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We will not let the Drug Czar have the last word on random student drug testing.

Student drug testing surveillance programs not only undermine the role of parents in making decisions about their children's health, but can actually undermine the very protective factors that have been shown to help keep young people out of trouble with drugs.

I need your help to stop these programs.

For the last two years the administration has been promoting random, suspicionless student drug testing as the "silver bullet" in combating teen drug use, despite evidence that it doesn't work, and in face of objections from the nation's leading experts in adolescent health. DPA's Drug Testing Fails campaign, which I coordinate, has been the loudest and most effective voice of opposition to this wasteful and intrusive policy, and we've been able to take momentum away from the Drug Czar's propaganda machine.

Help us continue to fight by making a contribution today.

The Drug Czar and his staff have been flying around the country holding propaganda filled summits to try to convince local educators to start drug testing students -- randomly and without cause. Because these programs are both costly and unproven, the government is offering the enticement of federal funds to get such programs going. They are wasting millions of your tax dollars to promote and fund the program.

The Drug Policy Alliance is committed to heading the Drug Czar off at each stop. We want to ensure that educators and media understand that these surveillance programs are ineffective and harmful, deterring students from joining extracurricular activities, eroding relationships of trust at school, creating bizarre incentives to binge drink or switch to harder drugs that leave the body quickly, and perniciously undermining our most intimate notions of privacy and basic rights.

The Drug Czar's office recently announced the location of its four summits this year. I will be at the first summit in Charleston, SC, on January 24, 2007 where I'm already organizing local activists and allies to counter the Drug Czar by distributing honest information, speaking with educators and asking tough questions of presenters.

With your help I can organize local opposition to the subsequent summits on February 27 in Newark, NJ, March 27 in Honolulu, HI, and April 24 in Las Vegas, NV. But I'll need the resources to do it. Please make a special contribution today to support the Drug Testing Fails campaign, and to help me make sure your voice is heard at these summits. Just $5,000 from our members will cover the short-term costs of this campaign, and will go a long way toward protecting our children from intrusive government drug testing policies.

Please make a $15, $25, $50, or $100 donation -- or whatever you can afford -- to empower us to meet the Drug Czar head-on, and provoke the debate nationwide.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Kern
Drug Testing Fails Campaign Coordinator
Drug Policy Alliance

As I'm sure some of you have read, Senator Bill Mescher of Pinopolis has recently begun proposing a bill that would allow the use of medical marijuana in South Carolina. This bill comes twenty years after the death of his wife, who "died a long, agonizing death" battling lung cancer.

The full story can be found here.

After reading the above mentioned story, a quote from Sen. Mescher really hit home for me. He says, "People won't let dogs die with that kind of suffering."

When I was thirteen years old, my mother died of cancer. Like Sen. Mescher's wife, it too was a long and agonizing death. I remember watching my mother deteriorate from the bubbly, full-of-life woman I grew up with to a shell of a person she would never be again. It was truly heartbreaking to watch the pain she suffered, no matter how much she tried to hide it. We lived in New Orleans, and she would routinely make trips to Bethesda, MD for chemotherapy treatments, sometimes for weeks at a time, usually with no one by her side but her shadow.
When she'd return home she was a completely different person. We all knew she was in terrible pain, nauseous constantly, barely eating anything at all. Anyone who has watched a loved one die from this disease, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Medical marijuana use was, of course, out of the question due mostly to the fact that in Louisiana it is a violation of federal law to "prescribe" marijuana regardless of state laws. Instead, she took a cocktail of medications every day, of everything ranging from Morphine to Zoloft. In order to numb the pain when that didn't work, she would routinely call on my older brother to mix copious amounts of alcoholic Pina Coladas. As far back as I can remember before her diagnosis, my mother never drank a day in her life.

Is it possible that the use of medical marijuana may have prolonged her life? Maybe not. Would she still have died? Most likely. But now, ten years later, I firmly believe that her quality of life would have been vastly improved had she been legally allowed to use marijuana as a tool to combat her pain and allow her to be human again. This wasn't a woman who came even remotely close to the modernized stereotypical image of a pot smoker. She was not a child on a playground looking to get high, or a hippie still clamoring for her glory days.

She was a mother, a wife, a sister, and my best friend; and for many other people out there, she is that suffering friend or relative who's pain could be eased simply by smoking a little reefer.

January 16th was the first day of the 2007 Legislative Session in New Mexico. Together we can have a huge impact, let's start today!

Here are the first two steps you can take right now:

1. Take two minutes to send a letter to your legislators, urging them to support five critical drug policy reform bills. You can take an additional minute to add a personal note at the beginning of the message. It's that extra touch that can reach the heart or mind of a legislator. Talk about why you care!

2. Sign up for our first-ever Advocacy Day, to be held on Friday, February 16! What is an Advocacy Day? It'll be a great chance to meet like-minded people, and take direct action to get the bills passed. The day starts with training on how to advocate, including everything from how a bill passes, to how to find your legislator when they're not in their office, and what to say when you meet with them. Then we'll take you over to the Capitol, where you'll have a chance to put your new training into practice. Finally, we'll meet up again in the afternoon, where we can debrief and share our experiences. RSVP is required! Please send your name and address to Julie Roberts, at jroberts@drugpolicy.org.

Do you know someone who might be interested in joining the Drug Policy Alliance Network Team? Invite them to join here. Our members receive urgent insider alerts to let them know how the bills are doing and what they can do to help.

At critical moments, you will have the opportunity to send letters, make phone calls, and come to the Roundhouse if you're able. Stay tuned! It's going to be a wild ride!!

2007 Legislative Session Background:

Legal Access to Medical Marijuana

Medical research has firmly established that marijuana is a medically valuable treatment for some conditions because it can alleviate pain, increase appetite, and decrease nausea. The bill would allow qualified patients suffering from certain serious illnesses such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy, to use medical marijuana for relief of their symptoms.

Pre-trial Diversion for Nonviolent Drug Offenders

This bill will divert nonviolent drug possession offenders into treatment services, instead of prison or jail time. Treatment instead of incarceration for first- or second-time nonviolent drug possession offenders will not only save New Mexico millions of dollars a year, but will also make our communities safer by helping individuals receive appropriate community-based substance abuse treatment. Nonviolent drug offenders struggling with substance abuse or dependence need help, not jail.

911 Good Samaritan

New Mexico has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country. These deaths are preventable! The most common reason that people cite for not calling 911 for help when they witness an overdose is a fear of police involvement. People using drugs are afraid to be arrested for possession of illicit substances, even in cases where they need professional medical assistance for their friends and families. This bill would prevent those arrests by offering amnesty to people who seek medical attention.

Medicaid Coverage of Substance Abuse Treatment

As a first step to ensuring access to treatment for all New Mexicans, Medicaid should cover a range of substance abuse treatment services, including: detoxification, outpatient services, counseling, medication-assisted therapy and aftercare. Coverage of substance abuse treatment services should not increase overall Medicaid costs because of the cost savings in other medical expenses for those who seek and receive treatment. Thirty-five other states cover substance abuse treatment under Medicaid.

Medication Assisted Therapy Pilot Project

The Buprenorphine Pilot Project at NM Women's Prison Bill would provide funding for 2 years of focused anti-addiction medication treatment to 50 women inmates with a chronic history of narcotic addiction who are approaching release back in to the community. In New Mexico, 75% of women who go to prison for the first time and have a history of heroin use will return to prison within 2.5 years. This treatment project will reduce that recidivism rate. The 600 women incarcerated in the NM Women's Correctional Facility collectively leave behind 1800 dependent children under the age of 18. Women repeating crimes and returning to prison for narcotic-related activities cost New Mexican taxpayers nearly $3,000,000 per year.

Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPAN) is kicking off 2007 with advocacy for a long overdue public health bill in the California legislature.

AB 110, authored by Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), would allow the State Department of Health Services to authorize funding for clean syringe and syringe exchange projects. Access to clean syringes is a key public health tool for reducing the spread of blood borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, which can be transmitted through the sharing of contaminated syringes by injection drug users.

The state-level funding authorized by AB 110 would complement a program already in place that allows cities and counties to authorize pharmacies to sell syringes without a prescription. Right now, local governments are not permitted to use existing state HIV prevention funds on syringe access programs.

Despite passing both houses of the legislature in 2005 and 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger’s office has yet to give his approval to the measure, despite the impact that it will have on preventing new cases of HIV/AIDS, saving individual lives and saving taxpayer dollars.  DPAN’s Nikos Leverenz said, "We will work to ensure that the governor understands the public health imperative of this bill. Hopefully 2007 can finally be the year where California fights HIV/AIDS with an increased capacity to pursue rational, cost-effective and proven prevention measures like expanding syringe access."

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a severe funding cut to Proposition 36, the state's landmark, voter-approved, treatment-instead-of-jail program. The recommendation, part of the governor's budget proposal released last week, would cut $23 million from the money- and life-saving program.
 
Data consistenly show that Prop. 36 is a success--over 12,000 people have successfully completed substance treatment during each year of the program's existence, putting the program on track to graduate 72,000 Californians in its first six years. In just its first five years, Prop. 36 saved taxpayers $1.3 billion, according to figures from the Justice Policy Institute.
 
Despite its proven track record, the governor is starving the program. A recent survey by the Coalition of Alcohol and Drug Associations found that Prop. 36 needs at least $209.3 million to "adequately address the treatment needs." Yet the governor has proposed allocating just $120 million to Prop. 36 in 2007-08.
 
If the governor's budget is approved, it would be the second funding cut in as many years. Counties spent $143 million on Prop. 36 last year. Delays in funding distribution at the state level this year mean that counties will have just $132 million available to them.
 
Margaret Dooley, DPA's Prop. 36 outreach coordinator, said, "We are, frankly, shocked by the deep cuts the governor wants to make to this popular and successful program. Prop 36 has saved taxpayers huge sums, and kept more people out of prison than anything the governor has ever proposed. But the governor appears to be wasting no time starving this program to death."
 
This year's proposal also contains new constraints on the funding, which are likely to further limit some counties' ability to fund the program. $60 million would be channeled through a one-year-old fund called the Substance Abuse Offender Treatment Program (OTP), which requires counties to match funds in order to receive state money. In counties that are unable or unwilling to put up matching funds, local Prop. 36 spending would drop to less than half of current levels. The county match stipulation is particularly unfair, counties have pointed out, since Prop. 36 is a state-mandated program and, according to a recent UCLA analysis, states collect some 93% of associated cost savings.
 
DPA will work with the state legislature this year to bring the funding totals for Prop 36 much closer in line with the actual need.
 
"A huge majority of Californians support Prop. 36 because it makes sense and because it works," Dooley said. "We will work hard in the next six monts, together with program graduates and other treatment advocates, to keep legislators aware of the program's success and popularity, of their duty to uphold the will of the voters and of their responsibility to protect and expand this model public health program."