The Libertarian Party (LP) of Alabama held its annual convention this past weekend in Dothan. The convention hosted advocates for various causes across the state, including tax reform, cannabis legalization, liberty education, and many others.
The three-day event hosted several guests, including the 2020 presidential candidate for the LP, Jo Jorgensen, and her Vice-Presidential running mate, Spike Cohen.
The Libertarian Party of Alabama (LPA) also collected signatures to petition for ballot access for Libertarian Candidates. Currently, in Alabama, LPA candidates must be written-in, whereas Democrat and Republican candidates are printed on the ballots.
Under Alabama law, the number of valid signatures on the petition must equal or exceed at least 3% of the qualified electors who cast ballots for the Office of Governor in the last general election in the political jurisdiction for which the independent candidate is seeking ballot access. Currently, the LPA has 51,288 signatures and is attempting to amass more before the May 24 deadline.
A significant focus of the convention was the decriminalization and legalization of cannabis and cannabis-related products. The LPA convention hosted the Legalize Freedom panel, in which marijuana advocates across the state discussed the moral, legislative, and business strategies for increasing access to cannabis in Alabama.
The six-person panel included Cohen, as well as Danny Wilson, LP Candidate for Alabama House of Representatives District 57; Antoine Moridican, the Alabama State Director for Minorities 4 Medical Marijuana; Jennifer Boozer, founder of Cannabama, a CBD superstore; and Marty Schelper, founder of the Alabama Cannabis Coalition.
The panel was hosted by Montgomery radio personality, Joey Clark.
The panel members each spent time delivering their bona fides in the world of cannabis advocacy and opining the struggles with stigma in striving to legalize marijuana.
“I have, as far back as I can remember as a libertarian, supported, not just the war on cannabis, but the war on all drugs,” Cohen said. “When the government criminalizes you making a choice of what to put in your body, they do not take away your need or desire to put that thing in your body. They don’t take away the demand for the thing they’ve made illegal; all they’ve done is make it illegal to provide it. Which means that now, that’s only being provided by people who don’t care what the law is. It creates a black market that is filled by drug cartels and criminal gangs. Those cartels and gangs, instead of competing with each other legally like you see with alcohol, instead they often end up becoming violent and doing turf warfare, we saw that during alcohol prohibition.
“Cartels like the war on drugs, it’s what has made them billionaires."
“Every 53 seconds, someone in the United States is arrested for a cannabis charge, every 53 seconds,” Schelper said.
Boozer and the other panelists rejected the premise that cannabis and cannabis products are gateway drugs, with all concurring that the term is made up and has no scientific evidence.
“I am a recovering addict; I am seven years clean from my pain pill addiction,” Boozer said. “Cannabis, for me, I discovered, was a gateway to being drug-free. I personally work with a sober living facility in Mobile for women; I donate all the [CBD] oil. These women are having minimal withdrawal symptoms and cravings. I’m talking IV heroin, meth, alcohol, antipsychotics, and any combination of these things.”
Schelper is an advocate for complete decriminalization of cannabis, as well as allowing for consumers to grow their own cannabis should they so desire. The ability for people to grow their own cannabis is a strategy that Schelper believes will prevent government monopolization of the product.
Education and activism were pivotal strategies offered by the panelists for destigmatizing the use of cannabis.
Cohen also encouraged non-compliance with existing laws restricting cannabis, stating that the country was founded on the principles of treason and refusal to obey tyrannical laws.
“That’s what this country was founded on: saying, ‘no, I don’t care if that’s the law, we’re not going to do it,’” Cohen said. "The slaves who fled their supposed owners, and the people in the underground who helped them get freedom from slavery, all of that was completely illegal at the federal level under the Fugitive Slave Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court. That was deemed illegal. They were criminals for doing that. They were breaking the law.”
Ignoring marijuana laws was a sentiment that was relatively widespread during the convention leading into the evening’s entertainment, with many attendees openly consuming cannabis.
Apart from cannabis legalization, the convention was filled with many attendees, executive committee members, and LPA candidates discussing a broad range of political issues, such as criminal justice reform, predatory federal banking monopolies, taxation, ending the two-party system, and much more.
Jonathan Realz, the LPA nomination for U.S House District 2, told 1819 News that he believes most Republican voters in the state are libertarians without knowing it. Realz stated that he is running on a unifying platform that seeks to draw attention to government behavior that unilaterally violates Americans' rights.
“The biggest issue I think is something that can bring everyone together: anybody who works for the government should be held accountable if they violate anyone’s rights at any point,” Realz said. "It doesn’t matter what job or what position you hold. You should be held to a very high standard, and there should be consequences for your actions. Qualified immunity: it gets talked about a lot from the left, but they’re talking about it all wrong. They’re not talking about everyone. They’re not talking about holding city officials accountable. They just want police reform. We can have police reform, but we’ve got to reform the entire government because there is a lot of people in government that violate your rights.”
to connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
