cannabisnews.com: Drug Peace Campaign to Launch in San Francisco!





Drug Peace Campaign to Launch in San Francisco!
Posted by FoM on December 29, 1998 at 08:22:28 PT

Drug Peace Campaign to Launch at San Francisco Cyberculture Event; 11th Annual Digital Be-In Implores the "Digerati" to Take a Stand Against the War on Drugs! 
SAN FRANCISCO Verbum, Inc., multimedia developer and producer of San Francisco's annual Digital Be-In, today announced the January 9, 1999 launch of the "DrugPeace Campaign," a new Internet-based political action committee whose mission is to seek a peaceful end to the "War on Drugs" by encouraging more intelligent approaches to drug-related legislation and drug education. This new Campaign will begin at the 11th Annual Digital Be-In with a call to the "digerati," the movers and shakers of the computer industry, who are seen as a potentially powerful force for change, to support the new movement with technological and financial resources. The main thrust of the Campaign will be to develop an effective on-line "channel" that will serve as an umbrella media vehicle for many groups involved in countering the U.S. government's legal policies and mass media propaganda, and eventually evolve into an activism resource utilizing cutting edge techniques for political action, including on-line signatures for political initiatives."The political climate in the country is changing, and people are waking up to the real threats to civil liberties represented by the drug war," comments Michael Gosney, executive producer of the Digital Be-In. "The demographics of the on-line world are definitely slanted toward a more intelligent view on drug use and abuse, and the computer industry itself has been inspired, like many creative professions, by the use of certain drugs that have been, in my opinion, inappropriately villified. We need education, real knowledge about what drugs -- from herbs to Prozac to MDMA -- do to our bodies and minds. And we need rehabilitation, not jail sentences, for those who abuse drugs and themselves for whatever reasons. We are pleased to be providing a launch platform for this vital new campaign at the 11th Digital Be-In."John Perry Barlow, a respected computer industry pundit and social commentator who will join several experts speaking on the theme of Drug Peace a the Be-In, observes:"The American War on Some Drugs is actually a war by a powerful cultural group on other Americans of different cultural practices who are, if not necessarily less powerful, certainly less inclined to savagely impose those practices on others."As a consequence of this 'war' there are hundreds of thousands of political prisoners incarcerated in America. In their pursuit of this campaign, the anti-drug zealots have, in the course of a couple of decades, essentially eliminated the civil liberties of those who don't agree with them, and ultimately their own."This campaign has profoundly distorted all American institutions, corrupted the governments of half the hemisphere, and caused even more disrespect for government than its equally futile predecessor in Viet Nam."If we don't end the War on Some Drugs, there will soon be little left to love in America, as there is already almost nothing to respect."Howard Rheingold, another prominent member of the digital elite, exhorts:"The high-tech industry, from personal computers to Internet entrepreneurs, is full of people who make big bucks, smoke fine weed, and look the other way while thousands continue to be jailed. Tobacco, alcohol, crack and heroin take an enormous toll, but America has been mesmerized by a remarkable propaganda campaign that has demonized the use of soft drugs such as marijuana and psychedelics. The war on some drugs is wrong, and it's wrong to be silent about it. It's time for the digerati to break silence on this issue."The DrugPeace Channel will begin operations on January 9, 1999. The Drug Peace Campaign is based in San Francisco: DPC, PO Box 78067, San Francisco, CA 94107, 415-971-3573, Julia Carter, Director. Be-In 11 Event Sponsors include Mind Books and the Drug Policy Foundation, and Associate Sponsors Alexa Internet, NORML, MAPS, DRCNet, California Institute of Integral Studies, Psychedelic Island Views, Sacred Dance Society, SF Bay Guardian, Japan's Zavtone Magazine, A&R Partners and Graham Technology Solutions.The Digital Be-In has been produced for over a decade in San Francisco by Verbum, Inc., an early multimedia developer which published one of the first multimedia CD-ROMs in 1991 and many educational products for creative professionals working on computers.Advance tickets for the Be-In are $15 available at BASS outlets and TicketWeb (www.ticketweb.com) plus Bay Area outlets: Distractions -- 1552 Haight St., Cosmic Disc -- 1754 Polk St., Rasputin Records -- 2401 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, Mixology -- 1670 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. Tickets are $20 at the door. Press passes are available.Verbum Events Info Line: 415/777-9199; online: www.be-in.com. 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on December 29, 1998 at 11:34:28 PT
Looks Good!
This site looks really good so here is the link! One more good site! We need as many as we can get!
Here is their web site!
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