Cliff 2

Talcon 00:00Was there anything else you thought about that you want to share?

Cliff 00:03Well, yeah, we can talk about NORML .

Talcon 00:05Yeah, I think that would be great. Like, tell us about what NORML is and how you got involved. Why did you get involved?

Cliff 00:12Why did I get involved? I got involved in the early 80's, about 83 or 84. The railroad decided they were going to start drug testin' people, and we had to get a union agreement, an amendment to our contract to allow them to do this. And I asked one of the bosses, so I said, "Why are you doing this?". He said, "Be cause we can't tell when you're high", and I said, "What the hell if you can't tell - we're laborers, you know? If you can't tell when we're high, what the hell we do our work? What the hell is the difference?" Yeah, "Well, we can tell people when people drink alcohol, so we need to know when you're smokin' pot too". I said, "Okay". And I went to NORML and got all the literature they had on urine testing, and did some research in it, and turned it , turned all this stuff over to paper, and turned it over to our the president of our laborer's union. And he had, we got an amendment to our contract. They could test us once a year, they had give us a 90 day notice, and there was no post accident testing. So, at that point I sortta became beholden to these folks. (Laughter) But after that I got, I was workin' with the guy, the head of the place at that time, which guy named Getman, and I got a hold of him, and I said, "You got in the literature that we could pass around", and so he sent me the last boxes of stuff that they had. And they, he'd written a couple of papers called 'Common Sense.' It was common sense about pot, and I was passin' those out and I ran into Don E. And we decided we're going to open a NORML chapter in Southeast Ohio, because at that point they were passin' a lot of new drug laws in the early 90s, late 80s. And I would go to Columbus whenever they had a hearings on it - on the piece of legislation - and put on my suit and tie, you know, my funeral clothes, and go up there and sit and listen to them and make comments and gave testimony on bills. And they ..... at that point I became friends with a lot of lawyers. At that point I became friends with a lot of lawyers. And when they patent, I got a phone call one day in our office. We built a building and had an office up there. I got a phone call at the office, and they said, "What do you.. what do you need to see? What would you like to see in this bill?". And I gave him the whole list of legalization, medical marijuana, cultivation, you know. So, when the bill was passed, it was unanimously passed, voted on unanimously by the House and the Senate, and signed by the governor to big fanfare that we're now be tough on drugs and shit like that. And ... we got a copy of the bill, and somebody had told us where it was at in there, and they'd written in the language to legalize pot in Ohio. So, for a six month period, we had legal pot in the state of Ohio. Not a lot of people knew about it, you know. It was sort of a spoof on the legislature, in reality, because once they found out about it. I talked to some people at High Times, and then once they found out about it, all of a sudden it became a big deal. And we got people comin', flying here from Washington. The drug czar came in. And we ended up, they voted it out. They got the language out of the law, but for six months, about 1992 we had legal pot in Ohio. (Laughter) But yeah.

Talcon 04:52Remind me, what NORML stands for.

Cliff 04:54, The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws.

Talcon 04:57National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws.

Cliff 05:01Right, right. It started back in the 70s. About 69 or 70. And they, a couple of lawyers, got together and started going from state to state and getting famous people talk about marijuana. I think it was an Art Link letter that was here in the state of Ohio, and when the De-Crim Bill came through, because a lot of kids were getting busted at colleges, and didn't look good on the record that they'd been arrested for marijuana. So they got them thru begging and pleading and lobbying, they got them to reduce to minor misdemeanor, so the kids wouldn't have a record. And that went on for years, now. For years, so. But in 92 they decided they were, they made in this piece of legislation, they made paraphernalia ..... the description of paraphernalia was so vague that you could actually have your pants confiscated and go to go to court because you had pot in your pocket (giggle). The only way, as far as their laws, their law was concerned, the only way could do anything is you'd have to walk down the street naked with it in your hands. You put it in your pocket, you're going to jail 'cause it was considered drug paraphernalia.

Talcon 06:37Or transport.

Cliff 06:38Yeah, transporting. Yeah, (chuckle). Yeah. yeah, yeah. But .... we started a chapter down here, Don E, myself, and Joe Rad, Joe Radwany, and he was sort of our writer, and he wrote a newsletter. And we had, we did bulk mailings, we'd mail out about 5000 newsletters every month, every three months, you know. And it was a lot of work. Back then, it was nothin' was automated. We were copying the thing on a printer, you know, the house with reams of fuckin' paper, and you know, but we got it out! You know, put it out. Put it out over the state. And at one, then they gave us - NORML, which approach to be a Guns N' Roses tour. "Use Your Illusion" was the name of the tour. And we got, we got inside the gate, you know, we had a NORML table set up inside the gate. And we printed 10,000 newspapers, six piece newspapers, six page newspapers and passed them out all over the country. But I had these guys, Joe and his wife, now, Beth, and another girl, they were travelin' all over the place and followin' the band, and we were supplying merchandise, so they could stay out on the road, and keeping vehicles, making sure they had clean vehicles, and shit like that, you know, and they had a room to stay. So, they took them about six months, you know. The whole tour lasted about six months, but ...

Talcon 08:35So Joe Rod was on " Use Your Illusion" tour as a representative of NORML for six months?

Cliff 08:41Yeah (Big Laughter) Yeah.

Talcon 08:55Did other musicians or other famous folks get behind NORML and ask you guys to like help out, and ...

Cliff 09:02Well,

Talcon 09:03use it as an opportunity?

Cliff 09:04see what happened, it would -that's a real expensive deal. You know, to put people in rented vans for six months. Put 'em up in motels. Feed them, you know, keep them on the road - that costs a lot of money, you know. And NORML didn't understand that, you know, they thought we could do it all, it almost for nothin', with volunteers. You still got to feed a volunteer.

Talcon 09:28Yeah, you're envisioning Grateful Dead tour,

Cliff 09:30Yeah. (Laughter) You know, so, you know. Yeah, they just had no idea how this works, and to do it right. And when all was said and done, I told them that in the end we would give them 10% of the net. And it was $1,000. So they wanted to see all the paperwork, and I sent them reams of shit, and they -they didn't like me. You know, "Oh, we should have made a lot of money". No, no. And they found that out a year later when they got a chance to go on with some rappers. And this guy was, Trent -the guy that went out this time - he was travelin' on the bus, you know, with the band, and he still didn't bring any money, any money in, either, you know. It was just a matter of this good publicity, you know, for the band and for you. And one point we went to Piedmont Park, some friend of ours down in Atlanta, he was a music producer, and he put together a show for NORML and with the Black Crows. We went to, we went down Piedmont Park, and I went down there with a whole van full of t-shirts - 1,000s of t-shirts - and we were set up a couple of different places in the group, and we sold a lot of t-shirts. I flew in the people from the national office, paid to fly them in, and High Times was there, everybody was there. I mean, that was the first time I'd been on stage with that many people looking back at you. Yeah, and I worked with other groups too, at that time. You ever hear of Fully Informed Juries?

Talcon 11:37Yes.

Cliff 11:38I worked with that group. And so I gave a speech on F.I.J.R. And what I would do with that group is I would print their material, and when somebody would call, "Hey, my friend's goin' to court in Da-Da-Da- Da County, for pot today, or tomorrow, or next week". I would go up the day the court was starting, and the case was being started, and I would stand outside the courthouse and pass out Fully Informed Juror's Rights literature to everybody that walked by.

Talcon 12:14Okay, so how long did that group ... does that group still exist?

Cliff 12:20Which one's that?

Talcon 12:20The Fully Informed Juries?

Cliff 12:24I.... they probably.. they were someplace out of Texas.

Talcon 12:27Okay, because I had the question, like, so I am from southeast Ohio, generationally from here.

Cliff 12:35Umm Hmmm

Talcon 12:36I don't remember not knowing about NORML. I mean, Don E got me registered to vote, so I could pass out petitions for you guys. That's how I got registered to vote. And I feel like, am I remembering correctly, that NORML would do workshops and, like, provide information on what to do if you were pulled over? I feel like I've learned rights from through NORML.

Cliff 13:04RIght. One of the things that we did, one of the things that we did do, it, I produced a lot of merchandise for NORML, you know. I had about four or five different packs and matches at the time, because - we had lighters too - but with a with the match book, you could put all kinds of stuff on it. You had four pages. You know, front, back, and a two inside cover, and so plus a one 800 number, and the other numbers for NORML , you know. Because the guy that was in at that point, decided that one 900 numbers were a way to raise money. Ehhhh. Okay, I don't know that actually worked, but we passed out that number all over the country. I mean, I remember going up to Madison one year, we had a table set up there, and there was a politician in Wisconsin that was trying to make the pot laws tougher. And we were given a telephone number, "Please, everybody here, please call this number on your way home. Stop some place at a pay phone, and call". We jammed up that guy's lines. He couldn't get a phone out, he couldn't use his phone for like two days. And stuff like that. There was a blind kid there at one of there at one of these rallies up north, and he took, and he walked, walked up the horse - there were cops on horses there for crowd control - and he walked up to the horse that this cop was sitting on and stuck his hands up the horse's ass, And the horse reared up, with the cop on it! And he, he held, he was still sittin' in the saddle when it come back down! But then it was like, "Oh, we're gonna arrest this kid!". And they started, the cops started rushin' for the kid, you know. And a guy named Ed Rosenthal was on at the podium, Ed had worked this whole thing up, it was just a stunt you know, and "You gotta save the blind kids! Let's save the blind kid!", and the crowd got him out. They surrounded him and got him out of there with his stick and his black glasses and the whole nine yards. Yeah, we saved the blind kid and got him someplace to wash his hands.

Talcon 15:45Does NORML still exist? Is it still operating now in 2025?

Cliff 15:50Yes. Yeah.