Newsgroup: it.cultura
Titolo: HELP US LEGALIZE DRUGS!

Hello People
As you might, or might not know, there is a group in the USA, that's
called MAP (the Media Awareness Project) This group of enthusiast
people does something really important and also really really clever.
They are made up off 2 groups actually. 
Group 1 is called the "Newshounds" and all they do is check
newspapers, magazines, TV and radio for articles or programs about
drugs. Pro or contra drugs, it doesn't really matter. What they look
for basically, is just a reason to write a great article in favor of
legalisation and/or against prohibition. Anything that gives the other
group: the writers group, a reason, an opportunity to write a whole
bunch of letters in favor of legalisation as in reaction to that
article or program! 
This is based on the idea, that an editor of a newspaper or a TV show
or magazine, when they get one letter from a viewer or a subscriber,
they figure that at least 100 or even 300 people wanted to write a
letter too. The amount all depends on the size of the newspaper or
radio/TVprogram of course! With a big TV show, 1 letter represents
maybe as much as 1000 people! They know that not too many people
actually take the trouble to write a letter in the first place and
then only if they really feel very strong about something! 
Most of them don't write because they have no time, or are maybe not
too good at such a thing or are just plain lazy! To an editor, 1
letter means: many, many people wanted to write, but only 1 actually
did.  So when a TV show or newspaper gets 100 letters, about a program
that promoted the drug war for instance, saying that this program was
biased and not in accordance with studies and scientific data, they
will take that very serious! Because these 100 letters represent at
least 1 to 3000 people! When this TV show or newspaper also gets 100
letters every time they say something nice about the war on drugs,
they will start thinking, that maybe most of their readers, do not
like this drug war too much. Especially when all these letters point
out the flaws in prohibition and show with cites and studies why and
how this war is wrong etc. This paper will start to change their tune
slowly and so will the readers of such a paper.  When people read
great arguments against prohibition, they will also start thinking
about it and that will show with the next election. They might even
start writing them selves! It really works this way, it does! Go check
out this MAP on their web site at: 
http://www.mapinc.org
   and you'll
see for your self!! There are also some examples, articles and the
letters written about them, so you'll have an idea how it works.
Okay, this long intro was just to show you first what MAP actually
does. In case you never heard of MAP, after all they're from the USA.
So now you know what I'm talking about, when I tell you all, that we
want to start a European version MAP, which we'll call MAPE , the E is
for Europe of course. Here in Europe we have a slight disadvantage of
course and that's our different languages. Not every newspaper reader
in France or Italy or Spain speaks English like most people on the
internet do. And what's more, not every newspaper will accept a letter
written in English unless its an English newspaper, of course!
So what we want to do here, is set up different MAPE groups in every
country or language area! Like for instance Holland + (Vlaams)Belgium
could be 1 area, France + Luxembourg and a piece of Suisse could be
one and Germany, Austria and the other piece of Suisse would also be
one. Or we could just stick to countries, it is really not that
important! What is important though, that is, that we actually DO
this! Not just make nice and interesting conversation about it, but
really make it work! We have to change the opinion of the general
public when it comes to drugs, drug users, and the drug laws. Most
people still believe the scary nonsens, they were told to believe. We
have to re-educate them. Prohibition simply does not work! Our
governments can not even keep drugs out of maximum security prisons,
how can they even begin to try to keep them away from our open
society? Not even with 50 times the money they spend now! Never!
Prohibition is impossible! It just doesn't work! 
Prohibition is costing us enormous amounts of money, while it's
filling the pockets of the organised crime bosses. They love it, the
harder we hunt the more profit they make. Prohibition keeps the prices
high and steady, which is great for their business! We have to have a
different policy, not more of the same failures. To show our feelings
in all this we will have a huge street rave/demonstration in favor of
legalisation on June 16&17 in Amsterdam when and where the Euro summit
will take place. That is just one thing! We have to fight prohibition
on several different fronts, if we want to succeed in our own life
time!
With MAPE we want to form groups in every country: 2 groups per
country! 1 group will be the "newshounds", they will checkout all the
media every day to look for articles, comments, whatever, about drugs.
They just look for a reason for the other group: the "writers" to be
able to react on an article or a comment, with a flood of well
balanced pro-legalisation letters, each from a different person,
written from a different angle and from different towns and villages.
This way, with a relatively small amount of people we can slowly but
surely change their ideas on prohibition of not only such a newspaper
or TV show, but also and that is much more important, it will change
the opinions of its readers! Most people recognise the truth when they
see it and when they do they will also realize what a dumb concept
prohibition actually is! This concept is working great! Just check out
the MAP site to get a good insight: it really works great, so great,
that already after only a short time they've already turned out a real
flood of articles and even had people of MAP appear in different TV
shows several times!! Papers have changed their opinion on the War on
Drugs just because of the efforts of MAP in the USA!!
Of course even with 10 MAP's in the USA, it would still take a lot of
time to change enough peoples minds to really stop this awful war
there. Too many people make too much money on the WoD and that's of
course quite a handicap, if you want it to stop!
But here in Europe it is very different: Holland has its coffeeshops,
Switzerland will soon decriminalise and so will Denmark and big pieces
of Germany. Italy is moving the same direction and even in the UK and
Ireland they look at Holland as an example!
In Europe there is political momentum. Here we can pull this off! If
only we could push a bit harder, if only the general public would tag
along too! The politicians, opportunists as they are would soon
follow. Principles? Not very likely, they just go where the votes are!
And here we or rather, MAPE comes in! Per country all we need is
around 50-100 serious people, or a few more, so everybody would have
to work less! Even people that would only post, like John suggested,
are welcome, very welcome even, so even the lazy or busy can help!
So again: what we need is volunteers to either scan 1 or 2 newspapers
and magazines and/or a TV station each and when you find a nice angle,
you just send it in, that's all. The writers do the rest! So maybe  1
mail per 2 weeks, maybe 2, that's not too much work now, is it?  A
group of 50 people per country can already scan a big chunk of the
media. As soon as they spot an article or just a reason to write, they
send it by email or fax to a central point from where the writers can
pick it up. They can even pick the articles or shows they like best or
feel the strongest about!  It doesn't have to become like "work"
although it is just as important! If someone only writes one piece,
fine! Great! If someone writes easier like John for instance and sees
fit to write maybe even 5 different letters all from other angles,
even better, because we would have the"posters" who could post them
for him so it still looks, that 5 different people wrote!
                           SO...
PLEASE DON"T LET US DOWN PEOPLE! 
We need as many volunteers as possible, the more the merrier!
So all you "newshounds" or "scanners" tell me you'll scan something
for this project! All you creative people out there tell me, that you
join us! And there must be lots and lots of "posters" out there,
because what would be easier, than to sit on your lazy ass while
you're still helping to make a difference? Come on, email me
and tell me your country, the magazines or papers you will scan or
what TV station you'll watch for us.
For now I will be coordinating it, later I can  divide it up in
countries, after I found the volunteers for the coordination there.
For the UK you can all write to:
jimmymac99 at: 
jimmy...@geocities.com
For Sweden write to mikael at: 
mik...@algonet.se
 
And for Holland and the rest of Europe write to me:
Ferry at:   
ra...@dataweb.nl
You can also just write to me and then I will take it from there so
again Ferry at :  
ra...@dataweb.nl
Of course please only write me if you really would like to help, okay?
Stories like:"Wow, what a great idea is this, man!! I would 
really wanted to help you guys out, but what a 
shame, alas I don't have the time!" 
or just empty promises can all go........ Yep, right where the 
sun don't shine!!
(If you write, I want to count on you, so think first please!)
Sorry for the length and the crossposting people, it was kinda
unavoidable in this case.... ;-)
Ciao!!
Ferry  

least 1 to 3000 people! When this TV show or newspaper also gets 100
-----------------------------------------------------snip----------------------------------------------------------
Didn't you all get the point in the very first sentence?
             The HypEr Ch@nnel
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
http://thc.meccanet.com
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