YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK - AGAINST YOU PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #290 Thursday, 29 April 2004 Each day the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) spends about a half million dollars on advertising, advertising bought under a law that requires the ads be purchased at half the going price, so their actual market value is about a million dollars a day. See http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ The majority of this advertising is spent on demonizing cannabis, and cannabis users. When either medical or recreational cannabis use becomes an issue - in legislatures or by ballot initiatives - within any state, these advertising dollars are focused on undermining the political debate within those states. To counter this advertising, the drug policy reform community - at best - is able to spend less than a million dollars a year on advertising. This is the primary reason all the reform organizations place such a great emphasis on having folks like you write Letters to the Editor of newspapers and magazines - which costs you only time but contributes to redressing the 360 to 1 imbalance in the advertising playing field. Not content with the clear imbalance against us, Congress has passed a law - the Istook Amendment - which will withhold federal funds from any public transit system that accepts ads that promote the legalization or medical use of cannabis, which is what the OPED below is about. The drug war cheerleaders at ONDCP and in congress now push censorship because they fear that public opinion is turning against them. Open and honest debate, public forums, your LTEs, and even advertising that does not agree with their opinion is to be feared. "Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead (1901-78), American anthropologist, "Coming of Age in Samoa" Your letters to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution thanking them for printing the OPED will, even if not printed, let their editorial page editors, and their editorial board, know that printing the truth about this un-American government action is not popular. Need More Facts for Your Letters? Change the Climate's ads are the direct reason for the Istook Amendment. See http://www.changetheclimate.org/campaigns/02_18_04/ Other webpages about the efforts to overturn this amendment: http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPolicy.cfm?ID=14974&c=19 http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr042804wdc.html http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/02_28_04istook.cfm ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE: Write a LTEs to the papers in your state about this issue. This is a good example of a topic that may result in a printed letter without the need to tie it to any other specific item the papers may have printed. To find your state/local newspapers, go to MAP's media links page at: http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm Using the 'List by Area" dropdown find and bring up the list of newspapers in your state and their LTE contact. Note those with the higher numbers of Clippings or Excerpts as this tends to indicate a higher interest by the paper in our issues, and thus should be your first targets. Also consider sending the OPED to your local newspapers. Ask your papers to please print similar editorial page items exposing this attempt at government censorship. Let your members of congress know about how you feel about this issue. If you can, visit with the members, or visit their state/local offices, as telling them or their staff directly always shows a deep concern, stronger than any other message. Or give them a phone call. Last, but not least, cannabis is a topic before the legislators, or an initiative issue, in a number of states and cities. Please make the appropriate contacts for your states. It does not take many folks like you to make a real difference! See: http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/action/moreactions.asp http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/ http://www.mpp.org/campaigns/index.html Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID (Letter, email messages, etc.) Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit. This is _Very_ Important as it is one very effective way of gauging our impact and effectiveness. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () 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 The OPED: Pubdate: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA) Copyright: 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Contact: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html Author: Bill Piper MOVE TO PENALIZE PRO-DRUG VIEWS AMOUNTS TO CENSORSHIP In building his case for liberating Iraq, President Bush told Congress and the American people, "America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance." These principles continue to comfort and motivate both our soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice for America and the Iraqi people struggling to build a free society of their own. Yet, at the very time our soldiers are risking their lives to bring democracy to Iraq, certain members of Congress are undermining it at home. This year, U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) slipped a provision into a federal spending bill that takes transportation grants away from any city that displays ads on its buses and subways from groups advocating "the legalization or medical use of" marijuana. The provision is already having a chilling effect on free speech. Afraid of losing at least $85 million in transportation funding, the Washington transportation authority rejected an advertisement this year submitted by a coalition of drug policy reform groups. The ad shows a group of ordinary people standing behind prison bars under the headline, "Marijuana Laws Waste Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Lock Up Non-Violent Americans." The goal of the Istook Amendment is to prevent residents from educating their neighbors on why we need to reform our nation's marijuana laws. Of course, it won't be long before other members of Congress try to censor viewpoints they disagree with. Abortion-rights groups could lobby Congress to ban anti-abortion ads and vice versa. This is censorship, plain and simple. With $3 billion in federal transportation dollars at stake, this is a serious issue. Courts have generally ruled that public transportation authorities cannot discriminate against any political viewpoint. If local and state transit authorities are forced to run drug policy reform ads, they could lose federal grants. Istook's provision could end up costing cities in many congressional districts tens of millions of dollars. That means not only less service, but also fewer jobs. The same federal spending bill also gave the federal government $145 million in taxpayer money to run ads in support of a war on marijuana, including ads on buses and subways around the country. At the same time members of Congress are spending taxpayer money to promote their view on an issue, they're prohibiting taxpayers from using their own money to pay for ads offering a different perspective. Right now it's marijuana policy; tomorrow it could be tax or gun policy. Imagine a President Kerry prohibiting ads in support of the right to keep and bear arms while spending taxpayer money to run ads in support of gun control. Congress has paved the way. The free exchange of ideas without government censorship is essential to the preservation of a free society. There is still a chance, however, that free speech will prevail in the end. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday heard arguments in a case brought by the Drug Policy Alliance and other groups, challenging the Istook Amendment on free-speech grounds. Additionally, with enough pressure from voters, Congress could be persuaded to repeal the Istook provision this year. Our sons and daughters are dying to promote democracy. Congress needs to stop undermining it. ----- Bill Piper is director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that promotes drug policies "grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights." ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts, Please See: Writer's Resources http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: Please utilize the following URLs http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm We wish to thank all our contributors, editors, Newshawks and letter writing activists. Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist

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