Tag: Decriminalization

Instructions for the promotion of the petition in support of Guatemalan president’s call for drug legalization

Thank you all for signing this petition. I now need your help in spreading the word. Here are some suggestions:

  • Send an email to at least 5 of your friends to promote the petition, asking them to sign it (see underneath a sample email, or write your own).
  • If you do broadcast email campaigns, you should send at least 3 emails, 2 days apart.
  • Post a link to the petition on your own wall. Post if 3 to 4 times per week.
  • Post a link to the petition on the wall of your friends
  • Post a link to the petition on the wall of the groups you follow that are concerned with drug policy
  • If you use twitter, tweet the petition.
  • Send letters to the editors or comments either online, or to your local press.
  • If you belong to a group, try to get your group to endorse this movement

Re-tweet my own tweets, ask your friends to re-tweet. Re-tweeting is a great way to generate a buzz. My Twitter account:  @JDhywood.

Post on the Facebook pages of President Molina and his vice-president Roxana Baldetti, as well as all the regional leaders, from Panama to Mexico. Send them emails when possible. Be courteous and respectful please!

Contact AVAAZ

Many people have commented that this petition is made for AVAAZ and I couldn’t agree more. With AVAAZ behind us, we would rapidly reach 100,000s signers. AVAAZ has more mobilizing power than anybody else in the world, and considering their past history of support for drug policy reform, they ought to support the Perez Molina petition. This is the message I would like you all to send to AVAAZ.

You can contact AVAAZ in different ways:

Through their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Avaaz?sk=wall#!/Avaaz?sk=wall

Through Twitter: @Avaaz

By filling out the online form: http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact/

Please refer to the petition by its link: http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

You could send a Tweet such as: The Perez Molina petition in support of Guatemalan legalization proposal is made for AVAAZ! Please help!  http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president @Avaaz

Links and resources to promote the petition:

Summit of the Americas: http://www.summit-americas.org/sixthsummit.htm

There is a virtual community http://svc.summit-americas.org/ with discussion groups and forums.

How to contact Latin American presidents:

President Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala: www.presidencia.gob.gt  Twitter: @ottoperezmolina. Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/ottoperezpp

Vicepresidenta, Roxana Baldetti despacho@vicepresidencia.gob.gt, Twitter: @roxanabaldetti . Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/roxanabaldettipp

http://www.vicepresidencia.gob.gt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/roxanabaldettipp

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico: felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

@FelipeCalderon Sígueme

@GobFed

@PresidenciaMX

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/presidentefelipecalderonhinojosa

By mail:

PALACIO NACIONAL

Edificio 10, Planta baja,
Col. Centro, Deleg. Cuauhtémoc.
C.P. 06067. México, Distrito Federal.

President Juan-Manuel Santos of Colombia:

http://syscopre.presidencia.gov.co/publico/frmCiudadano.aspx

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Presidencia-de-la-Rep%C3%BAblica-de-Colombia/186850511364615?sk=app_4949752878

@JuanManSantos

http://www.facebook.com/JMSantos.Presidente?sk=wall

How to contact the medias – best is a letter to the editor:

Send the petition or a letter of your own to your local newspapers and publications. Here are 2 sites with lots of media contacts: http://www.abyznewslinks.com/ and http://www.prensaescrita.com

Support Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

LEAP has been fighting in the trenches for the past 10 years. They deserve our support! https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5663/donate_page/member-program

Diffuse, promote, share, be an activist!Act now!

 

Here is a sample message you can use for your email campaigns or your social network posts:

I need your help to promote the petition “Support Guatemalan president’s call for drug legalization” http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

The petition has already reached 6,300 signers, but we need far more than that. There will be on March 24th a meeting in Guatemala of 7 regional presidents (Panamá, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, & Belize) to discuss the Perez Molina initiative. I am trying to collect as many signatures as possible to deliver at the meeting. Three weeks later, 34 countries will attend the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, and drug legalization will be high on the agenda. This will be the first time ever that legalization is debated at a major international Summit! It is an opportunity that we cannot afford to waste.

This is an unprecedented event and all activists should take advantage of this opportunity to generate massive mobilization of support for significant and meaningful debate on drug policy reform, especially as obstruction can be expected from the US. There is a window of opportunity here, where a truthful debate might finally take place (despite US efforts at nipping it in the bud), and we have the opportunity to influence this debate. We cannot stay on the sideline and we have to get involved.

Can you help?

Many thanks!

Call for a global convention on psychoactive drugs

Call for a global convention on psychoactive drugs – a coalition of the willing to re-legalize and control

The entire war on drugs and drug prohibition are a US fabrication. Drug prohibition was imposed to the rest of the world when it was forcibly attached to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI.

Decriminalization wouldn’t do much to solve the biggest issues created by prohibitionism in the big world: the violence, corruption and destabilization brought about by narco-trafficking, which is itself the unavoidable consequence of prohibition. While the US is not likely to re-legalize any time soon, Latin American countries are becoming increasingly restive as the time of blind obedience to US diktats is fading into memory. I, for one, am pushing for a coalition of the willing, led by Presidents Calderon and Santos, and regrouping Latin-American, European and Asian countries, to initiate controlled legalization of production and trade of all psychoactive substances. The principal objective of such a convention should be to remove the production and commerce of currently illicit drugs from the control of organized crime, and to bring it back under the control of legitimate international and national organizations. The secondary objective should be to reduce harm throughout the entire supply chain, from the producers to the users.

I do not think that such a coalition is as far-fetched as most American would like to believe. The American century is over; it ended under G.W. Bush. The world is now a vastly different place.

A growing number of retired heads of state and high-level officials are denouncing the failure of the War on Drugs and calling for a paradigm shift in drug policy. But we need heads of states and high-level officials to take a stand while in office and actually initiate profound and real drug policy reform while they are still in office.

No other heads of state on the world scene can lead and unite a coalition of the willing with the credibility and the stature of a potential Calderon-Santos alliance. Both presidents have repeatedly expressed their support for alternatives to the current highly disruptive policies.

But neither President Calderon nor President Santos are likely to make a move without strong popular support behind them.

Thus, I invite all of you to support and diffuse the Calderon-Santos Initiative, calling for Presidents Calderon of Mexico and President Santos of Colombia to take the lead of a global coalition for legalization and control of currently illicit drugs. Check http://calderon-santos.org/, as well as the attached files. Sign the open letter to Presidents Calderon and Santos, spread the word.