NORML has a new chairman of the board, Mitch Earleywine, who replaces Norm Kent. He's the board's fourth chair in the last four years.
It's been Steve Dillon to Paul Kuhn to Kent to Earleywine since 2010. Earleywine was previously on the Advisory Board before moving over to the Board of Directors in 2013. He's a professor of psychology at SUNY Albany and the author of Understanding Marijuana.
Several board members were ousted at the February meeting. They are Bill Panzer, George Rohrbacher and Greta Gaines. Local chapter heads Kevin Oliver (Washington State) and Randy Quast (Minnesota) were added to the board, which now totals 19 members.
"All I really want to do is reach all the people who think that they don’t make a difference," Earlywine tells Ladybud about his goals for NORML. "Every time we get a new proposal on the ballot or a new law on the books, I want all of us to feel like we deserve some credit. If we sit around waiting for the Ph.Ds or the politicians or the millionaires to do everything, nothing will ever get done. But anybody can make a donation to NORML, write a letter to the local paper or drive a pal to the voting booth. And the more who do it, the better. The vast majority of us agree that nobody should go to jail for owning a plant. If we each do one small act, we’ll be done with prohibition soon. And we’ll all get to brag about it in the end."
