Teach
Your
Children
Well:
Clergy,
Religious
Academics
Discuss
Reform
1/21/00
What role can religious institutions play in the battle for drug policy reform? What would effective drug education look like? A January 18th gathering of more than 20 clergy, activists and educators in Menlo Park, California took on those questions in a spirited session that could be a first step toward more organized involvement of local religious organizations in the reform effort. The event was co-sponsored by Urban Ministry of Palo Alto, a non-profit group, and Stanford's United Campus Christian Ministry. Featured speakers were the Rev. Howard Moody, minister emeritus of Judson Memorial Church in New York City and a longtime stalwart in progressive causes; and Marsha Rosenbaum, director of The Lindesmith Center-West in San Francisco. The Rev. Moody said that "the voice of religious institutions on drug policy has been a mere whisper. Now we need a clear and certain sound for reform" from churches, synagogues and mosques. "We must raise reasonable, fundamental questions about our failed policy," he said. "We have to reach people at an emotional level." The Rev. Moody is affiliated with Religious Leaders for a More Just and Compassionate Drug Policy, a New York City-based organization whose mission statement says "it is not enough for us to pray for [people] and ask God to heal the addiction of drug users." The group has called for religious communities to "take seriously the task of examining and speaking out on our current drug policies." The Rev. Moody's account wove together more than 40 years of personal experience and religious history on drug users and policy. "In the late 1950's, in New York, the church was the only group that worked with heroin addicts," he recalled. "We were responding to the pain of people and families, and there were no services available to addicts -- not a bed, not a treatment center. The closest facility to New York was in Lexington, Kentucky." He offered several suggestions for what people can do today for reform. "First, we can seek out and support reasonable proposals for reform. We also can't let ourselves be frightened or intimidated by the drug warriors." He described his indignation at a recent National Prayer Breakfast when Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey said that it had never been more important to pray for our young people. "What about praying for all the African-American families your drug war has ruined?", the Rev. Moody thought to himself at the time. He also urged audience members to push past the inevitable feelings of discouragement, as difficult as that can be. "We have to transcend our sense of futility in trying to end this deadly national tragedy," he declared. He urged his listeners to heed the example of the prophet Isaiah and to "seek justice" with all the energy they can muster. In her lunchtime talk, Marsha Rosenbaum described a 25-year professional and personal odyssey and her extensive work on drug education. "Honesty is absolutely the key," she said. "What passes for drug education has made kids very cynical." Rosenbaum noted that realistic descriptions of marijuana are crucial to establishing the credibility of drug education. "What kids are told about pot is inconsistent with their own experience. They hear -- and are still hearing -- that pot is addictive. Then they learn it isn't, and they discount all the other messages," she said. Rosenbaum said parents should learn as much as they can about drugs and drug policy and insist on better drug education for their children. What would such education look like? "It has to be honest -- based on scientifically sound data," she said. "We also have to integrate drug education with other parts of the curriculum to make it meaningful and real." Finally, Rosenbaum called for a "risk reduction" component to be pervasive in drug education. "We have to tell kids how to reduce the risks of harm if they decide to experiment," she declared. "The bottom line is health and safety." At the end of the gathering, several people in the group agreed to work on forming a speakers' bureau whose goal would be to spread the policy reform "gospel" at Bay Area churches, synagogues and mosques.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
