Tamara Netzel, Deputy Director of Virginia NORML- Interview Series

Although the multi-billion-dollar American cannabis industry continues to expand despite federal delays and setbacks, we must never forget those who remain incarcerated or continue to suffer from criminal cannabis records. Even in progressive states with thriving markets and a commitment to justice reform, hundreds—if not thousands—of people still endure the lingering effects of harsh, legacy cannabis policies. As promising new state markets like Virginia open dispensaries across the Commonwealth, these individuals’ stories and voices deserve to be heard and honored.

One passionate advocate elevating these voices is Tamara Netzel, Deputy Director of Virginia NORML, who has dedicated her work to documenting the stories of those most harmed by prohibition.

While earning your Bachelor’s in Communications and Journalism at PennWest Clarion, what lessons became most useful throughout your career, especially when creating Cruel Consequences?

One of the most valuable things I learned while studying communications and journalism was that every story has a human element, and often the most important part of that story is the part that isn’t being told. I learned photography, interviewing, and TV production, but ultimately chose to follow news writing. I wrote for various newspapers in South Carolina and New York as my husband and I moved around the country as he was active duty Army for 32 years. I wrote mostly human interest stories. In South Carolina, when I was earning my Master’s degree and transitioning into teaching, I stayed on and had my own weekly column titled “Parents as Teachers” which addressed issues parents typically have with their child’s schools through a teacher who is a parent also. 

When I created Cruel Consequences, I wasn’t interested in simply presenting statistics about cannabis arrests or arguing about legalization. I wanted people to meet the individuals whose lives had been affected by prohibition. I wanted to put faces and personal experiences alongside policies that had largely been discussed in abstract terms.

My journalism background helped me recognize the importance of asking questions, listening carefully, and allowing people to tell their stories in their own words. Those principles became the foundation of Cruel Consequences.

Similarly, what were the most worthwhile aspects of obtaining a Master’s degree in Elementary Education? How did you use such a prestigious degree as an educator and within the schools you worked at?

My Master’s degree in elementary education taught me how to make learning meaningful beyond the walls of a classroom. I believed education should do more than teach students facts. It should help them understand the world around them and recognize their ability to make a difference.

One of my proudest experiences as a sixth-grade English teacher involved teaching The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the autobiographical story of William Kamkwamba, a young boy from Malawi, Africa, who used ingenuity and determination to bring electricity to his village.

Having traveled to Malawi on two mission trips, I was able to bring my personal experiences into the classroom. But I wanted my students to experience more than simply reading a book. I developed an entire unit around the story, using Skype to connect my students directly with people in Malawi who had also read the book. Suddenly, the people and places they were learning about weren’t just words on a page. They were real people with whom my students could interact.

What began as a literature lesson grew into something much bigger. My sixth graders raised $15,000 to support a village in Malawi.

That experience reinforced something I’ve always believed about education. When students connect what they’re learning to real people and real circumstances, they begin to recognize their own ability to make a difference.

Although I medically retired from teaching, I never stopped being an educator. Today, through Cruel Consequences and Cannabis Storyteller, I continue using personal stories to educate, challenge perceptions, and encourage people to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

While serving as a teacher, what aspects of the DARE program do you remember as the most egregious? How was cannabis portrayed in that program, and was medical usage even discussed?

DARE, which was called, Red Ribbon Week in the schools I taught, was something the students had in health class rather than the subjects I taught, but I was familiar with some of the curriculum.  Looking back, what troubles me most is how substances with vastly different risks were presented under the same umbrella. Cannabis was portrayed as dangerous, with little room for nuance, scientific evidence, or discussion.

Medical cannabis certainly wasn’t part of the education I remember. Students weren’t being taught about the long history of cannabis as medicine or the people who might benefit from it.

As a teacher, I believed in giving children accurate information so they could make informed decisions. Yet when it came to cannabis, much of the messaging relied on fear rather than meaningful education.

There’s something particularly powerful about realizing that information you once accepted, and potentially helped reinforce, wasn’t the complete story.

During my years as an eighth-grade teacher, I remember an incident involving a student who was selling cannabis concealed inside Crayola markers. The insides of the markers had been removed and replaced with cannabis.

What stayed with me wasn’t just the ingenuity of hiding cannabis in markers and my questioning why a particular student was always sniffing his markers, not having a clue it could be that he likes the smell of cannabis, but how the situation was handled. School administrators had discretion in determining disciplinary consequences, and in this case, the decision was made not to suspend the student because doing so could have brought the incident to the attention of law enforcement.

That experience taught me something important about the consequences of prohibition. Even within a school setting, there was recognition that involving the criminal justice system could have consequences far beyond the classroom. The student still needed guidance and accountability, but the adults involved understood that protecting his future mattered, too.

Looking back, I see that as an example of the difference between enforcing rules and exercising sound judgment. It’s a lesson that has stayed with me throughout my advocacy.

When did you first notice how cannabis provided relief in ways that pharmaceuticals couldn’t quite replicate? How would you say that experience drastically changed your previously held views on cannabis?

When the MS drug I was taking and I thought was saving my life caused my liver to go into failure, I was left with more chronic pain in my arms and hands as the incident caused me to have an MS relapse. Many people assume MS symptoms always affect just your legs, but most of my symptoms are upper body weakness and pain. I was really struggling to do basic teaching tasks and my teachers aide noticed. She offered me some CBD oil and I was skeptical, took it anyway in order to prove to her it didn’t work. Well, it did. It affected the debilitating pain in my hands that prevented me from doing anything. I know most people associate disability with whether you can walk, but often dismiss how disabled one is without the use of their hands. For that, it was life changing for me.

My perspective on cannabis didn’t change because I set out to become an activist. It changed because I became a patient.

Living with multiple sclerosis forced me to reconsider many things I had previously accepted about medicine, treatment, and quality of life. Cannabis became part of that journey, and my personal experience was dramatically different from the warnings I had heard throughout my life.

I began questioning how a plant with a documented history of medical use had become so thoroughly stigmatized, and why patients were still being treated like criminals for seeking relief.

What started as a personal medical experience eventually became something much bigger. I realized that the misinformation surrounding cannabis wasn’t just influencing public opinion. It was affecting real people’s lives.

I continue to be grateful for my medical cannabis as I’ve had to navigate through several medical situations since my liver injury. After three total MS drugs failed me and caused more harm to me, I had a stem cell transplant to treat my MS and had to go to Mexico to get it. My cannabis medicine helped me through. Where I used to take 15 different medications for my MS, I now only have cannabis and also paying attention to nutrition. The stem cell transplant has kept my MS in remission so far 7 years after. I have not had any new MS brain lesions since where I was getting a new lesion while still on the MS medications and my disability was increasing.

When did you decide to become more involved as a cannabis advocate and start working with Virginia NORML?

Once I began learning about cannabis, I couldn’t ignore the contradiction between what I was discovering and what the law continued to say.

I initially approached cannabis from the perspective of a patient, but the more I learned, the more I realized that prohibition was affecting people far beyond those seeking medical relief.

I was introduced to NORML when I chose to testify for the medical cannabis legislation in Virginia in 2017. Once I had found relief from the CBD, and I realized I needed to help make it legal in Virginia. I sought out a group of moms who were fighting for their children to have CBD to treat their epilepsy. I knew there was more work to do, so I joined the Virginia NORML Board of Directors.

People were losing employment opportunities, housing, professional licenses, and sometimes even custody of their children because of cannabis-related offenses. Becoming involved with Virginia NORML gave me an opportunity to turn that growing awareness into meaningful advocacy. I am now Deputy Director of Virginia NORML as of July 2026.

What would you say were some of the most memorable places you’ve visited and experiences you’ve had as a cannabis activist in Virginia?

Some of my most memorable experiences have come from meeting people whose lives were profoundly affected by cannabis prohibition and then having the opportunity to bring their stories to audiences who might never otherwise hear them.

Through Virginia NORML and Cruel Consequences, I’ve had opportunities to engage with lawmakers, community members, patients, and advocates from very different backgrounds.

What has always stayed with me is how personal this issue becomes when you stop talking about cannabis as a political controversy and start talking about the people affected by the laws.

One memorable moment was guiding Harry Kelso, who had done ten years for distribution, to speak to Congress about his story. I had only put together 3 other Cruel Consequences stories at the time and Harry’s wasn’t one of them, yet. He was on a list I was working through as I built the portrait collection. I got a call asking if I had anyone who could be in D.C. to speak in two days. I had never met Harry before arranging for him to travel to D.C., which almost didn’t happen. Harry didn’t want any part of telling his story initially, but he has told me on more than one occasion that when he heard me talk about my medical relief from cannabis, he couldn’t say no. Harry has been proud of making the choice to tell his story publicly since. He didn’t want anything to do with cannabis after his incarceration. Telling his story gave him a new lease on life to have a purpose to be able to help others by telling his story. I’ve learned a lot myself from Harry and many of the other stories in Cruel Consequences and I know that their stories have touched more lives because of the project existing. But, the most memorable has been watching how telling their own stories, has helped the people themselves in my project. When they see that other people are reading their stories and others care, it makes a difference.

What stories of injustice did you hope to tell through Cruel Consequences: Portraits of Misguided Law? Why did you believe that it was important towards future cannabis reform that these unjust stories are told?

I created Cruel Consequences: Portraits of Misguided Law (501c3 nonprofit) because I believed the people harmed by cannabis prohibition deserved to be seen and heard.

For decades, the conversation surrounding cannabis focused on the substance itself. What was often missing was any meaningful discussion of the human consequences of enforcing those laws.

I wanted people to understand that a cannabis conviction could affect someone’s ability to find employment, secure housing, maintain custody of their children, or pursue opportunities long after their legal punishment had ended.

The portraits were intentional. I wanted viewers to look into someone’s face before reading their story. It’s much harder to dismiss an injustice when you’re looking at the person who experienced it.

Laws can change, but the consequences of those laws don’t simply disappear. Preserving these stories is important because they remind us why reform was necessary in the first place and why legalization alone doesn’t necessarily repair the damage. 

What have been some of the most harrowing stories told through the traveling exhibit? And where are some of the most momentous places that you’ve displayed the exhibit in?

One of the most difficult things about creating Cruel Consequences has been realizing how far the consequences of a cannabis-related offense can reach into someone’s life.

I’ve documented stories involving medical patients, veterans, parents, and people whose convictions continued to affect their opportunities years later.

One particularly troubling story happened in September 2021, two months after Virginia legalized the possession of cannabis, involves Katie Orndoff, a Virginia woman, who was sent to solitary confinement naked by the judge while testifying as the victim in a domestic violence case because she admitted to smoking a joint before court when he asked her on the stand. Her contempt of court charges were eventually overturned, but she says she may still take the opportunity to sue the judge further. 

These aren’t simply stories about cannabis arrests. They’re stories about families, livelihoods, health, and the lasting consequences of criminalization.

What makes the exhibit powerful is that visitors encounter these people as individuals rather than statistics. They begin to understand that the punishment often extended far beyond the original offense.

What are some duties of your role with Virginia Beach City Council’s Cannabis Advisory Task Force? How big of an industry do you envision recreational cannabis being in the region?

Serving on the Virginia Beach Cannabis Advisory Task Force has given me an opportunity to bring both my experience as a patient and my years of advocacy into discussions about how our city prepares for a regulated cannabis market.

Our work involves discussing zoning, considering public education, and providing recommendations related to cannabis within Virginia Beach.

One issue I’ve been particularly interested in is the disconnect between legalization and public consumption laws, especially in a tourism destination like Virginia Beach.

We have visitors who can legally possess cannabis but have very limited options for where they can legally consume it. I believe cities need to be proactive in identifying practical solutions rather than simply relying on prohibitions and penalties.

I see considerable potential for the cannabis industry in Hampton Roads, but I don’t measure that potential exclusively in revenue. I also see opportunities for small businesses, entrepreneurship, employment, and a more informed approach to cannabis policy.

The decisions we make now will influence what kind of cannabis industry develops here and who has the opportunity to participate in it.

Even though recreational cannabis sales will start in Virginia on July 1, what are some major areas for improvement when it comes to further medical cannabis reform and criminal justice reform within the state?

Legalizing sales is not the same as achieving meaningful reform.

Virginia has made significant progress, but opening retail cannabis stores should never be mistaken for completing cannabis reform.

We still need to address the lasting consequences of prohibition, including the barriers people face because of prior cannabis convictions. Expungement, employment protections, housing opportunities, and meaningful access to the legal industry all deserve continued attention.

From a medical perspective, I believe patients deserve greater accessibility, affordability, and recognition of cannabis as a legitimate treatment option. Patients shouldn’t have to navigate unnecessary obstacles simply to access a product that helps improve their quality of life.

I also believe Virginia needs to address where adults can legally consume cannabis. We’ve legalized possession, and we’re preparing to legalize retail sales, but we’ve done relatively little to address practical consumption options for people who cannot consume in their homes.

Ultimately, I don’t believe we should measure the success of legalization solely by the number of stores that open or the tax revenue generated. We should also measure whether we’ve reduced the harms of prohibition and created a fairer system for the people of Virginia.

I want to mention that I am creating a documentary titled, Blazing A Path, where I am following three impact license applicants through the process in Virginia. The documentary will air on YouTube @cannabisstoryteller in episodes. The trailer is out now.

Thank you for joining us, Tamara! For more information on Tamara’s upcoming work and content, please visit her YouTube channel.