DRCNet Interview: Chuck Thomas and Troy Dayton, Interfaith Drug Policy
Initiative
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Drug War Chronicle, Issue #324
February 13, 2004
Chuck
Thomas spent years in the drug reform trenches, most notably as a
cofounder of the Marijuana Policy Project and its director of communications
from 1995 through 2001. But following his own spiritual quest and
seeing fresh opportunities to organize new flocks, in 2000 Thomas
formed Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform (http://www.uudpr.org)
as a means of bringing at least one section of the religious community
into the struggle. Thanks largely to Thomas' guidance, the Unitarians
have developed a very progressive position on drug policy -- legal
use and regulated access -- and now he is seeking to broaden that
success with other religious communities. To that end, Thomas formed
the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative (http://www.idpi.us), and with
some seed money in hand hired on long-time drug policy activist Troy
Dayton as the group's field coordinator. DRCNet spoke with Dayton
and Thomas this week about what they're up to.
Drug War Chronicle: What is the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative
and what does it seek to accomplish?
Chuck Thomas: I started Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform
(UUDPR) a couple of years ago to help shape the Unitarian Universalist
denomination's drug policy position statement and then to publicly
advocate for the recommendations in it. Those recommendations include
a variety of reform options, up to removing criminal penalties for
drug possession and use and a medicalized way for people to access
drugs. For the past couple of years, we have worked to educate the
public and to do some policy work on these matters. UUDPR had a tax
status that limited the amount of effort we could spend lobbying directly
or even organizing grassroots lobbying. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization,
we can only spend 5% of our time influencing policy, and we wanted
to be able to spend more time and resources doing that. Also, other
people of faith would contact UUDPR wanting to get involved through
our organization. We realized it would be very useful to have a 501(c)(4)
organization, one that the IRS allows to spend an unlimited amount
of time and resources influencing legislation, including things like
organizing the grassroots.
We figured we could get more bang for the buck as an interfaith organization,
so I spent a couple of months trying to get all our ducks in a row
and looking for a field coordinator. For the past month and a half,
Troy Dayton has been doing that job. He's been involved in drug policy
work since he was a student at American University, and he is also
very spiritually attentive and very interested in this kind of work.
Troy is doing a lot of outreach to religious organizations now.
Our goal is to organize religious or spiritually attentive individuals,
as well as denominations and other religious activist groups to focus
on advocating whatever drug policy reform positions their denominations
already support and what is already on the public agenda. Most mainstream
religious denominations don't go as far as the Unitarian Universalist
Association, they don't support regulated access, but some actually
recommend decriminalization, and others support a variety of reforms
that are actually before state legislatures, such as ending mandatory
minimum sentences, treatment not prison, medical marijuana, and a
whole host of harm reduction measures.
The beauty of this project is that we match up the religious people
whose denominations already support these things with the drug policy
reform efforts already underway in various states, as well as Congress.
For example, there are medical marijuana bills in several states,
a treatment not jail bill in Maryland, the effort to end mandatory
minimums in New York by repealing the Rockefeller laws, the federal
effort to repeal the Higher Education Act's anti-drug provision, and
a federal medical marijuana amendment coming up this summer. There
are a whole raft of good and bad bills to work on.
We're doing basic grassroots advocacy work. Troy e-mails and calls
various religious bodies, congregations, and individuals and gets
them to participate in the coalition's activities and write letters
to pass good bills and defeat bad bills.
Chronicle: So how are things going so far?
Troy Dayton: The outreach is going great. The rubber really meets
the road when I'm talking to clergy, encouraging them to take a public
stand or get their congregations active, or when I'm setting up appointments
with different interfaith groups. We have come to realize that in
almost every town or city there are organizations of the leaders of
the various churches who meet to make decisions about policy. They
often have lobbyists working the legislature, so they are already
in the process. This is an amazing resource we are beginning to tap
into here. We've been working with the coalition around drug policy
reform in Maryland (http://www.treatnotjail.org) and we are applying
what we've learned to other states. We're also getting key people
already on our UUDPR lists and getting them to get their congregations
active, to do forums and send e-mails and similar things. My job is
basically to gather the ground troops and develop a groundswell of
support from the congregations and an outcry for relief from religious
leaders.
Thomas: We are also reaching out beyond the Unitarians. Troy mentioned
Maryland. Last week, we met with the Maryland Interfaith Legislative
Council, and while they have not yet reached consensus on endorsing
the treatment not jail campaign, representatives from a variety of
religious faiths were able to hear our message, and we are encouraging
them to sign on individually. For example, we succeeded in getting
the Episcopalians in Maryland to endorse this. This is the kind of
thing we've been doing.
Chronicle: What else is on your agenda?
Thomas: Spring is a very busy season for us because that is when the
state legislatures typically meet, but after that we will put more
time into making the coalition even larger. We'll be digging up the
drug policy positions from every denomination we can find, and then
we'll see where there is room for improvement. This will involve working
with individuals from those denominations who are already on board
with us to help them figure out how to work through the policy process
in their churches. We want to help shape these policy statements so
they support substantial drug policy reform, and we will follow the
model of what I did with the Unitarian Universalists a couple of years
ago. We will help coordinate the efforts of other religious people
to get them to push the envelope, so by the time the next legislative
session rolls around, we'll have more to work with.
We are hoping to fill an important niche in drug policy reform. Ultimately,
if we are to achieve to kind of drug policy reform the movement is
working for -- removing criminal penalties for use and allowing regulated
access -- we really have to shatter the common misconception that
these kinds of policy changes are somehow immoral. People have the
sense that drugs are bad, so the drug war must therefore be good.
They may say there are excesses that could be eliminated or minor
fixes needed, but there is a widespread sense that prohibition is
inherently a moral response to drugs. The drug reform movement can
win some victories in stopping some of the drug war's excesses, but
to go that final step and actually end prohibition we really need
to help the American people understand that drug use is not necessarily
immoral, and even if you think it is, arresting people for it is not
a moral response. It is wrong to punish people who are harming only
themselves even if you think it is a sin. It is wrong for the government
to punish people for sin. Drugs should be treated as a health issue.
There are physical, psychological, and spiritual health issues, and
these should be dealt with by families, doctors, communities, religious
organizations, not the criminal justice system. Our slogan is "compassion
not coercion."
If you look at the moral and philosophical underpinnings of the world's
religions, you can draw logical conclusions about how we should handle
drugs. It is a matter of getting people to think about it in that
context and then to move through the decision-making bodies of the
different denominations and have them recognize the merits of this
position. That's our longer term mission. Over the next couple of
years, we intend to spend a lot of time and resources to build a large,
effective religious wing of the drug policy reform movement.
Chronicle: Aren't there already religious people in the movement?
Thomas: Oh, yes. One of things I'm excited about is that there are
a lot of reformers who are already involved in religious communities
or otherwise take their spiritual practices seriously. I'm always
pleasantly surprised to find people I've worked with over the years
getting involved in various mainstream religious communities. In some
cases, they've already taken steps to help their fellow congregants,
but in many cases it never really occurred to them. They hadn't really
thought about organizing drug policy reform through their religions.
I encourage anyone who is interested to contact us and let us work
with them. There is much to be done, whether it is writing letters
to a legislator or to a newspaper or otherwise communicating with
the public, to articulate and advance the moral, ethical, and religious
arguments against prohibition. And people should be explicit, whether
it is quoting scripture that supports drug policy changes or whatever
else it takes. Religious groups wield enormous influence in our political
process, and if people think drug policy reform must be immoral, we
have to shatter the myth of consensus that surrounds that notion.
One letter from an authentic religious person involved in a mainstream
denomination can be just enough to sway that legislator sitting on
the fence.
The people who are involved in drug reform and are religious need
to contact us so we can start to bridge the gap and help bring members
of these religious communities on board and get them involved in our
lobbying efforts. With our new tax status, it is very exciting. Now,
we can be very explicit and tell people these are the bills they should
support or not, and start working to win victories.
Chronicle: How does the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative support
itself?
Thomas: Raising money is a challenge in drug reform, and even more
so for 501(c)(4) organizations, because big contributions are not
tax deductible. Unitarians have given money to UUDPR, but the initiative
itself has so far had just one start-up grant from Peter Lewis. Funding
will have to come largely through individual donors. We encourage
people to check our web page and make a donation, whether they are
religious themselves or they just recognize that effective political
movements have a strong religious component. Religion has played a
small role in our movement so far, but this is an opportunity to move
quickly and really become a viable force in the world of drug policy
reform.
My goal is for us to focus this spring on our work, not fundraising,
and to be able to have enough accomplishments under our belts that
when we go to funders and individual religious activists we can raise
enough money to continue and cover our expenses. But UUDPR and the
initiative are basically sister organizations, and if people want
to make larger, tax-deductible donations, they can do it through UUDPR.
Chronicle: How is your message being received?
Dayton: I have not seen resistance to our message. I've always talked
to people who seemed on the face of it unlikely to support reform,
whether soccer moms, PTAs, or grandparents, and I've always been pleasantly
surprised that when you speak with reason and compassion, people respond
to that. I haven't heard any crazy drug war ranting. The other thing
that is important to note is that we are talking about things like
mandatory minimum sentence reforms, medical marijuana, treatment not
jail, and these are all things that have broad support. I imagine
that if I called up and said legalize it, I might get more opposition,
but we're not doing that. We're trying to win concrete changes on
popular issues this legislative season.
Chronicle: Are you specifically targeting inner city black churches?
Dayton: We plan to work on the African-American churches. We have
not yet had the chance to place a speaker at a primarily African-American
church, but we plan to do that.
When we start working on repealing mandatory minimum sentences, the
black churches will be a primary focus of our effort. In many cases,
black leaders, including church leaders, fought for tough drug laws
to save their communities, but now there is a big shift in opinion
happening. Here in Maryland, the legislative black caucus is 100%
behind the treatment not jail campaign. I don't think black religious
leaders will be far behind. They seem to be coming on board with the
things we're talking about. To organize the black churches for drug
policy reform will not be easy, but at this point I think it is more
an issue of priorities than it is one of ideological difference.
Chronicle: Have you had any surprises doing this work?
Dayton: Yes. One of the most striking things I've found is that many
members of the clergy are not necessarily aware that their denominations
have taken positions on these issues. This is one place we can play
a big role because the power of a denomination's national position
statement is amazing. If it weren't for us, these clergy members might
not even know an issue has been studied by people who believe what
they believe or know that their denomination has concluded that some
drug reform measure or another is desirable.
Visit http://www.idpi.us for more
about the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative. Thomas and Dayton say
it is a work in progress at this point, but already has much valuable
information related to religion and drug policy and will soon have
more.
Interfaith
Drug Policy
Initiative, P.O. Box 6299, Washington,
D.C. 20015
Phone: 301-933-7681 Fax:301-933-7682 |
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