Rally

The Rally starts at "High Noon" in Lafayette Park (North side of the White House). From 12:00-3:00pm Activist speakers from the front lines of the "War On Drugs" comment on the progress and direction of ending marijuana prohibition and other aspects of drug policy reform.

Lafayette Park has been chosen as the location for our Rally because of its use by the woman's suffrage movement in the late 1800's when women where fighting for the right to vote. During that time the park across the street from the White House became known as "People's Park". The place where ordinary people could go to voice their grievances against government policy when no elected representative would represent them on Capitol Hill or in the White House.

At the peak of the Suffrage movement, when a Bill was passed by congress and sent to the President of the United States to be signed into law. Couriers would bring a copy of the legislation to women waiting by a smoldering cauldron hanging in the park. They would then burn the copy of the bill and declare their contempt for not being included in the representative system of democracy and demand their right to vote.

The schedule is available here, more details will be added as the event draws closer.

Guest speakers from previous years:

Anise Jenkins, Stand up for Democracy
Wayne Turner, Initiative 59
William Perry, Declaration of Independence
Julian Heicklen, Professor, Penn State University
Keith Halderman, Hemp Historian
Chris Conrad, Hemp Author
Mikki Norris, Author of "Shattered Lives"
Jeff Jones, Oakland CBC
Elvy Musikka, Medical Marijuana Patient
Gary Reams, Quaker Prison Project
David Peel, Hempilation Activist
Robbie Robinson, N.Y. State C.A.N.
Dana Beal, Cures Not Wars
Ed Rosenthal, Author
Ed Tant, Columnist
Lennice Werth, VA. Against Drug Violence
Eric Sterling, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
Paul Cornwell, C.A.M.P.
Jean Marlow, N.C. Medical Marijuana
Joe Hart, Florida Medical Marijuana
Rob Lawrence, Prohibition Times
Janice Pressler, Mid Atlantic Activist Coal.
Ron Crickenberg, Libertarian Party
Frank Arndt, Free Speech
John P. Pylka, Marijuana Activist
Diane Fornbacher, Freedom Fighter
Faith, DC Mayoral Candidate
Michael McClarren, Hemp Paper Maker