Buzzby

[This arrived in today's email]


Dear Buzzby:

There has been some big news since I got in touch a couple weeks ago, so I wanted to send an update letting you know what's happening.

The Denver City Council began its required consideration of our latest initiative last week, and right off the bat we could tell they were out to get us. The Safety Committee was the first to hear the measure, and they opted to spend their entire meeting plotting a strategy to defeat it. There wasn't even mention of the incredible letter they all received from Seattle City Council members, which described the success of a virtually identical measure there. (The letter is currently featured on the front page of SAFERDenver.com).

The Council was so hell-bent on killing this measure, they actually considered circumventing the voters by enacting it themselves and taking it immediately to court. This led to a huge uproar in the press, including editorials and columns urging the Council not to sidestep the initiative process, as well as this story in the Denver Post. The on-line version of the story included a reader poll, which -- last I checked -- showed 80 percent support for the initiative.

The Council ultimately dropped that scheme this past Monday -- probably because they realized the courts would rule in our favor -- and they announced they would be sending the measure to the voters. The Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post both covered the story.

They Council did, however, call for a public hearing on the measure for next Monday (8/27), which they openly said they would use to campaign against us. (Please contact us if you are in Colorado and wish to attend.) In fact, our from the 2005 campaign, Councilman Charlie Brown, made it a point to say, "This campaign starts today," suggesting to the Council that they use their public positions and city meetings to begin dissuade voters. Even more reprehensible is their plan to brand this measure as "illegal," despite the fact that the only court to ever consider such an initiative ruled it was fully legal and must be implemented.

We need your help to combat this nonsense and send a message to voters that this initiative can and will make a difference if it is adopted. Now that we know we will be on the ballot for sure, we will need to campaign hard these next couple months to ensure the message gets out. Please visit our campaign site and make a contribution today to help us get the word out to Denver voters.

Aside from having a tough time raising funds and our Council opponents raging against us, things are really going quite swimmingly. We have already generated tons of news coverage of the effort, much of which has conveyed our message that marijuana is safer than alcohol and should be treated that way. Now it is just up to us -- with your help, of course -- to take the next step and win this upcoming election.

We hope you will join us in this historic effort and we truly appreciate all of your help up to this point. Thank you again for your support and we'll be in touch soon with an update.

The campaign starts today,

Mason Tvert
Citizens for a Safer Denver

PS. The campaign blog is really starting to take off again with all of this news coverage. I encourage you to check it out and consider bookmarking it sign up for the RSS feed.

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