On Tuesday, August 15, the nation’s failing drug war takes center stage as elected officials, marijuana law reform activists, medical marijuana patients, and those affected by the drug war are set to gather at the Los Angeles Shadow Convention.
Featured speakers include Gov. Gary Johnson (R-NM), Rev. Jesse Jackson, Reps. Tom Campbell (R-CA) and Maxine Waters (D-CA), Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, along with drug law reform leaders, medical marijuana patients and drug war victims. Topics to be addressed will include consequences of the failed drug war; the rise in arrests of non-violent drug offenders; the growing prison population; alternatives to prison, such as treatment and prevention programs; racism and the drug war; public health issues; and how the drug war effects children.
“People are finally starting to wake up to the fact that the drug war makes no sense,” said Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, which is organizing the Shadow Convention proceedings on the drug war. “The war on drugs is not a war on crime, as politicians would have us believe. Instead, it is a war on the poor, a war on public health, and a war on our basic Constitutional rights.”
NORML will have a booth at the Shadow Convention and NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup will make a brief address.
“The Shadow Convention gives us an opportunity to focus attention on issues which the Democratic and Republican conventions have chosen to ignore, such as the need to stop arresting responsible marijuana smokers,” Stroup said. “I urge concerned citizens to join us in Los Angeles for this unique opportunity.”
For more information, please contact Tony Newman of The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation at (212) 548-0383 or (917)969-3571 or visit www.shadowconvention.com.
