Interfaith Drug Policy March/April 2005 Alert
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March 31, 2005

1. BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters (with Ira Glasser)
2. What are we doing with your money? by Troy Dayton, IDPI Associate Director
3. Reformers Calendar (excerpted from the Drug War Chronicle)

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1. Surviving Police Encounters, featuring Ira Glasser

One of the great tragedies of the Drug War is that police routinely target minorities and young people with aggressive tactics with no justifiable cause. There are efforts underway to reform police practices and end racial profiling. But that does nothing to help people that are wrongly targeted by police today.

That’s why I am introducing you to a powerful antidote to police intimidation. It’s called BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters. This cutting-edge instructional video is narrated by former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser and created by Flex Your Rights, a non-profit organization that teaches people how to protect their civil liberties in the face of overzealous police officers.

Roughly 90% of all police search requests are granted. Yet any defense attorney will insist: People have nothing to lose by refusing to consent to search requests -- and everything to lose if they do. Then, why do so many people consent?

The sad fact is that most people are unprepared to handle a police encounter confidently. Consequently, they get tricked or intimidated into waiving their civil liberties. Surprisingly, many people don’t even know that they have the right to say “no” to a search request!

Holding a public viewing of BUSTED at your congregation provides a tremendous public service. BUSTED re-enacts typical police encounters and exposes the tricks and intimidation tactics that police often use, and it shows viewers specifically what the laws are, how to anticipate the tricks, and how to “Just Say No” to police searches.

IDPI has secured a $5 discount to those that respond to this alert. For $20 you get a DVD copy of BUSTED and get to help out IDPI and Flex Your Rights carry out our missions in deed and in dollar.

Please visit: http://www.flexyourrights.org/busted/order.php?page=order&select=DVD
and type “FAITH” into the promotional code field to get your copy today!
If you plan to hold a public viewing, please let us know so that we can help you promote it.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT BUSTED:

“Most non-violent drug offenders would have avoided my courtroom if they had seen BUSTED.” - Robert W. Sweet, New York City District Court Judge

“BUSTED teaches that people have precious inherent rights under our Constitution and should never feel guilty when exercising these rights during police encounters.” - Joseph D. McNamara, retired police chief of San Jose, CA. Research Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

“Until police are no longer ordered to wage a War on Drugs -- a policy that requires officers to constantly violate people’s constitutional rights -- BUSTED is a film that should be viewed by everyone.” - Jack A. Cole, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

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2. What are we doing with your money? by Troy Dayton, IDPI Associate Director

The last few weeks have been busy and exciting here at IDPI.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR WRITES A CHAPTER FOR A BOOK

Executive Director Charles Thomas just finished the first draft of a piece on religion and drug policy called “How In God’s Name Do We Reform Our Marijuana Laws?”. This groundbreaking and meticulously researched analysis of existing religious attitudes toward drug policy and how that knowledge can best be utilized to create reform will appear as a chapter in a book being published by Oxford University Press this fall.

IDPI PLAYS KEY ROLE IN RELIGIOUS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SUMMIT

Charles Thomas, IDPI Leadership Council member Eric Sterling, and I were chosen to serve as discussion moderators for a daylong faith-based criminal justice reform summit put on by the Interfaith Alliance. The Interfaith Alliance is the largest and most influential interfaith group in the country with over 150,000 members. Because they have seen the growing involvement of faith groups taking a stand for criminal justice and drug policy reform they decided to bring together the best thinkers, theologians, and activists on the topic to begin the process of deciding whether they want to make criminal justice reforms a high priority for their work.

INTERFAITH LEADERS LEARN ABOUT DRUG POLICY REFORM

The Interfaith Alliance held its annual Leadership Gathering in DC with over 80 representatives from their state and local affiliates. I ran an exhibit booth and Charles Thomas was chosen to speak on a panel about putting faith into action. Also, an award was given to the Interfaith Alliance of Rochester, NY, for their hard work organizing people of faith to repeal the harsh mandatory drug laws in New York known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

ERIC STERLING ADDRESSES RELIGIOUS ACTIVISTS

Every year 600 political activists from mainline protestant denominations converge on the U.S. Capitol for Ecumenical Advocacy Days to network, learn, and lobby members of Congress. Eric Sterling spoke to a standing-room-only audience about the immoral and racist nature of the Drug War. I was on hand to help answer specific questions about legislation, to gather contact information, and talk to people about how they can get their congregations active.

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR ORGANIZES FAITH ACTION WORKING GROUP

Through the Open Society Institute’s Justice Roundtable, which is ground-zero for criminal justice reform in the nation’s Capital, I volunteered to organize and chair the new Faith Action Working Group. Our meetings, now held at the United Methodist Building, have included representatives from a number of denominations and other faith-based reform organizations. We talked about a coordinated effort to oppose new mandatory minimum drug sentences and about legislation aimed at reducing recidivism through programs that help prisoners re-enter society smoothly upon release.

IDPI TO LAUNCH NEW & IMPROVED WEBSITE

We are putting the final touches on a new and improved IDPI website which we expect to launch in the next few weeks. Our new site will be the most comprehensive collection of writings on drug policy by religious leaders, the most detailed resource on grassroots activism for faith-based activists, and the authoritative source on the drug policy positions of religious groups.

LOBBYING IN THREE STATES BRINGS US CLOSER THAN EVER TO VICTORY

In Illinois, despite our hard work at generating calls to target legislators from religious leaders in their districts, the medical marijuana bill fell one vote short of passing in committee. This was very close, despite the fact that the White House drug policy director, John Walters flew in to lobby against this state bill.

In New Mexico we sent a direct mail piece to 600 religious leaders in the state asking them to sign a letter to their legislators and governor in support of medical marijuana. We got a great response rate from that mailing and then followed up with each of the respondents to ask them to call their legislators. It worked: The bill passed out of committee unanimously! That’s a first for medical marijuana legislation. Unfortunately, the legislative season ended without it coming to a full vote on the floor, so patients in NM have at least one more year to be subject to arrest for using their doctor-approved medicine.

In Maryland, Charles Thomas testified before both the House and Senate committees that were hearing a bill to repeal mandatory minimum drug sentencing. We also got at least one other prominent religious leader to testify in each committee. The bill failed in the Senate committee by one vote. So close!

However, there is a silver lining in all this seemingly bad news:

For almost all of the last two decades the drug policy reform movement mostly played defense, usually unsuccessfully, against bad bills that ramped up the Drug War. The fact that we are finally able to spend our time working on passing positive legislation is a good sign. That these measures were as close to passing as can be without actually winning is a great sign. Also, efforts are underway in other states that are promising for victories this year like Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York. Keep an eye out for developments in those states.

MUCH-NEEDED FUNDING SECURED

We just found out that we were approved for a grant that fulfills about one-third of our budget for 2005. We are investing a portion of that in direct mail so that we can continue building a nationwide grassroots constituency of activists and donors that will make us a more powerful force for change and give us the financial stability to not be solely reliant on grants.

TWO-THIRDS OF BUDGET STILL NEEDS TO BE RAISED

It may be hard to believe but we do all of this work with a staff of two and a half. We do a lot with a little. If you have already donated in 2005, thank you again for your generosity. If you haven’t contributed financially to our work yet this year, please do so now.

This is your chance to invest on the ground floor of a burgeoning social movement. Our drug laws will not be changed without lobbying from the moral leaders of our country and local communities. And we are the only organization coordinating that. You are in a unique position because you are hearing about our work while we are new and small. Therefore, your contribution means more.

Please pop a check in the mail today with the largest donation that you’ll feel good about giving. $50, $35, $500, $100 – It all makes a difference.

Send it to Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, 2808 Weisman Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20902.

Donations to IDPI are not tax-deductible because we devote 100% of our efforts toward influencing legislation. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to faith-based drug policy reform efforts please call us at 301-933-7681.

I thank you in advance for your commitment to a more compassionate and less coercive society.

Be well, be free,
Troy Dayton, associate director
http://idpi.us

P.S. – Anyone who donates $35 or more gets a free copy of “A Question of Justice,” a short documentary film created by Rev. Melissa Mummert that tells the heart-wrenching story of a woman who has been taken from her children and put behind bars for decades for a very minor role in a drug offense.

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Reformers Calendar

The following event descriptions were pasted verbatim from the Drug War Chronicle, published by our allies at the Drug Reform Coordination Network. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/

April 1, Chicago, IL, Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy featuring U.S. Rep Jan Schakowsky and representatives from the Washington Office on Latin America, sponsored by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, 3:30 p.m. The Gleacher Center, room #400, 450 Cityfront Plaza Drive. For more information contact Megan Kennedy-Farrell at 773-293-2964 or mkennedy@crln.org.

April 8-9, Iowa City, IA, Students for Sensible Drug Policy Midwest Conference, organized by University of Iowa SSDP. For further information, contact Diana Selwyn at (210) 860-2077 or diana-selwyn@uiowa.edu.

April 20, 5:00-7:00pm, San Francisco, CA, " Marijuana: Medicine, Menace, or Both?" Forum at the San Francisco Medical Society, 1409 Sutter Street (at Franklin), RSVP to (415) 921-4987 or sf@drugpolicy.org or visit http://www.drugpolicy.org/events/event.cfm?eventID=500 for info.

April 21-23, Tacoma, WA, 15th North American Syringe Exchange Convention. Sponsored by the North American Syringe Exchange Network, visit http://www.nasen.org for further information or contact NASEN at (253) 272-4857 or nasen@seanet.com.

April 30 (date tentative), 11:00am-3:00pm, Washington, DC, "America's in Pain!" 2nd Annual National Pain Rally. At the US Capitol Reflecting Pool, visit http://www.AmericanPainInstitute.org for further information.

May 4, Washington, DC, Marijuana Policy Project 10th Anniversary Gala. Featuring Montel Williams and Rep. Sam Farr, at the Washington Court Hotel, contact Francis DellaVecchia at (310) 452-1879 or francis@mpp.org or visit http://www.mpp.org/galas/ for further information.

May 9, Santa Monica, CA, Marijuana Policy Project 10th Anniversary Gala. Featuring Montel Williams and Tommy Chong, at the Sheraton Delfina Hotel, contact Francis DellaVecchia at (310) 452-1879 or francis@mpp.org or visit http://www.mpp.org/galas/ for further information.

June 1, Seattle, WA, John W. Perry Fund fundraiser, featuring US Rep. Jim McDermott. Details to be announced, contact DRCNet Foundation at (202) 362-0030 or perryfund@raiseyourvoice.com for updates or visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/perryfund/ online.

August 19-20, Salt Lake City, UT, "Science and Response in 2005," First National Conference on Methamphetamine, HIV and Hepatitis C. Sponsored by the Harm Reduction Coalition and the Harm Reduction Project, visit http://www.harmredux.org/conference2005.htm after January 15 or contact Amanda Whipple at (801) 355-0234 ext. 3 for further information.

November 9-12, Long Beach, CA, "Building a Movement for Reason, Compassion and Justice," the 2005 International Drug Policy Reform Conference. Sponsored by Drug Policy Alliance, at the Westin Hotel, details to be announced. Visit http://www.drugpolicy.org/events/dpa2005/ for updates.

April 5-8, 2006, Santa Barbara, CA, Fourth National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics. Sponsored by Patients Out of Time, details to be announced, visit http://www.medicalcannabis.com for updates.