PRISONER ABUSE AND THE DRUG WAR - WHAT YOU CAN DO PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #291 Friday, 14 May 2004 Very few in the media, or in Congress, are making the connection between the fact that prisoners in the United States suffer a degree of abuse no less inhumane than those in Iraq. There has been reports that several of the soldiers charged in Iraq received their training working in United States prisons. But there are hardly any news reports that tie prison abuse of our drug war prisoners to what happened in Iraq. See: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm The current focus of the press on prisoner abuse in Iraq presents a superb opportunity for you to write letters to the editor pointing out how ironic it is that anybody is shocked over the photos, when our prisoners here at home are treated no better - to include our drug war prisoners. Need facts? The November Coalition has already set up a page of links to good reports at: http://www.november.org/abuse/media.html Note "Prisoner Abuse: Not in Bush's America?" at the bottom of this page: http://www.november.org/abuse/ For more facts see: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/civilrts.htm and http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm 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. 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. Find the contracts for your representative at http://www.house.gov/ And for your Senator at http://www.senate.gov/ 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 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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