Pubdate: Mon, 16 Apr 2007
Source: Brown Daily Herald, The (Brown, RI Edu)
Copyright: 2007 The Brown Daily Herald
Contact:  http://www.browndailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/727
Author: Olivia Hoffman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)

SSDP REGIONAL CONFERENCE DRAWS CHAFEE, LOURY

The war on drugs must be re-evaluated "methodically and clinically," 
from a global perspective, former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75 
told a MacMillan 117 audience Friday. The speech kicked off the 
Students for Sensible Drug Policy Northeast Regional Conference, 
hosted at Brown this weekend.

"We need to ask ourselves, is this working?" Chafee, a visiting 
fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, said of 
current drug policies. "We have to be honest with ourselves in 
looking at this worldwide problem."

Chafee, who has admitted to experimenting with cocaine and marijuana 
while a student at Brown, commented on the "destabilizing effect of 
the illicit drug trade on so many countries." He said that reforming 
policies "has to be done collectively" and suggested the possibility 
of United Nations involvement in this process. "The doors are open to 
a different way of looking at the war on drugs," he said.

Tom Angell, government relations director for the national SSDP, told 
The Herald that hearing Chafee's stance on drug policy "says a lot 
about how far the issue has come."

"It was really heartening to hear Senator Chafee talking about how 
the war on drugs has failed and that we need to have a serious 
re-thinking of how to move forward from here," said Angell, who 
founded the first SSDP chapter in Rhode Island in 2002 while he was a 
student at the University of Rhode Island.

Dan MacCombie '08.5, co-chair of the conference, said he was 
particularly pleased to hear Chafee speak about the Aid Elimination 
Provision of the Higher Education Act, which denies federal financial 
aid to students with prior drug convictions, a policy that Chafee 
called "backwards."

Chafee is "a respected political figure, and it's great that he came 
out against that," MacCombie said. "That's just one more voice to add 
to the chorus."

This year's conference, titled "Confronting the Drug War, Envisioning 
Alternatives," was the first SSDP conference to be held at Brown, 
though the University's chapter had the most representatives of any 
chapter at the national convention last November, MacCombie said.

According to Julia van de Walle '08, president of Brown's SSDP 
chapter, the goals of the conference were to "create cohesion" among 
the Northeast chapters and "reinvigorate their dedication to the 
cause." This year's conference drew about 80 people from 23 different 
schools, in addition to the core membership of around 40 students at Brown.

Beyond its general goals, co-chair Matthew Palevsky '07 said one 
theme of the conference was to understand "how the drug war provides 
a vehicle for systemic racism."

"We criminalize half of America - approximately half of Americans use 
an illicit substance - and we choose which cohort of that half we are 
going to incarcerate," Palevsky said. "Because of systemic racism, 
that ends up being predominantly people of color."

Brown Professor of Economics Glenn Loury addressed the issue of 
institutional racism in a lecture Friday night in Leung Gallery 
called "Racial Stigma, Mass Incarceration and American Values."

"We are a nation of jailers, and racist jailers at that," Loury said. 
"Today's American race-making institution, the place where the 
stigmatized status of blacks is reproduced and reinforced in the 
American imagination, is in the arena of criminal justice."

Palevsky told The Herald he was impressed at the way Loury "really opened up."

"This is a personal issue for him, as it should be for all of us, and 
he talked about it with such passion and knowledge that I think it 
affected everyone in that room," Palevsky said.

A workshop on Saturday also addressed the issue of institutional 
racism, focusing on the importance of anti-racism analysis in the 
drug policy reform movement.

Sunday's events were directed more at drug culture, MacCombie said. 
"One of my biggest issues with the drug war is cultural 
stigmatization and marginalization. ... Although that's something 
that all of us care about, it's often ignored."

Daniel Pinchbeck, author of "Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic 
Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism" and "2012: The 
Return of Quetzalcoatl," gave a speech Sunday about the role of 
traditional shamanistic practices in modern society. Pinchbeck told 
the audience how his own personally revelatory experiences led him to 
consider whether it is "possible for there to be a reconsideration of 
psychedelics in a positive, strategic way" and whether they "could 
actually be useful and healing substances for our modern world."

Conference organizers said they hope conferences like this weekend's 
can create forums that encourage members to challenge existing 
policies and debate about alternative solutions.

"I think we've all realized that the war on drugs is a failure, but 
there's great disagreement and debate within the organization about 
what exactly a drug policy utopia would look like," Angell said.

"One of the most important aims of an event like this is to bring 
people together and to help foster that realization that you as a 
student on a campus are part of an international movement of young 
people who are concerned about these policies and their disastrous 
impact on our generation," Angell said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman