Bruce Margolin (born September 11, 1941) is an American criminal defense attorney who specializes in

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

and drug laws. Since 1973, he has served as the executive director of the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

chapter of

NORML The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML ) is a social welfare organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for the reform of marijuana laws in the United States regarding both medical and non-medical use. Ac ...

(National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). He is the writer of the ''Margolin Guide to Marijuana Law''.

Biography

Margolin was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

and moved to Los Angeles, California as a young child. He began his practice when he was 25 years old, after earning his law degree from Southwestern Law School in 1966. In 1970, Margolin ran for California State Assembly, losing by 5 percentage points. In 1971, he traveled to India with writer and spiritual leader Baba Ram Dass. Since he returned, he has remained a lawyer. In 1999, he was awarded the Criminal Defense Attorney of the Year award by the Century City Bar Association. Margolin unsuccessfully ran for governor in the

California recall election, 2003 The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. The recall eff ...

. Margolin planned to legalize marijuana and free all marijuana prisoners in the state of California if he were to win the election. Margolin's daughter

Allison Allison may refer to: People * Allison (given name) * Allison (surname) (includes a list of people with this name) * Eugene Allison Smith (1922-1980), American politician and farmer * Allison family, a family of RMS Titanic passengers Compan ...

has also established a reputation as a marijuana lawyer.

References

External links

*
Margolin for Congress
* 1941 births Living people American criminal defense lawyers Lawyers from Cleveland {{US-law-bio-stub