Please Counter the Attack on Stossel's 'War on Drugs: A War on Ourselvess' PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 248 July 31, 2002 Tuesday evening ABC TV broadcast a superb documentary by John Stossel, "War on Drugs: A War on Ourselves." A webpage summary is at http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/stossel_drugs_020730.html If you missed the show, we recommend listening to it via the low bandwidth audio feed at http://highwire.stanford.edu/~straffin/dp/ The program is also available for viewing online using the Real Player at: http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/video_news.html That the documentary really hit the mark can be seen by the outrage, along with the usual twisting of facts, in press releases by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) http://www.cadca.org/PressGallery/PressReleases/ABCNewsProgram.htm and by former White House Drug spokesman Bob Weiner http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n000/a096.html These folks and others have launched an organized letter writing campaign directed at David Westin, the President of ABC News, to tell him how wrong ABC was to present this documentary -- that they were not given the time to present their views, that the facts were wrong, and so on. They are asking folks to send letters by regular mail. Can we do any less? Please write your own letter to Mr. Westin at: David Westin, President, ABC News, 47 W. 66th Street, New York, NY 10023 Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID (Letter, email messages, etc.) Please post a copy 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 with so others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit. 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 and/or http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form This is Very Important as it is one very effective way of gauging our impact and effectiveness. Extra Credit: While taking any of the following actions is not as important as writing and mailing a letter as suggested above, the following actions will help: Use this webform, and the dropdown to 'Other' to send a note to ABC http://abcnews.go.com/service/Help/abcmail.html Use this webform to send John Stossel a note http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/stossel_mailform.html Please send a note to your local ABC station thanking them for carrying the documentary, and asking them to contact the network about having it rebroadcast. The fast way to find the station is to do a search. For example, using http://www.google.com/advanced_search and asking it to find all the words 'ABC TV Marquette Michigan' brought that station to the top of the links list. LETTER example (MAILED AT THE POST OFFICE) David Westin President ABC News 47 W. 66th Street New York, NY 10023 Dear Mr. Westin, Thank you for airing the John Stossel documentary, "War on Drugs: A War on Ourselves." While I was on active duty I saw many scenes like those shown, but never thought about the impact, the maximizing of harm, being caused by the drug war. After I retired I started to see columns and editorials which questioned aspects of the war. TV seemed to be avoiding the hard hitting analysis I see in my newspaper. But nothing pulled it all together for me so well is this documentary! TV seems to be avoiding the hard hitting analysis I see in my newspaper. I learned much that I did not know. I hope you will rerun it, and provide us with regular updates based on it. I will be taking notes next time it is on. If it is available, could you please have someone send me a note about how I may purchase a video tape copy of the documentary. Thank you. Sincerely, Richard Lake Chief Warrant Officer United States Army (retired) NOTE: Please write your own letter. It is not likely that Mr. Westin would be impressed if yours looked exactly like mine. ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts Writer's Resources http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ Prepared by Richard Lake http://www.mapinc.org/rlake/ Focus Alert Specialist

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