Fundraising Appeal

Dear friends:

Opponents of the initiative to decriminalize marijuana in Massachusetts have now hit a new low. They're airing this radio ad, which falsely alleges that the initiative would benefit drug dealers, tell children that drug use is “safe and acceptable,” and “make it easier for kids to get behind the wheel of a car after smoking marijuana," and that its chief proponent is philanthropist George Soros.

All false.

It's no surprise that the opposition can't argue the initiative on its merits and has to resort to outright lies.

But one week out from Election Day, there's not much time left to make sure that Massachusetts voters hear the truth.

Would you please help the campaign complete its final, crucial push in these last remaining days? There is a real opportunity here to change marijuana laws in an historic way, but time is short.

Thank you,

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

P.S. You can opt out of receiving fundraising mentions in the e-mail alerts I send you in 2008 by visiting www.mpp.org/2008optoutpreference at your convenience.

Dear friends,

LEAP fully supports Proposition 5 on the November 4^th California ballot.  Please read the following message from Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, and vote for Proposition 5 if you live in California (if you are outside California, please support DPA in any manner you choose):

“I’ve never invested as much in anything as I have in Proposition 5, our ballot initiative in California.  If we win on Election Day, this will be the biggest reform of prisons and sentencing in U.S. history – and the biggest reform of drug policy – since the repeal of alcohol Prohibition seventy-five years ago. 

But we both know you can’t make a change this big without stirring up intense opposition from vested interests.  Last week the powerful prison guards union contributed $1 million to the opposition campaign.  That’s on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Indian tribes/casinos with close links to law enforcement as well as $100,000 from the California Beer and Beverage Distributors.

And I just found out that today the Bush administration’s drug czar is in Sacramento to announce his opposition to Proposition 5.

If we win, the new law will effectively transfer $1 billion annually from prison and parole to treatment and rehabilitation – and save taxpayers $2.5 billion because new prisons will not need to be built.  The result will be fewer drug and other nonviolent offenders behind bars, and also reductions in crime and recidivism.  The initiative even includes a sensible provision to reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana to the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

This initiative, unlike most, was drafted with keen attention to decades of empirical research on what works best in reducing incarceration, crime and recidivism and enabling people with drug problems to get their lives together.

I am not instinctively a fan of the ballot initiative process.  But it seems to me that the process is ideally used when the legislature and/or the governor are unable or unwilling to enact worthy legislation, which is favored by a substantial majority of the public, and which advances the interests of those people who are most disempowered in the legislative process. That is clearly the case here. 

There has never been a return on investment in major reform of drug policy, prisons and sentencing like this.  Raising the millions of dollars needed to draft this initiative, get it on the ballot, and hopefully win it has been no easy task – and I am still trying to raise the final million with two weeks to go until Election Day. 

So we have a lot riding on this initiative – not just for DPA but also for the hundreds of thousands of people who will either sit in prison or get a second chance, depending on whether or not Prop 5 wins on Election Day.

Our opponents think they can defeat Prop 5 by resorting to the same old scare tactics that filled the prisons in the first place.  But we know we’ll win if voters focus on the bottom line, which is that Prop 5 will reduce prison overcrowding, reduce crime and recidivism, directly help huge numbers of people, and save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Please tell everyone you know in California to vote for Prop 5.  Forward this email if you like.  And if you think you can help in any other way, please let me know soon.  We MUST win Prop 5.

Many, many thanks.

Very truly yours,

Ethan

P.S. The campaign’s website is www.prop5yes.com.”

Dear friends:

MPP's Michigan campaign committee hit the airwaves with two hard-hitting new TV ads, urging voters to pass the medical marijuana initiative there on November 4.

One ad features Michigan resident Deb Brink, who used medical marijuana to ease the side effects of chemotherapy during cancer treatment. The other spotlights Dr. George Wagoner, who lost his wife of 51 years, Beverly, to ovarian cancer last year. He explains how marijuana helped ease her suffering when drug after drug failed.

If a majority of Michigan voters pass MPP's initiative on November 4, Michigan law will change to allow patients to use, possess, and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes with their doctors' approval.

Michigan might be just days away from becoming the 13th state to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and prison — and the first in the Midwest — but our opponents are pushing back hard, and we need the financial help of supporters like you to win. Would you please donate to MPP's campaign committee today, so that we have the funds it will take to win on Election Day?

We are counting on people like you to lend your voice for what's right in these final days. Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

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 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

Dear friends:

Today, the campaign to pass a marijuana decriminalization initiative in Massachusetts began airing two new TV ads.

In the ads, retired police officers urge voters to pass the initiative next month.

In one ad, Sergeant Howard Donahue, a 33-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, says, “Take it from a cop who walked the beat. Please vote yes on Question 2.”

In the other ad, Lieutenant Tom Nolan, a Boston police officer for 27 years, says, “I entered law enforcement to catch bad guys, not to deny someone an education for life just because they made a mistake.” (This is a reference to current law in Massachusetts, where simply getting arrested — not even convicted — for possessing a small amount of marijuana generates a permanent record in a database that employers, landlords, and schools can search and use to preclude offenders from getting jobs, housing, and school loans.)

 

Would you please help the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy keep these ads on the air between now and Election Day? Airing TV ads in major markets like Boston is always expensive — but even more so during a presidential campaign. With only 14 days remaining until Election Day, the campaign urgently needs supporters like you to chip in to push the initiative to victory.

Thank you so much for anything you can do to help.

Sincerely,

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

P.S. You can opt out of receiving fundraising mentions in the e-mail alerts I send you in 2008 by visiting www.mpp.org/2008optoutpreference at your convenience.

Dear friend:

One year ago today, Robin Prosser took her own life.

For more than 20 years, Robin, a former concert pianist and systems analyst, suffered from an autoimmune disease similar to lupus. Her muscles stiffened, impeding her ability to move, and she suffered from chronic pain, heart trouble, nausea, and migraines. She was allergic to many prescription drugs, and others simply didn't work. Only medical marijuana brought her relief, but the DEA seized her medicine. Unable to cope with the chronic pain any longer, she committed suicide on October 18, 2007.

You can watch MPP's tribute to Robin here:

Won't you please help others like Robin? On November 4, voters in Michigan will have the chance to pass a law protecting medical marijuana patients like Robin from arrest and prison. You can help ensure this measure passes, by helping to fund the campaign here.

Please stand with us and send a loud message to the federal government: No more.

Thank you,

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

P.S. MPP would like to thank Patients & Families United for providing footage and film for the tribute video, as well as for its outstanding advocacy work on behalf of Montana's medical marijuana patients.

P.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. (And as always, you can opt out of receiving fundraising mentions in the e-mail alerts I send you in 2008 by visiting www.mpp.org/2008optoutpreference at your convenience.)

Dear friends:

Once again, the White House drug czar is using taxpayer money to lie and interfere in an MPP state ballot initiative campaign. Earlier this week, drug czar John Walters and deputy drug czar Scott Burns appeared in Michigan to campaign against MPP's medical marijuana initiative there.

Walters pulled out his usual despicable lies. His claims in Michigan this week included:

• Medical marijuana laws lead to “people who are dependent on this drug using the medical excuse to acquire the drug, to use the drug, to remain dependent, to get more teenagers and pre-teenagers to use.” (In fact, teen marijuana use has consistently declined in states with medical marijuana laws.)
• Marijuana has no legitimate medical use. (In fact, the American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Lymphoma Foundation of America, American Academy of HIV Medicine, and dozens of other medical organizations recognize marijuana's medical value.)

While the drug czar spends taxpayer money to lie to voters, MPP's campaign committee is running out of funds to fight back and badly needs your help. Would you please consider donating $10 or more today?

This isn't the first time that the drug czar's office has campaigned against a state initiative. In fact, the drug czar makes a habit of targeting MPP. He campaigned against the medical marijuana laws that MPP successfully passed in Rhode Island in January of 2006 and in Montana and Vermont in 2004. And he has a history of swarming the airwaves with misleading and fear-mongering TV ads during the last two weeks of MPP's campaigns, so we expect the lies to escalate.

But we're fighting back. Just this week, MPP filed a complaint against the drug czar's office in the form of a Data Quality Act petition. The federal Data Quality Act requires federal agencies, like the drug czar's office, to ensure the quality, objectivity, and integrity of information it distributes. In other words, it mandates that the drug czar's information about marijuana rely on sound science — not twisted propaganda.

MPP's filing is the first of its kind. No organization has ever formally requested that the drug czar redact his lies. If we win, drug czar propaganda about marijuana will have to be corrected.

But there are only 19 days left until Election Day. MPP's campaign committee needs your help now. Won't you be part of making Michigan the 13th medical marijuana state — and the first in the Midwest?

Thank you in advance for anything you can give to help.

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 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

Dear friends:

Last week, I sent you MPP's new video about the lies being spread about marijuana by the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF).

DFAF is now taking its lies into Massachusetts, where a measure to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana is on the ballot this Election Day. Its new radio ad — which you can listen to here — claims that the initiative will “put marijuana, a dangerous and addictive drug, into the hands of our children.”

If you want to fight back against the dishonorable attempts to keep Massachusetts voters from passing a far more sensible law, please give what you can to the campaign today. With just three weeks remaining until Election Day, every dollar you can give will help. 

Bizarrely, the ad criticizes the campaign for accepting “out-of-state” contributions — yet the opposition ad itself is sponsored by the Florida-based Save Our Society from Drugs (SOS). SOS is DFAF's lobbying arm.

Even more disgustingly, DFAF was previously known as Straight Inc., one of the most notorious drug war abominations: It ran a network of “treatment facilities” that were shut down amid lawsuits and investigations regarding horrifying physical and emotional abuse of the young people in its care.

That's the sort of shady opposition that the campaign is up against in Massachusetts. They're willing to say and do anything to keep the initiative from passing on November 4. Would you please consider donating $10 or more today so that the campaign has the resources to continue fighting back?

Sincerely,

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

Dear friend:

“Saying that marijuana is harmless is like saying that a dog is a cat.”

“Scientific research does not indicate marijuana is medicine.”

“All major national medical associations have rejected it.”

Sound wrong to you? It is. Blatantly so. But these lies, and others like them, are being spread by the Drug Free America Foundation, in a cynical campaign to undermine the enormous progress that marijuana policy reform has made. As we rack up more and more victories, our opposition gets more and more willing to lie outright.

Watch MPP's new video fact-checking these lies — and send it to your friends:

And as always, we need the help of people like you to continue fighting lies with the truth. If what you see in this video angers you, would you fight back against it, by making a donation of $10 or more to MPP's work today?

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 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

Dear friends:

Opponents of Massachusetts' marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative just can't stop lying.

Here are some the lies they're flooding the media with, in a cynical attempt to scare voters into defeating the measure on November 4:

• Marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco — because tobacco takes a long time to kill you and alcohol has health benefits. (Yes, you read that right.) That's according to Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter.

And here are four gems from the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association:

• “By empowering drug dealers with decriminalization of marijuana, we would be empowering them to continue their violent ways: carrying and brandishing weapons; ripping off kids who get in over their heads; engaging in bloody turf wars; and indiscriminately assaulting or murdering when things don't go the way they want.”
• “Marijuana arrests are strongly associated with violent crime — dangerous criminals who make the wrong choice time and time again.” (In reality, research shows unmistakably that marijuana — unlike alcohol — is almost never the cause of aggression or violence.)
• “Very few arrests involving marijuana charges are for simple possession.” (In reality, according to FBI statistics, a full 89% of marijuana arrests are for simple possession.)
• The initiative “will allow drug dealers to operate with impunity and make it easier for them to do business with your children.”

You and I know this is outrageous. Don't sit by and let law enforcement officials get away with this blatant lying and fear-mongering — help the campaign fund an aggressive response.

This is the first time in history that an initiative to decriminalize marijuana will be on any statewide ballot, and the campaign needs our help to fight back hard in the little time that remains. Will you please visit www.SensibleMarijuanaPolicy.org/donate to donate $10 or more today?

As always, thank you for your generous support of MPP and our allies.

Sincerely,

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