Freedom Fighters of the Month - High Times

Posted by FoM on July 18, 2000 at 21:57:18 PT By Steven Mishnia  Source: MapInc.  The top site bookmarked on my Web browser at HIGH TIMES is mapinc.org, the DrugSense/Media Awareness Project's collection of over 37,000 drug- related news articles. The MAP Inc. Website is the most-surfed drug-policy site in the nation, averaging over 70,000 hits a day last March and getting over 100,000 one day April. According to a Webtrends.net comparison, the DrugSense/MAP Websites are more popular then those of the Drug Czar's Office, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, CASA and DARE combined. Last April, almost 8,000 other sites had links to MAP. Aside from news clips, which are also accessible on lists "asset forfeiture" to "raves," the site offers guides to writing letters to the editor, and contains links to over 75 pot and hemp sites, 83 general drug-policy reform sites and 20 prohibitionist groups. The site is the brainchild of Mark Greer, 52, a former computer salesmen from Southern California. Greer discovered the Internet in 1993, and hooked up with the Drug Reform Coordination Network. They originally collected articles to help people write anti-Drug War letters to the editor. But Greer soon realized that the articles were worth archiving. Today. he says, MAP has 400 to 500 "newshawks," almost all volunteers, sending in about 1,000 articles a month from the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia. He's now trying to arrange translations of stories from Colombia and Mexico. Greer split from DRCNet in late 1994, establishing DrugSense as an umbrella group to encompass other activities, primarily helping less technical activists get access to the Web. Webmaster Matt Elrod came aboard in 1995. Elrod is also Webmaster for Kevin Zeese's Common Sense for Drug Policy, and has done computer work for the November Coalition, the Drug Policy Foundation and the Vancouver Compassion Club, as well as offering free "hand-holding and technical support" to scores of' other groups. Sometimes, he confesses, he feels "a bit of an armchair activist," working out of a log house on B.C.'s Victoria Island, a long way from the drug raids in the ghettos or the Skid Row of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Still. he contends, the Net is an invaluable information resource for activists. "We've won the internet battle, because we're not limited to soundbites," he says, "in any debate, the prohibitionists are pounded into the dust." Greer echoed that theme at last May's DPF conference, noting that while MAP offers links to prohibitionist Websites, the likes of DARE and the PDFA don't reciprocate. "Our secret weapon is accuracy," he said. "We link to them --- they don't link to us," "Out in the streets, I'd just be another body," Elrod concludes. "We all have to do our part, and this is the best way I can." Cited: Drug Reform Coordination Network: http://www.drcnet.org/ http://www.druglibrary.org/ Common Sense for Drug Policy: http://www.csdp.org/ The November Coalition: http://www.november.org/ http://www.jubileejustice.org/ Drug Policy Foundation: http://www.drugpolicy.org/ http://www.dpf.org/ Vancouver Compassion Club http://www.thecompassionclub.org/ Cited Prohibitionists: Drug Czar's Office: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/ Partnership for a Drug-Free America: http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/ CASA: http://www.casacolumbia.org/ DARE: http://www.dare.com/ Note: The video clips from the addresses of Mark Greer and others on internet activism at the DPF conference are on line here: http://www.zoomculture.com/general/dcoffice/dpf/plenary.html And a picture of MAP leaders meeting at the DPF conference is on line here: http://www.mapinc.org/image/dsboard/ News Article Courtesy Of MapInc. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1000/a13.html Source: High Times (US) Website: http://www.hightimes.com/ Contact: letters@hightimes.com Author: Steven Wishnia Pubdate: Sep, 2000 Mail: THC Letters, 235 Park Ave. S., 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003 Copyright: 2000 Trans-High Corporation, redistributed by MAP by permission Note: I want to congratulate Mark Greer and Matt Elrod for the fine job they are doing. I am very proud that CannabisNews is so closely associated with this wonderful and progressive News Service. CannabisNews MapInc. Archives: http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/MAP.shtml Home    Comment    Email    Register    Recent Comments    Help

p.s.keep up the good work but get some rest.

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Comment #9 posted by Sledhead on July 19, 2000 at 15:54:17 PT

MAP

Congratulations to you guys. If anybody deserves it, you do. Great idea and great job.

Now, damn the topedoes, full speed ahead. ;-)

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Comment #8 posted by dddd on July 19, 2000 at 15:24:54 PT

thanx

narconews is dynamite.....thanx Kap....dddd

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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 19, 2000 at 11:05:37 PT

Thanks Again Richard

Thank you for the update. I surely can understand how it's hard to know all that is happening within MapInc. So many good people working so hard to change our current drug policy laws. I am so happy that we are in the time of the Internet where the real news will be heard! When it is all said and done we will all salute the Internet.
Peace, Martha

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Comment #6 posted by Richard Lake on July 19, 2000 at 09:49:31 PT:

Hi, Martha - About what MAP supports

Gosh, Martha, I just really don't know for sure all the web support (to say nothing about mailing list support) that goes on at MAP. Matt and Jo-D and Mark P. do not involve me in the ongoing discussions, reports, etc. which have to do with those areas, just as I do not keep them in the loop on everything in my news area.

Indeed, that is a big issue with us, reducing the email that goes to folks who are busy working on projects in their areas that simply don't have time to read all the email from everyone about other areas if they wish to get their projects done.

I will encourage our webmaster type folks to keep the site maps updated so you have a place to check, Martha.

One you do not have listed that comes to mind is Jim Rosenfield's Think For Yourself, a wing of the DrugLibrary, which was moved at his wife's request after his death to http://www.drugsense.org/jnr/think.htm

Probably others, and more in the works. The American Medical Marijuana Association (AMMA) is now DrugSense supported, for example.

I really have no idea how to show the fair number of websites where MAP provides thru interactive software on both sides a news feed (often only of automatically selected items) to other sites. Actually even news feed is probably not the way to put it, as the news is really arriving from the MAP server even if it looks like you have not left the site of the group we provide the feed to. A couple of examples are http://www.drugpolicy.org/ and http://www.thecompassionclub.org/

I know folks sometimes act like we all, Mark, Matt, Jo-D, Mark P., me and all the editors, etc. should know everything we are doing and how to fix any problem or answer any question. We have grown beyond the point where that is possible, at least in fine detail, long ago.

Richard

• DrugSense, MAP and PDFA site maps.

http://homepages.go.com/~marthag1/mymain.htm


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Comment #4 posted by Richard Lake on July 19, 2000 at 07:42:30 PT:

Thanks, Martha

It is a pleasure to be able to support cannabisnews.com with webspace on the MAP server and with technical assistance.

If there was anything that I could have wished for in the kind High Times article it would have been for a list of all the websites that we support and that Matt provides technical assistance, news feeds, and other support for. But that would have taken up about the whole article. Matt does not like to toot his own horn about all he does, so I only realized that he had provided support to one of the sites listed when it was in the article.

For more on our super lead webmaster (Jo-D and Mark Peterson also do their share) click the URL. The photo of Matt on a well known street corner was taken by me the day I met Matt about three years ago.

• Freedom Fighter Matt Elrod's home page

Anyone willing to help Al by providing MAP with the translated news articles he provides?

• How to Newshawk

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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 19, 2000 at 04:44:12 PT:

Notto steal anyone's thunder..

But there is another, very interesting site that *does* provide English translations of Latin American news articles regarding the effect on the WoSD on our Neighbors to the South. It's called the Narco News.

http://www.narconews.com/

And it is chock full of information that never gets massaged by the Korporate media into 'news' up here, but is absolutely vital for us know. I highly recommend it.

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