13th International Drug Policy Conference in Long Beach, California November 10, 11, & 12, 2005
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******** Please Distribute Widely **********
To:  Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform supporters and their friends
From:  Troy Dayton, associate director
Subject:  Drug policy reformers are gathering in one place. You're invited.
Date: Monday, May 16, 2005 2:50PM
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<<<< SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE - see below >>>>

This November, the Drug Policy Alliance will hold the 13th International
Drug Policy Conference in Long Beach, California.  If you would like to
learn more about this cutting-edge social justice issue and meet the
people who are changing the hearts and minds of the world, than you
should not miss this event. 

More than 1,000 people from across the country and around the world will
gather to learn more about drug policy reform issues. No better
opportunity exists to strategize and mobilize for reform.

Who should attend?

Anyone who believes the war on drugs is doing more harm than good!

The diversity and expertise of the attendees are what will make this
conference a success. If you are a community activist, public official,
religious leader, criminal justice professional or reform advocate,
public health administrator, health care or drug treatment professional,
educator, student, person in recovery, or a family member or friend of a
drug war prisoner this conference is for you!

Every two years people from around the world gather to listen, learn,
socialize, and strategize at this premier event.

The 2005 International Drug Policy Reform Conference will address:

. Building a Movement
. Cannabis
. Civil Liberties
. Collateral Consequences
. Criminal Justice
. Drug Courts
. Drug Treatment
. Family Values/Valuing Families
. Federal and State-Based Reform
. GLBT People and the Drug War
. Harm Reduction
. Hepatitis C
. HIV/AIDS
. International Issues
. Legal Drugs
. Methadone, Buprenorphine and Heroin
. Methamphetamine
. Physicians and Prescribing
. Politics of Science
. Proposition 36
. Psychedelics
. Racial Injustice
. Surveillance and Privacy
. Teens and Drugs

Depending on the registration package you choose and when you register,
it costs between $250 and $525 to attend.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND GROUP DISCOUNTS

If you would like to attend, please send me an e-mail with a paragraph
or two explaining why you want to go.  A generous funder has expressed
interest in providing full or partial scholarships to a few people from
the religious community.

If enough people are interested, IDPI can also get a reduced group rate
as a Partner of the event.    We are also looking for a few people to
help work IDPI's exhibit booth at the conference, which is likely to get
a lot of traffic because people in this movement are very excited about
our work so far.

If you are a counselor, social worker, attorney, or physician it is
likely that you can get continuing education units for participating.

I have been going to these conferences for the last 10 years.  They are
extremely valuable.  The first conference I attended turned me from a
community activist interested in one or two aspects of the Drug War into
a knowledgeable organizer on a wide range of drug policy issues.  Once I
was exposed to ALL of the ways in which the War on Drugs is causing harm
and I met the people who stand up for reason, compassion, and justice on
these issues, a light bulb went off that placed drug policy reform
squarely in the camp with the great social movements of our time and the
triumphant struggles of the past.

I highly recommend that you consider attending.  For more information
visit http://www.drugpolicy.org/events/dpa2005. But please don't
register through that web page; instead e-mail troydayton@idpi.us so
that you have a chance at a scholarship or group discount.