LEAP on the Hill: Stories from the week of March 14, 2008

Psssss. I agree but I can’t say it in public: On Monday and Tuesday I attended a 2,000 person conference in DC; the US League of Cities. I had about 35 conversations & all but one person agreed that we needed to end prohibition. (Are you ready for the ‘but’)? BUT all of them said, saying so publicly will mean a loss in the next election for mayor or city council. As I silently screamed each time I heard this, I gave them ideas on what they could say in public the policy is not achieving any of its objectives, use a public health approach to reduce crime and drug use, etc. & perhaps more importantly, to hold a breakout session at next year’s conference which would discuss alternatives to prohibition. Hold your breath?? If at first you do not succeed, try, try again!!: On Thursday Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) held an oversight hearing of the ONDCP (Drug Czar). The Drug Czar, John Walters, came and brought over 20 charts to impress the committee how well prohibition is working. {he had no chart showing how many teen drug dealers had died KIA (killed in action)}. The members took a 40 minute break to vote on the floor. When the room was fairly deserted (leer), I just walked to Kucinich’s desk area and placed a DEA pamphlet down in a spot he would certainly see it. As I returned to my front row seat, an aide walked over, picked up my pamphlet, gave me a bad look and put it in her pocket. Two hours later at the end of the hearing, I walked up to Congressman Kucinich, introduced myself and handed him a pamphlet. He read the first sentence: “Drugs are readily available to America’s youth..” I suggested he read the question to future government witnesses. He smiled, nodded, put the pamphlet in his jacket pocket, thanked me and left. As my fellow Texan and LEAP board member, Terry Nelson, wrote: Nobody in the wrong can stop a man in the right who just keeps on a comin.’