In August 2017, drug reform activist Amanda Reiman was pissed off when she found out she would be sharing a stage with Roger Stone at the Cannabis World Congress in Los Angeles scheduled for September. Reiman was already booked as a speaker when Stone was added to the program.
Why was Stone being booked for a cannabis conference? Ever since his friend Donald Trump was elected president, Stone told anyone who cared to listen that he could persuade Trump to legalize marijuana. Why did that matter to Stone, who'd been performing dirty Republican tricks dating back to the Nixon White House? He happened to be pothead.
Stone had slipped past the activists' wrath in June 2017 at the CWCBE in New York. Not much was made of his appearance at Javits Center. But when they booked him again in L.A., all hell broke loose.
"Despite his political hitman rep, Stone has at least one redeeming value: He loves cannabis."
"I immediately felt nauseous," Reiman wrote in Freedom Leaf that November in an article titled, "How Cannabis Activists Derailed Roger Stone." "I was not okay with holding up someone like Roger Stone as a hero and leader of our movement. I contacted the conference to confirm that this was indeed true, and then dropped out. It was an easy decision. The way Stone has spoken of women and people of color in public is not acceptable. In my mind, expecting my colleagues of color to listen to what he has to say was like forcing the oppressed to honor the oppressor. The boycott was on."
Reiman reached out to other speakers and reform organizations. "Finally, with pressure from sponsors, speakers, cannabis organizations and others building," Reiman explained, "the Expo decided to disinvite Roger Stone. I agreed to speak at the event after all. Chalk one up for us activists."
Stone fired back at this website: "To be clear, I have been speaking out for drug law reform for over 30 years. I spoke along with the Reverend Al Sharpton and Russell Simmons and Drug Reform Activist Randy Credico at a 'Countdown to Justice Rally' against New York’s racist, draconian Rockefeller drug laws in 2003. I spoke out again against these racist laws which destroy families and lives at the Yippie Museum in Greenwich Village in 2008. These are hardly the acts of a racist."
Credico connected Stone with Julian Assange who orchestrated the WikiLeaks dump of Democratic National Committee emails that helped sink Hilary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Now Stone has been convicted of witness tampering and lying to Congress on seven charges. He could be sentenced to 20 years in jail.
But back to Stone the stoner. "Despite his political hitman rep, Stone has at least one redeeming value: He loves cannabis," Paul Derienzo wrote in Freedom Leaf in 2018. "Stone and Credico did a comedy routine together at the Yippie Museum at 9 Bleecker St. during Occupy Wall Street in 2011. A few days later, the phone rang at the Museum; it was Stone inquiring about purchasing some marijuana."
Stone even wrote an aricle for High Times: "My Fight to Protect State Legalizee Marijuana."
Credico, a standup comedian and public-radio host, and Stone shared a hatred of Clinton, but fell out when Stone asked Credico to "take the Fifth" and "stonewall" Congress and “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli'" - a reference to The Godfather character who clams up during a Congressional hearing about the Corleone crime family - and lie during Stone's trial. Their friendship is comical. Stone also threatened Credico's pixie dog.
So the story of Roger Stone will alway have a cannabis footnote. Maybe he'll be able to find a dealer in jail.
