#311 John Walters Defends Endless Drug War

Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005
Subject: #311 John Walters Defends Endless Drug War

JOHN WALTERS DEFENDS ENDLESS DRUG WAR

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #311 – Saturday, 18 June 2005

National syndicated columnist George Will released a column Thursday
discussing the continued viability of waging a never-ending War on
Drugs. He opens with a pertinent perspective offered by former
Washington policymaker George Schultz wherein Schultz expresses his
belief that as long as there is a demand for illegal drugs, the
criminal market will thrive and never be quelled, regardless of how
many or how big a busts law enforcement achieves.

Then Will turns the discussion over to federal Drug Czar John Walters
and quotes him on a wide range of drug policy opinions. As usual, the
center of the Czar’s focus is on marijuana law enforcement.

The column has already been picked up in numerous newspapers and given
George Will’s wide reach, should run in many other newspapers over the
next few days.

An interesting aspect of this column is that in the numerous outlets
we’ve seen it so far, the wording of the headline – as determined by
the individual newspapers – varies widely. These headlines provide us
with a minor insight into the thoughts of the newspapers about the
content of Walters statements.

Please consider writing at least one succint Letter to the Editor and
sending it to the newspaper closest to your hometown. A similar
letter with some minor modifications, can also be sent to other
newspapers which carried the column, thus increasing your chances of
being printed.

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To see a listing of the newspapers which have printed the column, go
to http://www.mapinc.org/author/Will+George

The first date of publication is June 16. Remember the varying
headlines.

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Thanks for your effort and support.

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

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Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center:

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/

Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal
tips on how to write LTEs that get printed.

heath@mapinc.org

And of course, you are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing
friends of MAP this Sunday evening at 9pm EDT for a roundtable
discussion of how to write LTEs that get print and specifically how to
best respond to this Focus Alert. We’ll also be talking about LTEs
directed at Opinion items concerning the Raich decision from the
Supreme Court.

See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how you
can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in reform.
Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all
that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is
free and easy to download and install.

The password for this gathering will be PW: welcome-pal (all lower
case)

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