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ALERT: Help StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) Win $50,000 in America's Giving Challenge

Submitted by David Borden on (Issue #605)
Politics & Advocacy

Dear Reformer:

Our organization, StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet), is a participant in "America's Giving Challenge," a contest to help nonprofits by offering prizes ranging from $500 to $50,000 to those who receive the largest number of donations through the "Causes" program by November 7. The key is not the size of the donation -- Causes will accept any gift of $10 or more, and any gift no matter how large or small counts equally in the contest. Supporters can make donations that count in the contest up to once a day.

Please donate today to help StoptheDrugWar.org win this much-needed funding -- http://www.causes.com/donations/select_donation_method?cause_id=205062 -- Causes is linked in to Facebook too, and that means you can help by asking your friends on Facebook to donate to StoptheDrugWar.org in the Challenge too.

But don't just ask your friends to donate, as important as that is. Write your friends to tell them how important it is to reform drug policy and eventually end prohibition itself. Send them this week's issue of our Drug War Chronicle newsletter. Ask them to watch our video about abusive SWAT Raids. Tell them why you feel the drug war is wasteful and unjust and bad for our country. If you've donated -- through the Challenge today or in the past -- tell them that, it will make a difference.

Again, the amount of your donation is less important for this contest than the fact that you are giving through the contest. (Of course the larger the gift, the more it will help us directly, but the small gifts add up too.) And even if we don't end up winning, but come close, thousands of people giving money to their favorite nonprofits may see us in the runner-up list and come to check us out and join our cause too. So please visit http://www.causes.com/donations/select_donation_method?cause_id=205062 today, or by November 7 the latest, to support StoptheDrugWar.org in America's Giving Challenge.

Remember that we do what we can from Washington, but in the end it's YOU who represents the cause of stopping the drug war -- to your friends, on Facebook, in your community. If all of us come together, we can win -- not just in the Giving Challenge, but in the court of public opinion and then in Congress.

http://www.causes.com/donations/select_donation_method?cause_id=205062

Thank you!

Sincerely,


David Borden, Executive Director

P.S. If you'd rather not participate in the Challenge, but would still like to donate to us, you can do so here.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Jenifer Lane-S… (not verified)

Will the Executive Director please explain how to everyone much money he's taken in from advertising Drugfreeworld.com? And why he's been running their ads unabated for several months? Hardly to be explained as a glitch in the system unless you consider greed a glitch.

Sat, 11/07/2009 - 11:22am Permalink
Jenifer Lane-S… (not verified)

Whoops, sorry for the awkward first sentence, here it is again:
Will the Executive Director please explain to everyone how much money he's taken in from advertising Drugfreeworld.com? And why he's been running their ads unabated for several months? Hardly to be explained as a glitch in the system unless you consider greed a glitch.

Sat, 11/07/2009 - 11:26am Permalink
borden (not verified)

Okay, first, drugfreeworld.com is an advertising site that has links to treatment programs, suboxone therapy (a harm reduction measure that we support and one of the few positive developments in the field in recent years), travel deals, other things. That's all the site is. Did you bother to even look at the site before you made that post?

Second, we haven't sold ad space to drugfreeworld.com. We run Google ads, and Google decides what ads show up on our site. They don't tell us which sites generated the revenue for us. When I see an ad that I'd rather we not run, I can block it, but I don't have a way to do so beforehand. Furthermore, the ads vary from page, so there's no effective way to monitor them completely. Most of the ads we block are drug-testing services and criminal background check services. Usually I find the "drug-free" sites are about treatment and prevention programs. But if a site actually promotes prohibitionist policies or programs, we block it.

Third, if you think that people who work here are getting rich or doing anything here out of greed, then you don't know anything. That's funny, hah. Would be a nice problem to have, but we don't.

Lastly, if you've seen this ad for several months and were concerned about it, why didn't you point it out earlier? And why not just contact us, rather than trying to sabotage our fundraising efforts? That would have been the smart/responsible/productive/polite thing to do.

David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network
Washington, DC
http://stopthedrugwar.org

Sun, 11/08/2009 - 2:53am Permalink
Jenifer Lane-S… (not verified)

The Executive Director writes: "Lastly, if you've seen this ad for several months and were concerned about it, why didn't you point it out earlier? And why not just contact us, rather than trying to sabotage our fundraising efforts? That would have been the smart/responsible/productive/polite thing to do."

The issue of Stopthedrugwar.org accepting revenue from Drugfreeworld.com was raised months ago, on 07/22/2009 to be precise:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2009/jul/21/apples_new_marijuana_feature_for

Instructive is the Executive Director's shrill response both then and now, with him even using a similar heading in his rebuttal post of 07/22/2009 titled, "Fools Speak First".
Accountability, not "sabotage" is the motive for bringing this issue to the attention of readers, and potential donors who deserve full disclosure. Attempting to shame a whistle blower with the charge of "sabotage" is reminiscent of another kind of regime.

Sun, 11/08/2009 - 12:13pm Permalink
Jenifer Lane-S… (not verified)

There was some confusion: The site that advertises on Stopthedrugwar.org is Drugfreeworld.org, a prohibitionist website not Drugfreeworld.com. The latter site has NEVER advertised here. Raising more questions.

Sun, 11/08/2009 - 12:27pm Permalink
borden (not verified)

In reply to by Jenifer Lane-S… (not verified)

"Jenifer",

I've verified from our server logs that you are actually another person who posts anonymously on our site, but who is the creator of an exploitative film called "Crack Heads Gone Wild," which our former intern criticized, and for which criticism you've never seem to have gotten over.

With regard to Crack Heads Gone Wild, my earlier explanation and offer still stands. We allowed you one reply to Amanda's criticism, but you wrote that in a purely ad hominem style, rather than a substantive one. We left that online, but I specified that if you wanted to respond further, you would have to write a substantive post, not another ad hominem attack on our intern. You were either unwilling or unable to do that. If you are willing and able to write a substantive response, rather than an attacking one, I will allow it to go online with the original critique. Otherwise, it's your own fault.

With regard to Google ads, as I explained in the earlier post, we're not that worried about prevention programs, even if they use prohibitionist-sounding titles like "drug free" or even if some of their information is unsound. Not that many people take these programs at their face value anymore, and overall we view drug education as part of a potential alternative to prohibition. We're mainly concerned with drug testing and criminal background check ads, because those are actual services that directly hurt people. We might decide to block drugfreeworld.org from our Google ads, but offhand I think that our information is more than an effective counter for theirs and that we're stronger letting the other side have their say and then responding to it.

As far as drugfreeworld.com not having ever advertised on our site and that raising "more questions," do you think any of our readers are that stupid so as to buy that? Along with their not being any questions that actually would raise, how would you know if drugfreeworld.com had ever bought ad space? The only way to know that would be to have access to the Google database, because any site that Google runs ads for can appear on any site running Google ads, any time, on any computer screen that accesses a site running Google ads.

There is no "Jenifer" and you're not fooling anyone.

David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network
Washington, DC
http://stopthedrugwar.org

Sun, 11/08/2009 - 4:20pm Permalink

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