Jonathan Leavitt is originally from Lawrence, Massachusetts. He attended North Andover High School where he was an All-League basketball player and generally disliked by most of the people in town.
He got out as soon as he could on a scholarship to some school in northern Vermont where he found himself surrounded by well to do cocaine sniffing ski bums as well as Hector "the shroom" dealer down the hall who introduced him to the joy of getting high and listening to the Grateful Dead.
He left the area fairly quickly and eventually ended up in Western Massachusetts where he landed in "lesbian occupied territory" or Northampton as it was also known. Here he discovered the joy of civil disobedience and "Free Press" the greatest band never known.
After boredom set in he departed for Europe and spent some time riding the EuroRail, sleeping in graveyards, throwing rocks at the British army alongside 12 year old Irish freedom fighters, and having one night stands with Ukrainian circus performers.
Upon his return to the US, he founded a non-profit called the Lawrence Grassroots Initiative, and served as executive director for almost a decade initiating environmental justice campaigns that helped successfully shut down two inner city incinerators, a queer pride parade that did battle with the evangelical ignorance of them god people, a monthly progressive newspaper, the Bernstein Bookstore, and much more.
In 1996 he also founded the Massachusetts Green Party and was it's state coordinator through 2000, including the Ralph Nader for President campaign, where he secured the highest 3rd party vote percentage of any state but Alaska and Vermont.
In 2001, he initiated the Jill Stein for Governor campaign and then departed the campaign to run for State Rep as a Green Party candidate become the 1st third party candidate in the country to qualify for Clean Elections funding and where he received nearly 12% of the vote in a district holding less then 30 registered Green Party voters.
From 2002 to 2004 he ran the Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse and spearheaded a movement to resist corporate control over municipal water supplies all over New England. In 2004 he became Development Director for the 2004 Boston Social Forum and then merged both efforts into Massachusetts Global Action.
In 2006 after a blood clot almost took his life, he figured it was time for a change and he departed to Maine to found the Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative, where he led the 2009 ballot initiative that created the statewide distribution system for medical marijuana.
He got out as soon as he could on a scholarship to some school in northern Vermont where he found himself surrounded by well to do cocaine sniffing ski bums as well as Hector "the shroom" dealer down the hall who introduced him to the joy of getting high and listening to the Grateful Dead.
He left the area fairly quickly and eventually ended up in Western Massachusetts where he landed in "lesbian occupied territory" or Northampton as it was also known. Here he discovered the joy of civil disobedience and "Free Press" the greatest band never known.
After boredom set in he departed for Europe and spent some time riding the EuroRail, sleeping in graveyards, throwing rocks at the British army alongside 12 year old Irish freedom fighters, and having one night stands with Ukrainian circus performers.
Upon his return to the US, he founded a non-profit called the Lawrence Grassroots Initiative, and served as executive director for almost a decade initiating environmental justice campaigns that helped successfully shut down two inner city incinerators, a queer pride parade that did battle with the evangelical ignorance of them god people, a monthly progressive newspaper, the Bernstein Bookstore, and much more.
In 1996 he also founded the Massachusetts Green Party and was it's state coordinator through 2000, including the Ralph Nader for President campaign, where he secured the highest 3rd party vote percentage of any state but Alaska and Vermont.
In 2001, he initiated the Jill Stein for Governor campaign and then departed the campaign to run for State Rep as a Green Party candidate become the 1st third party candidate in the country to qualify for Clean Elections funding and where he received nearly 12% of the vote in a district holding less then 30 registered Green Party voters.
From 2002 to 2004 he ran the Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse and spearheaded a movement to resist corporate control over municipal water supplies all over New England. In 2004 he became Development Director for the 2004 Boston Social Forum and then merged both efforts into Massachusetts Global Action.
In 2006 after a blood clot almost took his life, he figured it was time for a change and he departed to Maine to found the Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative, where he led the 2009 ballot initiative that created the statewide distribution system for medical marijuana.