I’m posting this on Douglas’ behalf since he and computers just don’t get along. The words are his.-Philip
A few words from Douglas Hiatt, I-1068 Chairman:
First, I want to thank everyone who is working so hard to make our shared dream of justice for cannabis users and hemp growers a reality. You are awesome and I respect everyone’s efforts and want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I am gathering signatures too, although I am sure I am lagging behind your efforts!
I want to take a moment to explain what is happening with the campaign. We started to get a hard count on signatures last week to update our earlier count. Right in the middle of that, some donors offered to have our signatures counted and validated. This is fantastic for us as it allows us the most accurate count possible. It also costs a lot of money, like $10,000 or so. I made sure that the company are pros and people we want to work with and they are. I sent our first batch of sigs to California and felt like I was sending children off. I know many people had issues with this, and I understand, but there is no other way to do this. We need the count and the validation because we are closing in on the July 2 deadline and we need to know what we have to do.
As soon as we get the rest of the signatures in and counted we will let everyone know where we are for sure.
I have been trying since the beginning of the campaign to raise money for this effort. Vivian McPeak and Ezra Eickmeyer and I spent two weeks in California begging for resources from lots of folks in the movement, and anyone else we could think of, and came up with nothing. We have asked all of the major drug policy reform groups for help and, with the exception of NORML, we have gotten very little except emails and newsletter mentions. We got a lot of great endorsements, which we are grateful for, but it is tough to pay the printer with endorsements.
We as a campaign have now done more with less than any other organization in initiative history, and this is your achievement. We continue to try to raise money for the campaign and are hoping for help as we have been contacted recently by a couple of coalitions that may help us. I had hoped to be able to augment our volunteeer effort with some help from paid signature gatherers and to be able to offer anyone currently with the campaign the option of working with the paid group. This has not happened and we cannot count on it happening. We must continue on with or without hope of help.
I believe that the campaign currently has 100,000 signatures or so. We need to get everything coming in on a continuous basis now so we can get accurate running counts so we really know what we have to do. Right now, I think we have about 220,000 signatures to go to hit our overall goal of 320,000. If we get help, great, then maybe we get to 420,000!
We have to go go go with a maximum effort and push or all we have already done will be wasted. We must get this on the ballot! There is no other way. If you believe in polls I will tell you something else: those same donors ran one, and it shows us winning if we can get I-1068 on the ballot! Let’s do it. Let’s go crazy and show em’ how its done!
With love and respect,
Douglas Hiatt
{ 15 comments }
Oh Doug!! I hear ya from vancouver washington!!!! I will have to admit that its most people are scared to put their name down due to the threat of the Fed’s heisting the lists!!! I saw a petition station at Clark College the other day.. I was going to stop in and day HEY from a medical card holder but the table was in front of the Financial Aid office, they should have put it in front of the cafetiera.. ha ha munchies… Anywhoo’s I am soo glad to have researched this of the NORMAL site and have some issues to discuss with you from vancouver washington .. I will be in touch soon.. GO WASHINGTON I-1068 !!!!!!!!!!
This is GOOD NEWS!
JOEL CONNELLY in the SEATTLEPI.COM reported Monday,
“A new statewide Washington Poll, released Monday, shows a vulnerable Sen. Patty Murray, majority support for an income tax on the wealthy and surprising backing for removing criminal and civil penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana.”
“Another surprising result was high support for legalizing possession of small
amounts of marijuana. Washington voters have already given thumbs-up to medical marijuana.”
“Fifty-two percent approve removing both civil and criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of cannabis. Sponsors are collecting signatures to put such a measure on the November ballot.”
If this is so then there are over 3 million people out there who support our cause.
Oh members, don’t get weary! We can do it!
For donations, should Billing Address 2 just be a repeat of the first Billing Address for those of us who don’t get home mail delivery and only use a P.O. Box for all billing? Unless campaign financing law requires a residence address be furnished it’s pointless for people like me to give another address and that field could be best used to guard against typographical errors in the first Billing Address field.
I think the recent Mason County Wal-Mart signature gathering went well. About 6-8 of the 11 petitions I signed off on that should be turned in today are from there and I’m pretty sure one or two other people got even more signatures there. I’ll be checking with the Safeway in downtown Shelton to see if we can reserve some time there and trying to reserve more Wal-Mart time around early-mid June before other organizations reserve it all. These are local for me and our county coordinator has no ego trips that interfere with delegating tasks in a coordinated way to make best use of our resources.
I strongly recommend reserving time at high traffic places like Wal-Mart. This can usually be done by individuals as well as groups so don’t hesitate to petition somewhere convenient for you even if others can’t help out for whatever reasons. IMO the more volunteers spread themselves around to different areas the more opportunity people will have to sign the initiative and the more volunteers do both individual petitioning and group petitioning the better. The more time petitioners spend petitioning and the more places we petition the more signatures we should get and the more new volunteers we should recruit.
Also IMO, it’s worth giving petitons to people who can’t or don’t want to become volunteers but are willing and able to get at least 5 signatures from friends or neighbors and mail the petition in to Sensible Washington. This opinion is partly because I meet people from farther out in the boondocks where it is likely they’ll be signing up people who may never see a petitioner. I do exercise judgement about this because I don’t want to waste petitions, the money it costs to print them or be short of petitions when I need them.
By no means should we begin to be discouraged by the numbers, but lets face it: There is a LOT of work to be done before the second of July. I agree with the other posters in that this will only be achieved if people really commit to gaining signatures on a grassroots level. If everyone who posted on this forum were to get just one form filled, the numbers would start to add up immensely.
I am currently a University student, and I am encouraging many of my classmates to take a petition and get it filled out. I think that we can’t lose hope because many individuals out there are likely holding on to partially filled forms that haven’t been counted yet. So if we go at it strongly for the last month there is no reason we can’t get this done. However, it will only happen if EVERYONE takes initiative.
Glad to read the news here.
Washington state will have two new residents come the end of June who support ending Prohibition and are active.
Just wish I could be at the June 26 event in Tacoma, will definitely be at the Seattle Hempfest in August.
We can qualify I-1068 for the ballot. It has a mainstream popularity I didn’t expect before I started gathering signatures. As far as I know, most other initiatives have only started to gather signatures in the last week or so. I presume this is because of the weather which should be getting much more favorable for us from now through the end of the signature gathering period.
We’re entering the prime period for gathering signatures and need to be increasing our efforts as a group and as individuals to gather signatures. They all add up. Don’t just plan on gathering a lot of signatures at once at big events, be prepared to take advantange of every opportunity you have to get signatures as you go about your daily business, try to get permission to gather signatures outside a local business on some day(s) you know you will able to fit into your schedule. If other people can help you on those days that’s great but even if they can’t help, you are getting signatures. If you’re going to a public park for pleasure, shopping or whatever have petitions with you. Maybe make something you can wear with a message like “Sign Initiative 1068″ to alert people around you. A hat or a button would be removable and suitable for use only when you want. A message on a shirt would be more visible though not as versatile.
As far as I know there has only been one statewide legalization iniative to get on the ballot (CMI in 1972) and I don’t think it had any paid signature gatherers. I know I wasn’t paid. CMI had some financial backing from Amorphia and another group or two but not huge money. Grassroots support got it on the ballot.
As usual, I’m getting too wordy. My essential message is that we really can qualify I-1068 if we actively work at it and give enough people the opportunity to sign the initiative. The support is out there and it is not confined to certain age groups, marijuana users or other groups of people you might think. I’ve worked to qualify initiatives for the ballot over a long period of time and my gut feeling is that I-1068 will qualify if people use their time and creativity to make the initiative available for enough people to sign.
In rural counties outside post offices on public sidewalks can be very productive and is always available. If you get your mail at a P.O. Box try to do some petitioning every time you pick up your mail and try to do it at busy times. Weekday afternoons until around 5:30-6:30 seem to be good where I live. A lot of people hit the post office after work so it has heavy traffic even after it closes. Check with someone in the Post Office to find out where it is not OK to petition, they know the federal law and where federal boundaries are. What I thought would be federal property outside my PO turned out to be city sidewalk. Park where you won’t be taking up customer space and parking time limits are much longer.
Try to create signature events. When I was petitioning for the CHI in 1991 in my (CA) county a local band put on two free concerts in parks which we put out a lot of advance notice for and we got lots of signatures, plus lots of voter registrations. Washington has bands with social consciences too. Contact some and see if they are willing and able. This idea isn’t limited to bands and concerts, use your imagination to create signature gathering events.
Check with big stores and reserve times to gather signatures outside them. Wal-Mart is good about this. Other big stores and shopping centers have varying policies. Malls may not even need any reservations or permission though malls might want to impose some time, place and conduct conditions if they notice you. If a security guard comes up and tells you to leave, I’d suggest politely asking why and asking if you can talk with the manager before you leave but don’t be confrontational. The security guards don’t make policy decisions but they can make trouble. You might even prefer to just go to your car to bypass the security guard, cool off if you’re angry, then go inside to the manager’s office and politely see what the policy is, whether you need to make reservations and if you get jacked around or flatly told initiiative petitioning isn’t allowed ask the manager for a business card so you can have your attorney check whether the policy seems legal and knows how to contact the manager. This has worked wonders for me in the past when malls have been noncompliant with the law. If a manager knows I have an attorney they treat me very differently than if I don’t have one or they aren’t aware I have an attorney. Stress that this is an initiative petition you are gathering signatures for to qualify for the November ballot. Petitioning for initiatives has a more favorable legal status than many other activities in Washington.
Letters to the editor are ways to raise public awareness. Try to be fairly brief, raise important points with minimal potential for alienating people who are undecided about whether to sign the petition and try to write very clearly so the letter won’t get distorted if edited before publication. Writng such letters is something I’ve been neglecting to do but will get going on. The general public needs to be aware of the initiative and people need increased inclination to put it on the ballot even if they don’t know whether they will vote for it if/when it qualifies.
Say what?
“Our estimate is that 2009 signatures are sitting in WestNET’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as ‘evidence’ during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma,” said Sensible Washington campaign director and initiative co-author Philip Dawdy.
Thanks for the update, thought the news is hard to read. Thanks also for the hard work of the directors and all those that have been out there gathering signatures.
While a signature is a signature, the idea of paying people to gather them on this issue doesn’t sit right with me. I’m convinced that this has to be a “grassroots” movement and signature gatherers should be passionate, committed, informed advocates. I’m not sure you can pay for that.
Paying me would not get me out collecting more signatures. My frustration has been finding appropriate venues. If there were a place like the Puyallup Farmer’s Market that I could be at 4 days a week gathering signatures I would be there.
I continue to be amazed at the number of people who have yet to hear of the Initiative. I’m disappointed that we are not seeing more in the newspapers about the initiative and the lack of political action (e.g. marches and demonstrations) in the South Sound. I keep waiting for support from some “famous names” (e.g., a Willie Nelson) and signature events (e.g., concerts) where 1,000+ signatures can be gathered.
I say these things not as criticism but to express my hopes for the final weeks. I’m not ready to give up or move to California.
But even if the initiative does not get on the ballot or gets on and fails, our work will not have been a waste. The point about the significant unpopularity of marijuana prohibition will have been made. Awareness heightened. The debate will continue.
No steps toward the top of the mountain are wasted. Repeal of marijuana prohibition is eventually inevitable. If not this year, we’ll just keep on climbing, until we reach the highest ground.
fuckin a, this is BS, I was hoping for a better number than 100,000 by this time, so that leaves us a little less than a month and a half to get 220,000 more?!?!? It will never happen now…….. I really had high hopes for this, looks like I’m moving back to cali, fuck WA….
Add the Tacoma Hempfest to the event calendar and get the word out!! June 26 in Wright Park, it’s the last big push for signatures before the July 2 deadline.. we will be sending a lot of motivated, passionate volunteers to help the crowds at Taste of Tacoma learn about i-1068 all weekend, we will have a shuttle bus from the Tacoma Hempfest to the Taste of Tacoma and all kinds of entertainers and info on medical and industrial cannabis.
partial list of speakers/vendors/sponsors so far:
Tacoma Hemp Company and Eat/Fly
Grambulance Delivery Service
The Green Room
Cobra Medical Group
Sensible Washington
Los Marijuanos!
THCO
LEAP
NORML
WA NORML
Pierce County NORML
MPP
Seattle Hempfest
Vote Hemp
Mr. Kiefbox
Ashley’s Smokin’ Art
CMNMD.com
SamsaraPilates.com
Paradise Lotions
Dr. Bronners Magic Soaps
Skinny Giraffe
and we need ALL of you there too.. help break the “stoner” stereotype down, and show the state we CAN get things done, we DO care about each other, and we want to HELP!!!
thanks!
justin
totally legit. i keep one on me at all times folded up for the same purpose.
Is it legit if I just carry a petition folded in my pocket around to get my lazy friends to sign?
Thank you for the Post. It is Encouraging =) I have a shop in Yakima, Washington.I’m doing my best to whip out the petitions as best I can! Good luck with all . We’ll keep our head in the game here in Yakima. Thanks