If anybody is serious about changing the law, here's how to get it done. Federal law in the U.S. is made by 435 Congressmen and Congresswomen, 100 Senators, and 1 President. Any law of the land can be changed by a majority of Congresspersons (21, Senators (51), and the President (1). Are you prepared to spend five minutes a day to make sure that your Congressperson, Senators, and President vote for the changes you want? You don’t have to travel or organize a rally or spend much money (just a few bucks for stamps). What it’s going to take is a steady stream of letters to your Congressperson, your two Senators, and the President. Here’s a template for a friendly, supportive letter to your Congressperson, Senator, State Representative, etc. This is the kind of letter that will get their attention, because we’re coming across as the friendly, tax-paying citizens that we are. Letters that are rude or too stoney aren’t going to have nearly the impact that a friendly, supportive approach will get (So let’s steer clear of the “Dear Dude, we all have, like, the inalienable right to, you know, do whatever…” approach). Something like the following is a good start:
1) Go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml to get the name and address of your Congressperson. This will take less than a minute. Do it now and you’ll have it out of the way.
2) Write the letter. You can make it look like the one below or any way you like; this is just a sample. Spend at least five minutes on it, check the spelling, and read it out loud to yourself to see if it makes sense. (Do this while your in a sensible frame of mind,). You don’t have to be a great writer; just stick to the point and keep it short, i.e, not more than one page.
3) Find friend to write a letter, too. Share this material with him or her at your next get together.
4) Repeat the process at least once a week. Make it your personal mission to do two things: Get a letter like this into the hands of your Congressperson, each Senator, and the President, every month (that’s four letters a month), and get some friends to do the same. It only takes a dozen letters to create the impression of a public mandate; an elected official getting a dozen letters a week will really feel the public presence.

Here’s the sample letter.

Your Name
Your Address
Your City State and ZIP

January 99, 2008

The Honorable <Name of Congressperson / Senator / etc. >
Address (get the right address from https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml )



Dear Congressman/Congresswoman/Senator <LastName >:

I am writing to ask you to <whatever it is you want him or her to do>.

Thanks for your time, and keep up the great work!

Sincerely,


<Your Name>
***The Prohibitionists say mj leads to lack of motivation. Is it true, or will a few interested folks take this on and actually get this process moving?***

i have a hard time believing that my congressman/senator would even take this issue seriously. but sending a few letters a week could make them take it seriously.

either way i still dont see anybody in my state making an impact seeing as to we in the south looked upon as a joke considering our education and many other issues...

fuck we cant even smoke ciggs without being 25 ft away from a door

i just dont see these people changing shit

louisiana politics are a complete joke anyway

You've hit the nail right on the head: A few letters a week. How about if you write one today, and get a couple of your friends to each write one at your next get together? Next time your at the store, just buy a pack of paper, some envelopes, and some stamps, and keep it all handy for whenever you have friends over. Start out every social event with a little letter writing activity. Ten minutes, and it's another word to your elected officials letting them know what's important to you.

have you personally done this? if so what kind of response if any did you receive?

i would expect something like "Thank you for your letters...but we do not agree therefor no action will be taken on this issue" and they will continue to prosecute weed smokers to the fullest extent.

Yes, I wrote my congressman and both senators about three weeks ago. I've received back only one mail, and it was as you predicted a "Thanks, but I disagree" kind of response. That's a big reason I'm cross-posting this how-to message in several places: It's going to take a handful of polite, friendly folks in each congressional district to regularly contact their congressperson and two senators to show that there really is grass-roots support for HR 5842 (medical mj) and HR 5843 (personal mj). I've also sent a second note to the senator who replied to me; the goal is to show that we're reasonable, articulate tax payers with a legitimate interest in this arena. My plan is to give the ohter two another day or two to write back, and then either respond to their responses or just send another letter... Hmmm... It's probably been long enough that I should just send them each another letter without further ado. Hey, it's all about numbers: They want our votes, so let's give them our friendly feedback!

Writing our congressmen/women is a great idea but then we wouldn't be incognito anymore. I believe a great hinderance to legalizing marijuana is that those of us who want it legal don't want to be recognized in our communities as pot smokers because it's illegal. How can we stand up and be counted without being identified in the process?

Educate yourself and randoms are easy to beat. I had a boss that new I was smoking so he'd random me about every 2 weeks.lol
Beat him everytime with synthetic urine.

Granny Toker makes a great point: writing our Congressperson does identify the writer as supporting the issue being written about, but it doesn't necessarily identify the writer as a pot smoker. I don't use marijuana; I support HR 5842 and 5843 from the perspective of a concerned parent (prison will mess a kid up a lot worse than pot will), taxpayer (somebody tell me again why we spend $20,000 a year to lock up somebody for growing or smoking a plant?) and public safety advocate (if ordinary Americans could grow a few plants for themselves, it would put the narco-criminal terrorists out of business). I think writing our congresspeson as a concerned citizen can come from a lot of angles other than a personal desire to use mj. This debate really is about fiscal responsibility and common sense; the more we can push it into that arena, the more quickly we'll see some positive results.

At www.safeaccessnow.org u will see that it is illegal for a company to fire u solely cuz u smoke herb if you are a medical pt with a script