CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

10th International Conference on Drug Policy Reform
November 6-9, 1996 • Washington, DC

TEN YEARS AGO, THE DRUG POLICY REFORM MOVEMENT WAS much smaller and met only infrequently. In 1987, DPF held its first annual conference to institutionalize those meetings and to cover a wider array of policy topics. The Foundation's 10th Anniversary Conference last November was one of DPF's largest events, bringing together reformers from around the world to discuss and debate the U.S. election results, the Arizona and California ballot initiatives, treatment and drug education research, international developments, and the overall state of the reform movement. For those who could not attend last year and for those of you who did, here is a sampling of the highlights.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
THE STATE OF THE MOVEMENT

Arnold S. Trebach • On The Future of Reform

"My thoughts on the future are these: Let us be true to our own foundations, our own moorings. What got us here was hard work, respectability, responsibility. I don't think it is time to gloat about these ballot returns in Arizona and California; they are openings for a lot more work to be done and a lot more attention to be paid to basic American values. We are going to work with our opponents, if they will work with us, to create responsible change and to deal with all the problems that are going to occur. If we don't act that way, we will, as someone once said, manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." — Arnold S. Trebach, President, Drug Policy Foundation

Ethan Nadelmann • On Propositions 200 and 215

"It is the first time since the repeal of alcohol prohibition that some measure of drug reform has won at the ballot box.... Is this the stalking horse for legalization, is this the steppingstone toward broader marijuana legalization, is this some form of Trojan Horse? ... No. Half the people who supported the initiatives do not favor more far-reaching reforms."

"Where we go next is not to legalization, but to other types of reform, such as needle exchange ... fighting the stigma and prejudice that people on methadone face ... opposing the harsh drug sentencing laws — that is where we go from here." — Ethan Nadelmann, Director, Lindesmith Center; DPF Board of Directors

Ira Glasser • On the Obstacles to Change

"The vulnerability of every rights movement that is engaged in a single issue is to insulate itself and isolate itself in this struggle and fail to learn lessons from other similar movements.

"The whole issue of drug prohibition is like our Berlin Wall: We have lived with it all our lives; it is a wall that had seemed for the most part impregnable; it is a wall that has been with us for as long as any of us can remember; it is a wall that, although we beat at it and struggle at it, for most of us it has seemed to be a wall that will be there when we are gone as it was there when we arrived.

"The lessons from all this, is that for those people in rights movements, facing these Berlin Walls, it is very important to ... loosen that first stone. The significance of what happened Tuesday [November 5] is that several stones were loosened that lay at the foundation of the wall of prohibition.

"Big changes start with small incremental things in the history of rights movements.... What is always important when these incidents occur, it is not the incident itself, but what we do next to implement it, to charge it, to take it to the next step, to exploit that crack in the mirror, to take that stone that's been loosened and pull out a little bit more of the foundation of that wall." — Ira Glasser, Executive Director, ACLU; DPF Board of Directors

DRUG POLICY AND THE WHITE HOUSE

Marsha Rosenbaum • On the Clinton Administration

"We have more marijuana arrests after four years of Clinton then we did under Bush, we have more prison time and we have suppression of needle exchange — I feel like I could stand up here and say 'How do I hate the drug war? Let nie count the ways." — Marsha Rosenbaum, Associate Director, Lindesmith Center, San Francisco; DPF Advisory Board

Kenneth Sharpe • On Drugs and the 1996 Republican Presidential Campaign

"Dole used the drug issue in the same way that candidates have always used it — to serve largely symbolic purposes that have very little to do with drug use or abuse or addiction. It was a way to look tough and in particular in this campaign it was a way to go after Clinton's character. A president who joked about inhaling drugs on MTV and permitted former drug users to staff the White House was a perfect fit for the image conservative Republicans wanted to create. Clinton was lax, liberal, irresponsible, a child of the 1960s, and an anti-Vietnam war radical."
 

On Why Clinton Isn't a Reformer

"Clinton's failure to fight for drug policy reform reflects an informed assessment that there is little political capital to be gained and much risk in pushing even modest initiatives. The reasons lie in the drug war's deep roots in American political institutions and in the punitive political judgement, the punitive conventional wisdom about drug use." Kenneth Sharpe, Chairman, Dept. ofg Political Science, Swarthmore College, PA

Diana Gordon • On Clinton's Second Term

"The potential of distracting the public and other politicians with get-tough drug policy is very powerful — distraction from the really intractable problems of underemployment, unemployment, poor education, and poverty. But also distraction from Clinton's personal and professional peccadilloes — of which he will need a powerful strategy of avoidance if the rumors of Republican vengeance are to be believed." — Diana Gordon, City University of New York, Graduate Center

Dan Baum • On Nixon, Carter, and Marijuana Policy

"I expected when writing my book that Nixon was going to be the anti-Christ and Jimmy Carter would be a great guy. Well, it turns out that Nixon's drug policies in retrospect — I mean his rhetoric was horrible — were actually sane and humane and constitutional. Whereas, Jimmy Carter comes into office in 1976 asking Congress to decriminalize the personal use of marijuana — his first statement to Congress — and he goes out of office having turned the full fury of the drug war against marijuana for the first time. Which, I argue is the crisis we face now, because the war on drugs depends entirely on marijuana prohibition. Marijuana is the political drug. Marijuana is where the war on drugs lives." —Dan Baum, Author, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Missoula, MT

Joe Davidson • On Dole, Clinton, and Juvenile Justice

"You can wrap up the philosophy of both Clinton and Dole on juvenile justice as believing that some kids are too bad to rehab. They think that some kids, as young as 13, are beyond any help so they should be tried as adults and sentenced as adults."

On the Military's Involvement in Drug Enforcement

"We may be falling down a slippery slope when it comes to the military. The military is not trained to deal with domestic law enforcement the way police are. And, having grown up in Detroit and lived in Washington I'm not so sure the way police are trained is the best way. Nonetheless, the military is trained to destroy an enemy with massive force. The military is not trained the way police are supposed to be trained to use minimum force to apprehend the suspect, all the while keeping in mind that person's constitutional rights. So, there is this potential for conflict and we needn to watch out for federal proposals to increase the use of the National Guard in the war on drugs." —Joe Davidson, Reporter, Wall Street Journal, Washington, DC

An Invitation to the Leaders in Medicine

The following invitation was presented at the conference by Dr. David Lewis on the morning of Thursday. November 7.

The leaders of the medical establishment must play a more vital role in the debate over current U.S. drug policy. Outside of a handful of addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry experts, the U.S. medical establishment has been virtually silent on our national drug policy, particularly as it concerns illegal drugs. An obvious need for medical input into this policy exists. We hereby invite our fellow physicians to join us in an open and frank discussion on how to reduce the harm caused by the misuse of drugs in our society.

None of the signatories of this invitation advocates the adoption or rejection of any specific drug policy. Rather, we advocate the need for serious and informed discussion on the part of medical leadership.

The drug policy debate today is unbalanced. Money, research, legislation, and leadership overwhelmingly focus on the criminal aspects of the drug problem. The threat drugs pose to our society requires more than just a public safety approach, it requires an equal partnership with a health approach.

Medical input is especially important in discussions about whether our current approach uses the most effective methods for prevention, care of the addicted, and deterrents to harmful drug use. Medical leadership will also help to examine if our present drug policies further or inhibit the nation's larger health goals such as restraining health care costs and encouraging social and medical research into the harmful effects of drugs.

Medical leaders need to add their perspective to U.S. drug policy because these issues, including the stigma surrounding addiction of all types, affect the day-to-day practice of medicine. This day-to-day practice includes the prescription of medication for the treatment of pain and the responsibility of all physicians to intervene in a helpful and healthful way with patients and families who have problems with alcohol and other abused substances.

The role of physicians must include more than just treating their patients, because current drug policy greatly influences our health policy. Attempts to pursue our current policy have not led to solutions, but to a vigorous effort to blame persons, families, politicians, or the media for our "drug problem." We reject that pursuit.

Instead, we must craft a proper balance between prevention and treatment, between regulation and education, between the use of the criminal justice system and other forms of control. Let us follow more closely a major ethical tenet of medicine — "do no harm" — and analyze not only the harmful effects of drugs, but also the harmful effect of the failure of physicians to analyze and comment on current policies and possible alternatives.

This is neither a blame game nor a moral crusade; this is an issue where science and health should be prominent, not only in the discussion, but in the implementation of policy.

If the leadership of medicine believes that we already have a prudent and effective policy, those leaders should come forth and say so; if they have reservations concerning our current approach, then it is their obligation to contribute to reformulating our drug policy. To those medical leaders who have previously taken no particular position on these issues, we ask: Will you join with us, become informed about the issues, the science, and the direction and influence of our drug policy, so that we can add a useful and essential medical perspective to drug policy decision making?

Over the next few months we will plan a process for consensus building among medical leaders and, with your help, establish a forum for open-minded discussion of our drug policy.
If you are interested in participating in this dialog, contact any one of us.

David C. Lewis, MD, Prof. of Medicine & Community Health, Brown University, fax: (401) 444-1 850; email: