How To Become An Active Member of MAP
Are you tired of seeing billions of dollars being wasted on our existing failed drug policy? Does the thought of thousands of destroyed lives, high levels of violent crime, overcrowded prison and court systems concern you? Would you like to see your country adopt a sensible drug policy strategy and thereby solve some of our most pressing social ills? Are you ready to take some action and to have your voice and opinion heard? If so you are in the right place. We are looking for active activists that are willing to commit to some specific objectives in order to help end the useless, expensive, corrupt, and cruel "War on Drugs." Regardless of your available time or individual talents MAP can help you be effective at promoting sensible drug policies. A Letter A Month - That's All We AskOne very important activity that our membership engages in is influencing the media and educating the public via Letters to the Editor (LTEs). By coordinating our membership we have sent out thousands of LTEs responding to thousands of news articles on drug policy topics. Our members have been published (many times) in every major newspaper in the country. Each of these published letters are effectively "ads" for reform. To review our published letters archive, valued at millions of dollars in equivalent advertising, see: http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ You can do it too!Becoming an effective letter writer is easy, fun, and rewarding. Tips for Getting Letters to the Editor Published (composed by our Platinum Letter Writer, Robert Sharpe) and Writer's Resources provide invaluable advice from successful letter writers. Once you see your name in print and realize that thousands or even millions of people have likely read your letter, and that you have simultaneously helped educate an important publication, you will be an enthusiastic supporter of this activity for life. There is little an individual can do at home and anytime of the day or night that is more effective in promoting reform ideas than writing letters and op-eds. A single published letter often has an advertising value of many thousands of dollars. Subscribe to our Focus Alerts if you would like to join a large group of fellow reformers in writing letters in force responding to one particularly important news item per week. See http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm to sign up for this feature. If you want to keep on top of the latest news on drug policy subscribe to The DrugSense Weekly Newsletter. It highlights the most important news articles of the week on a wide range or reform issues and provides E-mail addresses to the newspapers so you can select articles that are of particular interest to you and engage in individual letter writing efforts. Links to the full text of each article are also provided. Be sure to send a copy of your letter(s) to us so that we can track our effectiveness and share your ideas with others. Either join the MAPTalk chat list at http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ and post a copy of your letters there or send a copy of your letter(s) to Mgreer@mapinc.org and we will forward them for you. Become A "NewsHawk"Another very important aspect of MAP activism is to be a MAP "NewsHawk". All MAP participants should be on the lookout for drug policy related articles in local or national media in newspaper or magazine articles This will insure that our group can react in a timely fashion and in force to all drug policy related media activity. These reports of media activity should include as much contact info as possible. For more info on becoming a NewsHawk see: http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm Other Activities You Can Engage InRecruiters. Visit news groups, E-mail chat lists, and other sources for large groups of reform minded people and encourage them to visit our web pages, subscribe to our DrugSense Weekly newsletter and to get involved. Fund Raisers. We are always short of funding either contribute or try to find others to do so. To contribute conveniently on-line using a credit card see http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm Or you can mail in your tax deductible contributions to:
DrugSense Checks can be made out to either DrugSense or The Media Awareness Project (MAP) Start a local reform group in your state or country. If you have 20 people who will help engage in local or state efforts similar to the above types of activities we will provide a free E-mail list to coordinate your groups activities and provide guidance to get you started. Once you get going we will also create and support a web page for your group. All at no charge to your organization. Spread the word about our huge searchable archive of news articles http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/ can answer practically any question on drug policy in seconds, help you prepare for debates or media appearances, provide a research tool for local media, enhance your fact checking and accuracy for letter writing and much more. Use and distribute the valuable collection of Drug War Facts http://drugwarfacts.org/ It is a large collection of facts citations and myth de bunkers. If the average citizen was aware of just this collection of facts support for the "War on Drugs" would erode by orders of magnitude.
If this sounds like what you or your group has been looking for, please let us
know by filling out our membership form. See the following
link to get started: We welcome you to the Media Awareness Project (MAP) and applaud your courage and efforts in reform drug policy.
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