[Courtesy of MPP] 

As I wrote you at the end of last month, the Marijuana Policy Project needs your help to place a landmark medical marijuana initiative on the Michigan ballot.

Landmark? Yes, because if Michigan voters are given the opportunity to pass the initiative in November of next year, Michigan will become the first state in the Midwest where patients will be able to use, possess, and grow marijuana legally for medical purposes.

And we can pass the initiative, because the only two public opinion polls that have been conducted in recent years show that between 59% and 61% of Michigan voters support the initiative. And this polling is accurate, because five out of five Michigan cities have passed local medical marijuana initiatives with an average of 64% of the vote since 2004.

I want to thank the 44 generous supporters who made a financial donation after my last message about this campaign. But now I need your help, too.

Would you please donate $10 or more today, so that we can afford to pay our hard-working petitioners who are working furiously to collect the remaining signatures that are needed to place the initiative on the November 2008 ballot?

Our petitioners have done a great job since we kicked off the drive on May 23. But, we still have work ahead of us: In the next month, we need to collect the final 100,000 signatures that are needed to place the initiative on the ballot.

Please donate $10 or more today, so that Michigan voters will have the chance to protect marijuana-using patients who have cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other medical conditions from arrest.

Fully 10.1 million people live in Michigan, so making Michigan the 13^th medical marijuana state would provide a huge boost to change federal law to end our government’s persecution of medical marijuana patients nationwide.

If our hard-working petitioners fail to collect 100,000 signatures over the next month, the initiative will not appear on the ballot, and all the work we’ve done — and all the money we’ve spent — in Michigan will have been in vain.

If you live in Michigan, please volunteer to collect 100, 500, or even 1,000 signatures from registered voters over the course of the next month. Or, if you’re unable to do so, please donate $10 or more so that we can pay others to do so.

If you do not live in Michigan, please reach out across state lines to help make medical marijuana legal in the first Midwestern state by donating $10 or more today.

Please lend your support today — and do not delay. I’ll be grateful for anything you can do to help. Thank you for considering this request ...

Sincerely,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2007. This means that your donation today will be doubled.