Advisory Board Members Needed

We are building a statewide advisory board to help represent what today's Maine marijuana reform movement looks like. We want to draw from all sectors of society, teachers, nurses, farmers, small-business folks, labor, people of faith, law enforcement personnel, students, etc.Please let us know if you are interested, and send along some biographical information about yourself and your work.

Board of Advisors

Faith Benedetti

Faith Benedetti is the former Executive Director of the Dayspring Aids Support Services based in Augusta ME, which provides case management, prevention education and anonymous HIV counseling and testing services throughout nine counties in central Maine. In the late '90's Faith started the first Central Maine underground needle exchange program that later resulted in the emergence of a legal needle exchange program statewide. She is also an artist.*

Sean Donahue

Sean Donahue is the former Executive Director of PICA, Peace through Interamerican Community Action. PICA is a non-profit, Bangor (Maine) -based group that has been active since 1984. Its program interests are economic justice and community building, locally and across borders. Sean also writes extensively for both national and international publications on the drug war, and was a participant at the NarcoNews School for Investigative Journalism.*

Jonathan Leavitt

Jonathan Leavitt (Executive Director of MMPI) has been doing grassroots organizing for seventeen years. He served as a Field Manager for Clean Water Action in the late eighties, Founded the Lawrence Grassroots Initiative, and served as its Executive Director for seven years, founded the Massachusetts Green Party in 1996 and served as its first staff person and then initiated and ran the Jill Stein for Governor campaign before leaving to run for State Representative as the Green Party's first ever Clean Elections candidate. Jonathan also oversaw the development and staffing for the historic Boston Social Forum in 2004. He then co-founded Massachusetts Global Action and was most recently the coordinator for the "Our Communities, Our Water" project of MGA. Jonathan also serves on the Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative's Board of Directors

Venerable Kobutsu Malone, zenji

Venerable Kobutsu Malone, zenji is an American Rinzai Zen Buddhist Priest of the Gempo-Soen-Eido lineage. He has been a practicing Buddhist for over 30 years and has studied with Ven. Eido Shimano, Roshi for over two decades. Kobutsu has been a student in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and studied with Vidyadhara The Venerable Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Kobutsu was a mechanical engineer and has worked in the flight simulation, opthalmological instrumentation, pure physics research and pharmaceutical processing equipment industries. He holds United States and British patents in flight simulation and educational devices. He has worked in developing adaptive electronic equipment for handicapped people. Kobutsu established the Dharma Song Zendo in Sing Sing Prison in New York State in 1992 and served for eight years as the volunteer Zen Priest at the facility. In 1996 he established the Flowering Dogwood Zendo at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center. Kobutsu is co-founder with E-Kun Liz Potter of The Engaged Zen Foundation which is a 501 (c)(3) corporation founded in 1995 originally to foster contemplative meditative practice in prisons, develop monastic alternative sentencing/post release programs and deal with the complete circle of human rights imperatives.

Bob St. Peter

Bob St.Peter is a third generation Mainer from Caribou with a passion for promoting and creating just, sustainable, and self-governing communities. He is currently the executive director of The Good Life Center at Forest Farm in Harborside and is co-founder of and board member for Food for Maine's Future, a state-wide food and farm advocacy organization. In addition to his commitment to preserving traditional family farming in Maine, Bob has worked on food, poverty, and rural sustainability issues internationally as the development director for Sustainable Harvest International. His recent work with MMPI includes drafting their position statement on hemp cultivation in Maine. Bob is a freelance writer and educator, subsistence farmer, and a devoted husband and father. He is not a criminal.

Lynne Williams

Lynne Williams is an attorney in Bar Harbor. She practices first amendment law, and has represented anti-war and environmental activists throughout the state. She also practices estate planning, specializing in helping families with disabled family members. Formerly a criminal defense attorney, Lynne has also represented medical marijuana patients throughout the state in various legal proceedings and is well versed on Maine's medical marijuana law as well as other medical marijuana laws throughout the country. She is admitted to practice in the state court in Maine as well as in the Federal District of Maine. Lynne is the chair of the Maine Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and a member of the National Executive Committee of the Guild. She is also a member of the NORML legal panel and a member of the Legal Advisory Board of Americans for Safe Access.

Bill Trogdon

Bill is a freelance journalist and businessman. He previously served in the US Army. Inspired by years of reading publications likeOrganic GardeningandMother Earth News, and dreaming of a life closer to the land, Bill and his wife chose to move with their five children to Maine in 1992. He has been a vocal advocate for reason and peace, speaking out against the deterioration of our rights and freedoms since before 9/11. He counts Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain as two of his heroes. One of his favorite quotes is by Benjamin Franklin who said that "The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either." As a journalist he has written on abuses and potential abuses of technology and power in regards to civil rights, and exposing hypocrisy wherever he finds it.