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Please visit http://www.mpp.org/lawsuit
for more information
and to fund MPP's ballot drive in our nation's capital.
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Thursday, March 28, 2002
Dear Friend:
Today, the federal court in Washington, D.C.,
ruled in favor of the
Marijuana Policy Project in our lawsuit against Congressman Bob
Barr
and the federal government.
As a result, MPP is now permitted to circulate
petitions on the
streets of D.C. this spring, for the purpose of placing our medical
marijuana measure on the ballot this November.
We urgently need a total of $50,000 to fund
this ballot drive. Would
you please visit http://www.mpp.org/lawsuit
and donate today? I was
unable to raise any money for the ballot drive until we knew that
there actually would be a ballot drive.
In short, the court declared today that Congressman
Bob Barr's
amendment to the congressional spending bill for D.C. is
unconstitutional. Barr and his congressional allies tried to prevent
our medical marijuana initiative from getting onto the local ballot,
and we beat them.
In declaring the Barr Amendment unconstitutional,
Judge Emmet Sullivan
wrote, "There can be no doubt that the Barr Amendment restricts
plaintiffs' First Amendment right to engage in political speech."
He
then ordered the D.C. government to allow MPP's ballot drive to
proceed.
MPP originally filed our initiative with
the D.C. government in July.
After delaying for five months, the government blocked us from
moving
forward with the initiative because of the so-called Barr Amendment
--
so we sued them.
With today's victory in court, we have less
than two months to gather
16,000 valid signatures -- meaning we need 25,000 total signatures
--
to place our medical marijuana question on the ballot this November.
If we do not gather the signatures in time, all of this will have
been
a wasted effort.
We need to pay dozens of petitioners an estimated
$50,000 to gather
the 25,000 signatures. With the limited time we have left, we
need to
gather 3,000 signatures per week! Would you please make a large,
non-
tax-deductible donation today at http://www.mpp.org/lawsuit
? We
cannot delay.
(We can use some tax-deductible money for this
campaign, so if you
need your donation to be tax-deductible, please elect to do so
at
http://www.mpp.org/lawsuit
. If you want to make a tax-deductible
stock transfer, please e-mail me.)
Our initiative is similar to the laws in
the eight states with good
medical marijuana policies: If enacted, our initiative will allow
patients and their caregivers to possess and grow marijuana for
medical purposes, without the fear of arrest. D.C. voters will
overwhelmingly pass our initiative this November if we can afford
to
get it on the ballot. Not only will this make national news --
as D.C.
voters reject the cruel policies of Congress right in their own
backyard -- but it will force Congress to debate the medical marijuana
issue on our terms.
How?
Someone in Congress will introduce a motion
to overturn the medical
marijuana initiative, and our supporters in Congress will stand
up for
the rights of D.C. voters and medical marijuana patients, as they
have
done before. And the medical marijuana debate will play out in
Congress ... on national TV ... for the first time ever.
If you are not currently a dues-paying member
of MPP, you will
automatically become a member if you contribute to this effort.
All
members receive MPP's quarterly newsletter, "Marijuana Policy
Report."
Thank you for your assistance with this urgent
matter.
Sincerely,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
P.S. The money that almost 200 people donated
in December and
January to this project paid for MPP's staff time, legal fees,
and other behind-the-scenes costs that allowed us to get this
far. If you donated before, thank you. Today, we probably need
1,000 people to donate the remaining $50,000 that is needed for
the ballot drive. Thanks in advance for anything you can do to
help.
P.P.S. If you would like to make a large,
tax-deductible donation, MPP
Foundation's Employer Identification Number is 52-1975211.
Thank you!
