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The Drug Czar Can’t Stop Panicking About Medical Marijuana

Here we go again:



Pete Guither couldn’t make it all the way through. I’m not even going to try. We’ve heard all of this before. We heard the same thing in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Yet no one is demanding the repeal of those laws. Medical marijuana works and so do the laws that protect patients from arrest.

If you’re in Michigan, vote Yes on Prop. 1. Pass it on.

In The Trenches

Medical marijuana patients attacked in new ad

Dear friends:

Michigan's medical marijuana initiative is under attack.

With just five days remaining until Election Day, prohibitionists are running this fear-mongering TV ad, which shows “footage” of a child trying to go in a medical marijuana dispensary and “patients” assaulting an elderly woman.

Attacking medical marijuana patients is a truly despicable tactic. Medical marijuana patients aren't thugs. They're seriously ill doctors, teachers, nurses, plumbers, and other upstanding Americans — who don't want to fear arrest and jail for using the medicine their physicians have recommended.

Here's a look at one of them:

Will you please help protect people like Dr. Wagoner and his wife from arrest and jail?

Not only is the opposition lying to voters about the face of medical marijuana, but they're lying about the initiative too. Michigan's initiative wouldn't even allow dispensaries; it simply permits private marijuana use by patients with a doctor's approval.

If this turns your stomach like it does mine, please turn your anger into action: Help the campaign win here.

Time is running short. Even a donation of $10 to the campaign committee will help ensure that sick and dying patients no longer must fear arrest.

Thank you,
Kampia signature (e-mail sized)

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

In The Trenches

Pants on Fire

Election 2008

Dear friends,

The prison guards' union is spending millions to defeat California's Proposition 5 and to make sure the number of people behind bars just keeps growing.

And they're lying to make that happen.

Here's your chance to fight back by helping us get this ad on the air. Donate now.

Every union has a mission to fight for better pay and working conditions.

But it's despicable when anyone sees their interests best served by locking up as many of their fellow citizens as possible.

The prison guards' union is lying to beat Prop. 5 -- the ballot initiative we drafted that would reduce prison overcrowding, expand treatment and rehabilitation for nonviolent drug offenders and cut billions of dollars in state spending.

Prop. 5 is in serious danger on Election Day because the prison guards' union has mounted an insidious campaign on TV that tells voters anything but the truth.

Help us make sure every voter in California sees the truth.

And please keep in mind: This is not just about California.  If Prop. 5 wins, it will provide a new model for the nation.

Please give whatever you can now to ensure that millions of people see this ad before Election Day.

Thank you,

Ethan Nadelmann
Executive Director
Drug Policy Alliance Network 

P.S. Don't miss this last chance to be a part of the biggest prison and sentencing reform in U.S. history. Give now.

In The Trenches

Press Release: Prison Guards Blasted on New 'Yes on 5' TV Spot: Union Has Spent $2 Million to Fight Prop. 5

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 29, 2008 CONTACT: Margaret Dooley-Sammuli at (213) 291-4190, Tommy McDonald at (510) 229-5215 Prison Guards Blasted in New 'Yes on 5' TV Spot CCPOA Has Spent Almost $2 million to Fight Prop. 5 Why? Overcrowded Prisons = Overtime Pay LOS ANGELES - California's prison guards union has provided most of the money lined up against Proposition 5, a drug treatment measure that would reduce prison overcrowding and forestall $2.5 billion worth of new prison construction. Today the Yes on 5 campaign struck back with a new TV spot that highlights the prison guards' contributions and their financial interest in defeating Prop. 5. Titled "Party's Over," the new Yes on 5 spot begins, "Our prisons are overcrowded. And prison guards are overjoyed!" The ad then explains that, for prison guards, overcrowding means more overtime pay. "That's why the prison guards want to stop Proposition 5, and are spending millions against it," says the ad. "Tell the prison guards the party's over. Vote Yes on 5." Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy campaign manager for Yes on 5, said, "We know that California voters will be outraged to learn that the people paying for those No on 5 ads are the people who benefit the most from overcrowded prisons. Let's not forget, it is California taxpayers who shell out $10 billion a year for a broken prison system and enormous overtime pay for guards." The prison guards union, formally the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), contributed $1 million to the official No on 5 campaign on Oct. 14, then last Friday made another $825,000 "independent expenditure" contribution of TV airtime to oppose Prop. 5. This means the prison guards have provided 75% of the money behind the $2.4 million in airtime purchased so far to oppose Prop. 5 Dooley-Sammuli added, "If you want to know why our prison system is dysfunctional, look no further than the checkbook of the CCPOA. The prison guards will fight any reform that might threaten their bottom line. It's time for the voters to stand up to the 800-pound gorilla of state politics. We can do that by voting Yes on Prop. 5." ### To view the ad: http://www.prop5yes.com/partys-over Broadcast-quality copies of the new Yes on 5 ad are available on request.
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Anti stigma group pt.2

The Vancouver anti stigma group held it's second meeting and they seem to have found a way to get some funding from somewhere as there are plans to create ads promoting better understanding between th
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The Perfect Argument for Medical Marijuana in Michigan

Wow. The drug czar likes to complain about the deep pockets of the "pot lobby," and he's lucky it's a lie. If we could afford to put this video on the airwaves across America, the federal war against medical marijuana would be over in the blink of an eye. This is the truth about why we do what we do. These are the people who pay the price for our brutal drug laws and their stories are in our hearts each day as we fight for change. If you live in Michigan, please vote YES on Prop. 1. Tell your friends. Tell your mom. With your support, we can win another important victory for seriously ill patients.
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Corruption at the Top Levels of the Mexican Drug War

This is the kind of crap we’re subsidizing with our massive financial support of Mexico’s war on drugs:

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's office, and one cartel worker says he even spied on DEA operations from inside U.S. Embassy, Mexican prosecutors said Monday.
…
The revelations of corruption inside the control centers of the U.S.-Mexican anti-drug effort were a major blow to President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug campaign, in which he has sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico to combat violent cartels.
…
Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said two top employees of her organized-crime unit and at least three federal police agents assigned to it may have been passing information on surveillance targets and potential raids for at least four years. [Guardian]

If the Mexican drug war were a Fortune 500 company, would you invest in it? Seriously, can anyone prevent our drug war donations from ending up in the hands of the cartels? This is an extraordinary mess, a complete mockery of everything we’re trying to accomplish and we have no clue how deep it goes.

There isn’t a single thing happening in Mexico right now that could be construed as progress in the war on drugs. To the contrary, every day that goes by brings new evidence of the fundamental failure of our strategy on every conceivable level.
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Random Searches in Our Nation’s Capital

I’ve got a post at Flex Your Rights about a new random search program that will supposedly protect Washington, DC’s public transit system from terrorism. Of course, anyone found with contraband will be arrested, and you can bet they’ll be finding a lot more bongs than bombs.

As many of you know, I don’t buy into that defeatist "4th Amendment is dead" hyperbole, because that mentality leads people to surrender and start waiving their rights. The greatest threat to the 4th Amendment is the widespread misconception that it’s no longer worth understanding and asserting our rights. People who know their rights get better outcomes during police encounters and that remains true despite anything and everything the wars on drugs and terror have done to undermine our basic freedoms.

So we put together The Citizen’s Guide to Refusing DC Metro Searches. If you live in the DC area, or plan on visiting sometime, you’ll want to check this out.