Marijuana Policy Project
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Marijuana Policy Project |
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Drug Policy Reform
http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPolicyMain.cfm
The ACLU is America’s largest advocacy group for individual rights. The drug war is one of more than a dozen issues to which it devotes its efforts. Most recently, the Union has sued to stop censorship of advertisements and public statements against the drug war, and to protect confidentiality of medical records (Rush Limbaugh’s in this case). It’s also working to allow the medical necessity defense for marijuana possession, and to end denial of student aid for drug convictions. Their Web site’s drug-policy page links to archives of position papers and legal documents on all of the war’s injustices, including asset seizure, racist enforcement, loss of religious freedom, suppression of raves, and outrageously long prison terms. A recent booklet, “Making Sense of Student Drug Testing: Why Educators Are Saying No” is available for download.
Cannabis Campaigners Guide
This activists’ resource site for cannabis legalization in Great Britain contains pages on research, medical use, recreational use, history, and law, as well as a big list of links to recent articles, speeches, and news items. There are petitions, sample letters and faxes, collections of pithy quotes, several recent usage studies, reference pages on laws and international treaties, and links to legalization groups in other countries. Though geared to the UK, much of the material is unfamiliar to American readers and relevant to the struggle anywhere.
Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE)
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org
The CCLE logo, a lightbulb being squeezed in a C-clamp, sums up what they’re about. They may be the first group dedicated to establishing total freedom of thought and perception, i.e., control of one’s own brain, as a legally defined right to be protected from all encroachments of drug wars and emerging mind-control techniques. They update a news page on their site and publish a Journal of Cognitive Liberties, a Mind Matters newsletter, and various reports and flyers. The Center is working toward humane laws and social policies on neuroethics, and it provides legal assistance in the form of networking and amicus briefs for relegalization of all entheogens.
Center for Uniform Drug Law: Links
http://www.netaxs.com/~sparky/policy/druglinks.html
Disorganized, not consistently updated and with many expired links, this page exhibits the problems of heroic one-person spare-time work, but it’s still one of the biggest and best links pages on the drug war. It leads with some listings of victims and atrocities, then provides long lists of news items, research reports, voices for legalization, followed by a rich miscellany of less easily classified outrages, legal and constitutional issues, humor, and quotable quotes.
Coalition for Medical Marijuana
This group maintains an umbrella access site to help provide speakers and other resources for state and local medical marijuana advocacy groups. They focus on the immediate goal of allowing federal juries to hear testimony about medical use of cannabis when deciding cases about it. Many jury members in such trials—the prosecution of Ed Rosenthal, for example—are appalled when they find that the cold-blooded drug peddler portrayed by the feds was actually growing herb to give away to sick people, a fact withheld from them at trial.
Common Sense for Drug Policy (CSDP)
It’s hard to keep track of such a giant war, but the coverage on this site is better organized than most. A big center frame gives abstracts and links to the latest news on major fronts, while narrow side frames on right and left hold links to additional stories and to various subtopics. The Get Active page goes beyond the standard “write your representatives” line, with suggestions, links, and educational materials on organizing, coalition building, and local consciousness raising. A connections page includes an email checklist of your interests so a CSDP worker can direct you to appropriate activist groups in your area.
Chris Conrad
A Los Angeles consultant, author, and speaker on cannabis cultivation for medical and industrial use, Chris Conrad, with his wife Mikki Norris, are leading lights of Human Rights and the Drug War (http://www.hr95.org) and several other organizations, which are primarily devoted to legal protection for medical marijuana growers and users. His site contains links to these groups, as well as purchase information for the four books he has written or co-written.
Council on Spiritual Practices
A group of psychologists and others dedicated to fostering modern versions of ancient religious uses of psychedelics, the Council maintains a comprehensive site on methods, research, communities, and the ethics of initiatory guides. The section on Society and Law includes writings and resources based on the “free exercise of religion” clause of the Bill of Rights.
Cures Not Wars
This group organizes the annual Marijuana March in cities around the world. Their site features a listing of several hundred phone, email, and website contacts, alphabetized by city. They also have put up good pages on the use of ibogaine to break heroin addiction, and on increased melatonin output as a metabolic explanation for many of the positive effects of cannabis. Especially useful for activists is a gallery of over 40 posters and flyers ready for desktop printout.
Drug Peace Campaign
In addition to a top page and archive of well chosen news items, this group provides an excellent one-page bulletted-list fact sheet about the drug war, well suited for printing and handing out. They maintain a forum, and a page of comments by prisoners, other experts, and ordinary citizens, as well as a page to collect signatures on a Drug War Truce proposal. They support the RATE idea (Regulation, Amnesty, Treatment and Education) put forth by the Committee on Unjust Sentencing (P.O. Box 76665, Los Angeles CA 90076).
Drug Policy Alliance
This is the new name of the Lindesmith Center founded by Ethan Nadelmann, whose meticulously researched “Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences and Alternatives” (Science, vol. 245, no. 4921, September 1, 1989) helped change many minds. The professionally maintained site starts with legislative action alerts and proceeds to a deep array of news, publications, libraries, event calendars, discussion boards, regional chapters, special projects, lobbying efforts, propaganda rebuttals, and updates state by state and around the world. Emphasis is on realistic interim goals and the harm-reduction model of decriminalization, treatment, and education.
Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet) — Stop the Drug War
Online Library of Drug Policy
The DRC Network works for sentencing and forfeiture reform, rescheduling of banned drugs for medical use, and many other short-term aims, toward the ultimate goal of worldwide relegalization. They’ve established a scholarship fund for students denied financial aid due to drug convictions. Their top-page set of news and legislative alerts is one of the best, and their Drug War Chronicle may be the most comprehensive newsletter on the subject. The library comprises several huge collections, including Carl Olsen’s Marijuana Archive, the Psychedelic Library, and the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy.
Drug Sense
This is a facts-and-reason activist group for local, state, and national reform of the drug laws. They post opportunities for volunteer work, host dozens of other sites, publish a daily advisory and a weekly newsletter, compile mailing lists, issue alerts about legislative emergencies, and help organize letter writing campaigns and policy forums. Their site features the famous War on Drugs Clock, which shows the dollar cost of the war in real time, as well as the human cost in terms of arrest numbers.
Drug War
Warning: The big picture. This gargantuan site contains one of the supreme collections of material on the drug war and its connections to international fascism, all presented from a viewpoint unashamedly demanding total freedom from victimless-crime laws. Run by tireless High Times and disinfo.com vet Preston Peet, each page is a book-length feast of straight dope you won’t get from any mainstream media outlet. The unpropaganda page, You Are Being Lied To, will uncross your eyes, and the sections on drug testing, drug war economics, and the ongoing genocide against the Akha (hill tribes of the Thai-Burma border) are equally noteworthy.
Drug War Facts
Just what it says. Geared to journalists and legislators, the site’s chief author, Doug McVay, offers Drug War Facts, a book of cogently arranged and thoroughly documented statistics and research findings. It’s in 39 chapters, which are searchable online and available separately or together for download in .htm or .pdf format. There’s also a page of authoritative rebuttals to 16 common Drug War Distortions, and a large page of links to sources of other materials, many of them also downloadable.
Drug War Prisoners
http://www.drugwarprisoners.org
A project of the Committee on Unjust Sentencing (P.O. Box 76665, Los Angeles CA 90076), this site includes letters and essays by prisoners and their loved ones. There are opportunities for those on the outside to contribute to innovative projects, such as a boycott of companies that profit from prison slave labor, a matching program that trades visits for inmates shipped cross-country far from family and friends, and the Drug War Atrocities Investigatory Committee. A Research page solicits information on neglect of prisoners’ medical needs, methods of managing informers, and lack of plans for evacuation of prisons sited in flood basins or on earthquake fault lines.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Much of the Foundation’s current work involves balancing copyright protection with fair use, mainly through coverage of the music industry’s file-sharing lawsuits. Though little concerned with the drug war, the EFF is the foremost advocacy group for online privacy rights and against digital spying.
Equal Rights for All
http://www.equalrights4all.org
This is primarily a portal for a few dozen well chosen sites, concentrating on California medical marijuana and hemp groups. There are some downloadable leaflets and talking-point summaries. The Religion page links to several neo-Christian groups in favor of legalization, and the four In Memoriam pages, with biographies of deceased heroes against the drug war, are especially well done.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)
The FAMM Foundation is a group of 25,000 citizens concentrating on one issue. They provide legislative input, legal assistance, and local organizing power in an effort to reform or repeal federal and state mandatory minimum laws, which remove judicial discretion and result in harsh sentences that are, for the most part, grossly disproportionate to the crime.
First Human Right Organization (FHRO)
http://www.firsthumanright.org
Martin Rose, author of Your First Human Right, devotes his attention to a right overlooked by framers of the Constitution because no one imagined it could be taken away—the right to uncensored gardens. In support of this simple legal rationale that could theoretically end the drug war at one stroke, he offers his economically priced book, as well as T-shirts, hats, and bumper stickers.
The Flow
http://www.theflow.nl/theflow.htm
This Dutch online magazine is largely dedicated to homegrowing information and users’ essays from the more relaxed scenes on the far side of the Atlantic, but it also has lots of articles about, and links to, activist groups.
Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR)
FEAR is a national nonprofit foundation that supports lawsuits and legislation to amend and repeal asset forfeiture laws, which allow police departments and drug agencies to enrich themselves by taking the property of people they arrest, often before trial. The group has used the Freedom of Information Act to put the U.S. Attorneys’ manual online, including the seizure section. They maintain a help line and a list of defense lawyers who specialize in asset confiscation cases. For attorneys, they publish the Asset Forfeiture Defense Manual. For victims, the pamphlet “What to Do When Your Property Has Been Seized” is online for download. There’s plenty of work for volunteers.
Freedom Domain
This site is devoted primarily to conspiracy studies about global fascism and the New World Order, but it contains some material on how the drug wars fit into the picture.
Free the Weed Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/qwer4321
This site contains a petition to the U.S. Congress to decriminalize marijuana by making it legal to possess a small amount and to grow a small number of plants for personal use.
Hempology 101
An outgrowth of the Cannabis Buyers’ Clubs of Canada, the oldest public medical marijuana distribution club in that country, this Vancouver BC group works to educate the public, courts, and lawmakers about recreational and medical use, growing, research, and the effects of cannabis prohibition. Director Ted Smith wrote the group’s textbook, Hempology 101, available onsite for download or for purchase of printed copies.
Jack Herer
Besides documenting his evolution from Goldwater Republican to the beloved “Hemperor,” Herer’s site offers the text of his The Emperor Wears No Clothes, for free, and printed copies, which include the graphics and source material, for sale. The site also includes proposed wording of an initiative to legalize cannabis for adults over 21, to be placed on the ballot in California in 2006.
High Times, News and Politics
http://www.hightimes.com/mainsite/news
http://www.hightimes.com/mainsite/politics
http://www.420.com/420site/home/content.php?cat=headlines&page=list
Since 1974 High Times has been the primary print source of drug war news. The first two urls above include only the magazine’s top drug war stories in a mix of ecology, counterculture, and repression news. The third one, however, is a day-by-day ticker of nearly every drug-related story throughout the world.
Legalize
Scott Jeffrey has run as a Libertarian candidate for Manhattan Borough President, U.S. Congress, and governor of New York. His Web site promotes legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriages, as well as dancing in New York City bars—yes, dancing, which was, in effect, outlawed where alcohol is served when former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani reintroduced Prohibition-era cabaret licensing laws.
Legalise Cannabis Alliance
The LCA is a political party leading the struggle for cannabis freedom in the United Kingdom. Their site includes a downloadable flyer and other organizing materials useful anywhere.
Marijuana Movement
http://www.geocities.com/sandy_cote
Sandy Cote’s site consists mainly of a legislative resolution that supports legalizing cannabis. Based on her personal experience, howeger, she favors retaining prohibition of addictive and dependence-inducing drugs that are currently illegal. She includes a link to the text of a Canadian Senate recommendation to legalize marijuana.
Marijuana News
In 1972 and 1986, Richard Cowan wrote two National Review cover stories that helped jump-start conservative resistance to the drug war. Now he singlehandedly edits this online news site about the war and those who resist it. Latest stories are on the top page, with a simple subject index off to the side, but the real meat is one level down. There you’ll find a chronological archive of Cowan’s incisive reporting and analysis on the whole sordid mess.
Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)
MPP champions “harm reduction,” which is sometimes taken to mean reducing cannabis use no matter what its effects, but MPP leaders clearly state that “the greatest harm associated with marijuana is prison,” so decriminalization is their top priority. Currently the group is working in support of state and federal decrim initiatives, revision of federal laws prohibiting medical use, the Truth in Trials Act, which would allow testimony about medical use in criminal cases, suits against the policy of lies adopted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and other initiatives. MPP spokespeople regularly bring the reform message to nationally televised talk shows. Other activities include a grants program, internships, and both paid and volunteer organizing work.
Mars to Earth
This is a volunteer journalist project being planned to promote truthful reporting on counterculture topics.
Media Awareness Project (MAP)
MAP is a worldwide network of activists and sub-groups dedicated to drug policy reform via the immediate goal of more accurate mainstream media reporting. The centerpiece of the MAP Web site is an extremely well indexed and abstracted database of some 125,000 papers on various aspects of the drug war, all available for email delivery via checklist and an extraordinarily useful search facility. There are also mailing lists, bulletin boards, chat rooms, links pages, and a list of well chosen and well worded questions to ask legislators.
Mothers of the New York Disappeared
This group has formed an alliance with Argentina’s Mothers and Grandmothers of the Disappeared. They are the women whose silent vigils in memory of the 30,000 people murdered by the American-supported Argentine military junta helped return democracy to their country. Representatives of the Buenos Aires group help their counterparts in New York organize vigils in Rockefeller Center and Albany on behalf of some 50,000 people who have disappeared into the state’s prison system due to the Rockefeller drug laws, which mandate a sentence of 15 years to life for sale of 2 ounces or possession of 4 ounces of marijuana and for similarly small amounts of other drugs.
Narco News Bulletin
This site counteracts norteamericano cultural chauvinism and managed-media fiction with solid, detailed reporting about the Dope War in Latin America. There simply is no better one-stop source to learn what’s really going on “down there.” The site is supported by, and many of its reporters are trained by, the Fund for Authentic Journalism (http://www.authenticjournalism.org).
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
NORML — Oregon
Founded by activist lawyer R. Keith Stroup in 1970, NORML was the prime mover of decrim in 13 states in the Seventies. With chapters in 42 states and 7 foreign countries, the group provides expert contacts to news media and organizes benefits, conferences, legislative lobbying efforts, and anti-propaganda truth squads. The Legal Committee helps lawyers prepare cases, and helps arrestees find lawyers. The NORML Foundation helps victims of the laws who are in especially grievous need. In addition to an FAQ for reform advocates, a quarterly newsletter, and a state-by-state guide to pot laws, the group publishes a wide range of fact sheets and position papers, including a policy of responsible use based on the core principles of “no kids, no driving.” The Oregon chapter’s huge online library supplements the extensive archives at NORML’s main site.
No Jail for Pot
This site contains a simple Declaration for visitors to sign in favor of cannabis legalization and amnesty for the 1 million prisoners of weed.
The November Coalition
The Coalition works to improve conditions within, and ultimately eliminate, the American gulag of nonviolent drug war prisoners, who now number over 1 million. Publications on their site present a wealth of information on the prison industry, racist enforcement, outrageously draconian sentences, and Gestapo-style raids, as well as the war’s destruction of prisoners’ families and everyone’s rights. The group’s many activities include a petition to reinstate federal parole, a collection of comments by judges speaking out against the war, supplies and manuals for organizers, a newsletter called Razor Wire, and “sardine can” labels to publicize horrific prison conditions. There is a page of resources to help the war’s child victims, and a link to fedcure.org’s help page for prisoners denied medical care. Perhaps most important is The Wall, a huge listing of drug war prisoners and their stories.
Ohio Marijuana Party
This group hopes to build a statewide organization to attain cannabis legalization for adults over 21. The site contains some good articles on drug war economics and the prison industry, as well as the Elkhorn Manifesto, a well-documented monograph on the war as part of a larger program of authoritarian capitalist control that began to take shape among wealthy robber-baron families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Online Pot
Florida spinal-injury survivor Chris J. Kenoyer’s one-man effort aims to be, and may well be, the best online information resource for medical marijuana activists and for current or prospective patients. Especially valuable are his Crisis Help Center and the pages on Churches and Marijuana, Clinics for Medical Marijuana, Recipes, Online Scammers, Mailing, Research, Legal Information, Email and Chat Security, Seed Banks, and Topical and Oral Administration.
Stanton Peele Addiction Website
Based on lifelong study of the subject, Peele firmly rejects both the prohibition approach and the medical-treatment approach to drug dependence. Instead, he considers addiction (in a broad sense encompassing other comforts as well as drugs) to be a coping behavior that everyone uses to a greater or lesser degree when other ways of coping are inadequate or unavailable. When people have the wherewithal to make their lives work, he finds, their relationships to drugs spontaneously improve. Copious, well organized materials on the site support his profoundly compassionate and realistic view of the “drug problem.”
Pot Party
Based in Paradise, California, the Pot Party quixotically jousts for cannabis legalization, of course, but also for a sustainable economy and transcendence of nation-state politics. In addition, they support proportional representation, that is, a European-style parliamentary system that would allow minority viewpoints a voice in government. They also favor election of the U.S. President by majority vote. Their site links to other marijuana party urls.
Project 420 dot com
This links site is primarily devoted to growing, paraphernalia, and legal herbal smokes, but it also lists many good cannabis activist sites, including some that are not well known, on the Hemp, Legalization, Health and Medicinal, and Miscellaneous pages.
Project 420 dot org
Still under construction, this org is to be a clearinghouse for marijuana activism, with drug war news, medical marijuana sources, and information on protests and marches.
Stop War
This site is dedicated to opposing the Drug War and the phony war on terrorism, and exposing both as excuses for neo-fascism. There’s a message board, a chat room, and a page of links to essays, news items, and other sites.
U.S. Marijuana Party
Based on success in organizing a cannabis legalization party in British Columbia, this site’s authors offer guidelines and resources for building similar parties in other provinces and in the American states.
The Vaults of Erowid
Erowid is a superb library about all facets of all psychotropics, natural and synthetic. It includes not only texts, but also one of the best collections of drug-related images on the Net. The key word throughout the site is balance. It contains honest material on risks but also on drugs’ benefits for artistic creativity, spiritual quests, and just having a good time. The well organized Freedom and Law section contains essential material on state and federal laws, asset forfeiture, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and privacy rights. Two pages in particular are priceless: one on preserving your rights during a search, and another on resisting police psych-out techniques in order to avoid saying anything without a lawyer during interrogation.
Vote to Smoke
This is a small informational site about the potential benefits of legal cannabis. Founder Ryan Stone hopes to encourage growth of a third political party based on personal liberty regarding drug use and other issues. He has written an educational pamphlet for download and free distribution.
Ya Hooka: The Guide to Marijuana on the Internet
This is a huge compendium of site links and fact pages on recreational, religious, and medical use, research, history, and cultivation of cannabis. The Activism and Law Reform pages collect, at last count, 737 sites throughout the world dedicated to ganja enjoyment and legalization. The Misinformation page of propaganda sites is a noteworthy effort, though only a few are listed.
