Freedom Fighter of the Month
June 2010 – Garret Overstreet
Tulsa NORML
By Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator
I get emails every week from eager young people asking the same question: “What can I do to help NORML legalize marijuana?”
My response is the same each time: “What can you do? If you have a talent, we can find a way to make it benefit our mission.”
Garret Overstreet of Tulsa is one of these budding young activists. But trapped in the cannabis purgatory of Oklahoma, just what could he do to help NORML help himself and other responsible adult cannabis consumers?
Overstreet reached out through the internet to nearby Missouri, where he made contact with another Freedom Fighter, Kelly Maddy of Joplin NORML. Garret volunteered his graphic design and webmaster skills to help boost that chapter’s online presence.
Soon locals in Tulsa began to clamor for their own local NORML Chapter. Garret filed the paperwork and got Tulsa NORML off the ground and currently sits as the Chapter President. They still hold regular meetings in Tulsa, pushing the NORML agenda as far as they can in a state that once sentenced a man to 93 years for growing a few medical marijuana plants (search NORML.org for “Will Foster”).
Eventually marijuana law reform became a daily lifestyle and jumpstarted a career in marketing and advertising for not only non-profit organizations, but medical marijuana collectives, magazines, and so forth. Garret continues to offer general guidance, websites, logo and apparel design, print materials, and a plethora of things to up and coming groups dedicated to changing our current marijuana laws and maintaining a professional image. From Tulsa, Oklahoma, Garret Overstreet has managed to reach out and donate his web talents to reform from coast (Beverly Hills NORML) to coast (Virginia NORML) and everywhere in-between (Phoenix NORML, Missouri NORML, National NORML, National Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and very many more).
