Building On 2012’s Marijuana Victories
By Tom Angell, MarijuanaMajority.com
As an historic year for marijuana law reform comes to an end, I’m writing to ask you to help Marijuana Majority continue reshaping the debate in 2013.
Right now, our organization has no paid staffers and no office. We’re just a small group of activists trying to help more people realize that marijuana reform is a mainstream, majority-support issue and that no one who supports changing marijuana laws should be afraid to say so.
MarijuanaMajority.com was born on October 22. In just two short months, our message has resonated more than any I’ve seen in my ten years working in the marijuana reform movement. Tens of thousands of people like you have signed up to join the Marijuana Majority, hundreds of thousands have visited our website, and millions have seen our content on social media sites.
As you know, the last couple months have been a whirlwind for the marijuana reform movement. And we’ve got a lot to be proud of.
On November 6, the debate surrounding this issue changed forever when Washington and Colorado voted to legalize marijuana. Marijuana Majority’s message played an important role: During the week of the election our content was seen by more than 3.5 million people on Facebook alone!
Since that historic day, Marijuana Majority has been critical to continuing the momentum for meaningful reform. Mayors like Svante Myrick, police chiefs like Paul Whitesell, lieutenant governors like Gavin Newsom, and so many others have stated their support for legalization. Prominent people are speaking out more than ever before and, as a result, the political climate is shifting before our very eyes.
With your help, we can keep highlighting the growing consensus around marijuana reform. We’ll keep adding every prominent new endorsement to our website, and continue to create beautiful content that you’ll be proud to share with your friends.
Plus, we’re planning several new, game-changing campaigns to grow the Marijuana Majority that we’ll be deploying in 2013.
For example, we’ll soon be asking supporters to urge their mayors to come out in support of changing marijuana laws. These local officials are influential figures who often haven’t needed to take a position on marijuana reform (since they don’t vote regularly like legislators) but who see the harms that prohibition causes in their cities and towns. They’re the ones who have to deal with how marijuana enforcement drains police budgets, and they’re the ones who get calls when SWAT raids go wrong.
As such, mayors are ripe targets to be new voices for our movement. All we need to do is help them understand that this is important to their constituents, and that they will enhance their public standing by showing their support. We’ll announce more details about this campaign soon…
Thanks in advance!
