Ill.: Senate floor vote soon -- make a phone call to protect patients

In a couple of weeks, after the General Assembly returns from Easter break, the Senate is expected to call SB 1381 to the floor for a full vote. SB 1381 recently passed committee 6-2 and a similar bill garnered 22 votes on the Senate floor in 2007 — we need 30.

In order to pick up the eight votes needed to pass the Senate, and to ensure there's enough support in the House to send the bill to Governor Quinn for his signature, we need as many people as possible placing calls to their legislators' district offices.

Please call your lawmakers Monday-Friday between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. using our automated system, which uses your address to identify your legislators, gives you their district phone number, and provides you with a space to let us know how your call went.

Next to actually placing the call, the most important thing you can do is to tell us how your call was received. Did you talk to your legislator or a staff member? What did they say? Are they supportive of the bill? If not, what are their concerns? Basically, the more information you can relay to us, the better we're able to concentrate our efforts on legislators who still need to hear from supporters. With only a few weeks left before the floor vote, we need to make sure we're not expending energy on legislators who are already supportive, so please be sure to give us feedback after you call.

If you have already called your legislators, then please forward this e-mail to others in your community and ask them to do the same.

To learn more about the bill, the issue of medical marijuana, and support for it, click here.

One more thing that will help tremendously over the next few weeks is for people like you to submit letters to the editor in support of this legislation. Letters should be short and to the point, like this one. Please be sure to check your spelling and only send your letter to one newspaper. If you'd like to submit more than one letter, then you should draft a different one for each paper. If you'd like help writing your letter, please send a first draft that is no more than 200 words to Nmiller@mpp.org and include a phone number where you can be reached.

Thank you for supporting the Marijuana Policy Project and all of our allies. Don't forget to share this alert with others so they too can call their legislators in support of this much-needed legislation.