GA Update - URGENT Action needed!
Dear Friends,
This one is urgent. I'll ask you to spend less than ten minutes, but please do it NOW, in order to affect a committee vote this afternoon.
This is a bumper year for law reform. For the last couple of years, groups and individuals (VA NORML, ACLU of VA, Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition and others) have been working in Virginia. We now have bills before this session to allow cultivation of hemp (NON-psychoactive cannabis), to increase medical access to marijuana, and most importantly, to virtually decriminalize possession and to reform penalties for other marijuana offenses.
The atmosphere at the Assembly is vastly more receptive to all these ideas than it has been for decades!
There'll be a complete rundown of all of these bills within a few days. In the meantime, one bill urgently needs your support. Please read the following, and make a phone call/email.
Senator Adam Ebbin has a comprehensive decriminalization bill, Senate Bill 686, which will face a crucial vote tomorrow, in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. If it is not approved in that vote, then it's dead for the year, and the pattern of arrests and ruined lives will continue for at least another year.
There are 15 Senators on Courts of Justice; which is co-chaired by Senators Norment and Obenshain. We know that some of the members are in favor of the bill, and some are against it. There are also at least some (several have told me personally) who do favor the bill, but are afraid to actually VOTE for it, because they think that their constituents will vote them out of office if they do.
What I want you to do -- PLEAD for you to do, and do NOW -- is to find out if the Senator who represents YOU is on that committee. If he or she IS on the committee, then either drop them an email, or phone their office and leave a message. It doesn't have to be anything fancy at all. Just give your name and address, remind them that you are one of their constituents, and tell them that it's way past time to stop ruining lives and wasting money by busting people for using marijuana, Ask them to SUPPORT SB686 at this afternoon's Courts of Justice meeting. (You don't actually have to give your name amd address -- but if you don't, your message won't do much good.) Remember, the idea here is not so much to convince them that the bill is good policy and the right thing to do, but to demonstrate that there is citizen support for reform.
Here's the process:
1) If you don't already know, find out who your Senator is by going to the Who Is My Legislator site, at http://tinyurl.com/VaWhoIs Once there, you can enter your address into the search box at the top right of the screen. If you're really worried about revealing your address, then enter a neighbor's address, or navigate the map until you can click on the block where you live. Either way, you'll be shown the info on your Virginia Delegate and Senator, and your US Congressman and Senator.
2) Click on "more info". You'll see the contact information, and scrolling down you'll see the list of committees that they're on. If they're NOT on "Courts of Justice", then he or she will not have a chance to vote on the bill today.
(That said, it would still be helpful if you were to let them know that this is an issue that's important to you, but it's no longer urgent that you tell them today.)
If they ARE on the committee, then PLEASE email or call their General Assembly office. They're all busy, all day long, during the session, so they probably will not be in their office. Talk to their legislative assistant or aide, or at worst leave a message, asking them to SUPPORT SB686, Marijuana law reform, in the Courts Committee. Remember to identify yourself as a constituent.
If you have the time or energy, you could drop me a note ( "Roy B. Scherer" <rscherer@lairhaven.com> ) and let me know what you did, and what response you got (if any).
There are three websites that are very useful for anyone trying to keep up with the politicians this year. I've created permanent shortcuts to them, shown below.
All the latest details on this particular bill are at http://tinyurl.com/SB686 . This includes the bill's summary, full text, and current status.
The main General Assembly website is at http://tinyurl.com/VaBigHouse .
Legislative Information Service is at http://tinyurl.com/VaLegInfo
-- Roy B. Scherer <rscherer@lairhaven.com>
-- Legislative Analyst, Virginians Against Drug Violence
end
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