The war of words over weed broke out Wednesday morning when two dozen Black religious leaders called for the resignation of the president of the California state NAACP, and Alice Huffman, the president, fired back at the preachers with challenges of their leadership and their motives.

The ministers and Huffman squared off in dueling Sacramento press conferences at which, first, Bishop Ron Allen, head of the International Faith-Based Coalition, denounced the state NAACP’s unconditional support of Proposition 19, which is a measure slated for the November ballot that seeks to legalize and decriminalize marijuana in California.

Allen, pastor of Sacramento’s Greater Solomon Community Church, was surrounded on the steps of the state Capitol by like-minded ministers when he accused Huffman of working against the interest of African-Americans, rather than for them. He accused her of being “in cahoots” with marijuana entrepreneurs and drug dealers, namely with the Drug Policy Alliance, which Allen said wants all drugs legalized, not just marijuana.

The minister also accused Huffman of having “sold out” to George Soros and his Open Society Institute and his Soros Foundation Network, whom Allen described as a major contributor to the NAACP and a primary funding source for the legalization of marijuana worldwide.

Allen called for the immediate resignation of Huffman, whom he accused of “selling out the very people that the NAACP has a history of protecting.” He said Huffman’s position on legalization of marijuana “is destroying the good work the NAACP has done for African-American people, and she is discrediting the good name of the NAACP.”

“Why would the NAACP advocate for Blacks to stay high?” Allen asked. “It’s   not the NAACP, it’s her. This is not an indictment against the state or the national NAACP; it’s an indictment against Alice. She has sold us out for her personal financial gain and I call for her immediate resignation.”

Huffman convened a news teleconference in Sacramento a couple of hours after Allen’s media presentation ended where she came out swinging, calling Allen’s coalition part of a conservative religious faction that has no solutions to any problems, just criticism.

Huffman denied being in “cahoots” with any drug purveyors, and said: “I will not resign and I will not falter in my efforts to free African-American youth from the onerous punishment they suffer by the criminal justice system’s imposition of draconian marijuana laws.”

Like Allen, Huffman, too, had religious leaders in her corner, as well as public officials, social justice workers, families of marijuana law victims, NAACP chapter presidents from various parts of the state.

“There is a strong racial component that must be considered when we investigate how marijuana laws are applied to people of color,” Huffman said. “The burden has fallen disproportionately on people of color and on young Black men in particular,” she added. “This is not about me, but about saving the next generation of Black children whose lives are being ruined by laws that are enforced much more severely upon them than on whites,” Huffman said.

“Allen’s ministers need to become more proactive, come up with solutions and look at the data, not at me,” Huffman added.

Huffman spoke of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s acknowledged use of marijuana during their youth as an indication of the weed’s prevalence among the young and how, absent the country’s proffered “war on drugs” mentality at the time, such social and/or experimental use of the drug did not lead to these young men’s loss of their futures.

“They’re calling it a ‘war on drugs,’ but it’s a war on my community and I cannot just sit by and lose another generation,” Huffman said.

The NAACP president was backed up in her sentiments and supported in her stance by former legislators, Mervyn Dymally and Gwen Moore; former NAACP national president Julian Bond, and several religious leaders, community leaders and NAACP chapter presidents. One neighborhood priest praised Huffman, saying “her leadership on this issue shows real courage. The criminalization of marijuana ends up creating a society that is more hurtful than helpful. These laws are acts of cruelty against our children and the only issue here is keeping them out of jail.”