■■アメリカの有力紙「San Francisco Chronicle」に先ほど、成田さんへの取材を依頼するメールを飛ばしました。以下が原文です。この文面の名前にご自分のお名前を入れ、最初の２行を書き換え、成田さんの連絡先をUSTREAMから引っ張って引用していただければ、アメリカ中（というか英語圏すべて）のマスコミに送信いただけます。一点だけ注文するとしたら、ご自分のお名前と連絡先でお願いいたします。こちらはすでに同じ文面をThe New York Times、The Washington Post、The Huffington Post、BBC、CNN、The Oakland Post、The Daily Californian、The Los Angeles Times、ベイ・エリアのローカルTV局３つ分、WIREDマガジンにも送りました。FOX、MSNBCなど、でかいところからどんどん、行っていただいちゃって結構です。カリフォルニア大学バークレー校の学校新聞も狙い目かも。

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Dear Editor @ San Francisco Chronicle,

My name is Morley Robertson.  I am a former Bay Area resident and Lowell High School alumnus, now living and working in Tokyo, Japan as a journalist and radio personality.  I would like to alert you to the fact that Mr. Kenichi Narita , a Japanese national, is conducting direct action from the Bay Area, broadcasting via USTREAM to Japan, while smoking cannabis on air. 

Mr. Narita is a patient suffering "Crohn's disease", a debilitating disease with painful symptoms, which he is now treating by self-medicating on cannabis every day.  Cannabis can relieve the symptoms of this disease, according to Mr. Narita.   He has stopped taking prescription medication for the last year.  

Wiki entry on Crohn's disease

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crohn%27s_disease

The possession and/or use of cannabis is illegal in Japan, punishable as a criminal offense.  The law regarding cannabis was dictated to the Japanese government by the occupying U.S. governing body in the late 1940s, shortly after WWII.  That law has never been reformed, and Japanese cannabis offenders are still dealt with severely under a McCarthy-era legal code.  

Mr. Narita was arrested in Japan for possessing a small amount of cannabis, and is currently out on probation, awaiting trial later this month in Japan.  He has decided to come out into the open, calling for Japan to reform the harsh laws which punish possession of cannabis, and is asking the Japanese government to allow medical marijuana use.

Many fear that because Mr. Narita has openly smoked cannabis and broadcast this from Oakland, upon his return later this month, his trial will be conducted in a biased and retaliatory manner.  The Japanese press, even though aware of Mr. Narita's actions, have remained completely silent about this USTREAM broadcast.

I myself, by announcing Mr. Narita's actions on Twitter, have already risked my career in Japan as a freelance journalist.  Regarding marijuana, the climate of fear in the Japanese press is overwhelming.  In fact, because there is only scattered and inconsistent, inaccurate coverage of cannabis, even the police force are largely ignorant of the basic chemical principles regarding cannabis or THC.  State level legalization of medical marijuana in the United States has gone largely unreported in the Japanese media.

I urge you to interview Mr. Narita as soon as possible.  By publishing news about his courageous act, I believe your paper can affect Japanese public opinion, as well as the Japanese press and government.  It is high time that the Japanese legal system stopped punishing people for possessing small amounts of cannabis with long jail sentences.  It is time for Japan to open dialog on medical marijuana.