Opinion: Surfers vs. stoners: Is nothing sacred?
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The O.C. Register’s Cindy Carcamo reports on a protest the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is planning at the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach later this month. Because surfers never smoke pot, the organization was denied a booth at the event.
OK, that’s not exactly the reason, and an official claims the problem was a hinky application:
James Leitz, executive producer of the U.S. Open of Surfing, said the group was denied a booth this year because he said they had misrepresented themselves last year, applying under the guise of another organization. Leitz said last year an Anaheim man handed in an application under the vendor name of ‘Steve’s List.’ The application didn’t mention marijuana, according to Leitz and a copy of the document given to the Register. ‘Then all of a sudden all of this marijuana stuff goes up in the booth,’ Leitz said. ‘That alone right there is not how we play. I don’t care who you are… That’s a check mark against you.’ Steve Lawrence who put in the application for Steve’s List said that he spoke to an organizer last year and let her know that his Web site www.steveslist.info was dedicated to the cannibas patient community. The Web site is now defunct.
Maybe because I can imagine a guy just being too stoned to fill out the application properly, I was ready to believe Leitz’ explanation, but then he says this:
‘I myself personally have to worry about the 8-year-old kid... I have to worry about the message we’re sending,’ Leitz said. ‘I have to worry about the family-friendly atmosphere. I think OC NORML’s message … or what have you is vague. We just don’t think it’s appropriate for the family-friendly nature of the event.’
Vote in the Register’s freedomblogging poll on legalization of ‘M,’ or ‘binky,’ as marijuana eaters themselves call it.