Marijuana Policy Project in Nevada

[ReformMaryJaneLaws]

(Another email I received today)



Sixteen weeks from today, an historic initiative to end the war on all
marijuana users will be on the statewide ballot in Nevada.

Until last week, the Marijuana Policy Project had been running a
stealth campaign in Nevada, avoiding media coverage and nationwide
fundraising because we did not want to incite our opponents to start
raising money and organizing against us.

One week ago, however, the Nevada state government announced that our
initiative has officially qualified for the ballot, and we have been
receiving extensive, positive news coverage ever since.

On November 5, our initiative to end marijuana prohibition in the
first state in the nation will either pass or fail. In order to
achieve victory on Election Day, we will need to receive monetary
support from many thousands of allies and supporters from all across
the country.

Will you please visit http://www.nrle.org to donate $10 or more to
this historic campaign? Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement is
our PAC in Nevada. Please play a part in this dramatic, landmark
campaign by donating $10 or more today.

================================================== ====================


WHAT WOULD OUR INITIATIVE DO?

If approved by a majority of the voters, our ballot initiative would
eliminate the threat of arrest and all other penalties for adults who
use and possess up to three ounces of marijuana. Second, it would
require the state government to implement a system whereby adults
could obtain marijuana through a legally regulated market, rather than
from the criminal market. Third, it would allow seriously ill patients
to obtain marijuana at a lower cost than non-medical users. And,
fourth, it would impose common-sense restrictions that the voters
demand, such as imposing penalties for driving dangerously while under
the influence of marijuana, smoking marijuana in public, and providing
marijuana to minors.

In short, this ballot initiative would end the government's war on
responsible marijuana users, thereby allowing the police in Nevada to
focus their time and resources on murder, rape, robbery, and property
crimes. Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement is the right name for
our campaign committee.

To see the text of the initiative, please visit http://www.nrle.org.
And, if you like what you see, would you please use the contribution
form on that Web site to donate $10 or more to this historic campaign?

================================================== ====================


NEWS COVERAGE HAS BEEN PHENOMENALLY POSITIVE

After the Nevada government certified on July 9 that our initiative
will be on the November 5 ballot, CNN Headline News ran a story about
our campaign on its 30-minute rotation for an entire day. And on
Saturday, the national FOX News Channel hosted a live debate between a
supportive Nevada state legislator (Chris Giunchigliani) and an
extreme prohibitionist (David Evans) who believes that everyone --
including seriously ill people -- should be put in prison for using
marijuana.

The Washington Post ran a story on page A2 on Sunday, and the
Associated Press, Reuters, and U.S. News & World Report also ran
stories in the past week, as did every newspaper in Nevada. Even
Jay Leno cracked a joke about our initiative on The Tonight Show
last night!

Perhaps most significantly, the largest newspaper in Nevada -- the
conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal -- endorsed our initiative.

Please see http://www.nrle.org for a catalogue of the print media
coverage our marijuana proposal has received so far. If you agree
that our campaign is on the right track, would you please donate
$10 or more?

================================================== ====================


WOULD YOU PLEASE CHOOSE ONE OF THREE OPTIONS?

An incredibly hectic signature drive -- which involved more than 200
campaign workers -- cost $357,000, all of which was underwritten by a
handful of major philanthropists. We weren't trying to break any
records, but the 109,048 signatures we collected broke the all-time
record for the greatest number of signatures collected by any
statewide petition drive in Nevada, and we broke a second record by
doing this in the shortest amount of time ever -- only 40 days!

The aforementioned philanthropists were willing to provide all of the
seed money for this campaign because we wanted to avoid a public
fundraising drive for as long as possible. Why? Because we did not
want to incite our opponents to start organizing and raising money
against us.

However, now that this campaign has gone public, it is time to
ask you and the other 45,000 friends and allies on this e-mail
list to pitch in.

If you and most of the other subscribers on this list each donate $10
or more between now and Election Day, this would generate
approximately $500,000 ... all of which would be used to run
hard-hitting TV ads in Nevada at the end of the campaign ... which
would catapult our initiative to an historic victory on November 5.

Would you please make one of three choices with regard to your
participation in this campaign?

1. Please visit http://www.nrle.org to play an important role in
this dramatic, landmark campaign by donating $10 or more today.

2. If you don't want to donate anything to this campaign, please let
me know this simply by taking a few seconds to visit
http://www.nrle.org/remove so that I do not bother you with
additional fundraising solicitations for this campaign.

3. If you want to remove yourself permanently from MPP's e-mail
lists, please visit
http://www.mpp.org/cgi-bin/subscript...yjanel@aol.com
or simply e-mail me with the word REMOVE in the subject line.

If you do not choose any of these three options, I will e-mail you a
follow-up message to ask how you want to proceed. Over the next four
or five weeks, I hope to receive answers from all 45,000 subscribers.

================================================== ====================


BACKGROUND

There have been only three statewide initiatives in the history of the
country that have sought to end marijuana prohibition. In the 1970s,
California voters rejected a marijuana initiative by a 2-to-1 margin.
In the 1980s, Oregon voters rejected a similar initiative by a 3-to-1
margin. And in November 2000, Alaska voters rejected yet another
marijuana initiative by a 41-59 vote.

Our confidential polling indicates that Nevada voters believe that
adults should not be arrested for using marijuana. Support for
marijuana policy reform has been surging across the country for the
past six years, and it is time we capitalize on this cresting wave by
scoring our first broad-based initiative victory -- in Nevada.

I hope you will seriously consider visiting http://www.nrle.org to
donate $10 or more, so that MPP can amass the $500,000 that is
needed to blanket the Nevada airwaves with our TV ads in October and
early November.

Thank you for anything you can do to throw your support behind this
important campaign.

Sincerely,

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

P.S. With only 112 days left in this campaign, we don't have much time
to raise the substantial sum of money that is needed to run
hard-hitting TV ads at the end of the campaign. Please visit
http://www.nrle.org right away to donate $10 or more. Thank you!

P.P.S. By donating $250 or more now, you will receive a videotape of
all of the campaign's hard-hitting TV ads in October, as well
as all of the TV news coverage of the Nevada campaign.

P.P.P.S. Our first-ever national conference will begin two days after
Election Day in Anaheim, California. To join us for what will
hopefully be a victory celebration, please register at
http://www.mpp.org/conference .