Hey Dailykos community,
Anybody have a single dollar to help enact sensible drug policies and empower students?
Follow me below the squiggly for more...!
(Note before I begin: this isn't a typical fundraising appeal. I figure asking for just a dollar, and sticking around to answer any questions you have about Students for Sensible Drug Policy might be a little different. I can guarantee, this will be the smallest donation ask you've ever seen :))
When I first joined this website, it was early 2004. I was 14 years old, had just been the youngest volunteer to travel alone to Iowa for the Dean campaign, and was just getting active in the political process.
Since then, I’ve volunteered for various campaigns, worked in New Hampshire for the Coordinated Campaign in 2008, and gone to college. When I got to the University of Maryland, I immediately became active in Students for Sensible Drug Policy,. Without a doubt, I felt the most empowered I have ever felt. I saw a gross injustice and so much being done effectively, on a purely grassroots level, to stop it.
If you haven’t heard of SSDP, it is an organization with well over 100 chapters all around the country (and now, around the world, with chapters in Canada and the UK, Nigeria, and even an office in Mexico, on the front-lines of the drug war). SSDP realizes the so-called “war on drugs” is an abject failure that disproportionately targets minorities, the poor, and also students- by breaking up families, eliminating financial aid, and making life harder for so many around the world.
SSDP has been instrumental in passing Good Samaritan Policies in states such as Illinois, Washington State, and New Mexico, as well as at dozens of campuses around the country. We are recognized as a consultant on drug policy by the United Nations. And it has trained hundreds of students (including myself!) to become better activists and really change drug policies. For the first time, 50% of Americans think it is time to legalize and regulate marijuana, so we can stop spending an extraordinary amount of money and resources on arresting mostly non-violent drug offenders, but there is still so much work to do in getting the national conversation going.
Since I’ve gotten involved in SSDP, my university has passed an alcohol-only Good Samaritan Policy, is on it’s way to passing one that includes all substances, and we’ve really gotten the conversation going all around campus. I’m now involved on a more national level and serve on SSDP’s Board of Directors, which is comprised of 2/3rds current students.
Last month, SSDP made headlines by questioning the GOP candidates and trying to force them to take a more consistent view on drug policy.
One of the ways in which SSDP trains students and keeps them involved is by sending students to drug policy conferences. For me personally, I learned so much at conferences, hearing speakers from all around the political spectrum- from Ethan Nadelmann to Governor Gary Johnson to Congressman Jared Polis. I learned how to become a better activist, how the drug war affects everyone and everything, and what I could do to help end it.
But as a student, I was unable to afford conferences without the help of SSDP. And a lot of other students are in that situation today, yet the bad economy has caused some of our supporters to cut down on funding, and we are worried that many students that had planned to attend might not be able to.
This is the most crucial time in drug policy reform yet. Colorado will be voting on marijuana legalization and regulation this coming November, California came so close to doing the same in 2010. The crack-cocaine disparity was finally reduced, with SSDP's help, at the end of that year.
So I’m writing a diary today (I’ve never written a money pitch before here in my 162 diaries here) because SSDP is featured on www.philanthroper.com today (Tuesday 2/28). Philanthroper is a great website in which people can donate just a dollar (or up to ten) to support selected non-profits, with a new organization every day. If anyone has a Paypal account and just a dollar or two to spare, it really would help so incredibly much in ending our misguided, ineffective, unfair, and non-sensical war on drugs. If you can give a little more, that would help so much, and I'd love to talk to you more about it!
I’ll stick around here for a while if you have any questions or want more information on SSDP or drug policy reform in general. Thanks in advance!