TAKE ACTION

 

     Today, be one of thousands of people across the country to phone your members of Congress to call for an end to the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Your calls will make an important difference.
 
     This National Call-In Day is part of Crack the Disparity National Month of Advocacy, a month-long coordinated push to eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.
 
     The current law:

• overstates the relative danger of crack cocaine compared to powder cocaine;
• contributes to the growth of our prison population, increasing the financial burden on taxpayers;
• disproportionately affects African Americans; and
• uses limited federal resources on low-level street dealers rather than on the major drug traffickers.

      Twenty-three years of a failed policy is long enough!  It's time to end this unjust and disproportionate sentencing policy. To participate call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard right now at 202.224.3121, and ask to speak to your representatives in the Senate and House. Urge them to support and co-sponsor H.R. 265, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act in the House and legislation in the Senate that eliminates the 100 to 1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

    You should place three calls because you have one representative and two senators.
 
     Use this link to help you with your calls to Congress.

Dear Friends:

As you know, the "War on Drugs" has been a tragic policy failure, degrading public order and public health and eroding trust in the justice system and respect for the law.  Now you have a chance to participate in an intensive national effort underway to bring about a fundamental shift in our drug control policies.   

If you haven't already met, let me introduce you to the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers!  The VCL is working successfully across the nation to amplify the voice of the legal profession, calling for a serious examination of the "War on Drugs" and its harmful consequences.

During National Alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s, a respected group of New York lawyers founded the original Voluntary Committee of Lawyers, building a national network to set up the state constitutional conventions that eventually led to the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.  The modern VCL is organizing lawyers and judges around the country today to criticize our current prohibition-style drug policies and to suggest workable alternative approaches.  Through state and loc al bar associations in New York, Colorado, Alabama, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington and other states, the VCL is spurring important discussions in professional circles that wield considerable influence in the policymaking process.  

We are approaching a historic turning point in the drug policy debate.  In these troubling times, the fiscal strain of excessive incarceration is leading states to shift their criminal justice policies.  Violence from illegal drug markets is about to spill across the Mexican border.  Leading newspapers regularly highlight the disaster of the "War on Drugs."  The Obama Administration has also made some important signals recently.  Now is the time for the VCL to leverage its deep history and advance the mature legal dialogue about shifting to a more rational drug control policy.

Thanks to your support we can continue this important work.

We are expanding the VCL as a membership organization of lawyers, judges and other professionals, strengthening the call for an exit strategy for the "War on Drugs."  You are invited to join our growing network by becoming a member of the VCL today.  Click here.

To learn more about the VCL and its membership and activities, please join us on Law Day, Friday, May 1st, at the Culture Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side for a reception and presentation of the VCL's Joseph H. Choate, Jr. Award for Leadership to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet.  Then get dinner with us afterward and continue what is sure to be an evening of engaging discussion.

We welcome you to join the VCL and help us push for sanity in our drug control policies.  Thank you very much for your support, and we look forward to working together with you!

Very truly yours,

Roger E. Goodman

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   
APRIL 22, 2009

Will Charles C. Lynch Be the Last to Go to Federal Prison For a Misguided Policy?
Advocates Call For Leniency in the Name of Justice

CONTACT: Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications ............... 415-585-6404 or 202-215-4205

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- The Marijuana Policy Project is calling for leniency in Thursday's federal court sentencing of Charles C. Lynch, a California medical marijuana provider who worked scrupulously to follow state and local laws but now faces five years in federal prison. MPP officials will be available by phone for comment after the sentencing, scheduled for 3 p.m. at the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

     In February, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that henceforth the Drug Enforcement Administration would only conduct enforcement actions against medical marijuana defendants who were violating both state and federal law, reversing the Bush administration's policy of ignoring state medical marijuana laws. But Holder did not indicate whether this change would affect handling of older, leftover cases such as that of Lynch, who was convicted last year. 

     "We can't help but wonder if Mr. Lynch will be the last American to go to federal prison for a mistake, the final victim of bad policy that has been repudiated but whose mean-spirited effects still linger," said MPP executive director Rob Kampia. "Putting Mr. Lynch in prison would be a cruel and pointless miscarriage of justice. At a time when federal law enforcement at the Mexican border is so overwhelmed that traffickers coming through with up to 500 pounds of marijuana are let go, even one more hour spent persecuting Mr. Lynch is an outrageous waste of resources."

     "Mr. Lynch's medical marijuana collective was licensed by the city of Morrow Bay, and officials routinely inspected the facility for compliance with state and local laws," said MPP California policy director Aaron Smith. "Because federal law still makes no statutory allowance for medical marijuana, any discussion of California's medical marijuana law was explicitly barred from his trial. In the interest of fairness, the judge should follow the example of Judge Charles Breyer in the 2003 case of Ed Rosenthal, and issue a token, one-day sentence. Charles Lynch is simply not a criminal in any rational sense of the term."

     With more than 27,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.

####

Dear Friends:
 
You are invited to a special Law Day reception in New York City on Friday, May 1st, sponsored by the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers.  I really hope you can join us for this special event.  Please see the announcement below.
 
Come and learn more about the VCL's exciting initiatives across the country to foster important discussion and debate about our arcane and failed War on Drugs.  As we approach a national "tipping point" in drug policy reform, the VCL's work is ever more important as we move the professional community to wield its influence to get drug policy reform on the legislative agenda.
 
Please join us in the late afternoon on May 1st.  Please also take the time to visit the VCL's website, at www.VCL.org. See you on May 1st!
 
Roger