JOHN WALTERS' REEFER MADNESS PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #257 1 Dec 2002 As Richard Cowan reminds us, the primary reason for the continued War against marijuana users is 'bad journalism'. It appears in recent weeks that this may be changing. First, Walters was a speaker in Vancouver at a major gathering of local business leaders, including the present and incoming mayors of the city. His speech was interrupted by Marc Emery and friends, but the main story was afterwards, when both mayors denounced his message and expressed concern about how he misrepresents marijuana. A number of Vancouver and Canadian newspapers provided full coverage and also supportive editorial comments criticizing Walters and the U.S. drug war. Then the Pittsburgh PA Tribune-Review printed a scathing review of a visit their editorial board received from Walters, again denouncing his lies. Now the New York Times joins the fray, with a no-punches pulled review of Walters' lies and exaggerations about marijuana and it's impact on Americans. The only way we can see this type of journalism increase is to let the newspapers know that we appreciate it and to encourage them to more fully investigate and fact-check the words that come out of Walters' mouth. While being criticized in Vancouver, Walters' defended his statements by maintaining that ..."I am subject to the scrutiny of the press...", implying that he would not lie in such a case. The more we encourage the press to call him out, the more he will be forced to change his message. While expecting the Drug Czar to EVER tell the whole truth is wishful thinking, we can be confident he will not be left alone by the press if we reinforce them when they do their job correctly. Thanks for your effort and support. WRITE A LETTER TODAY! 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 of 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 so others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit. This is _Very_ Important as it is one very effective way of gauging our impact and effectiveness. 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#form CONTACT INFO Pubdate: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company Contact: Author: Bill Keller REEFER MADNESS We interrupt our coverage of the war on terrorism to check in with that other permanent conflict against a stateless enemy, the war on drugs. To judge by the glee at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug warriors have just accomplished the moral equivalent of routing the Taliban - helping to halt a relentless jihad against the nation's drug laws. Ballot initiatives in Ohio (treatment rather than prison for nonviolent drug offenders), Arizona (the same, plus making marijuana possession the equivalent of a traffic ticket, and providing free pot for medical use) and Nevada (full legalization of marijuana) lost decisively this month. Liberalization measures in Florida and Michigan never even made it to the ballot. Some of this was due to the Republican election tide. Some was generational - boomer parents like me, fearful of seeing our teenagers become drug-addled slackers. (John Walters, the White House drug czar, shrewdly played on this anxiety by hyping the higher potency of today's pot with the line, "This is not your father's marijuana.") Some may have been a reluctance to loosen any social safety belts when the nation is under threat. Certainly a major factor was that proponents of change, who had been winning carefully poll-tested ballot measures, state by state, since California in 1996, found themselves facing a serious and well-financed opposition, cheered on by Mr. Walters. The truly amazing thing is that 30 years into the modern war on drugs, the discourse is still focused disproportionately on marijuana rather than more important and excruciatingly hard problems like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. The drug liberalizers - an alliance of legal reformers, liberals, libertarians and potheads - dwell on marijuana in part because a lot of the energy and money in their campaign comes from people who like to smoke pot and want the government off their backs. Also, marijuana has provided them with their most marketable wedge issue, the use of pot to relieve the suffering of AIDS and cancer patients. Never mind that the medical benefits of smoking marijuana are still mostly unproven (in part because the F.D.A. almost never approves the research and the pharmaceuticals industry sees no money in it). The issue may be peripheral, but it appeals to our compassion, especially when the administration plays the heartless heavy by sending SWAT teams to arrest people in wheelchairs. Thus a movement that started, at least in the minds of reform sponsors like the billionaire George Soros, as an effort to reduce the ravages of both drugs and the war on drugs, has become mostly about pot smoking. The more interesting question is why the White House is so obsessed with marijuana. [snipped] Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n2178/a10.html TARGET ANALYSIS The average daily circulation of the New York Times, available throughout the United States, is 1.2 million copies, largest of any seven day a week newspaper. An editorial page ad runs $1,350 per column inch, so even a short published letter is a donation in ad value to reform of over $2,000. The average published letter is short and to the point, only 123 words, with a maximum of 150 words. SAMPLE LETTER (Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.) Dear Editor: To the editors of The New York Times: Columnist Bill Keller does Americans a real service by questioning the lies spread by drug czar John Walters. Opening his 2002 advertising campaign with the stating that marijuana users indirectly finance terrorism, Walters has gone on to misused his office to lobby against voter initiatives. He attempts to recreate marijuana as a 'new super drug.' The 90+ million Americans who have tired it know that the real danger is arrest, prosecution and a jail cage. It is responsible to deliver a message about the true risks of using marijuana. But when the facts show that marijuana is clearly less dangerous than the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco, we know that Walters is just desperate to provide rationale for police arresting almost 2000 Americans daily (over 1000 per week in NYC alone) for marijuana possession. (contact info) (Always include your address and phone number for newspaper verification. Most papers will not print your letter otherwise.) ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts, Please See: Writer's Resources http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ EXTRA CREDIT: This article was discussed by for 25 minutes on C-SPANs Washington Journal Saturday morning http://www.c-span.org/journal/ It starts at 1 hour and 35 minutes into the show at this video file: http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/idrive/wj20021130.rm Please also send a note to the Washington Journal thanking them for covering the topic of legalizing marijuana. Contact: Prepared by: Stephen Heath, Drug Policy Forum of Florida , http://www.dpffl.org, Focus Alert Specialist

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