Well, what can we at the Drug Policy Forum of Michigan (DPFMI) say
about MAP's tremendous accomplishment of archiving over 100,000 news
clippings? Well, first we can say we wouldn't even be here without you
good folks at MAP/DrugSense and all the help you've given us in
setting up our e-mail discussion and announcement lists, our website
and the news feed it receives from your news clippings, not to mention
your encouragement and sage advice.

The MAP service allows us to have at our fingertips data and
information that it would be near impossible to gather by
non-technical means. It's a lot easier to represent drug law reform
when one knows that the facts are not only at one's side, but at one's
fingertips as well.

MAP also allows us to maintain a yet primitive website
(www.drugsense.org/dpfmi) using the MAP news feed and we plan on
expanding the site this year. As basic as our site is now, it still
serves important functions by giving us an internet presence and a
reference point to where we can send those interested in finding out
more about DPFMI, helping with our work, or joining our MAP sponsored
e-mail list.

The help we have received from MAP/DrugSense and its dedicated team of
staff and volunteers has enabled us to grow from a group of folks
loosely affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild who put on the
"Beyond the War on Drugs" conference in the Spring of 2001 into our
own organization dedicated to discussion of sane drug policy. In
January 2002, we were able to host Mike Gray for a talk and the
following Fall we hosted the November Coalition's Journey for Justice
and coordinated it with a conference at University of Detroit's Law
School and activities in Ann Arbor, MI. We are planning our most
ambitious conference yet for this Fall as well as "Lifers Left Behind"
project highlighting the plight of many convicted under Michigan's
notoriously harsh "650 Lifer" laws.

If it seems like we can't give MAP enough credit for the work we've
been able to do, it's because we can't do it. As J. Frank Adobie
said, "You folks will do to ride the river with."

Best wishes for the day when 250,000 are archived!

Michael Segesta

586-873-5086

Drug Policy Forum of Michigan www.drugsense.org/dpfmi