Report from Philadelphia
Okay, so the Philly MMM went fairly well, wish wecould of had more turnout considering the number of
pot-fiends in this town, but thats how it is around
here. There were 80 or so.
We walked down South St. again this year and turned
a lot of heads. We actually got to use the street and
the cops on bikes held back traffic for us. Plenty of
"Honks for Hemp"!
We got to Headhouse Square and had a rally there in
the middle of a very historic part of town. The NJ
Weedman rallied people up and so did Kieth Brilhart
and others from the crowd. Patrick Duff gave a
stellar spoken-word performance all about Ganga, the
Goddess!
A fine time was had in the Philly march, folks stood
by the street for more than an hour holding up signs
getting the cars to honk for us. And people just
chatted about the movement in general.
At one point two 9 year old African American boys
rode their bikes up to us and expressed disbelief that
we wanted to legalize weed. One of them was even
wearing a "D.A.R.E" t-shirt. (The "D.A.R.E." program
in America is an indoctrination program aimed at
keeping kids off drugs by getting them to sign
statements saying they will NEVER do drugs. It is
generally taught by police officers who themselves
have not signed the statements. Studies of the program
show it to be 80% ineffective long-term.) We tried our
best to explain the concept of pot re-legalization to
them, but at this point in their lives they truly do
not understand how they themselves are the target of
the War on Drugs and the industrial prison system in
America.
I pray that someday they will understand the truth
and that it won't be because they just got issued a
brand spanking clean pair of neon orange overalls at
the county or federal penitentiary.
Philly NORML set up a table in the vicinity and were
handing out info and signing up people for their
listserve.
Emily Petry MMM 2005
Philadelphia, PA
USA