One of the coolest things that has ever happened to Oregon was a recent billboard put up in Portland by the Marijuana Policy Project. The billboard was put up right in time for alcohol awareness month, and the annual wine festival in Portland. The billboard was simple, with a message that essentially says to regulate marijuana like alcohol. Billboards are a traditional form of advertising that I think reaches more people than most think, and the right people. My grandma doesn’t follow this blog, or read anything in the newspapers that has to deal with cannabis reform, but she always looks around when she is driving. When Oregonians for Law Reform put up pro-Measure 80 billboards, she saw them, and so did her friends, and you could tell it resonated with her more than any other form of marijuana information.
I think our opponents knew this, because the billboard was vandalized just hours after Roy Kaufmann from the Marijuana Policy Project held a press conference below it. When I first saw something about it on Twitter, I assumed that the sign was just not properly installed. However, later tweets confirmed that the cords had been cut, and that it was definitely vandalism. This led to Twitter allegations that Kevin Sabet was indeed Spiderman…These allegations of course came from me. But seriously, there has to only be a handful of people that would have had the access to the roof of the building in order to cut the cords. Below is a picture of the vandalized sign:
The person that did this likely couldn’t handle the truth, and felt the need to try to quell the message. However, that strategy back fired when national news started to pick up the story. Marijuana is safer than alcohol. Period. Marijuana should be legal. Period. Anyone who argues with those points needs to get their head out of the ground, quit claiming that the earth is flat, and who knows what else. The winds of change are upon us, get with the program! I was told by Roy Kaufmann via Twitter that the billboard should hopefully be back up by this weekend. Hopefully I can get my grandma to drive past it!
