Anthony Johnson Fighting for Freedom in Oregon

The following is from the 420th Collectors Issue of High Times; Page 108

SHOWING SOME INITIATIVE

Oregon's Anthony Johnson authors a medical marijuana ballot initiative.

This month's Freedom Fighter, Anthony Johnson of Oregon, is the perfect role model for college students to emulate if they wish to turn a passion for cannabis and a dedication to civil liberties into meaningful change. Johnson got his start in political activism with the University of Missouri NORML chapter, and later helped found the university's SSDP chapter. Johnson also became president of his law school's ACLU chapter and championed the case of a man later spared from death row.

In 2003, Johnson (along with NORML board member Dan Viets) authored a municipal ballot measure to decriminalize and medicalize marijuana, which ended up losing but still garnered 43 percent of the vote. Undeterred, in 2004 Johnson split the effort into two separate measures. The decriminalization measure eventually passed with 61 percent.

Afterwards, Johnson moved to Oregon and practiced law for two years with NORML lawyer Leland Berger. In 2006, he was hired as political director of the cannabis-law reform organization Voter Power and co-authored the dispensary initiative that would become Measure 74, the Oregon Regulated Medical Marijuana Supply System. Even without the usual attention and big-money donations that accompany a major statewide initiative, Johnson rallied activists to collect the 86,000-plus signatures needed to qualify it for the Oregon ballot in 2010. - Russ Bellville