(Ed. note: Adam Smith is one of the brightest of the new generation of activists.)

The Internet’s low-cost, instantaneous communication and its ability to make unlimited information available to an ever-expanding audience is nothing short of a revolution in the people’s ability to effect social change. The vast network of drug-law reformers on-line represents a growing army of peace which will ultimately topple the prohibitionist establishment and put an end to America’s longest war.

In the past, most reform efforts have been local. The economics of creating a mass movement relegated like-minded people to relative isolation, making it difficult to join forces even in modest ways, across state or county lines. But not anymore.

Today, electronic communication is beginning to make the problems of time, distance and access to information obsolete. The old impossibilities are fading at the feed of a new virtual reality. For marijuana-law reformers, this new age is particularly important. Building coalitions, exploding popular myths and activating a growing constituency, the movement is quickly coming together - the first and most important step in changing the laws.

In addition to connecting marijuana-law reformers to each other, the Internet has catalyzed links between the people and organizations active on other issues in the drug-policy-reform movement. Advocates who are working on issues such as needle exchange, mandatory-minimum sentencing, asset forfeiture, privacy rights, pain control, human rights, racial justice and Latin American sovereignty are finding each other on-line and realizing that they are fighting a common enemy in the Drug War establishment.

Groups like NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project, the November Coalition, the Media Awareness Project and, Family and Friends for Drug Reform do terrific work, despite being uniformly underfunded and short-staffed. The World Wide Web has enabled them to post important legislative information, scholarly articles and ways to become involved - information that could not possibly be communicated to such wise audiences so quickly by phone, fax or mail.

My organization, the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), founded in 1993, aims to be a communications and information epicenter for the reform movement. Our 5,000 plus subscribers receive both periodic state and federal legislative alerts and The Week Online, a weekly drug-policy e-zine which features news, analysis, interviews, links to other organizations and editorials. The Week Online brings all of the issues and the people who are working on them together in one publication, strengthening each part of the movement by broadening its reach.

The effects of these electronic grass-roots are already being felt. In Virginia, for instance, a 1997 bill which would have overturned that state’s medical-marijuana defense was defeated with the help of letters, phone calls and faxes in response to DRCNet statewide alerts. Numerous other bills in other states have drawn a similar response. So now, when NORML or MMP needs an immediate response to a bill or a media event, our electronic network offers them fast and easy access to large numbers of people who will respond - people who might not have elected to formally join a marijuana-only organization.

The strength, and ultimately the success, of such a network depends on how many people use it to keep up with and respond to events and legislation that affect our issues. The Internet makes that goal achievable. The ability to easily forward and re-post information means that the network’s rate of growth increases with its size. While it took us nearly four years to reach 1000 subscribers, it took only one more year to quadruple that number.

As promotional efforts swing into gear, and subscription numbers swell, we will be able to generate thousands, or tens of thousands, of responses at the touch of a button. Then, for the first time in history, the antiprohibition movement will be in a position to consistently influence legislation on the whole range of reform issues, at both the state and federal levels.

As the millennium approaches, an electronic generation stands poised to change the world. The internet is a worldwide medium of nearly limitless communication. Whether or not our opponents understand its implications, it offers us a unique opportunity to end the War. So plug in, stand up, and speak out, because the revolution is coming. And it will happen at 56k.

(Ed. note: That is an understatement. It will happen at 1000K!)

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Adam J. Smith is the associate director of DRCNet. You can check out their Web site, and subscribe to their free service, at http://www.stopthedrugwar.org