DENVER, CO -- Leaders of a broad coalition of national and Colorado-based advocacy organizations held a press conference today to announce the launch of the Patient Voter Project. This project is a joint effort of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Sensible Colorado, Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), Medical Marijuana Assistance Program of America (MMAPA), Just Say Now, and others with a combined reach in Colorado of more than 40,000 online supporters.
The mission of the Patient Voter Project is to shine a light on the Obama administration’s behavior in the state and to keep medical marijuana patients, their families, and their hundreds of thousands of supporters around the state up-to-date about the latest hostile actions being carried out by the administration.
Medical marijuana advocates, providers, and patients are participating in and embracing this campaign.
“President Obama stated early in his campaign, and in his presidency, that he would not waste federal resources interfering with state medical marijuana programs. The recent actions of the administration are a complete betrayal of that promise,” said Morgan Fox, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Patients and their supporters need to know what the administration is doing that could hurt them, and Obama needs to be made aware that these crackdowns in medical marijuana states are just denying medicine to patients and putting them in danger. These people deserve elected officials that are going to support them.”
The members of the Patient Voter Project coalition are distributing alerts to more than 40,000 email subscribers and Facebook fans today. Recipients are also being encouraged to spread the word to other people in Colorado. In addition to these email alerts, the Patient Voter Project is in the process of distributing postcard flyers to medical marijuana centers around the state so that they will be available to patients.