Join our letter-writing efforts!

As some of you may be aware, the Darwin-based Network Against Prohibition (NAP) started a letter-writing offensive last month.

We are astonished at our success rate over the last month in getting letters to the editor published in various publications.

In July alone, NAP members had eight letters published in four publications. The final scoreboard for the month of July is four in the Northern Territory News, two in the Territory Times, one in the Southeast Asian Times and one in the Australian.

Gary had a letter published in the Australian on July 29, pointing out that illicit drug users won’t be sorry to see Bob Carr (NSW Premier) go. (We haven’t seen a hard copy of this yet so we are not sure whether they printed Gary’s letter in total or edited it.)

This prompted a rabid response from Drug Free Australia’s Michael Robinson, printed in the Australian on August 1, in which he said that Bob Carr deserves a medal for the war on drugs. Click here to read the letter.

You can send responses to the Australian at:
letters@theaustralian.com.au

Despite the criticism from within Australia, NAP members have the support of our networks overseas. Stephen Heath from the Drug Policy Forum of Florida had this letter, in support of NAP member Scott White, published in the Territory Times.

Stephen’s letter was in response to Scott’s letter, published in the Territory Times one week prior.

To send responses to the Territory Times email:
territorytimes@iprimus.com.au

Scott’s letter also elicited a response from the Office of the Director for Public Prosecutions, who threatened Scott with contempt of court proceedings and attempted to put pressure on NAP members to cease their letter-writing efforts.

See our response here.

We are calling on NAP members and our supporters to join in the fun and start writing letters today. It is a cheap and easy way of promoting an idea to Joe Public, in this case, the need for drug law-reform and the urgent reduction of the prison populations.

For more information on writing letters to the editor, including letter-writing tips and email addresses for some media outlets (mainly Australian), click here.

Letters to the editor written by NAP members are now published on the NAP website on a blog here.

Letters to the editor that mention NAP members are published on a blog here.

And general letters to the editor, not written by NAP members or not mentioning the NAP campaign, are published on a blog, the Northern Territory Drug News Vault.

Finally, did you know that you can add comments to posts on most of our blogs. This is another great way to get some discussion happening. Just click on the links at the bottom of the post you want to comment on.

Enjoy your letter-writing efforts… let’s spread the word about the dangers of drug prohibition!

If you have a letter published somewhere, please let us know.