Pubdate: Thu, 23 Feb 2006
Source: Huntsville Times (AL)
Page: A1 - Front Page
Copyright: 2006 The Huntsville Times
Contact:  http://www.htimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/730
Author: Patricia McCarter, The Huntsville Times
Photo: and sidebar 
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3967/624/1600/huntsville2.jpg
Referenced: Loretta Nall's PUB LTE in the Birmingham News 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n2067/a02.html
Cited: U.S. Marijuana Party http://www.usmjparty.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Loretta+Nall

POT BUST LIGHTS FIRE UNDER STATE CANDIDATE

Marijuana Party Founder Running for Governor

Loretta Nall smokes pot, and she wants to be your governor.

While speaking to 14 people at Wednesday night's Huntsville Area 
Libertarian Supper Club, the 31-year-old Alexander City mother of two 
said smoking marijuana could be considered a sin but not a crime, 
"and punishing sin should not be the role of the state."

Nall, who is vying for the Libertarian Party's nomination, was 
arrested for pot possession in 2002, not long after she wrote The 
Birmingham News a letter to the editor. In it, she encouraged 
citizens who don't support Alabama's tough marijuana laws to get 
involved in changing them.

She said police soon got a warrant and raided her home. They said 
they were tipped by an anonymous phone call and an alleged statement 
made by her 5-year-old to a DARE officer at school.

"They claim to have found 0.87 of a gram of pot in an envelope, 
addressed to me, lying on top of my printer," she told the gathering 
at Shoney's at University Drive and Memorial Parkway.

She was convicted of the misdemeanor charge but won on appeal and is 
awaiting another trial.

"Thus began my counterattack and what has become a life-consuming, 
all-out frontal assault on the U.S. drug policy," she said.

Nall is a housewife who has also been a burger flipper, an office 
manager, an apartment manager, a car salesman and a writer for 
Cannabis Culture magazine. Those aren't the professions of mainstream 
gubernatorial candidates - which she thinks makes her perfect for the job.

Even though she is the founder of the U.S. Marijuana Party, she said 
she doesn't advocate marijuana use.

"I'm pro-sanity," she said. "I advocate an adult's choice to select 
marijuana or alcohol. Look, the government already takes 48 percent 
of our paychecks. Is it too much to ask to let us relax the way that we want?

"If I don't care if my neighbor smokes a joint - and I find that most 
people don't care - why should I pay $12,000 a year to keep someone 
in prison for doing that?" 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake