Because the marijuana smoking community remains largely "in the closet" and is all too often invisible politically, our core constituency currently exercises far less political power than our numbers would otherwise suggest. The only way to overcome this handicap is for more of us to take an active role, and routinely contact our elected officials.

A majority of the American public opposes sending marijuana smokers to jail, and 3 out of 4 support the medical use of marijuana. Yet many elected officials remain fearful that if they support these reform proposals, they will be perceived as "soft" on crime and drugs and defeated at the next election.

Tell your elected officials that you know the difference between marijuana and more dangerous drugs and between marijuana smoking and violent crime, and that you do not support spending billions of dollars per year incarcerating nonviolent marijuana offenders.

To make that easy, NORML has a program on our web site that will identify your state and federal elected officials, and provide a sample letter that you can fax to Congress or e-mail to state legislators.

Additionally, we encourage you to join NORML and/or your local NORML chapter and help us with this fight for personal freedom. We depend on contributions from private individuals to fund our educational and lobbying campaign, and our ability to move reform efforts forward is partially a question of resources. Please join with us and let's end marijuana prohibition, once and for all.

It's time to put to rest the myth that marijuana smoking is a fringe or deviant activity engaged in only by those on the margins of society. In fact, 70 million Americans, including roughly 1/3 of all adults in the country, have smoked marijuana at least once in their lives, including many successful business and professional leaders and state and federal elected officials from both political parties.