| Students - organize on campus!
by Tom Angell
SSDP Board of Directors
The Phone Slam represents an incredible opportunity for us, as students, to affect legislative change. Below are some steps that you can take to ensure maximum participation on your campus. These resources will help you set up a booth and provide the opportunity for many medical marijuana supporters to urge their legislators to support one or both of the medical marijuana bills currently in the US House of Representatives. Please feel free to innovate or alter any of these ideas to fit your local needs.
The first and easiest thing that you should do is book space for a booth on September 23 in your student union, on the quad, or another prominent spot on campus. Then contact
tom@ssdp.org to let us know that you're participating.
Next, encourage your chapter members to donate their cell phones for use at the booths so we can flood congressional offices with as many phone calls as possible on the 23rd (be sure to remind potential cell phone donors that calls will be toll-free).
To find out who your Representative in Congress is, enter your zip code below. |
To find out how your Representative voted on the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment, which would have prevented the DEA from interfering with state medical marijuana laws, click
here.
To find out if your Representative is a cosponsor of H.R. 2233, click here.
To find out if your Representative is a cosponsor of H.R. 1717, click here.
Strategy
If your Representative voted for the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment, but is not a cosponsor of H.R.
2233 or H.R. 1717, encourage him or her to take a larger step to protect medical marijuana patients from federal harassment.
If your Representative voted against the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment, take this opportunity to let him or her know that some of the 80 percent of Americans who support medical marijuana are constituents of theirs.
If your Representative is a cosponsor of either H.R. 2233 or H.R. 1717 , call to say thanks and encourage him or her to cosponsor the other bill.
Booth operation
To ensure that out-of-state students have information about their Representatives, please print copies of the Hinchey/Rohrabacher vote tally, and the cosponsor lists of H.R.
2233 or H.R. 1717. It should be noted that out-of-state students can choose to register to vote either at home or at their campus addresses.
On September 23 and for a few days before, please make an effort to distribute as many of
[these] double-sided quarter-page flyers as possible. Feel free to edit them to include your chapter's contact information and/or meeting times. You should also have copies of the flyer at your booth on the 23rd so that callers can read over the talking points and take some with them for later distribution.
To reach your Representative, call the Capitol Switchboard toll-free at 877-762-8762 or 800-648-3516. If the toll-free lines are busy, you can call 202-225-3121. When the operator picks up, ask to be connected to your Representative's office. If any willing participants don't know who their Representatives are, they can give their contact information to the operator, who will connect them.
Please try your best to document and count the number of calls made at your booth throughout the day. After the Phone Slam, we'll be tallying the calls to determine our effectiveness.
Bonus: Since so many college dorm residents remain signed on to instant messaging programs throughout the day, send this message to everyone on your buddy list and encourage them to do the same:
Cheryl Miller, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, passed away on June 7. She spent the last 11 years of her life dedicated to fighting for legal access to medical marijuana. Today, medical marijuana advocates nationwide are paying tribute to Cheryl by calling their legislators in support of two medical marijuana bills in the US House of Representatives. Please go to
http://www.cheryldcmemorial.org/phone_slam.htm to get information on how to help protect seriously ill and disabled patients from arrest by calling your representative in congress toll-free. Please forward this message to other interested individuals.
|
