Stories from the week of July 8, 2011

COP on the Hill

Your Voice in the United States Congress

Stories from the week of July 8, 2011

Happy Birthday America:  Besides enjoying the visit from my brother and his fiance (they live in Norway), we celebrated the 4^th with fireworks at the National Mall/Washington Monument (foto below).   Karen was a true ‘tour de force’ as more were asking her than me.  Out of the crowd of 200,000 I would estimate some 5,000 read  the shirts and together we had about 75 chats over a 5 hour period.

Time to get to work:  The first half of the year I made presentations to most of the new offices and offices which had a new judiciary legislative aide.  I did not want to visit offices that already had exposure to the COP message, until the bill was introduced.    Now my goal is to meet with aides of the other 350 offices in the next six months.   A Herculean task to be sure.   Know I am pumped and psyched* to get the HR 2306 message out (within the confines of our non-profit status), like it was my first day on the job.

Silent no more:    At Grover’s I was given the standard three minutes to present 2306.  I had been waiting for over two years for my chance to talk.  Afterwards a half-dozen expressed support for the bill and three said I should have talked more about job creation via hemp farming.  Voila, I have asked my colleague, Ben Droz who is the industrial hemp lobbyist, to be allowed three minutes next week.

NOTE:   A big thank you to COP member Rob Ryan and his wife Ilene for allowing me to stay in their home in Cincinnati for the LULAC conference.  That his house was located five minutes from the express bus to downtown was a big bonus in convenience and saving $$.

*psyched and pumped = ganz begeistert mit viel Energie

COPs 2nd year stats to date:

167  presentations to Congressional staffers:  4 this week

TV appearances: 12 … this week (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, cable) 

Newspaper stories: 7 dailes, 3 weeklies

Radio appearances: 13 – 1 this week

Published LTE: 15 (  this week)

Other media (bloggers, cable TV, minor publications, etc): 12 ( this week)

9 (Member of Congress) contacts:    

5 other VIP (MD state Senator & Rep):   

Consider being a member of COP at $30.00 or more per year.   All contributions are tax-deductible.   Your support keeps the COP voice loud and strong in the halls of the United States Congress.   We agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow.  Go to: www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org and click on Donate/Join – by credit card or send a check to:

COP

POB 772

Buckeystown, MD  21717