Announcement

John Lehman has suffered from AIDS for the last 10 years. The pain medicine he takes kept him unfocused and mainly in bed, keeping him from his work as a writer. "It was frustrating, to say the least, when vague thoughts of stories danced in my head and there was nothing I could do to put them onto a page," he says.

Luckily, John lives in Montana, where voters passed MPP's medical marijuana ballot initiative in November 2004. Since then, patients like John have been permitted to use and grow their own marijuana legally for medical purposes. However, with no income, John couldn't afford the $50 fee to register with the state's medical marijuana program and obtain the ID card that would protect him from arrest.

Fortunately, MPP was able to help. Through our medical marijuana scholarship program, we paid John's registration fee so that, now, he doesn't need to fear being arrested by state and local police.

Here are John's own words:

Fewer pain pills to pop plus using medical marijuana to alleviate my discomfort equals the opportunity to write again. Medical marijuana also stimulates my appetite when keeping my weight is threatened. In turn, this enables me to go out into the community and give back.

If anyone can help continue the phenomenal work of the Marijuana Policy Project by a kind donation, please do. Other patients like me need your help.

Won't you please help other low-income patients get the protection they need by paying a full or partial registration fee?

A donation of $50 will keep one patient out of jail in Montana or Vermont; a donation of $75 will do the same in Rhode Island; and a donation of $110 or $200 will do the same in Colorado or Nevada, respectively. If you can't afford those amounts, please give what you can.

After MPP's recent lobbying campaigns in Vermont and Rhode Island and our ballot initiative campaign in Montana, these three states now allow patients to possess and grow their own marijuana. But many seriously ill patients have little or no income and are unable to afford fees for the required state medical marijuana ID cards. In response, MPP created a financial assistance program to help pay the registry fees for patients who cannot afford it — and has since paid the registration fees for 90 financially needy patients.

Would you please sponsor a low-income medical marijuana patient today? Your donation can prevent medical marijuana patients from being arrested and jailed simply because they cannot afford to pay the registration fee.

Whether it's $10 or $1,000, cancer, AIDS, and other seriously ill patients are hoping you will give the most generous gift you can to help them. Please give now, while it's fresh in your mind. Thanks so much ...

Sincerely,

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 2007. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

The Marijuana Policy Project’s campaign to pressure the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana just hit a new level.

Check out this CNN footage of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) avoiding Clayton Holton, a muscular dystrophy patient in New Hampshire who has used medical marijuana illegally.

And you can see a fuller video clip of the encounter here.

CNN ran its coverage of the encounter over and over again on Monday, in addition to putting it on the front of its Web site, which led to the video clip becoming one of the most watched news stories of the day on Digg.com.

This led to ABC News putting the video on its Web site, as well as a raft of critical blog coverage, including this from Andrew Sullivan and this on Boston Magazine's blog, which starts with this ...

Don’t you hate it when reality comes barging into your ideological Neverland and mucks everything up? That’s what happened to Mitt Romney last weekend. At a campaign stop in Dover, NH on Saturday, the Mittster found himself confronted by Clayton Holton, an 80-pound man stricken with muscular dystrophy who says he is “living proof medical marijuana works.” Romney wasn’t having any of it ...

Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana is MPP's nine-month campaign to pressure the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to take strong, public, positive positions on medical marijuana in advance of the New Hampshire primary — the first in the nation — expected to be no later than January 8, 2008.

Would you please consider funding our pressure tactics in New Hampshire?

And the fallout from our confrontation with U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) keeps getting worse for him. On September 30, he rudely dismissed Linda Macia, a New Hampshire resident with multiple sclerosis, by arguing that the government isn’t arresting “the dead” for medical marijuana.

We featured the video coverage of this encounter in an e-mail alert to you on October 4. But check out this column in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, which blasts McCain for his heartlessness.

We have awarded McCain, Romney, and four other Republican presidential candidates a grade of “F” for their inhumane stances on medical marijuana. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve awarded two Republican candidates — Congressmen Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) — “A+” grades.

And, of course, our campaign has already succeeded in getting all eight Democratic presidential candidates to speak out in favor of ending the federal arrests of medical marijuana patients in the 12 states where medical marijuana is legal under state law.

Please visit www.GraniteStaters.com/candidates for our complete voting guide. You'll find statements from each of the candidates, as well as a grade for each.

MPP is the only drug policy reform organization that’s systematically influencing the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana — and punishing those who don’t. Would you please consider making a donation in support of our work today?

Thank you,

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 2007. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

I’m pleased to announce that the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy (CSMP) has launched its long-awaited campaign to pass a statewide marijuana “decriminalization” initiative in Massachusetts in November 2008.
 
With your help, CSMP plans to reduce the penalties in Massachusetts so that the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana will be punishable by only a small fine — like a parking ticket — with no arrest, no additional penalties, no lawyer’s fees, and no court appearances. Click here to read a news story about the campaign.

MPP is currently assisting CSMP in collecting signatures to put the initiative on the November 2008 ballot, and we need you to be part of the campaign. Will you please visit www.SensibleMarijuanaPolicy.org to donate $10 or more today?
 
And if you live in Massachusetts, CSMP needs you to volunteer to collect signatures or to make a particularly sizable donation. If you don’t live in Massachusetts, CSMP needs you to donate money to support the signature-gathering effort.
 
Massachusetts law requires that CSMP collect 66,593 valid signatures between September 15 and November 21, 2007. CSMP will then have to collect an additional 11,099 signatures in the spring of 2008 in order to place the decriminalization initiative on the November 2008 ballot. Because validity rates for signatures hover around 55%, this means the committee actually needs to collect about 140,000 raw signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot. And because it costs us $3 to gather each signature, CSMP needs the help of both generous donors and committed volunteers to make this $420,000 project happen.
 
Signature-gathering can be a very difficult process, but the momentum is clearly on our side. Since 2000, Massachusetts residents have approved 41 out of 41 local marijuana-related initiatives by an average of 63% of the vote. Of these, 30 urged state legislators to support legislation to make the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana punishable by a citation and a small fine, as opposed to arrest and jail. This string of local victories — as well as growing support for such legislation in the state legislature and in the news media, including the Boston Globe — means that Massachusetts is ready for this statewide initiative.
 
MPP, the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, and a coalition of Massachusetts advocates, legislators, and other policy makers are excited to move forward with this campaign. Would you please lend your support today?
 
I’m grateful for anything you can do to help.
 
Sincerely,

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

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is excited to announce that we have added two brand new features to our online community designed to allow patients and advocates to communicate more directly and effectively with each other. Please read on for more information on ASA’s new blog and our new discussion forums.

Sign Up for ASA's Discussion Forums
www.AmericansforSafeAccess.org/ASAForum

ASA is building an online community for activists and supporters to discuss the latest news, actions, and research around medical cannabis issues. More than 200 people have already signed up for the forums and have engaged in discussions in state, regional, media, legal, activist, and condition-based forums.

To check out our forums and sign-up to participate, visit www.AmericansforSafeAccess.org/ASAForum and get involved today!

Introducing ASA's New Blog -
Medical Cannabis: Voices from the Frontlines
www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/blog

Last week, ASA launched our blog, Medical Cannabis: Voices from the Frontlines. ASA staff and guest bloggers will be posting here regularly with the latest news and analysis of medical cannabis issues.

Here is a sampling of what we have blogged about so far:

• California Weekly Round Up
• DEA Raid analysis 6/1-9/26/07
• DEA Gives Schwarzenegger Another Reason to Stand Up for Patients’ Rights
• Michael Teague Is Free at Last, as Federal Judge Questions Another Federal Medical Marijuana Prosecution
• 60-Minutes Highlights Medical Cannabis Dispensaries and Interference by the Feds

Visit www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/blog today to read our posts and to share your comments.

Thanks for your continued support for safe access. We look forward to meeting you online!

Rebecca Saltzman
Chief of Staff
Americans for Safe Access

Right now, the DEA is currently raiding the River City Patient Center in Sacramento, California — the longest established medical marijuana dispensary in the city. Protesters have gathered outside the building in support of the collective.

And yesterday, the DEA began threatening landlords in the Santa Barbara area who lease space to medical marijuana dispensaries — activity that’s legal under California state law — with federal prison time and forfeiture of their properties. Several dispensaries closed right away.

This follows a similar move in Los Angeles in July — a maneuver that was condemned in a Los Angeles Times editorial as "a deplorable new bullying tactic."

No matter what state you live in, will you please take a few minutes to write all three of your members of Congress to protest this federal interference in state law? MPP’s action center is easy to use: You can send one of our pre-drafted letters, or you can personalize the letter.

This is just the latest in the campaign of terror the DEA is waging on the sick. In June and July, the DEA conducted extensive medical marijuana raids in several California counties and in Oregon, including raids on at least 10 Los Angeles clinics in late July. Most were aimed at medical marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state and local laws, and in several cases the DEA detained and terrorized individual patients.

If this outrages you like it does me, would you help MPP hire a new grassroots organizer in California, as well as to retain a lobbyist to help push legislation in Sacramento to protect these dispensaries? If enough supporters on this e-mail list donate today, MPP will be able to fully pay for both positions.

These reprehensible DEA attacks — which run counter to state law, as well as the 78% of the American people who support "making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering" — are preventing effective local regulation of medical marijuana: Cities and counties in California are passing ordinances to ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries follow the law and serve patients properly. But by treating all who provide medical marijuana to the sick as common drug dealers, the DEA has become the single largest obstacle to effective regulation of these establishments.

A major Los Angeles raid actually occurred at the exact moment that members of the city council were holding a press conference to discuss an ordinance to regulate medical marijuana providers.

Local officials and major newspapers are outraged by the DEA's actions. After the July raids in Los Angeles, L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine — a Republican and former police officer with the L.A. Police Department — said, "I am greatly disturbed that the Drug Enforcement Administration would initiate an enforcement action against medical marijuana facilities in the City of Los Angeles during a news conference regarding City Council support of an Interim Control Ordinance to regulate all facilities within the City. This action by the DEA is?contrary to the vote of Californians who overwhelmingly voted to support medicinal marijuana use by those facing serious and life threatening illnesses. The DEA needs to focus their attention and enforcement action on the illegal drug dealers who are terrorizing communities in Los Angeles."

After a series of DEA medical marijuana raids in San Francisco, the city's health director, Dr. Mitchell Katz, wrote to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, "These actions have resulted in 4,000 persons with chronic illness left without access to critical treatment upon which they rely. Certainly in this post-September 11 environment, it seems that a DEA priority punishing organizations for distributing cannabis for medical purposes to chronically ill individuals is misplaced."

Would you help us fight back against the DEA's deplorable attacks on sick patients? Please write your three members of Congress now, and then consider making a donation to MPP today.

Sincerely,

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