Pot bust lights a fire under state candidate

Marijuana Party founder running for governor

PATRICIA C. McCARTER
The Huntsville Times pmccarter@htimes.com
02/23/06

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?"