ALERT: Major Medical Marijuana Vote in Congress Next Month

This July, the US House of Representatives will vote again on
the Hinchey-Rohrabacher medical marijuana amendment, which if
passed will forbid the US Dept. of Justice from interfering with
state medical marijuana laws. Your help is needed -- it is
crucial that more members of Congress vote for medical marijuana
this year than did last year. Please visit
http://stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/ to e-mail your
member of Congress today! (Use
http://ga0.org/campaign/hinchey2006/wnbg6nsrr5kdxmk? instead
if you've participated in one of our web-based alerts before and
want your name and address to be pre-entered in the form.)

When you're done, please call him or her on the phone to make
additional impact -- use the talking points appearing below in
this e-mail to prepare for your phone call. You can find out how
to reach your Rep. using the Congressional Switchboard at (202)
224-3121 or our lookup tool at
http://stopthedrugwar.org/lookup.html online.

Please also visit
http://ga0.org/campaign/hinchey2006/forward/wnbg6nsrr5kdxmk? to tell
your friends
about this important action alert -- we need for everyone who
cares about this to take action, and sending them to our web
site to do so will also help to grow our list for the next time.

Again, please visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/
to lobby Congress and help medical marijuana patients today!
Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

David Borden, Executive Director
Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036
http://stopthedrugwar.org

----------------

TALKING POINTS FOR YOUR PHONE CALL OR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

* The Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, which will come up during
debate on the House Science-State-Justice-Commerce
Appropriations bill this July, would forbid the Dept. of Justice
from using funds to undermine state medical marijuana laws.

* More than three out of four Americans think medical use of
marijuana should be legal, according to polls, and eleven states
-- Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada,
Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington -- have all
enacted medical marijuana laws in recent years.

* Despite such strong support, the federal government continues
to block even research to determine marijuana's medical
benefits. Yet the 1999 Institute of Medicine report determined
that marijuana does have medical benefit.

* Medical organizations such as the American Nurses Association
and the American Academy of Family Physicians support legal
access to medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

* Blocking patients from receiving needed medicine --
threatening them with arrest, prosecution and incarceration --
is senseless and cruel.

* Congress should respect state's rights and not used armed
federal agents to threaten patients and providers who are in
compliance with state law.