Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002
Subject: Please Counter The Attack On Stossel’s ‘War On Drugs: A War On
Please Counter the Attack on Stossel’s ‘War on Drugs: A War on Ourselvess’
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 248 July 31, 2002
Tuesday evening ABC TV broadcast a superb documentary by John Stossel, “War
on Drugs: A War on Ourselves.” A webpage summary is at
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/stossel_drugs_020730.html
If you missed the show, we recommend listening to it via the low
bandwidth audio feed at http://highwire.stanford.edu/~straffin/dp/
The program is also available for viewing online using the Real Player at:
http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/video_news.html
That the documentary really hit the mark can be seen by the outrage,
along with the usual twisting of facts, in press releases by the
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA)
http://www.cadca.org/PressGallery/PressReleases/ABCNewsProgram.htm
and by former White House Drug spokesman Bob Weiner
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n000/a096.html
These folks and others have launched an organized letter writing
campaign directed at David Westin, the President of ABC News, to tell
him how wrong ABC was to present this documentary — that they were
not given the time to present their views, that the facts were wrong,
and so on.
They are asking folks to send letters by regular mail. Can we do any
less? Please write your own letter to Mr. Westin at:
David Westin, President, ABC News, 47 W. 66th Street, New York, NY 10023
Thanks for your effort and support.
It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do
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PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
email messages, etc.)
Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list (sentlte@mapinc.org) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to MGreer@mapinc.org if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list with so
others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit.
Subscribing to the Sent LTE list (sentlte@mapinc.org) will help you to
review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or
approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing
efforts.
To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm
and/or http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form
This is Very Important as it is one very effective way of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.
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Extra Credit: While taking any of the following actions is not as important
as writing and mailing a letter as suggested above, the following actions
will help:
Use this webform, and the dropdown to ‘Other’ to send a note to
ABC
http://abcnews.go.com/service/Help/abcmail.html
Use this webform to send John Stossel a note
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/stossel_mailform.html
Please send a note to your local ABC station thanking them for
carrying the documentary, and asking them to contact the network about
having it rebroadcast. The fast way to find the station is to do a
search. For example, using http://www.google.com/advanced_search and
asking it to find all the words ‘ABC TV Marquette Michigan’ brought
that station to the top of the links list.
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LETTER example (MAILED AT THE POST OFFICE)
David Westin
President
ABC News
47 W. 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
Dear Mr. Westin,
Thank you for airing the John Stossel documentary, “War on Drugs: A War on
Ourselves.”
While I was on active duty I saw many scenes like those shown, but
never thought about the impact, the maximizing of harm, being caused
by the drug war. After I retired I started to see columns and
editorials which questioned aspects of the war. TV seemed to be
avoiding the hard hitting analysis I see in my newspaper.
But nothing pulled it all together for me so well is this documentary!
TV seems to be avoiding the hard hitting analysis I see in my
newspaper. I learned much that I did not know.
I hope you will rerun it, and provide us with regular updates based on
it. I will be taking notes next time it is on.
If it is available, could you please have someone send me a note about
how I may purchase a video tape copy of the documentary.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Richard Lake
Chief Warrant Officer
United States Army (retired)
NOTE: Please write your own letter. It is not likely that Mr. Westin
would be impressed if yours looked exactly like mine.
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ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts
Writer’s Resources http://www.mapinc.org/resource/
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Prepared by Richard Lake http://www.mapinc.org/rlake/ Focus Alert
Specialist