1. Educate yourself and be vocal. Talk to others about what you have learned.

2. Write letters to editors of newspapers and magazines. Call into talk shows and express your views. For excellent examples of letters to the editor, please check out MAP LTE's. Need more help writing letters? Check out these links: MAP Activist Resources, How to write LTE's, Three Tips for Letter Writers.

3. Contact your elected officials at all levels of government. Call or write them and tell them you want them to work for legislation that respects human rights and against unjust laws. Educate them on the issues. Hold them accountable. One easy way to contact your elected officials about cannabis-related legislation is to use the Marijuana Policy Project Website.

4. Work with local government, schools, community and professional groups and organizations to effect changes in policies and priorities.

5. Get involved with your school curriculum. Demand honest drug education.

6. Use your skills. Students can write papers, essays, speeches, and do research on this topic. Writers, musicians, artists, and actors can be especially creative in spreading the message of tolerance and reform through various media. Business owners can enforce a "no drug testing" policy in their businesses. Attorneys can challenge the laws in court and help defend victims of the Drug War, pro-bono.

7. Vote! Use the power of the ballot box to vote for change. Run for office on a reform platform or help sympathetic politicians get elected. Work on voter initiatives or petitions.

8. Join or donate to a local or national group that supports reforms. Volunteer to help out or organize events that bring attention to these issues.

9. Become an Internet activist. Do more research, network with people who have the same interests, and blast your opinions to a wide audience. Link your web sites.

10. One powerful technique for bringing change is to educate the population by broadcasting videotape programs through the local cable companies public access program. This is especially true in smaller communities where the public access programs tend to be underutilized. A particularly stirring tape is FRONTLINE's "Snitch", available for purchase by individuals, schools, libraries and other educational institutions through: PBS Video, PO Box 791, Alexandria, VA 22313-0791. 1-800-328-7271. Copies of "Snitch " are also available for purchase online through ShopPBS. ReconsiDer, a Syracuse, NY-based drug policy reform group, produces a weekly cable program that is also available. Call 315-422-6231 for more information.

11. Check out our Links Page, and learn everything you can from the listed sites. You must be prepared to inform people about our harmful failed drug policies whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.

12. Go to our online flyers/posters/banners page. Print up tons of posters, flyers, cards, etc., and give them to friends, put them on bulletin boards in local malls or downtown. Post them everywhere!

13. Apply to companies, that do pre-employment drug testing, even if you don't need a job. These tests cost anywhere from $50 to $150 depending upon type. Enough people failing tests on purpose will cost them bundles. In the event you pass the test, tell them you've decided that you don't want to work for a company who has no regard for the privacy of it's employees.

14. Boycott products from corporations that support the War on Drugs, such as tobacco companies, alcohol companies, and pharmaceutical companies--and Starbucks, of course. (Can you say "hypocrite"?)

15. Activists can borrow an example from Macintosh advocates. Anytime you see a computer connected to the web (such as at a cafe, computer store, school, work, library, etc.), change the page to http://www.electricemperor.com/eecdrom/ -- the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer's "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" so that the hemp information will be there when the next person comes along. Or use the URL from YOUR favorite Cannabis Activist site.

16. Save all the post paid envelopes you get in the mail. You know, like every bank and credit card company in the world sends you. Run off copies of your best materials and stuff the envelopes, send 'em off! What's even better is when you get all your friends and relatives to save their envelopes for you too. You never know who you might touch at the other end of the line. I know people who gather 500 a week! No shit!

17. Collect donations and create a Memorial to all the victims who have been killed or had their lives ruined due to the War on Drugs. Start a fund and buy land for the Memorial--hopefully near Washington DC as a constant reminder to the War Criminals who frequent that area.

18. Buy billboard space with some Anti-DrugWar slogans.

19. Hmm... I just thought of a new idea that's kind of different and would cost a bit of money, but might be very effective. I had fun giving speeches in my speech class in college, and made quite a few converts in the space of just a 12 minute speech. If you got the frogskins, sign up for the speech class at your local college over and over, quarter after quarter, each time giving rousing, organizing speeches or just great informational speeches. Dare the other students in the class to do the same. Can you imagine if half the class started giving anti-prohibition speeches? Got friends who are going to college? Tell them to--as much as humanly possible--write every English paper, every speech, every psychology paper, even every science or physics paper (if at all possible) on the evils of drug prohibition (and don't forget to publish them on the web, send them in to newspapers, magazines, news websites, and any other place you can think of. If just a few people did this, we could create a revolution in the colleges, a snowball effect, that would gain a life of its own, and trample the prohibitionists under foot.

20. If you're a good writer, and know a lot about the prohibition of marijuana and other drugs, take out an ad in the paper offering to help students write English papers for free--as long as they write about the evils of prohibition. Can you imagine how many high school and college students would call you? Post the ad on the free bulletin boards up at your local community college--that ought to get some heavy response too!

21. Get your friends and family to take action too! You can't do it all alone!

Whatever you do, start doing it now,
before it's too late.