Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jan 2014
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2014 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/send-a-letter/
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Steve Blow
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/people/Suzanne+Wills

IN DRUG WAR, HER SIDE IS WINNING

As drug warriors go, 69-year-old Suzanne Wills has been one of the 
most steadfast - just not on the side you might expect.

And at long last, she's seeing major success. As of last week, 
marijuana is legal in Colorado. Washington state is next. She 
cheerfully predicts that other states will follow suit.

"I'm optimistic," said the grandmother of seven, who lives in Far 
East Dallas. "The reform movement is really well organized now. We 
understand what works. And we have a lot of people with us."

Just don't expect Suzanne to fire up a joint to celebrate.

"I like alcohol much better - even though I know it's worse for me 
than marijuana," she said. "I'm a merlot kind of gal."

In so many ways, Suzanne seems like any other kind of gal than a 
proponent of drug legalization. She's a retired CPA and a graduate of 
Southern Methodist University. She has the grace and style of a 
Junior League sustainer.

But I first interviewed her on the drug reform issue 15 years ago. 
And she had been plugging away at drug legalization long before that. 
If you read letters to the editor in this newspaper, you have seen 
her name at the bottom of many a calm, reasoned observation on the 
subject - including one this week.

Back at the start, she really was a rare bird. Almost a heretic in a 
law-and-order place like Dallas. Today, she's positively mainstream - 
at least on marijuana.

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week found that 55 
percent of Americans think marijuana should be legalized. For adults 
under age 50, that support jumps to about two-thirds.

But Suzanne would go even further. "Legalize and regulate" is her 
mantra for every drug.

It's funny. We all accept that Prohibition was one of our nation's 
miserable failures. People still drank booze and a notorious 
underworld emerged to provide it.

Suzanne sees no difference in the drug prohibition effort that began 
in this country about 75 years ago.

"If there's a demand, somebody always steps up with a supply," she 
said. "That really leaves us with only two choices: legal 
distribution or illegal distribution. Are we going to be in control 
of this or are we not? That's the question."

She said the sale of medical marijuana in 21 states has already 
proved that a regulated market can work with no great detriment to 
society. She expects recreational marijuana sales in Colorado to show 
that even more clearly.

Suzanne has a hard time explaining her passion for drug reform. She 
wasn't part of the drug scene in college or after. But coming of age 
in the Vietnam era did leave her with a healthy skepticism of 
government - and Richard Nixon's declaration of war on drugs in particular.

"Remember, this was when the government was telling us that LSD 
caused birth defects and Agent Orange was benign," she said.

A lifelong news junkie, she well remembers the national commission on 
drugs - mostly appointed by Nixon - that recommended in 1972 that 
marijuana be decriminalized and the nation's drug laws shift from 
prohibition to education.

"Instead of following it, Nixon doubled down and made the war on 
drugs even more oppressive," she said. "I watched for 40 years as 
this became the most destructive social policy we have."

Suzanne sounds very Republican when she says, "We'd be a lot better 
off if the federal government would just back out of it. Let each 
state decide its own drug policy. Let them learn from each other."

Most of her reform work is through the Drug Policy Forum of Texas (dpft.org).

Rather than push a specific agenda, it seeks to broaden the 
conversation about drugs, believing "a well-informed public will 
choose rational policies."

Likewise, Suzanne is a reformer, but she's no radical. "I'm satisfied 
for people to start thinking about it and talking about it and going 
into it slowly," she said. "It took 75 years for us to get here. It 
will take us awhile to get out." 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom