Drug Reformers Flex Muscles

The Shadow Convention roared into Philadelphia this week to provide an issues-oriented counterpoint to the Republicans' glittering coronation gala. Much of the 15,000-strong media contingent spent its time breathlessly covering the GOP's carefully scripted show (as if it were an actual news event), worrying about Gerald Ford's speech patterns, or chasing rowdy anarchists through the streets of Center City Philadelphia. Still, the Shadow Convention succeeded in garnering a modicum of press attention.

In addition to considerable coverage from CNN and brief snippets on the national networks, the Shadow Convention got coverage from national newspapers such as the New York Times, USA Today, the Village Voice, and Washington Post, as well as major regional newspapers in cities such as Albuquerque, Austin, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Seattle, among others.

While most coverage was neutral or favorable, conservative columnist Bob Novak penned a shrill attack on the convention and its most prominent figure, Arianna Huffington. Time magazine and the conservative National Review also contributed snide reviews. Huffington responded to Novak in her nationally syndicated column, charging that Novak was privately lobbying conservatives not to participate in the Shadow Convention, while publicly attacking the convention for not having enough conservative participation.

The Shadow Convention also provided a forum that transcended bipartisan divisions and rivalries (although if the response Sen. John McCain received when he implored to the audience to support Gov. Bush is any indication, the Republican Party did not have many friends in attendance). Still, the fact that Jesse Jackson and Sen. McCain, to mention two of the more prominent speakers, spoke from the same podium at the same event, demonstrates the potential for a new politics of reform not beholden to either party, but instead willing to support only those parties or candidates who earn it.

Numerous speakers eloquently and fervently denounced the human costs of the drug war. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the Shadow Convention a "struggle between the political center and the moral center." Jackson likened drug policy reform to the civil rights movement whose achievements were "written in blood in Selma and cosigned in ink in Washington" because of voices of conscience. "Here we are again," Jackson continued, "tackling a failed drug policy ... whose friendly fire is killing Americans" and "whose unintended consequence is to build a shameful jail-industrial complex."

Attendees heard presentations by New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Gus Smith, father of mandatory minimum prisoner Kemba Smith, comedian Al Franken, and many others. Catherine Crier moderated a mandatory minimums panel that was taped for Court TV.

The most poignant presenters, however, were the convoy of children and other relatives of drug war prisoners from Detroit and Minneapolis. The relatives held placards with photos of their imprisoned loved ones. Introduced one by one on stage, each told who he or she was and for whom they appeared.

"Hello, I'm Tomika Gates and I'm here representing my mother Jackie, who is serving a five-to-ten year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense." And so went the tragic litany, repeated with slight variations dozens of times.

Later, the Children's Choir, composed of Minnesota children of drug war prisoners, brought some in the audience to tears, not because of its dissonant performance, but at the human suffering and perseverance it represented.

We spoke with Tomika Gates, a 21-year-old from the Minneapolis area. Gates is taking care of her four siblings and two children of her own, while her mother, Jackie, finishes a cocaine trafficking sentence, but the family was not always as unified in their mother's absence.