Appeal: New Times Bring New Opportunities for Drug Policy Reform

Dear drug law reformer:

New times bring new opportunities.

StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) is a nonpartisan organization, and no major US party presidential nominee has supported enough of our mission to date for this to change. That said, the views on drug policy and criminal justice expressed by President-Elect Obama in his books, speeches, and campaign appearances add up to a platform that is mostly positive, and which if enacted would make a major difference in our issue helping many thousands of people.

These include causes near and dear to the hearts of drug reformers: Stopping the raids on medical marijuana clinics; Repealing unjust mandatory minimum sentences, including the infamous crack cocaine penalties; Decriminalizing marijuana (sort of); Ending racial profiling; Lifting the federal needle exchange funding ban; Eliminating barriers to integration faced by ex-offenders, to name several.

Changes like these can happen if, but only if, people like you and I take action to work for change. Please make a generous donation to support StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying programs, and please stay tuned for the crucial action alerts we will be sending you over the coming months. Your non-deductible donations will help us hire lobbying staff and purchase tools to be able to efficiently communicate with Congressional staffers.

If you need or strongly prefer to make a tax-deductible donation, or if doing so will enable you to donate much more generously, select "tax-deductible donation" on our donation form to support our educational work. StoptheDrugWar.org web site traffic has grown at 60% per year for the past two years, as the chart to the left shows, bringing our average number of visitors to more than 150,000 per month. Nearly two hundred thousand people are verified to have read election-related drug policy coverage on our web site since the primaries began in earnest last year, and that doesn't include the most numerous number of our readers, those who read the content on our daily blog on our home page.

We continue to offer a wide range of books, videos and StoptheDrugWar.org gift items to members donating over certain levels -- visit our donation page to read the full list. Also, everyone donating this week will receive a complimentary StoptheDrugWar.org "Truth Campaign" notepad folder, and all donors will receive a StoptheDrugWar.org bumper sticker and a square StoptheDrugWar.org stop sign sticker, both being reprinted this month.

Drug policy reform is such an important issue, but it's an important issue that needs your help. We at StoptheDrugWar.org need you to ensure that this time of change, will bring needed change, for a disadvantaged, demonized and under-represented group in our society, the targets of the brutal War on Drugs. Please donate today, and together we will make things happen.

Thank you very much for working to change this country’s drug policies and for continuing to be part of StoptheDrugWar.org. And thank you for giving your support to our efforts at this important hour. Your contribution has never been more important.

David Borden
Executive Director, StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet)
News & Activism Promoting Sensible Reform

P.S. Every day that goes by, 4,000 people are arrested for drug offenses, the vast majority of them minor, and half a million nonviolent drug offenders languish yet another day in the staggering number of prisons and jails the government has very unwisely built. It's time to stop this senseless tragedy and shocking injustice. Please increase your commitment to ending the drug war by donating to StoptheDrugWar.org today. Thank you!