Action Alert

Protect your community!Tell Congress to stop supporting
militarized police drug raids.

Email Your Members of Congress

Dear friends,

How would you react if a large group of men in camouflage and combat boots came bursting through your front door with machine guns pointed at you? Helen Pruett, a 76-year-old woman who lives alone in Polk County, GA, suffered a heart attack when her house was mistakenly stormed by about a dozen local and federal agents looking for suspected drug dealers. Militarized police units are used every day to conduct drug raids and it is getting out of control.

Tell Congress to put a stop to these dangerous home invasions.

The Polk County raid is not an isolated incident, and it’s not a result of rogue police officers overstepping their orders. There are more than 100 SWAT raids in America every day, most commonly to serve drug warrants. When police invade homes in riot gear with machine guns and flash bang grenades, they’re following standard procedure.

What’s even more disturbing is that these raids can happen anywhere, to anyone, no matter how minor the offense. Sometimes a crime hasn’t even occurred. Police raid the wrong house or act on information from untrustworthy informants, and completely innocent people wake up in the middle of the night to armed men breaking down their front door.

Congress’s funding of the war on drugs has allowed police excess to escalate out of control.Federal drug war grants for SWAT team equipment and drug task forces create incentives for local police to militarize. Local squads even have access to weapons from the Pentagon’s surplus arms stock.Demand an end to federal funding for this misuse of police resources.

The war on drugs isn’t just an ideological battle.  It’s a real war, with real weapons and real casualties, waged against American civilians. These dangerous raid tactics show just how far it’s escalated -- they're the end result of the drug war’s militarization of local law enforcement. 

Paramilitary raids should not be happening daily in our neighborhoods.  They should not be happening when no threat to public safety exists. Police should be keeping the peace instead of treating our communities like war zones.

It's time to push back on politicians who let these raids continue.  Urge your members of Congress to stop supporting SWAT raids for nonviolent drug law violations.

Sincerely,

Bill Piper
Director, Office of National Affairs
Drug Policy Alliance

Find the latest marijuana policy news on the JustSayNow page. You can also follow JustSayNow on Twitter and  Facebook.

Last week, Mexico’s President Calderon called on President Obama to join the debate on legalizing marijuana. The US drug policy has lined the pockets of the drug cartels with billions of dollars, and they are threatening to destabilize not only Mexico but countries across Latin America.

In many regions, the drug gangs are seeking to replace the government, imposing their own taxes in towns they dominate.

Three former Latin American presidents — Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Cardoso of Brazil — wrote an oped in the Wall Street Journal, urging the legalization of marijuana as a way to undermine a major source of income for cartels.

Recently, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned that the Mexican government could experience “a rapid and sudden collapse” due to drug cartel violence.  And the outgoing head of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, warned that drug cartels “threaten … the well-being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state.”

The problem is so bad that following President Calderon’s statement, two Mexican cardinals have endorsed his call to open a debate on the merits of  legalization.

There have been 28,000 people killed since 2006 in the war with the drug cartels,  including 1200 in July –  the deadliest month yet.  The recent shooting in Arizona that triggered the debate between right and left over immigration was the result of marijuana smuggling, not people trying to get over the border to find jobs.  It’s insane that the conversation instantly devolved into a right-left battle over immigration.  The Arizona law does nothing to address the underlying problem.

Yesterday the Guardian had a piece on the push to end prohibition, including the Just Say Now campaign we launched last week.  Further,  the Guardian editorial board called on David Cameron and Nick Clegg to “launch a national debate on whether we should try legalisation,” and to “tear up the current policy. It has failed.”  “That debate must be opened in Britain and the recent change of government provides a rare opportunity,” they say.

But as Peter Guither notes, although there is strong interest in the issue among both progressive and conservative voters, leadership on both sides of the aisle have been unwilling to address it.  Most are terrified of walking into a meat grinder of social taboos left over from the culture wars, and they won’t brave it until the public demands it.

That’s why we launched the Just Say Now campaign.  Over 30,000 people have already signed the petition to President Obama, saying it’s time to end the war on marijuana.  America’s prison population has quadrupled since 1984 when Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs began, and the private prison system exploded.

Last fall, Eric Holder issued a directive that the DEA should respect state medical marijuana laws.  But as  Jacob Sullum notes, that directive had a lot of wiggle room and as a result the DEA’s raids on medical marijuana suppliers continue.

Please show your support and sign the petition asking President Obama to end the war on marijuana.

Dear friends,

President Obama's nomination of Michele Leonhart to be permanent head of the DEA is a trial balloon - a test of strength and resolve.

The nomination of a ruthless prohibitionist is a test of whether he takes himself seriously when he says that the federal government is going to stop wasting time, money and people on medical marijuana raids in states where it is legal. It is, more significantly, a test of whether he takes the drug reform movement seriously.

And the only way he will take us seriously is if we write now telling President Obama to replace Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart with someone who respects the rights of the ill and vulnerable.

If you have received appeals from our allies in drug policy reform, please send those along as well as ours.

Every email they receive counts.

Obama's pandering to the prohibitionists is a trial balloon.

We need to shoot it full of lead.

Thank you,

Neill Franklin
Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

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Dear friends:

The DEA has gone rogue. Despite clear guidance from the Department of Justice directing them to do otherwise, agents are conducting raids of homes and businesses where the occupants are acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws.

These agents are storming onto the property of law-abiding citizens with guns drawn, destroying marijuana plants being grown for patients, stealing computers and cash, and even leaving trash on the floor behind them when they are done.

A recent raid in Mendocino County, California targeted a woman who had filed formal paperwork to grow medical marijuana, had paid a $1,050 application fee under the local ordinance, and whose operation had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff. When informed about this, the DEA agent in charge said, "I don't care what the sheriff says."

It is only a matter of time before one of these raids ends tragically with someone seriously injured or killed.

One woman is responsible for all of this. Her name is Michele Leonhart. She became the acting-administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration under George W. Bush and was shockingly nominated by President Obama to be the permanent head of the agency. She clearly has no respect for authority at the Department of Justice and is equally willing to use federal law enforcement power to trample on states' rights.

Yesterday, MPP and its allies called on President Obama to withdraw this nomination. We are hoping you will join us.

We have set up a page where you can send an e-mail to the White House, urging the President to withdraw the nomination. The pre-written e-mail we provide -- which you can modify -- also mentions that Leonhart has personally obstructed research into the therapeutic benefits of marijuana by denying an application from the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for this purpose.

Michele Leonhart does not deserve to be DEA administrator. Please take action so that President Obama gets this message.

Thank you,

Steve Fox
Director of Government Relations
Marijuana Policy Project

To contact MPP, please click here or reply to this e-mail. Our mailing address is Marijuana Policy Project, 236 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20002. Any donations you make to MPP may be used for political purposes, such as supporting or opposing candidates for federal office.