Anaheim Conference Reinvigorates Battered Reformers

By Phillip Smith, DRCNet. Posted November 22, 2002.

What could have been an extended wake for a drug reform movement badly chastened by the November 5 election results instead became an occasion for reinvigoration as students and older drug reform activists gathered by the hundreds for the joint Marijuana Policy Project/Students for Sensible Drug Policy conference in Anaheim last weekend. The three-day event featured dozens of panels and workshops on topics ranging from activist basics to medical marijuana to conservatives in the reform movement to the methods of government propaganda and much more.

In the sometimes surreal surroundings of the Anaheim Hilton, a huge tourist complex next door to Disneyland that resembles Castle Wolfenstein in its labyrinthine layout and was filled at different points with mouse ear-wearing kiddie tourists and their bedraggled parents, soldiers in full dress uniform attending a Marine Ball, and a horde of Hindu health care workers, more than 300 students from 52 SSDP chapters and a like number of other reformers came together to examine and then bury the past before moving on to future battles.

"I think the smartest thing we ever did was to schedule this conference right after election day, said MPP executive director Rob Kampia. "I was afraid people would be moping and I would be crying and drooling in the corner after we just lost the biggest election of our lives at MPP, but instead the conference really served to pump people up," he told DRCNet. "The reform movement had just suffered its worst defeat in a decade, but people were talking about how they want to move forward in their states. After this conference, I feel better about the prospects for reform than I have in a very long time."

Panel after panel echoed Kampia's point. In the session on the campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act drug provision, DRCNet's David Borden joined Drug Policy Alliance attorney Judith Appel, North Carolina student activist Ian Mance and HEA victim Marisa Garcia, among others, to explain the progress made so far and the path to eventual victory. In the session on California's medical marijuana fight, compassion club operators Jeff Jones and Scott Imler joined patient/grower Judy Osburn and Americans for Safe Access's Steph Sherer to outline the battle and the offensive/defensive strategies to protect the state's patients and caregivers. In the session on running local initiatives, Boston attorney Michael Cutler and Seattle initiative organizer Dominic Holden, among others, discussed the nuts and bolts of that grassroots organizing tool. And that was just part of Friday afternoon.

Marijuana wasn't the only medical topic on the agenda, and medical marijuana researchers Donald Abrams and Ethan Russo weren't the only doctors in the house. At a Friday evening panel on "Physician Involvement in Drug Policy Reform," attendees heard from former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, international cannabis control expert Dr. David Hadorn, and were also introduced to Dr. Frank Fisher, the pain clinic practioner now suffering an extended case of drug war persecution in Northern California (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/258.html#frankfisher).

"The conference was amazing!" enthused Steve Silverman of Flex Your Rights (http://www.flexyourrights.org), whose transformation into Officer Friendly in his presentation on dealing with police encounters scared, amused and informed attendees. "There was so much going on, I felt like a mosquito at a nudist colony. We really owe a debt of gratitude to MPP and SSDP for giving us an opportunity to introduce the students to Officer Friendly," he told DRCNet. "We really got the word out to students and others about how to exercise your rights during a police stop. By the way," Silverman added, "there are rumors that Officer Friendly will be making an appearance at Brown University on November 19. As long as everyone cooperates with the officer, everything should go smoothly and no one should get hurt."

For Darrell Rogers, SSDP's national outreach coordinator -- the harried young man in a suit with a cell phone permanently attached to his ear -- the conference was even better than hoped for. "It exceeded all our expectations," he told DRCNet. "Seeing the students all in sync and organized so well made my day. Sometimes all you have to do is put them together in the same room and the results will be explosive," he said. "And this conference really bridged the gap between student activism and the larger movement. Students had a chance to meet leading drug reformers face to face, and they could see that there are drug reform careers after college and a lot of support for people who want to do this work."

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