JOHN WALTERS DEFENDS ENDLESS DRUG WAR PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #311 - Saturday, 18 June 2005 National syndicated columnist George Will released a column Thursday discussing the continued viability of waging a never-ending War on Drugs. He opens with a pertinent perspective offered by former Washington policymaker George Schultz wherein Schultz expresses his belief that as long as there is a demand for illegal drugs, the criminal market will thrive and never be quelled, regardless of how many or how big a busts law enforcement achieves. Then Will turns the discussion over to federal Drug Czar John Walters and quotes him on a wide range of drug policy opinions. As usual, the center of the Czar's focus is on marijuana law enforcement. The column has already been picked up in numerous newspapers and given George Will's wide reach, should run in many other newspapers over the next few days. An interesting aspect of this column is that in the numerous outlets we've seen it so far, the wording of the headline - as determined by the individual newspapers - varies widely. These headlines provide us with a minor insight into the thoughts of the newspapers about the content of Walters statements. Please consider writing at least one succint Letter to the Editor and sending it to the newspaper closest to your hometown. A similar letter with some minor modifications, can also be sent to other newspapers which carried the column, thus increasing your chances of being printed. To see a listing of the newspapers which have printed the column, go to http://www.mapinc.org/author/Will+George The first date of publication is June 16. Remember the varying headlines. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. And of course, you are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing friends of MAP this Sunday evening at 9pm EDT for a roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that get print and specifically how to best respond to this Focus Alert. We'll also be talking about LTEs directed at Opinion items concerning the Raich decision from the Supreme Court. See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how you can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install. The password for this gathering will be PW: welcome-pal (all lower case) =

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