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DRUG WAR TASK FORCE ALERT
A Project of the Libertarian Party
http://www.lp.org/issues/dwtf.html
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For additional information:
Marc Brandl, DWTF Rep.
Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 237
E-Mail: StoptheDrugWar@hq.lp.org
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WAIT UNTIL BOB BARR SEES THIS!
Hard-hitting commercials ready for viewing on randforcongress.com

Dear Drug War Task Force member,

Have you ever seen steam coming from a congressman's ears? That's what's
sure to happen when Bob Barr sees Carole Ann Rand's first commercial,
targeting him on the medical marijuana issue. The ad is up on her website
at www.randforcongress.com. You can view this hard-hitting commercial right
on your computer.

We have just purchased our first $5,000 worth of advertising, but if we want
to air this commercial all over Georgia's 7th District, we urgently need
funds to pay for more advertising slots. Just click the "Donate" link on
Carole Ann's page after you've viewed the commercial.

Also, please forward this link to any friends or contacts you may have who
would be interested in seeing them. We want as many people as possible to
be exposed to this advertisement.

Please go view this dramatic commercial right now, and make the best
contribution possible to Carole Ann's campaign so that Georgia's voters can
see Bob Barr for who he really is. The original message with information on
Bob Barr is included below. Thank you for your continued support.

In liberty,

Ron Crickenberger
Political Director, Libertarian Party
Campaign Director, Rand for Congress

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Dear Friend of Freedom,

Would you like to see Bob Barr, the most fanatical Drug Warrior in
Congress - out of Congress next year?

Would you like to see him lose specifically because he is waging the Drug
War against the most helpless in our society - medical marijuana patients?

Can you imagine the effect of him saying to his former congressional
colleagues, "I lost because of the those drug reformers?"

Would you like to fire a warning shot across the bow of every congressional
Drug Warrior, that they could be next to lose their election, if they don't
come around on medical marijuana?

We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bump Bob Barr out of Congress on
August 20, but to do so, we'll need to raise at least $44,000 in the next
ten days.

Why once-in-a-lifetime? Because redistricting has put Bob Barr in a very
tight race against another Republican incumbent. The local political pundits
say the race is too close to call. A recent poll puts Barr behind - but with
a large number of voters still undecided.

The new district is so strongly Republican, that if Barr wins the August
20th Republican primary, he will have a safe seat for as long as he wants
it.

If we don't take out Bob Barr right now, he'll be around to torture medical
marijuana patients and block medical marijuana initiatives for decades to
come.

How fanatical is Bob Barr on medical marijuana? Keep reading this message,
and I'll tell you about a Barr proposal so frightening that even then Drug
Czar General Barry McCaffrey called it "chilling." It's so unbelievable,
I'll tell you how you can verify it yourself.

I'll also tell you about the great candidate the Libertarian Party has in
the race, Carole Ann Rand, and how we plan to fire the final salvo that will
unseat this monster of a Congressman, Bob Barr, who believes in murdering
the critically ill in their wheelchairs.

And that is no exaggeration. As the member in Congress who is most
viscerally and energetically in support of the war on medical marijuana
users, his policies are responsible for the death of author, activist, and
AIDS sufferer Peter McWilliams, and the torture of thousands of patients who
could benefit from this ancient medicine.

Barr so dislikes medical marijuana, he dreamed up and got passed a special
federal law making it illegal for the District of Columbia to even count the
votes for a medical marijuana initiative that was already printed on the
ballot.

That was declared unconstitutional.

So, a year after the election, after the lawsuit outcome, D.C. was permitted
to count the votes. Lo and behold, the voters had supported it two-to-one.

But then Barr led Congress, which holds the purse strings of the DC
government, to override that vote of the people, and the initiative did not
go into effect.

Medical marijuana activists in DC decided they would put the initiative on
the ballot again. This time Barr wrote a federal law forbidding anyone to
circulate an initiative in D.C. on the subject of medical marijuana.

That was also held unconstitutional.

Now that D.C activists have gathered the signatures to once again place a
medical marijuana initiative on the ballot, Barr is already plotting
legislative maneuvers to block its implementation.

Bob Barr likes to champion himself as an advocate for privacy rights,
property rights, states' rights, free speech, free trade, and medical
rights.

Yet, time after time, he promotes policies and legislation that trample on
those same rights he claims to protect. Barr is either the most hypocritical
or schizophrenic Congressman in Washington.

Even when Barr does something that freedom-loving Americans can applaud, it
is something that would not have been necessary in the first place were it
not for the Drug War policies that he supports.

When Barr is occasionally championing something that moves us in a
pro-freedom direction, it is always merely to undo the damage that his
favorite cause - the Drug War - has already inflicted on us.

Barr claims to be a fiscal conservative. Yet the Drug War is one of the most
financially wasteful efforts in our history. We directly spend fifty billion
dollars a year just on enforcement.

One study estimated the total cost to society of the Drug War, including
such items as lost taxes, prison construction, lost wages of those
incarcerated, cost of goods stolen, and added welfare costs, at over 400
billion dollars a year.

But it is Barr's fanatical support for the most extremist actions in the
drug war that best illustrates his misplaced priorities.

While terrorists around the globe plot more attacks against our country, Bob
Barr's most pressing priority has been arresting the most helpless in our
society - medical marijuana patients who are just trying to relieve the
symptoms of painful and debilitating diseases.

It is at Barr's urging that the Drug Enforcement Administration has stepped
up its raids on medical cannabis clinics in California, arresting
caregivers, and throwing critically ill patients into the street.

According to Gallup and Pew Research polls, 73% of Americans support medical
marijuana, and believe that doctors and patients should decide about what
drugs should be prescribed to treat their life-threatening diseases, not
politicians.

Barr even says on his website that we must ensure that health care decisions
are made by patients and doctors, not the government. Yet, with blatant
hypocrisy, he is the driving force in Congress preventing just that for
medical marijuana.

We send congressmen to Washington to uphold the Constitution, not to trample
it and our rights. It is time to send Bob Barr home!

Here's our plan to do just that.

Georgia's 7th congressional district has a strong "base vote" for
Libertarian candidates. In 2000, our statewide candidates averaged from 7%
to 9% of the vote in the counties that make up the 7th district. So there
are large numbers of voters there that are heeding the Libertarian message.

Our candidate in the race, Carole Ann Rand was the Libertarian Party of
Georgia's first candidate for governor back in 1990. She went on to become
president of the Advocates for Self-Government, a libertarian educational
foundation, where she helped teach Libertarians around the country to be
better communicators for freedom. She is now CFO of Food Partners, a
wholesale foods brokerage.

Carole Ann is sharp, photogenic, and an effective, compassionate
communicator of Libertarian ideas. Her professional credentials and
reputation for integrity make it impossible to caricature her as a
stereotypical dope-smoker. She is the ideal candidate to take on Bob Barr.

And I'm sure that Carole Ann would want me to mention that she has just
attended the birth of her 8th grandchild!

Although it is unusual to do so, we plan for Carole Ann to run TV ads
attacking Bob Barr during the two weeks before the August 20th Republican
primary.

We've shot the first ad already, which features multiple sclerosis sufferer
and medical marijuana patient Cheryl Miller. Cheryl will speak from her
wheelchair about her condition, and about how Bob Barr wants to take away
the only medicine that takes away her pain.

And she will say the brutal truth, that Bob Barr wants her in jail just for
using her medicine.

And then she will ask:

"Why would you do that to me Bob?"

Cheryl is a very brave woman to participate in this ad. She has no legal
protection for her medical use in her home state.

But Cheryl has already proved her bravery. In 1999, in another effort to
publicize the issue, she used her medicine, marijuana that she takes orally,
in Bob Barr's Congressional office. The federal police did not have the
nerve to arrest her in her wheelchair, so they arrested her husband
instead - separating an invalid woman from her caregiver for seven hours.

We believe our hard-hitting ads will damage Barr enough to ensure that he
loses the primary, so that the only way he can return to Washington is as a
lobbyist!

There is evidence that Barr is out of step with even his own strongest
supporters on medical marijuana. Let me share an anecdote with you from a
recent debate between Barr and Libertarian talk show host Neal Boortz.

When Boortz talked on his nationally syndicated show about Barr's recent
efforts to block medical marijuana initiatives in DC, Barr called him up and
challenged him to a public debate. Boortz accepted.

Boortz and Barr were each given 400 tickets to distribute to their
supporters, so the crowd reaction was split evenly during the debate.

At the very end of the debate, while Barr was finishing his closing
statement, Boortz asked the moderator if he could recognize a couple of
people in the audience. He did so, and his sidekick and Webmaster from the
talk show stood up to applause.

Barr immediately jumped in with, "let me recognize someone in the audience
too. Everybody here who is a Bob Barr supporter stand up."

Half the audience stood up and cheered wildly, and it looked like Boortz had
made a major gaff.

But Neal jumped back with, "OK, everybody who is standing up now, if you
would send Bob Barr to arrest your mother on her deathbed if she were using
medical marijuana to ease her suffering, stay standing up."

95% of this audience, composed of Barr's strongest supporters, immediately
sat down.

They could see through his lies and his "Reefer Madness" rhetoric.

And so can the other voters, if we can get the truth out to them about
medical marijuana.

If we can prove that our plan will work on Barr, it will be a warning shot
to every Drug Warrior in Congress. This one victory could have huge
implications.

Could Barr's loss persuade - or scare - enough Congressmen that we'll see
legislative relief for medical marijuana patients? We won't know that unless
we succeed at bumping Barr from office.

And we won't have really succeeded, unless Barr not only loses, but loses
when the issue of medical marijuana is strongly interjected into the race.

$44,000 will saturate the district for the critical last two weeks with
cable TV ads on the channels voters watch most. Each spot will average
$12.00.

For a budget of $44,000, we'll be able to run 3,666 ads!

If we raise more than $44,000, we'll also use a radio version of the ad to
catch voters we've missed with the cable spots.

EVERY PENNY you donate through our secure site will go to Carole Ann's
campaign to bump Bob Barr from Congress.

EVERY PENNY you donate will help move another voter away from Bob Barr.

EVERY PENNY you send will be a warning to Congress that the cruel war on
medical marijuana users must end!

Will you please go right now to www.RandforCongress.com/donate.html

and send the biggest warning shot possible with your best possible donation?

Stopping Barr's congressional influence on the war on medical marijuana
users will be like cutting off the head of a snake - the body will wiggle
for a while, but the snake will die.

We can't let the only chance we'll have to remove Barr from office pass by.

But we can only succeed if you help. In a race this close, every dollar
makes a difference.

$1,000 will buy 83 ads on cable TV

$500 will 42 ads.

$250 will buy 21 spots.

$100 will buy 8 ads.

$25 will buy an ad on the overnight rebroadcast of the Neal Boortz show.

EVERY PENNY you donate will go to help bump Bob Barr from Congress.

Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Ron Crickenberger
Political Director

P.S. Unbelievably, Barr has even gone so far as to say that free speech and
the first amendment should not apply to people who merely advocate drug
policy reform. In a congressional committee hearing, Barr shocked even
then-current drug czar, General McCaffrey, with his proposal that drug
policy reform advocates be prosecuted under federal anti-racketeering RICO
statutes. McCaffrey called the proposal "chilling."

You can read the transcript at:

www.RandforCongress.com

in the "Why Bump Bob Barr" section.

Then, please, hit the donate button, and make your best possible
contribution.

P.P.S You may not have heard of Brian Epis. The press hasn't covered him
much. But he is another victim of Bob Barr's venomous support for the Drug
War.

Brian has just been convicted under federal law for providing medicine to
patients in a manner that was completely legal under California state law.
He is facing a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. Ten years federal
time for drugs - which means no parole.

Just as in the case of Peter McWilliams, the jury was instructed to
disregard any mention of medical marijuana as a defense.

Ten years in prison for trying to help the sick and dying.

Ten years in prison without even being able to tell the jury your primary
defense.

Ten years mandatory minimum in prison for helping sick people, when the
"suggested" minimum sentence for MURDER is only 5.5 years!

Ten YEARS!

Brian's is the first such conviction where the feds have stepped in to
prosecute a caregiver for actions that are completely legal under state law.

If we don't bump Bob Barr by August 20th, it won't be the last.

Please, go to:

www.RandforCongress.com/donate.html

and send your best donation today.

On behalf of the patients that need your help, thank you.

Please forward this message to your friends, family, and others you know
personally who may be interested. But please don't send it indiscriminately.
"Spam" will only hurt our campaign.