Link to the MMM site for more info.
click here for more animated pot graphics
PFPF News Latest News
"Let's get Marijuana out of the closets and into the coffeeshops!"
ROLL YOUR OWN BLACKOUT
THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER
JUNE 21, 2001 THURS EVE,
7-10 pm worldwide, all time zones
As an alternative to George W. Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21 at 7pm - 10pm in any time zone (this will roll it across the planet).
Its a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights from 7pm-10pm on June 21. Unplug whatever you can unplug in your house. Light a candle to the Sungoddess, kiss and tell or not, take a stroll in the dark, invent ghost stories, anything that's not electronic - have fun in the dark.
Read the 1999 book "Natural Capitalism" by Hawken and Lovins to learn that conservation/high efficiency technologies already ARE on-the-shelf. If implemented these revolutionary ideas would pay themselves off within five years, after which we'd be pumping far less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and saving bucks to boot.
Forward this email as widely as possible, to your government representatives and environmental contacts.
Let them know we want global education, participation and funding in conservation, efficiency and alternative fuel efforts -- and an end to over- exploitation and misuse of the earth's resources.
Write to Al Gore c/o mail@dnc.democrats.org.
Sample letter:
Dear Mr. Gore,
On July 17, L.A. Times columnist Rober Scheer criticized you for standing back and letting Bush destroy everything. Here's some feedback to Scheer's column in today's Letters to the Editor section: "At this point, Gore is too open to the criticism of being called a crybaby if he speaks out. Bush is doling out more than enough of his own rope to hang himself. Let him."
I agree with this letter. If you say anything, the self-proclaimed journalists on Moonie-right-wing radio and TV talk shows will be all over it. Of course, one can only wonder what the republicans would be like if the race had gone to you. They would have been the poorest losers in history.
If you do plan to run again, when you're ready, please tour Florida to meet the people who were disenfranchised. Thousands lost their right to vote, or their votes were not counted. If you go meet them and talk to them, that will encourage them to vote again.
In the meantime, I think your policy of staying out of the media's eye is a good one. I hope that Bush is voted out in three years because anybody would be better than him. I just hope that this country is still in one piece by that time.
Sincerely,
Nori Muster
P.O. Box 41750
Mesa, AZ 85274
A letter from Robert Redford, circulated on the Internet in May 2001
Dear Friend,
I've never circulated this kind of email before. But I am so appalled by President Bush's plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to massive oil development that I feel I must do whatever I can to help stop it.
To me, the Arctic Refuge represents everything spectacular and everything endangered about America's natural heritage: a million years of ecological serenity . . . vast expanses of untouched wilderness . . . an irreplaceable sanctuary for polar bears, white wolves and 130,000 caribou that return here each year to give birth and rear their young.
For 20,000 years -- literally hundreds of generations -- the native Gwich'in people have inhabited this sacred place, following the caribou herd and leaving the awe-inspiring landscape just as they found it. Our own presidents going back to Eisenhower have kept a bipartisan promise to safeguard this world-class natural treasure. But not THIS president. It is a sad day indeed when our president and congressional leaders would sacrifice America's largest wildlife refuge for the sake of a possible six-month supply of national energy. A six-month supply! We could save that little oil by improving the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by a mere one mile per gallon.
Only one group of Americans will benefit from the destruction of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge: the oil giants.
Everyone else loses. Arctic wildlife populations will decline, the Gwich'in people will see their land marred by pipelines and poisoned by oil spills, you and I will become even more dependent on oil, and the planet will suffer catastrophic global warming from the burning of even more fossil fuel.
Unless we get millions of Americans to lodge a protest right now, this nightmarish scenario may well come to pass in the next two months. The Republican energy bill, which would fulfill the president's promise to drill the Arctic Refuge, is moving through Congress today. House and Senate leaders may also try to sneak through the Arctic drilling provision by attaching it to a "must-pass" appropriations bill. These votes will be decided by the moderates in both parties. We must reach those moderates and hold them accountable.
Here's what you can do: go to http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has set up this new website to make it extremely easy for you to send messages of protest to your senators and represenative. It will take you only a minute.
I've been on NRDC's board for 25 years, so I know how effective they are at waging and winning environmental campaigns. Last year, NRDC used web activism to help generate a million messages of protest to Mitsubishi and stopped the company from destroying the last unspoiled birthing ground of the Pacific gray whale.
We'll win this time too if each of us does our part for the Arctic Refuge. Please visit http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic right now. And forward my message to your family, friends and colleagues. Congress cannot ignore millions of us.
If we let them plunder our greatest wildlife refuge for the sake of oil company profits, then no piece of our natural heritage is safe from destruction. Please go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic and help keep the Arctic wild and free.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Read R.R.'s correspondence with Gale Norton:
http://www.truthout.com/0224.Redford.Norton.htm
The following letter circulated on the Internet on 24 April 2001:
By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.70 is cheap. As it is now $1.83 for regular unleaded. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at less than $1.75, we need to try an aggressive response.
With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we don't buy it. But, that's not really a practical option since we all have come to rely on our cars. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together.
Here's the idea - For the rest of this year, DON"T purchase gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling, they should be inclined to reduce their prices - and if they reduce their prices the other companies will too.
But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of users. But it IS doable!
Pass the email on and let's make an impact the only way we can-TOGETHER.
***** PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO $1.28 - $1.29 AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK
TUESDAY APRIL 24TH THE REPORTED PROFIT FOR THE FUEL COMPANIES WAS 5 BILLION DOLLARS
Bush vs. Green: An Open Letter from Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver, AlterNet
March 27, 2001
Barbara Kingsolver, renowned author of The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer, wrote this call-to-action against Bushwhacking and other threats the new administration poses to the environment. It has been widely circulated by email, proving again the Internet's potential as a method to unite in order to influence our lawmakers. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Dear Friend,
Okay, I'll admit it, I spent the inaugural weekend in denial. (He's not my president. Most of us didn't actually vote for the guy ... ) Ignored the smarmy front-page photos of parades and balls, skipped straight to Section B to look for coverage of the protests. But the fact is, we now have a new administration that's hostile to the things I love most: human kindness, the dignity of diversity, and the wild glory of life on earth. It's time to move on from denial to the next stage, which would be bitter cynicism or action.
I'm opting for action, because I don't really have a choice. Looking out my window right now I can see my two girls outside under the mesquite trees in this precious riparian woodland where we live, and my heart starts to break for all the beautiful things they'll never see if I allow unchecked Bushwhacking in the next four years. Civil rights and reproductive choice I suppose we could win back in time (though not the lives lost along the way), but the waters and wild lands devastated will never come back. So I've taken a vow to spend at least some part of every week protecting the truths and places I treasure.
Part of that commitment involves this letter asking you to do the same. I'm fairly confident you'll agree with my concerns, because we're the majority. Not only did most of us not vote for the guy, we also-by a handy majority, the polls say-oppose the assault he and Gale Norton hope to launch. To choose an urgent example, their plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is hugely unsupported by U.S. citizens, and has even met some opposition from his fellow Republicans. Most of us want the Arctic Refuge to remain pristine and untouched-and we feel this way in spite of current energy worries and the fact that this magnificent birthing ground for Artic wildlife is, for most of us, a place we've only imagined. The widespread reputation of Americans for selfishness notwithstanding, we are wise and generous enough to care about lives and places beyond our own backyards.
Starting today, if you haven't already, I hope you'll do a handful of concrete things including these: Post the addresses of your legislators somewhere you'll see it, and make a habit of writing them weekly to help guide their decisions about social justice and the environment. Think of the California energy crisis as an opportunity to institute, in your home and your conversations with friends, a policy of conserving resources that will provide the only long-term solution. And get involved with your conservation community, locally and nationally. A step I recommend is the Internet activist campaign called www.SaveBioGems.org. When you visit this site, it will take you only about ten minutes to send faxes to politicians and CEO's to voice your interest in protecting places like the Arctic Refuge, Greater Yellowstone, the Macal Rainforest of Costa Rica and Red Rock Wilderness of Utah. If you register there, the Natural Resources Defense Council will send you email alerts every so often (while also respecting your privacy) asking you to return to http://www.SaveBioGems.org to participate in a crucial fax or email campaign. These things work. Every kind of communication adds up, and web activism is a new force in the political landscape. Lots of effective campaigns have made good use of the internet, such as the one against Nike, and it was web activism that recently helped NRDC to prevent the Mitsubishi corporation from destroying birthing grounds for the Pacific Grey Whale in Mexico. But it only works if we all care enough to get involved. I believe the Bush administration has happened to us for a reason. Setting aside election fraud, family connections in Florida, and the fact that Republican districts almost everywhere have better voting machinery, the reason is complacency: Too many people must have assumed that the things we cherish are permanently protected. We underestimated the power of wealthy corporations to put a Petroleocracy into the White House. Now that it's there, it's our obligation and our right as citizens to drown out its awful agenda with our voices. We have majority support, now we just have to use it.
Please take a minute to visit www.SaveBioGems.org, and if you agree with me,please extend this invitation to your friends and family. Thanks -- our kids ask the world of us, and my greatest hope is to give them one, intact.
Truly yours,
Barbara Kingsolver
A little news from our friends
Letter From Los Angeles
August 15, 2000
By Marlan Warren
"...and I just discovered somebody tapped my phone."
- Paul Simon (from some 60s song I forgot the title of)
Dear Friends:
I just got wind that the FBI is scanning all our e-mails for content and is busy making files of all our boring thoughts and plans. But I have to tell somebody about what I just saw in L.A. an hour ago.
Actually it started last night when I turned on the 10 o'clock news and saw a straight faced police officer in the midst of a heated news conference. He was defending the actions of the police who had charged protesters on horseback and those on foot who had fired at people with pepper spray and rubber bullets. He explained that the police in this town are "damned if they do and damned if they don't."
I was thinking maybe he's right -- maybe the officers were just doing their job -- when a woman off-camera said, "I was trying to get out of the way and I got trampled on!"
The policeman answered brusquely, "Well, maybe you should have moved faster."
That's when I noticed his shirt was very black.
I've never been one for demonstrations. The last time I got involved was Spring '71. Four student protesters had just been killed at Kent State University in Ohio by the National Guardsmen. Since I was a student myself, the news sent me into shock. There was to be a march in D.C. to protest. I went up from Florida State and stayed with a friend in Georgetown. The night before, we wandered through workshops that had sprung up all over the campus. "Here is what to do if an officer tries to hit you...Here is how to protect yourself against tear gas..."
My friend wasn't very political either. We talked about being scared to march. What if these killings meant that demonstrators were fair game now? But when we did march, it was amid thousands who walked in near silence past the Capitol building. The air was almost incandescent with tension. We held hands for comfort. "If I should die before I wake..."
So anyway, I was minding my own business today at home (after getting the 100 degree forecast) when the phone rang and it was this lady at the Japanese American National Museum who said there was confusion about the copies I needed for a project, and she insisted I come down right away. Since my car is dead, I was not looking forward to the hot bus ride down there, but I had no choice.
The JANM is downtown -- a respectable distance from the Staples Center and the DNC. So I figured I might see some beefed up security and some very slow buses, but nothing major.
When I got off the bus at First and Hill, I found hundreds of police officers. The heat was already way up and everyone looked ready to rock 'n' roll. My business at the JANM was short and when I came out, I heard sirens. Half a block away, one police car after another zoomed by, heading south (the direction of the Staples Center). I thought, "Oh, it's probably a police escort." I paused, hoping to see a limo, but after the 10th Black & White, I gave up.
Police force notwithstanding, I needed to get some copies made at the shop near the L.A. Times. I found myself on the corner of Spring and Second, next to cops and facing cops on the other side. They stood legs spread, batons across chests. Braced for...what? I looked around, but saw nothing too threatening (if you didn't count the LAPD). Would they let me through on the other side? Should I call, "Red Rover, Red Rover"?
But when the light changed, the officers came toward me, jogging to their parked cars, taking off in a rush of light and noise. "Well, there's something happening here...what it is ain't exactly too clear..."
I was starting to feel like Forrest Gump -- a person who doesn't have enough sense to be scared. All I could think was how hard it was going to be to get a police officer anywhere else in the city if you really needed one. And about how much money all these policemen were costing. And how these officers were probably creating the sense of emergency and crisis that will now be forever linked to the Democratic National Convention.
I asked myself why did Los Angeles welcome the Democratic Convention if it was planning an all-out assault on the people who live here in the name of "Convention Protection"? Did the Democrats really think a city with a Republican mayor would have their best interests at heart?
The copy guy was standing outside his shop. He looked sorry to see me. I tried to change his mood by telling him that the motorcycle officers on First Street were talking about where to get the best burritos.
But when I stepped back outside, I felt edgy. I recognized that edginess. It's what I felt that day at the Capitol. An apprehension that anything can happen. Reality is inside out.
I tried to figure out how to get home. Usually, I would catch a bus on Broadway. But that street was busy hosting a ragtag parade. A block away, I could make out a makeshift float on a pickup truck and some people walking behind it. There was chanting over a loudspeaker. Something about a living wage.
Is this the reason the cops were in riot gear? Puh-leeze.
I sauntered over to First Street, trying to look more nonchalant than thou, and stopped at the corner where the march was actually passing by. Black shirted cops in riot gear were standing between us and them. Almost as if they were trying to block the view with their akimbo arms. Since there was no way to cross, I stood there, trying to figure out what these people were protesting. The signs were enigmatic -- anger about the U.S. and anger about someone "standing on our children" and anger...well, a lot of anger. Finally, I saw a sign about welfare reform. On the float was a black woman whose face I couldn't see, yelling about how women are sent to prison after "3 Strikes." About how the poor are jailed.
Compared to the cops, there were hardly any demonstrators. But I was surprised at the number of young people marching, and felt the anachronistic pull of their bandannas and wild hair. One woman reached under her blouse and adjusted her bra. Where are the hippies of yesteryear? Who'd have guessed they're in Los Angeles? Maybe the DNC is unwittingly making the invisible visible.
The last of the marchers passed and the cops allowed us to cross. I crossed, but my route followed the protest. The lines of cops I passed gave off more heat than the Greenhouse Effect.
The float woman yelled, "Let's chant again...POWER TO THE PEOPLE..." I don't recall the chant exactly, but when she started in, my mouth filled with tears.
Power to the people. How quickly we forget. I looked at those people and I thought how true those words are. If only we can remember.
The marchers stayed quiet. Maybe they were scared. Nobody wants bullets or pepper spray. Nobody wants to be knocked to the ground.
Photographers were getting shots of the police. Even a police photographer was taking pictures of his own. I wanted to yell, "Say cheese!"
The parade rounded a corner and seemed to congregate. Officers now blocked the sidewalk path and forced me to walk in the street next to the demonstrators. I was wearing a good dress, and I hoped I didn't look like a troublemaker.
My route home was just behind these elbow to elbow officers. I boldly walked towards them until I was face to face with one who said, "You can't go this way."
I asked why not. He blinked and said, "You can't."
Pointing at the demonstrators, I said, "You mean I have to join THEM?"
My head asked, "Do you want to get arrested?" I flashed over my plans for the day. And I flashed over the absurdity of not being able to walk on the street that I've walked on hundreds of times.
A tall police officer -- slightly older -- called over, "What do you need?" He didn't break ranks so I went over to him.
"I'm trying to get home. I'm not a demonstrator, but I live in Echo Park and I'd like to go to Sunset."
He have me a brief nod and let me through. I didn't glance back.
But as I made my way up the block, I was almost sorry. This section of Hill was full of cops. Standing outside their cars with the doors open. Again, I went for the invisible shuffle as I made my way over what is essentially an overpass with traffic whizzing below. I stayed near the railing. I opened my umbrella against the broiling sun and hoped I looked like Mary Poppins.
Suddenly the officers snapped into action. They jumped into vehicles with renewed purpose. I stopped to watch and tried not to smile because some of them were pointed in the wrong direction. They were hanging U-turns and getting blocked by each other -- having to wait until other cars straightened out. All the while the sirens are screeching, the helicopters are flapping. I mean, what are we, in the Killing Fields?
All the muscle flexing and posturing. So sick and oddly dangerous. The desert heat giving the whole drama a surrealistic glint.
There are occasions when where we really live and who really runs things become apparent. Today was one of them.
Hope y'all are staying safe and out of harm's way and hope the FBI has a nice day, too!
- Marlan
What's new on the websites?
The PFPF webmaster has been busy writing a new book. This one is for people who are recovering from a cult (or cult-like) experience. To learn more about it, link here.
Where has PFPF News been this year?
April 2000
From our house to yours, we wish you a happy New Year and all the holidays since. The lead story at PF is that the year 2000 is slipping by with no mailing of the PFPF Newsletter to subscribers! In some ways y'all probably consider that a blessing, so we'll spare you the apologies. Just suffice to say that the editor got a job last October and the clock is now ticking away at life.
Please note that new articles have been posted at the PFPF News site, including an opinion piece about New Years 2000, an activist's debate with the Partnership For a Drug Free America, commentary on recent incidents of children committing gun violence, and a message from the Family Council on Drug Awareness on how to improve drug education for children. We've also noted the passing of psychedelics historian Terence Mckenna.
For more about the American Cancer Society's plans to develop a marijuana patch for patients, go to the article at their website: http://www2.cancer.org/ezineCFML/dsp_storyIndex.cfm?fn=/003_02072000_0.html New articles for another PF project, ending child abuse in religious organizations, are now on line. Link to the ISKCON Child Abuse Timeline for stories of the survivors who grew up in the Hare Krishna school system in the 1970s and 1980s. To read the PFP declaration against child abuse,
Pray for Peace Declaration Against
Child Abuse in ISKCON
June 18, 1999
We, the editors of the Pray for Peace News, state our belief that children were neglected and abused in ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. We respect the religious aspects of the children's path, but object to:
- keeping parents away from their children
- kidnapping children
- discouraing children's relationships with their families
- physical, emotional and sexual abuse
- neglect, inadequate food, bad living conditions
- covering up for past abuse
- protecting abusers in the organization
- children underpaid for work they do as adults in the organization
- blocking adult gurukula alumni from renting apartments in temple communities
- using intimidation to discourage outsiders' involvement
Therefore, in order to expose cult tactics and cover-up, we resolve to talk openly to members of the media, politicians, law enforcement officials, attorneys, and others who may be able to help. We ask ISKCON officials to make amends for the harm they have done to children.
For a new article that disputes the need for a living guru link here.
Happy Earth Day 2000. For people interested in the environment, as we are, check out this new House Resolution that would give developers greater power to decide how to structure our communities. On a lighter subject, we've also posted new steamboat photos and steamboat links. For more on that subject, link here. To find out more about A Course in Miracles, link here.
We appreciate all the kind correspondence we've received lately and perhaps with the impending election, we will publish the newsletter more frequently. However, lately we've been satisfied that the word of peace in the drug war is circulating through the liberal mainstream newspaper columnists and hundreds of others who write letters to the editor. With a major election on the horizon, the best way to influence people is a well-written, objective letter mailed with an old-fashioned paper envelope and 33 cent stamp. Help create a better future, visit the activists workshop to voice your opinion.
North Dakota Leagalizes Industrial Hemp
Bismarck, April 17, 1999--North Dakota Governor Schafer signed HB 1428 legalizing industrial hemp by decreeing, "any person in this state may plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, and buy industrial hemp."
North Dakota's Senate passed the industrial hemp bill HB1428 44-3, and the House passed the bill by 86-7.
To full text of the new law is located at: North Dakota website For further information contact: Gov. Ed Schafer (701) 328-2200
End the War on Drugs
Why Our Drug
Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on
Drugs, by James P. Gray
This weblog goes back in time, with newest entries at the top. Older entries are transferred to the archive. If a search engine or a link brought you to this page and you don't see what you're looking for, put your keywords in our internal search engine:
index
