Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007
Subject: #352 Just Say NO To ‘Plan Mexico’

JUST SAY NO TO ‘PLAN MEXICO’

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #352 – Thursday, 16 August 2007

On Tuesday, Aug 14th, The New York Times featured an updated summary
of ongoing discussions between the federal government of Mexico and
the United States government. On the agenda are intensive talks to
develop a plan for the United States to provide billions of dollars to
Mexico to support its fight against drug cartels.

Since 1970 the U.S. has spent over a trillion dollars in the war on
drugs. Now they are negotiating to spend another $1.2 billion over the
next 3 years to fight the “Nuevo Laredo-style” violence in Mexico.

Dubbed “Plan Mexico”, this further escalation of the North American
War on Drugs seems rather unlikely to be any more successful than the
counterproductive Plan Colombia which the U.S. has funded with tens of
billions of dollars over the past decade.

According to the U.N. “with 2 to 3 million displaced persons, Colombia
presents the highest number of internally displaced people in the
Western Hemisphere, and the second largest displaced population in the
world after Sudan.” If the success of Plan Mexico relies on the U.S.
continuing more failed Prohibition style policies, no wall or fence
will be able to stem the tide of Mexicans seeking entry into the U.S.

The NY Times coverage is shown following the below. Meanwhile,
continuing coverage of this news story may be followed by visiting
either of these links:

Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Plan+Mexico (Plan Mexico)

Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon

Please consider sending a Letter to the Editor to the New York Times
expressing your opinions regarding the proposed Plan Mexico and why it
is a bad idea for both the U.S. and Mexico. Please consider sending
letters to other newspapers which have covered this story. If you
elect to write to more than one newspaper, we suggest at least some
modification of your message so that each newspaper receives a unique
letter.

Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print unless
otherwise noted in MAP headers.

Note that the New York Times requires letters to be no more than 150
words.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

Pubdate: Tue, 14 Aug 2007
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Author: James C. McKinley Jr.

U.S. MAY PROVIDE BILLIONS TO MEXICO TO FIGHT DRUG CARTELS

MEXICO CITY — Mexico and the United States are holding intensive
talks to develop a plan for the United States to provide billions of
dollars to Mexico to support its fight against drug cartels, but the
negotiations are not likely to produce an agreement before next week’s
trilateral meeting with Canada, officials from both countries said.

Both sides are trying to keep the details of the talks secret, but
officials with knowledge of the issue said the aid would include money
and training for the Mexican police, as well as advanced
eavesdropping, surveillance and other spying technology.

Mexican officials insisted that any agreement would not involve
operations by the United States military or drug enforcement agents on
Mexican soil, as has happened in Colombia and Peru.

“The bottom line is precisely some help with equipment so we can do
our job from a more solid perspective,” said Eduardo Medina Mora, the
Mexican attorney general, in an interview with Radio Formula last
week. “What are the concrete components? That is obviously on the
table, but always obviously with the principle of respect for our
sovereignty.”

Mexican officials said the negotiations began in March, around the
time that President Bush met for talks with President Felipe Calderon
in Merida, Mexico. The new discussions come as Mr. Calderon has
started using federal troops in a major offensive against drug cartels
and has begun extraditing top drug traffickers to the United States, a
break with past practice.

In general, Mexico is seeking money, training and advanced technology
for its state and federal police forces. One problem for Mexican
antidrug officials has been the rampant corruption in municipal police
departments.

Recently released tapes of police radio conversations in Tijuana, for
instance, suggested that officers had been working hand in hand with
gunmen for the Arellano Felix drug cartel to allow them to slip away
from federal agents.

But Mexican officials also want the United States to do more to reduce
the consumption of drugs at home and stop the flow of arms and
ill-gotten cash back into Mexico. “We don’t see this as an assistance
package,” said one high-ranking official in the president’s office,
who requested anonymity because of the delicate nature of the
negotiations here. “We see this as increased cooperation.”

Mr. Medina Mora, the attorney general, said in the radio interview:
“There is a flow, of course, of drugs from the south to the north, but
there is also an important flow of arms and money from the north to
the south.”

While discussions so far have taken place between top diplomats and
security experts in the executive branches of both countries, any
major aid package for Mexico would probably have to have Congressional
approval, officials from both sides said.

Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who represents a border
district that includes Laredo, said he supported the proposal, saying
it would mark a “historic shift in policy” by giving Mexico an array
of tools to crack down on drug dealers. On the table are tools such
as surveillance equipment, aircraft, and advanced radar and
telephone-tapping equipment, Mr. Cuellar and Mexican officials said.

“It’s equipment and technology to make sure they are able to match the
power of the drug cartels,” Mr. Cuellar said in a recent interview.

Mr. Cuellar was part of a delegation from the House Homeland Security
Committee that visited Mexico in April and heard from high-ranking law
enforcement officials about the hurdles they faced in fighting
well-financed drug cartels.

The official in the Mexican president’s office, however, said it might
be weeks before a deal could be presented to lawmakers, while United
States officials voiced doubt that an agreement would be reached
before the Aug. 20 trilateral meeting in Montebello, Quebec.

“There is no final deal,” the Mexican official said. “There are many
things on the table right now and many of those things involve what
the U.S. will do in their territory. This has been going on for
several weeks. There is no deadline for this.”

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected] ) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007
Subject: #351 Please Refute Reefer Mania

PLEASE REFUTE REEFER MANIA

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #351 – Sunday, 29 July 2007

On Friday, the British medical journal Lancet published a 13 page
meta-analysis ‘Cannabis Use and Risk of Psychosis in Later Life.’

As a result the media around the world has used the study, most often
with incorrect data and conclusions, to create another reefer mania
scare.

Backers of stern cannabis prohibition laws have seized on this news to
urge the British government to increase the potential punishment of
users under their laws.

More reasoned voices have cautioned that escalating criminal penalties
based on a perceived increased health risk would be counterproductive.
See ‘Experts Dismiss Case for Cannabis Reclassification’
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n901/a05.html

MAP is continually archiving both international and domestic coverage
of the issue as we receive clippings. These press clippings may be
reviewed by using the following link, which is updated nightly. Note
that MAP identifies press stories by the location of the story. Thus a
number at the link are identified as “UK:” but are actually from
newspapers in the United States or Canada.

http://www.mapinc.org/topics/psychosis

Please consider writing and sending Letters to the Editor to the
newspapers of your choice. It is important that mainstream newspaper
editors and opinion writers are given a more complete and balanced
perspective than that being pushed by prohibitionists. If you elect to
write to more than one newspaper, we suggest at least some
modification of your message so that each newspaper receives a unique
letter.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

The study, as published in the Lancet, was placed on line by the
Guardian as a 13 page .pdf file.

See:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2007/07/27/cannabis_new.pdf

The best critique of the media’s reaction to the study we have seen
provides an accurate assessment of the report. Thus it may provide
ideas for letter writers. Please see the column ‘Cannabis Data Comes
to the Crunch’ at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n906/a02.html

Additionally, as the Lancet study was in the preparatory stages this
past May, NORML’s Paul Armentano provided an astute analysis of the
core propositions put forth.

See: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6798

Armentano’s analysis may help letter writers more accurately explain
key alternative conclusions which may be drawn from the Lancet study.

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected] ) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007
Subject: End Racist Sentencing In Federal Drug Laws

END RACIST SENTENCING IN FEDERAL DRUG LAWS

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #350 – Friday, 13 July 2007

On Tuesday, July 10 syndicated columnist Debra J. Saunders released
her latest column in the San Francisco Chronicle. She details the
tedious progress in the U.S. Congress for rewriting the federal
penalties for possessing crack and powder cocaine. Additionally she
highlights how sentencing disparities are applied in overly racist
fashion.

Worst, the laws were created with the intent to target high-volume
cocaine dealers but in actual application the vast majority of arrests
and convictions are levied on users and low level street dealers.

Senator Joe Biden has a bill in Congress that could really reform the
above disparities.

Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington
DC is quoted numerous times in Saunder’s analysis. See more about
CJPF here: http://www.cjpf.org

Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor to the San
Francisco Chronicle or to the newspaper closest to your hometown that
picks up Saunders’ column as it gets reprinted across the country over
the coming weekend.

If you elect to write to more than one newspaper, we strongly suggest
at least some modification of your message so that each newspaper
receives a unique letter.

Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print unless
otherwise noted in MAP headers.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

Contact: The San Francisco Chronicle [email protected]

Other placements of this column can be found here (updated nightly)
http://www.mapinc.org/author/Debra+Saunders

**********************************************************************
US CA: Column: Heavy Time For Drug Lightweights

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n825/a05.html
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Webpage:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/10/EDG6QQ4VGJ1.DTL
Pubdate: Tue, 10 Jul 2007
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Author: Debra J. Saunders
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

HEAVY TIME FOR DRUG LIGHTWEIGHTS

WHEN Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, it wrongly
included language that meted out a mandatory minimum sentence of five
years for dealing 5 grams of crack cocaine, yet the same 5-year
mandatory minimum sentence for dealing 100 times that amount, or 500
grams, of powder cocaine. Thus, the bill codified a racially unjust
divide. The U.S. Sentencing Commission found that in 2000 some 84.7
percent of federal crack offenders were black, while only 5.6 percent
were white.

Everyone in Washington knows that the law is unfair — obscenely
unfair. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has made four recommendations
to curb the sentencing inequity. Alas, for the past two decades,
Democrats and Republicans have cravenly set out to out-posture each
other in toughness in the war on drugs. So Congress either voted
against or ignored the Sentencing Commission’s recommendations.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., may be about to change the status quo. For
the past couple of years, Washington’s idea of reform has been to
fiddle with the concept of reducing the 100-to-1 crack/powder
sentencing disparity to 20-to-1. Last month, Biden made the brave
leap of proposing a bill to eliminate the sentencing disparity
completely, instead of making the law unfair, but less so.

As Biden wrote in a statement announcing his Drug Sentencing Reform &
Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007, the law needs to be changed
because “powder cocaine offenders who traffic 500 grams of powder (
2,500-5,000 doses ) receive the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence
as crack cocaine offenders who posses just 5 grams of crack ( 10-50
doses ).” Biden’s bill would raise the amount of crack cocaine so that
500 grams of either crack or powder cocaine would trigger the same
mandatory minimum sentence.

Biden also included the Sentencing Commission recommendation to
eliminate the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of 5
grams or more of crack, as crack is the only drug to mandate a prison
sentence for possession alone. While supporters might argue that the
possession penalty is tough on drugs, the Sentencing Commission
pointed out how weak the crack possession penalty actually is: “an
offender who simply possesses5 grams of crack cocaine receives the
same 5-year mandatory minimum penalty as a trafficker of other drugs.”

The ACLU is supportive. A statement lauded Biden’s bill as a
“long-awaited fix to discriminatory federal drug sentencing.”

But Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation is less
enthusiastic. “Most of my friends are a little embarrassed that I’m
not jumping up and down with them saying, ‘This is what we’ve been
working for.’ ”

While Sterling would like to see the 100-to-1 discrepancy end, he
believes that Congress needs to overhaul drug laws so that they
concentrate on kingpins, not low-level offenders.

“There shouldn’t be any crack cases in federal court, as a general
matter,” Sterling argued, “because crack is a purely retail
phenomenon. The trafficking is in powder cocaine.”

The irony is that most Americans think that federal mandatory minimum
sentences — with extra harsh penalties for crack dealers — are tough
on drug lords, when in fact, the systems goes easy on kingpins.

Sterling directed me to a Sentencing Commission fact table on 2006
federal cocaine cases. The median crack offense involved 51 grams of
crack — or 100 to 500 doses. The median powder cocaine offender
weight was 6,000 grams, about the amount of cocaine that would fill a
briefcase. Not exactly your major haul.

Not only do these weights suggest that most federal offenders were not
kingpins, but worse, the statistics also show that more than half of
federal cocaine cases were crack cases — dealing as little as 2.3
grams. One-third of crack cases involved 25 grams or less.

Drug kingpins should love the status quo.

Passage of the Biden bill would present a welcome change in
disparity-heavy drug laws. The goal should be laws with heavy
consequences for drug-trade heavyweights, instead of hefty sentences
for lightweights.

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected]) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team http://www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007
Subject: #349 Common Sense Marijuana Policy

COMMON SENSE MARIJUANA POLICY

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #349 – Monday, 9 July 2007

On Friday, July 6, a pair of common sense Opinion items hit North
American newspapers, with one being reprinted in numerous newspapers
across the country. This creates an excellent opportunity for those
who endorse smarter public policies for dealing with marijuana in the
21st century.

Gone should be the days of Reefer Madness – the late 1930s attitudes
which have remained entrenched in federal government marijuana
policies for over 70 years now.

Friday’s Los Angeles Times featured an OPED authored by Tony Newman of
the Drug Policy Alliance. He emphasized the need to either offer help
and appropriate treatment options for Americans with true drug
problems. And he also noted that we should not waste criminal justice
or valuable treatment resources on Americans who are only casual drug
users without a problem.

Newman also illustrated the disparity in our society where certain
people of note receive easy access for alternatives to jail – using Al
Gore III, Noelle Bush and Patrick Kennedy as prime examples.

Read Newman’s LA Times piece here: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n802/a04.html

Also on Friday, Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writers Group
released her latest column in which she aptly notes that the younger
Gore’s high-profile arrest offers Americans an opportunity to get real
about drug prohibition, especially about marijuana laws. MAP has over
a dozen placements of Parker’s column. A continually updating link to
her columns may be seen here:

http://www.mapinc.org/author/Kathleen+Parker

Please consider sending a Letter to the Editor to the Los Angeles
Times sharing your personal support for Newman’s OPED.

And please consider also creating a letter in response to Kathleen
Parker’s column and then direct it to the newspaper closest to your
hometown. If you elect to write to more than one newspaper, we
strongly suggest at least some modification of your message so that
each newspaper receives a unique letter.

MAP has archived numerous clippings on the arrest and pending
prosecution of Mr. Gore III. They may be easily be viewed here:

http://www.mapinc.org/people/Al+Gore

Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print unless
otherwise noted in MAP headers.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

Contact: The Lost Angeles Times http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter

Contact links for sending letters on Parker’s column are displayed in
the header for each of the MAP clippings.

Learn more about how you can help deliver the messages of The Drug
Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected] ) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007
Subject: #348 Students Can’t Speak Freely?

STUDENTS CAN’T SPEAK FREELY?

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #348 – Monday, 2 July 2007

On Monday, June 25, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down
their ruling on the case known informally known as “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

High school student Joseph Frederick was subjected to school
suspension in 2002 for his display of a homemade banner while standing
across the street from school property, albeit during normal school
hours. While initial court rulings held in favor of the Juneau, Alaska
school district, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed in favor of Frederick.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that since the school
officials might interpret Frederick’s message as some form of
“promoting illegal drug use”, disciplining the student with school
sanctioned penalties is appropriate.

MAP has already archived over a hundred news clippings on this ruling
from across North America. These, and additional clippings during the
days ahead, may be found at:

http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bong+Hits+4+Jesus (Bong Hits 4 Jesus)

Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor directed to
the newspaper closest to your hometown. We invite additional
consideration of sending appropriate letters to other newspapers which
have covered this story. If you elect to write to more than one
newspaper, we strongly suggest at least some modification of your
message so that each newspaper receives a unique letter.

Additionally, MAP has archived a large number of Opinion pieces – most
being critical of the ruling – from newspaper editorial boards and
columnists, including nationally known writers George Will and Debra
Saunders. Most of these opinion items saw print within the past one
to three days. They make excellent targets for readers to voice their
own feelings about the ruling from the Supreme Court.

Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print unless
otherwise noted in MAP headers.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected] ) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007
Subject: #347 Let Public Health Officials Save Lives

LET PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS SAVE LIVES

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #347 – Tuesday, 5 June 2007

On Monday, the editorial board of the New York Times sternly denounced
the U.S. Congress because of a law that does not allow Washington,
D.C. to use city funds to support needle exchange programs.

The objections raised are the same tired and indefensible hooey that
runs counter to esteemed medical and public health advice worldwide.

Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor to the New
York Times commending them for their stand. You may personalize your
letter to share testimony about yourself, someone you know or perhaps
the community where you live and why you endorse increased public
health and safety.

Perhaps a fact from this webpage could be the core of your letter
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/syringee.htm

Letters to the New York Times must be 150 words or less for
publication. They must also be exclusive to the Times. So please
don’t send a copy of a letter which has been printed elsewhere.

Please also contact your members of Congress about this issue. To find
out how to contact them go to http://congress.org/stickers/?dir=congressorg&officials=1

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

Contact: [email protected]

Pubdate: Mon, 04 Jun 2007

Source: New York Times (NY)

Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company

CONGRESS HOBBLES THE AIDS FIGHT

Washington, D.C., is one of America’s AIDS hot spots. A significant
proportion of infections can be traced back to intravenous drug users
who shared contaminated needles and then passed on the infection to
spouses, lovers or unborn children.

This public health disaster is partly the fault of Congress. It has
wrongly and disastrously used its power over the District of
Columbia’s budget to bar the city from spending even locally raised
tax dollars on programs that have slowed the spread of disease by
giving drug addicts access to clean needles.

Every state in the union allows some system for providing addicts with
clean needles. But nearly a decade ago, ideologues in Congress who
were unable to derail needle programs in their own states chose to
grandstand on the issue when it came time to pass the District’s
appropriation bill. Barred from spending local tax dollars on these
medically necessary programs, the city has limped along with a
privately financed operation that turns away more people than it serves.

Critics offer the same know-nothing arguments. They say that handing
out needles legitimizes drug use — even though studies here and
abroad showed long ago that the programs cut the infection rate
without increasing addiction. They say that addicts should be offered
treatment instead of clean needles — even though addicts who want
treatment must sometimes wait for months or even years to get in.
While they wait, they continue to use drugs and become infected.

Congress’s ban on even locally financed needle exchange programs in
the District of Columbia is an insult to the city’s voters and a clear
hazard to public health. Ideologues, in the House in particular, need
to get out of the way and let public health officials save lives.

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ( [email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007
Subject: #346 Health Canada Exploiting Medical Marijuana Patients!

HEALTH CANADA EXPLOITING MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS!

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #346 – Friday, 20 April 2007

Last Monday newspapers across Canada broke a startling and dismaying
analysis of how Health Canada is severely exploiting almost 2000
citizens who are legally permitted to possess and use medical marijuana.

Records obtained under the Access to Information Act reveal that the
federal government charges patients 15 times more for certified
medical marijuana than it pays to buy the cannabis in bulk from its
official supplier, Prairie Plant Systems.

Leading advocates and organizations who represent both the current and
future communities of patients are enlisting the support of all
Canadians to seek redress for this gross abuse of those who rely on
the help of the government to supply their needed medicine.

In equal order of importance, patients are calling
for:

1) The federal government to end the harmful monopoly that’s allowing
for the economic exploitation of both the critically and chronically
ill.

2) Immediate debt forgiveness of the $143,000 purportedly owed to
Health Canada by authorized users.

3) Begin immediate negotiations with the provinces on adding medical
cannabis to provincial formularies so that the provinces pay for
cannabis as they currently do with most other necessary medicines.

4) Initiate and carry out an immediate federal audit of the entire
program, as demanded by the Canadian AIDS Society, MP Libby Davies,
and Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin.

Please consider sending a Letter to the Editor to Canadian newspapers.
If you are a Canadian citizen, please give special attention to the
newspapers closest to your hometown.

Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print. Personal
testimonials from qualified patients, friends and family members also
will likely receive greater attention from most newspaper editors.
Please consider using at least one of the points above, but, perhaps,
not all of them.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

Newspaper Contacts for Your Letters to the Editor

The majority of the newspaper clippings about this exploitation of
patients may be found at

http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Prairie+Plant+Systems

Some articles and editorials may be found at

http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm

To find the letter to the editor contacts by province please go to
http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm – using the ‘List by Area’ dropdown,
select a province and then click the ‘List by Area’ button. Click
‘Contact’ for the contact information of a selected newspaper.

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US COPIES OF YOUR LETTERS

Please post copies of your letter writing efforts – or report your
other actions – to the sent letter list ( [email protected] ) if you
are signed up for that list, or by emailing copies directly to
[email protected] if you are not. Your letter will then be forwarded to
the list so others can learn from your efforts.

Joining the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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 join the Sent LTE email list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007
Subject: #354 Medicinal Marijuana In The News

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA IN THE NEWS

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #345 – Wednesday, 4 April 2007

On Monday, April 2nd, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed New
Mexico’s medical marijuana legislation into law – making New Mexico
the 12th state to have legislation which provides some degree of
protection from state marijuana laws for patients authorized by their
doctors to use marijuana.

Unfortunately, this historic event received little media coverage. CNN
Headline News provided a fair but quick announcement frequently on
Tuesday. But even within New Mexico press coverage was not extensive.
One reason could have been that the press knew that the Governor would
sign the bill. Another could have been that newspaper editors saw the
spin given by the Associated Press wire service to the story as
inappropriate, even false. See http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n431/a03.html
Since there were New Mexico Republicans who voted for the bill – and
the AP didn’t identify which Republicans thought that the Governor
supported the bill for other than compassionate reasons – we wonder if
even a majority of the Republicans in the state legislature would
endorse the cheap shot in the AP story.

Our best link to articles about the New Mexico law we have is
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Bill+Richardson

The push is on to pass medicinal marijuana bills in a number of other
states, so it is possible that another state or two, maybe more, may
pass laws this year. An example is an OPED that appeared Tuesday in
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which was aimed at the southwest part of
Illinois where the paper has a substantial market – designed to
increase support for the Illinois medicinal marijuana bill. See
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n429/a06.html

Every day MAP archives news clippings about medicinal marijuana worthy
of your letter to the editor writing efforts, easily found at this
link http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm

No, our volunteers do not find all the medicinal marijuana news items
printed. Please check your local newspapers for stories. Local folks
writing to their newspapers frequently find more respect from readers
– and often higher chances of being printed – than those who write
from far away

We thank you for your efforts, be it writing letters, newshawking, or
taking other actions from the local – city, county, state – to
national and international levels in support of providing safe access
for patients to medicinal marijuana.

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

Don’t Miss MAP’s New & Improved Online Media Activism Conferences

Join Steve and other LTE writing friends Tuesday evenings at 9 p.m.
Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain, or 6 p.m. Pacific for a
roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that are likely to be printed.

We’ve added a Thursday roundtable at a later hour – 11 p.m. Eastern,
10 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Mountain, or 8 p.m. Pacific,

See http://mapinc.org/resource/teamspeak/ for easy directions on how
to download, install and use the free TeamSpeak software. It runs on
Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers are
all that is needed) and also via text messaging.

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US COPIES OF YOUR LETTERS

Please post copies of your letter writing efforts – or report your
other actions – to the sent letter list ( [email protected] ) if you
are signed up for that list, or by emailing copies directly to
[email protected] if you are not. Your letter will then be forwarded to
the list so others can learn from your efforts.

Joining the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) 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 join the Sent LTE email list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.

Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007
Subject: #344 Bong Hits 4 Jesus Is About Free Speech, Not Drugs

BONG HITS 4 JESUS IS ABOUT FREE SPEECH, NOT DRUGS

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #344 – Wednesday, 21 March 2007

On Monday, March 19th, the Supreme Court of the United States heard
oral arguments in the case informally known as “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

High school student Joseph Frederick was subjected to school
suspension for his display of a homemade banner while standing across
the street from school property, albeit during normal school hours.

While initial court rulings held in favor of the Juneau, Alaska school
district, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed in favor of Frederick.

The Ninth Circuit determined that the school district did not have the
right to unduly restrict the public demonstration by Frederick when he
elected to unfurl and display his 14-foot banner with the words, “Bong
Hits 4 Jesus.”

The school district appealed to the Supreme Court.

MAP has already archived a number of news clippings covering Monday’s
oral arguments in Washington, as well as some opinion items. These,
and additional clippings during the days ahead, may be found at:

http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bong+Hits+4+Jesus

Please consider writing letters to the papers list at the above line –
and to newspapers in your area. It is likely that most daily papers
provided some coverage of the hearing. You may find MAP’s links to
local newspapers at:

http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm

Thanks for your effort and support.

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

**********************************************************************

Additional Information

The most complete review of the case, including links to all the
amicus briefs, that we are aware of is at:

http://bong.drugwarrant.com

Students for Sensible Drug Policy http://www.ssdp.org organized the
rally with the help of the Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org
in order to draw media attention to students’ free speech concerns.
SSDP flew in high school students from across the country to hold
“Free Speech 4 Students” signs at the court, including a large banner
modeled after the one that started this case. The SSDP action was
featured in nearly every major news outlet in the country, including
photos in the Washington Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Enquirer,
and a front-page picture in USA Today. The USA Today article is at
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n351/a02.html The Philadelphia
Enquirer photo is linked from http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n355.a08.html

The SSDP action was also featured in news stories on CNN, MSNBC, Fox
News, and dozens of local TV news affiliates, as well as Channel One
News, which is broadcast in 60% of high schools nationwide. You may
view a three-minute montage video of the coverage at
http://www.ssdp.org/freespeech You may view many of TV news stories in
their entirety at http://www.youtube.com/ssdp

**********************************************************************

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

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

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

[email protected]

**********************************************************************

Don’t Miss MAP’s New & Improved Online Media Activism Conferences

Join Steve and other LTE writing friends Tuesday evenings at 9 p.m.
Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain, or 6 p.m. Pacific for a
roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that are likely to be printed.

Additionally, we’ve added a Thursday roundtable at a later hour – 11
p.m. Eastern, 10 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Mountain, or 8 p.m. Pacific.

See http://mapinc.org/resource/teamspeak/ for easy directions on how
to download, install and use the free TeamSpeak software. It runs on
Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Discussion is conducted with
live Voice (microphone and speakers are all that is needed) and also
via text messaging.

**********************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not
subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others
can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ([email protected]) 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#form

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource

=.