MAKING THE MOST OF DRUGSENSE

You're a busy activist trying to change drug policy in your local
community. You need quick, easy access to services that can get your
name in the media and help you appear like much bigger organizations,
and you need to do this professionally on a limited budget. You need DrugSense.

DrugSense is a 501( c ) 3 educational non-profit organization
dedicated to promoting accuracy in the media concerning drug policy
topics. Here's how DrugSense can help your organization:

Web Hosting. (http://www.drugpolicycentral.com) Need a Website? Our
Drug Policy Central (DPC) subsidiary offers free or low-cost,
subsidized Internet services to drug policy reform organizations
worldwide. Notable clients include LEAP, the November Coalition,
DanceSafe, the Ohio Patient Network, Michigan NORML, and over 100
others. For a free quote, please visit
http://www.drugpolicycentral.com/hosting/.

E-mail Discussion Lists and 'Bulletin Board' Forums.
(http://drugsense.org/lists/) Get your group active and communicating
with its own e-mail discussion list or online forum. Exchange e-mail,
ideas, and documents with one another to become more organized and effective.

Real Time Meetings over the Internet.
(http://www.mapinc.org/resource/teamspeak/) In the cyber age, you can
conduct your organization's meetings for FREE over the Internet in
real time. In one of our Virtual Conference Rooms hosted on the chat
software Teamspeak, your group can talk to one another, plan future
events, and develop responses to current problems.

Learn from What Others Have Done. (http://drugsense.org/caip)
Thinking about fielding a citizen-led initiative or community
ordinance? Learn the language of other initiatives and what made them
successes or failures. You can also read the editorials that
promoted or decried their passage.

Contact the media. (http://www.mapinc.org/mcod/) Our Media Contact
on Demand (MCOD) database lists ALL U.S. print and broadcast media:
TV and radio stations, daily and weekly newspapers, trade and
consumer magazines, news syndicates, and AP and UPI bureaus. The
database contains multiple contacts for almost 30,000 media outlets.
Searchable on a number of parameters (such as by venue or by specific
distances from any zip code or city), it can quickly and easily
output mailing labels or data formats suitable for use in fax or
e-mail software programs. Registered DrugSense members
(http://www.drugsense.org/join) receive full access to MCOD. Others
can obtain a limited number of records by using the username with no password.

Learn How to Get Media. (http://www.mapinc.org/resource/) From
Letters-to-the-Editor, to press releases, to radio and television
interviews, our Media Activism Center is filled with ideas on how to
get valuable media attention. DrugSense also holds periodic Teamspeak
meetings to train activists on how to use these services. Please
check MAP OnAir for upcoming Activism Roundtables.

Get Your Group OnAir. (http://www.mapinc.org/onair/) MAP OnAir can
help your group track, promote, and respond to media events that
occur on television and radio.

Build a Drug Policy Knowledge Base. (http://www.mapinc.org) Our
DrugNews Archive of more than 180,000 articles on all aspects of drug
policy serves as a knowledgebase for the movement as well as an early
warning system of issues that may become important. You can help
build this resource by submitting drug policy related articles to
http://www.mapinc.org/newshawk/.