cannabisnews.com: Will Disjointed Drug Reformers Burn Themselves Out





Will Disjointed Drug Reformers Burn Themselves Out
Posted by FoM on May 20, 1999 at 11:47:15 PT
Source: Hartford Advocate
The hundreds of groups that form the drug policy reform movement nationwide seem to have taken their political cues from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
While the organized resistance to America's official war on drugs is not a comedy set in Christ's Jerusalem, a look inside the movement reveals reformers doing exactly what makes Life of Brian so hilarious: adopting acronyms, holding meetings, bickering over trivialities and espousing conflicting political stances while the enemy runs roughshod. Yes, Connecticut's drug reform movement certainly has its equivalents of the Popular People's Front, People's Front of Judea and Popular People's Front of Judea: Three years ago Cliff Thornton left his $70,000 a year job in middle management at the phone company to start Efficacy, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the war on drugs. He and his wife, Maggie, work out of their Windsor home full-time, telling anyone who will listen that rather than enforcing antiquated and unjust prohibitions, the common sense answer is legalization and regulation of marijuana, and the medicalization of hard substances such as cocaine and heroin. Mike Gogulski of Hamden juggles his 9-to-5 job at a computer firm with his passion for stopping the madness of prohibition. Gogulski considered joining Efficacy, but instead in January, he and a few others formed the Connecticut Cannabis Policy Forum. Their mission is to remove all penalties for marijuana consumption by adults in Connecticut. Former state legislator and four-time mayor Bill Collins of Norwalk sparked up A Better Way in 1994 to lobby for legislative change in drug policy. In 1995, he pushed for the Connecticut Law Revision Commission's landmark study that eventually concluded the solution was harm reduction: that is, treating substance use as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice problem. Jelani Lawson, who serves on the New Haven Board of Alderman, runs the Connecticut Drug Policy Leadership Council in his spare time. The council formed in 1997 to rally support for the Law Revision Commission report. And over at Western Connecticut State University, the Nutmeg State's oldest drug policy reform group carries the banner for NORML, the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws. Click the above link to read the whole story!http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/
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