporting an issue that few major party candidates would dare to. We decided to formalize our unincorporated association by incorporating Marijuana Resolve as a Vermont nonprofit organization on July 12, 2010.

[As a jump-ahead aside, the current governor of Connecticut, Dannel  P. Malloy, also included marijuana decriminalization in his campaign and has recently reaffirmed his support.]

Our current focus is decriminalization of marijuana. Decrim can achieve the fastest results, but it’s not the ideal situation. However, Decrim is a step that state legislators are more likely to enact. Decrim quickly removes people from harm’s way by treating adult marijuana users as noncriminal (this is contingent on the number of stops…you know, the old “1st Offence, 2nd Offence” type of law) Decrim is also an effective means to protect medical marijuana people. With the stroke of Governor Shumlin’s pen, adults with small amounts of marijuana in Vermont would face a fine, but no jail time and criminal record.

The cannabis legalizer’s might begrudgingly accept a Decrim law, but with the same reservations that many other people have.

Personally, if the only thing Decrim does is to help remove people from harm’s way, it has my support.

In September-October 2010 we began taping the Marijuana Resolve Show being aired on Channel 8, BCTV in Brattleboro and Channel 17 CCTV in Burlington. The programming for the show includes Daryl and me as hosts, usually with a guest.

Our two most recent guests were Senator Jeannette White, D. Windham County, and, Eric Lineback, national treasurer for Vote Hemp, Inc.

TO BE CONTINUED…