This is an email that I recieved the other day:Late yesterday, July 7, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated by
a vote of 148-268 an amendment that would have prevented the DEA and
the U.S. Justice Department from spending any more money to raid and
prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers.
This is only the second time in history that the full House has voted
on binding legislation to end the federal government's war on medical
marijuana. (The U.S. Senate never has.)
Although we lost, yesterday's vote was an impressive showing, in large
part because of the letters that members and allies of the Marijuana
Policy Project have been faxing to their U.S. representatives. MPP
generated thousands of messages to Capitol Hill -- including more than
5,000 in the just the past week -- showing U.S. House members the
collective strength of the medical marijuana grassroots movement.
Fully 66% of House Democrats voted for the amendment, and a surprising
19 House Republicans bucked their hostile congressional leaders and
the White House to vote "yes" for our amendment ... in an election
year, no less.
As compared to the vote on last year's amendment in July 2003, this
year's amendment gained four Republican votes and lost eight
Democratic votes (although ten "yes" Democratic votes from last year
were not present for yesterday's vote).
Would you please do two things right now to help MPP follow up on
yesterday's vote?
* Visit http://www.mpp.org/DD/action.html to fax a pre-written letter
to thank or "spank" your U.S. House member.
* Visit http://www.mpp.org/donate1004 to donate to MPP's congressional
lobbying efforts, which are severely underfunded.
Over the past months, the MPP staff has spent more than 1,000 hours
lobbying on Capitol Hill and working closely with numerous U.S.
representatives to generate support for the legislation.
On June 4, we organized more than 500 MPP members, medical marijuana
patients, caregivers, and other supporters in protests at 110
congressional district offices, urging targeted members of Congress to
support the amendment. The protests generated news coverage nationwide
and forced many legislators to come face-to-face with medical
marijuana patients who are suffering under the policies the
legislators have voted for.
And last week, MPP brought TV host Montel Williams -- who uses medical
marijuana to treat the symptoms of multiple sclerosis -- to Capitol
Hill to address a packed room of almost 200 congressional staffers
about the proposal.
Yesterday's 148-268 vote highlights how far the medical marijuana
movement has come since 1998, when we lost a House floor vote on a
non-binding medical marijuana resolution by a substantial 311-94
margin. Yesterday's vote was significantly closer ... and it was on
a binding, strong piece of legislation that would have decisively
prevented the federal government from raiding medical marijuana
patients.
Before yesterday's vote, we promised legislators that those who voted
"no" would be targeted for a massive public awareness campaign among
their constituents -- with the hope that those legislators will pay
the price at the polls on November 2.
And now we're going to make good on that promise. Throughout the
summer and fall, MPP will be blanketing the targeted legislators'
districts with posters designed to look like the front page of a
tabloid, with the headline "Congressman _(name inserted here)_ votes
to send cancer patients to jail." Visit http://www.mpp.org/hinchey to
see a sample poster.
These posters cost only two cents to produce ... and we've budgeted
enough to distribute 250,000 of the fliers in every targeted district.
To bolster our efforts, it is critically important that members of
Congress receive feedback from their constituents after yesterday's
vote.
Please visit http://www.mpp.org/DD/action.html to send a message. Once
you enter your zip code, the system will automatically generate the
appropriate letter, depending on whether your U.S. representative
voted "yes" or "no" on the amendment. Then, simply enter your address
and hit "submit." The entire process will take only one minute.
And if you support the work that MPP is doing -- work that yesterday
forced each member of the U.S. House of Representatives to take a
public stand on the arrest and imprisonment of seriously ill
patients -- please help us continue this important fight by making a
financial contribution at http://www.mpp.org/donate1004 today.
Sincerely,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
P.S. Note that the amendment -- which until Tuesday had been known as
the Hinchey amendment -- became the Farr amendment at the last minute.
Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), who was scheduled to introduce the
amendment with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), injured himself
earlier in the week and Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) agreed to
introduce the amendment in his absence.
======================================================================
The Marijuana Policy Project hopes that each of the 104,000
subscribers on this e-mail list will make at least one financial
donation to MPP's work in 2004. According to our records, you have
not yet donated this year. Would you please consider making one
donation this year by visiting http://www.mpp.org/donate1004 today?
As a part of this campaign, we hope that 500 volunteers will each
commit to raising $1,000 from their friends and colleagues, with
another 250 volunteers committing to raise $2,000 each. Please see
http://www.mpp.org/Pioneers to sign up for this campaign. (Since MPP
launched this campaign on May 4, 58 people have signed up.)
MPP will be able to tackle all of the projects in its 2004 strategic
plan -- http://www.mpp.org/2004plan -- if you and other allies are
generous enough to donate and/or raise the following sums in 2004:
TYPE OF DONOR ..... $ GOALS FOR 2004 ..... $ RAISED IN 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------
monthly pledgers ........ $52,000 ............ $33,535 ....
less than $1,000 ....... $446,000 ........... $143,232 ....
$1,000 to $1,999 ....... $500,000 ............ $23,175 ....
$2,000 to $2,999 ....... $500,000 ............. $4,000 ....
$3,000 to $24,999 ...... $100,000 ............ $40,599 ....
$25,000 to $99,999 ..... $300,000 ........... $135,000 ....
$100,000 and up ...... $1,600,000 ........... $130,000 ....
-----------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS ............... $3,498,000 ........... $509,542 ....
