Dear Neil McIver: White House Drug Czar John Walters visited Las Vegas yesterday to hand out taxpayer dollars to local Nevada organizations that are willing to oppose the Marijuana Policy Project's ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in the state. MPP's initiative will be on the November 7 ballot.
MPP's Nevada campaign committee ripped into him hard, airing a TV ad attacking the drug czar's interference in a state election. Please watch the ad at http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/home/commercials and then -- if you think it's as outrageous as I do that your tax dollars are funding groups that oppose MPP's initiative -- please fight back by donating to the campaign at http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M720675687853968236342365&af=y today.
If passed by Nevada voters on November 7, MPP's initiative would regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol.
Our campaign staffers confronted the drug czar everywhere he went yesterday. At 6:40 a.m., Walters appeared on a local NBC TV station ... and our campaign manager, Neal Levine, refuted him on the same station a few minutes later. (Visit http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/home/video#drugczar to watch both interviews.) Walters -- who had refused to participate in a debate-style format -- ducked out the back of the station to avoid meeting Neal. But Walters couldn't hide, because when he appeared on the talk radio show "State of Nevada" a short while later, one of the three opposing phone calls he received was from Neal.
Walters couldn't escape MPP all day long. When he arrived to speak at the Police Supervisors and Managers Association at 10:00 a.m., 25 of our protesters were there to greet him. And the protesters swelled to 50 when he arrived at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce at noon. His motorcade was forced to pass between two crowds of our supporters holding signs and chanting, "Czar, go home! Leave Nevada alone!"
The confrontations were covered by major TV networks in the state yesterday, as well as in the Las Vegas Review-Journal -- and the story even went national, with coverage in the Washington Times and elsewhere. Visit http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/home/news to see some of the highlights.
With congressional auditors calling for the drug czar's budget to be slashed, and members of Congress demanding that he be fired for mismanaging his office, surely Walters has better things to do with his time than to spend taxpayer money interfering in Nevada's election.
Nevada has even asked him to stay away before, but he just won't stop interfering. In 2003, then-Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval (R) criticized Walters' interference with a 2002 marijuana initiative in the state. "It is unfortunate that a representative of the federal government substantially intervened in a matter that was clearly a State of Nevada issue," Sandoval wrote in an opinion. "The excessive federal intervention that was exhibited in this instance is particularly disturbing because it sought to influence the outcome of a Nevada election."
But Walters has a long history of interfering with MPP's ballot initiatives in the weeks before elections. And now he's handing out your tax money to groups that will help him. Won't you please stand up to him by using your dollars to vote for what you believe in? Visit http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M720676157853968236342365&af=y to donate today.
There are only 25 days left until Election Day. Thank you for anything you can donate at http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M720676167853968236342365&af=y to help us fight back.
Sincerely,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, 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 at http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M720675907853968236342365&af=y today will be doubled.