Drug Czar Illegally Campaigns Against Nevada MJ Initiative

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[forward from Marijuana Policy Project]:

As expected, the White House drug czar is once again using taxpayer money to lie and interfere with the Marijuana Policy Project's ballot initiative campaigns.

Just this week, White House Drug Czar John Walters traveled to Nevada, where he held a news conference to attack MPP's initiative to tax and regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol. Walters called marijuana an "addictive, accident causing, dependence-producing substance" and urged Nevadans to vote against MPP's initiative on November 7.

As soon as MPP heard Walters was coming to Nevada, we were ready â€" we organized a crowd of supporters to hold signs outside his Tuesday news conference, and we went head-to-head with him on all three major TV networks in Reno.

While the White House drug czar is spending taxpayer money to arrest marijuana users and campaign against MPP's initiatives to end the government's war on marijuana users, we're running out of money to fight back. Would you please donate $10 or more today?

This isn't the first time Drug Czar John Walters has attempted to scare and mislead voters. He campaigned against the medical marijuana laws that MPP successfully passed in Rhode Island in January of this year and in Montana and Vermont in 2004, and he has a history of barraging the TV airwaves with inaccurate and fear-mongering ads during the last few weeks of MPP's initiative campaigns.

Walters was also rebuked by Nevada's then attorney general for "excessive" and "disturbing" interference in the state's vote on MPP's first initiative in Nevada in 2002 ... and Walters has refused to file with the state government any campaign finance reports detailing the amount of taxpayer money that he spent attacking MPP's 2002 initiative â€" even in response to a written request from the Nevada secretary of state to do so.

Will you please oppose the White House's lies by helping MPP to run a good, solid, well-funded campaign? We need financial help from supporters like you to fight back against the White House drug czar's mean-spirited and unethical tactics.

Please do what you can today to help ensure that every time the drug czar spreads misinformation about marijuana, MPP can counter his lies with the truth.

Thank you,

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

P.S. A major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.5 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2006. This means that your donation today will be doubled. Please visit http://www.mpp.org.