The Rochester Cannabis Coalition, or RCC, is made up of citizens who advocate an end to the erroneous US War on Drugs. RCC is a chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (![[WWW]](http://rocwiki.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
NORML).
History
Rochester Cannabis Coalition originated in 1997 as an unofficial, campus-based, student organization at Rochester Institute of Technology. In 1998, the organization was approved by the student government to become an official campus-based organization, eligible for institute funding pending approval by RIT. However, RIT President Al Simone pulled the application for 'administrative review', and held up the process for over two months. Finally, he announced his decision that he was overriding the student government and denying the club's application.
This set off a storm of protest from the members of the RCC. A petition drive was organized, and over 1,000 signatures were collected calling for Simone to overturn his decision. It is ironic that in denying the RCC's application, Simone allowed the issue to fester. Local news covered the event, stories were written in the Rochester newspaper, and the campus press covered it every week.
RCC Founder and President Shea Gunther appealed to the only power able to grant an audience with the Board of Directors, then-RIT President Al Simone. He was, of course, turned down.
Three weeks before the end of the 1998 school year, RCC President and Founder Shea Gunther was on campus when he saw Simone's Special Assistant, Barry Culhane and decided to follow him. He ended up in the CIAS Building, an academic building that also happened to house the meeting of the Board of Directors. Culhane saw Gunther in the building and called security.
Security found Shea near the entrance of the building and asked that he step outside. He complied and was soon talking to five Campus Safety officers who told him he was not allowed in the building. Shea argued that as an RIT student, he was most certainly allowed in the building. He entered the building under the warning that he not go on the second floor.
He was actually trailed by a much shorter officer, who was soon lost to Shea's fast and long strides. With nothing else to do after losing him, Shea went to the second floor. He was leaning up against a railing when he was surrounded by at least six officers. They got belligerent with him and began to jostle Shea. One of them counted down to three, and they all jumped him. He didn't go down right away, resisting with everything he could, but soon found himself face down on the floor with a knee in his neck and his wrist cocked very painfully. He was dragged from the building, processed, served with a formal arrest warrant on top of his school charges, and driven to the edge of campus.
With no place to go, having lived in campus apartments, Shea spent the next three weeks sleeping on couches, arranging for his defense in both county and school court, and trying to not flunk out while not being allowed to go to class.
On the day of his school hearing, a crowd of students held a rally outside the President's Office, going as far as to storm the office, only to have Simone step into the elevator for a very uncomfortable ride down with 15 angry student protesters.
Shea was found guilty of resisting arrest and assaulting a campus safety officer and suspended for a year. His suspension was later doubled to two years as he was failed most of his classes for the semester. He now lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and two kids and works as an entrepreneur.
The Fall of 1998 brought big changes to the RCC as a core of members took over operations, lead by President Chris Maj. A few weeks into the new school year, Mike Eck came up with a new name, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and a new direction of focusing on the War on Drugs as a whole. Former RCC Treasurer Kris Lotlikar was also forced out of RIT and headed to Washington, DC. In DC, Lotlikar interned for the Drug Reform Coordination Network, became their Director of Student Activism before taking the concept of Students for Sensible Drug Policy national. SSDP has become one of the largest student lobbying organizations and has thousands of members and hundreds of chapters across the nation.
Years later in September 2004, Reverend Dustin Fineout, then a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology, gave Rochester Cannabis Coalition new life - not as a campus-based organization but as a not-for-profit organization serving Monroe County. The new group grew quickly and became an official chapter of NORML on April 20, 2005. RCC helps organize the annual Highway 420 Project Conference and Protest in Niagara Falls, Canada in April, and recently held two local NORML benefits, "Burn it Down" at The Bug Jar in Rochester, and "SmartPuffs" at Broadway Joe's in Buffalo, sponsored by Deep Thinka records. A "SmartPuffs II" is currently being planned for April 2006 (sometime around the 20th) in Rochester. RCC vice-president Anthony Brucato is scheduled to represent Rochester and Buffalo Cannabis Coalitions at the upcoming "Peace Summit II" in Toronto, January 28th and 29th. Both Anthony and current RCC president Dustin Fineout are scheduled for panel discussion and speeches in Niagara Falls' Highway 420 Conference and Protest, April 2006.
RCC endorsed Chris Maj in the 2005 Rochester mayoral race, and cited strong member support for Wade Norwood as well. Norwood publicly advocated reform of the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.
