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. 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 () 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. 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#form Prepared by: The Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource =.

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