October 4, 1976
2,000 rally 'round reefer reform
By Mitchell Torton
of the Cardinal staff
The air was thick with smoke at the Capitol Saturday afternoon as 2,000 people staged a rally in opposition to marijuana laws.
The festivities began at around 11 a.m. with out-of-towners and teenagers streaming in to gather at the library mall. There was an array of events that overlapped in time and space and that were sometimes indistinguishable.
""THE GAME,"" a street theater dramatization of University life (see story on p. ?) preceeded the rally on the mall and continued through the afternoon. State Street's various activities had one thing in common Saturday—a seemingly endless supply of free pot for all takers.
The marijuana was supplied by individual WSA Senators and the Midwestern Dealers Association who, according to Yippie organizer Ben Masel, made the donation to ""prove that communism works."" Masel claimed that over 30 pounds of pot was distributed.
At around 1:30 p.m., approximately 500 people marched up a hazy State Street to the theme of ""Nobody for President."" As they approached the Capitol, some 1,000 demonstrators, already assembled for the rally, cheered their arrival. The ""Nobody for President"" march was sponsored by Yippies and the Capitol rally was sponsored by the Wisconsin Student Association (WSA). Both events had city permits.
Speakers at the Capitol rally differed in their approach to the fight for the legalization of marijuana. Dana Beal, publisher of the Yipster Times, spoke first. Introduced to the crowd as the ""originator of the ‘smoke-in',"" Beal said, ""putting people in jail for smoking a harmless flower"" is symptomatic of a ""police state"" that ""consistently denies civil rights to individuals.""
Beal said there will be a ""Nobody for President"" rally in Washington D.C. on inauguration day demanding ""an official presidential apology to 30 million Americans who smoke pot.""
""We have a program,"" he said. "" We want to liberate all convicted marijuana users and have the federal government pay them full reparations. We want to get all the dope users out of jail and lock up the ones who put them there.""
The next speaker presented a physical and ideological contrast to the long-haired denim-clad Beal. Paul Kuhn of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) wore a suit and had neatly cropped hair.
Kuhn said that while ""all of us who support the legalization of marijuana have something special in common,"" he had differences with Beal's approach. ""I think the system can work,"" he said. ""We have to work through the legislative process.""
There was some partisan expression from the crowd over the speakers' political differences, but for the most part the fog smoothed the rough edges and the crowd reacted favorably to all proponents of legalization.
Ald. Carol Weunnenberg (Dist. 4) also addressed the rally, admonishing people not to carry more than an ounce on them around Madison.
A commonly heard complaint Saturday from those who didn't have a private stash to complement the home-grown Wisconsin variety being distributed was that ""the dope could have been better.""
