Talkin' About the New Generation: SSDP Goes to Washington

The latest generation of drug reformers came together in Washington, DC, over the weekend as more than 250 student drug policy activists affiliated with Students for Sensible Drug Policy held their third annual conference in the nation's capital. While the group was formed because of broad student concerns about the anti-drug provision of the Higher Education Act (HEA), decisions taken over the weekend in Washington will serve to broaden the group's focus.

According to SSDP president Shawn Heller, the group voted over the weekend to continue its focus on the HEA reform campaign, but also decided to put three new items on SSDP's agenda. "In addition to the HEA campaign, we are also going to focus on replacing campus zero tolerance policies with harm reduction and drug education approaches, on defeating Plan Colombia, and on opposing drug testing, both on campus and on the job," Heller explained.

	"Ralph Nader, who urged students to have stamina and resiliency in what could be a long, hard battle. "We need to develop new words and new language to describe what's happening," said Nader. "Can you say institutionalized insanity?"

SSDP is also moving ahead with a Week of Action at the end of this month and Hemp Day of Action to strengthen opposition to the DEA's ban on foods containing hemp products, said Heller. "The Week of Action will be a coordinated effort at campuses across the country focusing on all of our core issues, and will have a culminating event, probably focused on the victims of the HEA anti-drug provision," he said.

The two-day weekend conference at George Washington University in Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood featured an array of speakers, workshops, and other events. American Indian activist and libertarian candidate for governor of New Mexico Russell Means gave a rousing keynote address linking the war on drugs to myriad other social problems and arguing that fundamental social change is both necessary and urgent. Means professed to be strongly moved by the new wave of student activists. "This conference has touched my heart," he said at a Saturday night dinner.

And, demonstrating that interest in drug policy reform transcends traditional ideological lines, the conference's other big attraction was Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who urged students to have stamina and resiliency in what could be a long, hard battle. "We need to develop new words and new language to describe what's happening," said Nader. "Can you say institutionalized insanity?"

"It was incredibly cool that Nader came," said SSDP member Jennifer Landis. "He lends legitimacy to the movement." He also drew a crowd. According to Heller, some 500 people paid $5 (student) or $10 (general admission) to hear Nader's address at the downtown Marriott Hotel.

Student activists from around the country also had the opportunity to listen to and interact with some of the movement's leaders. DRCNet's David Borden told the students that the wide diversity of issues that bring people to drug policy are a strength as well as a dilemma. "The more invested we become in partial reform efforts, the closer those efforts come to actually succeeding, the greater the pressure to de-emphasize or even deny our core belief [that prohibition needs to end] that brought many of us into this issue." Borden cited organizations outside of the drug policy reform movement -- such as the ACLU, National Review magazine and the Cato Institute -- that have superior positions on drug policy reform than many drug reform groups.

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation's Eric Sterling brought a different emphasis to his address. "We need Congress to change the drug laws," said Sterling. "We have to change our politics and get real," he added. "We need to convince powerful political interests that current drug policy hurts them. For the Republicans, we need to show how drug policy hurts their constituencies -- realtors, Chamber of Commerce types, and the business community. For the Democrats, we have to convince the labor unions that the war on drugs hurts working people, we have to convince teachers that it hurts kids and hurts schools," Sterling said.