 1987, as the U.S. was in the middle of its vicious escalation of the war on drugs, Kurt Schmoke was elected mayor of Baltimore. Schmoke bravely spoke out alone, practically, against the rapidly escalating war and for serious consideration of alternatives to the punitive, prohibitionist drug policies that were sweeping across the country. He was reelected twice, serving as mayor for a total of 12 years, during which time he introduced syringe exchange and other harm reduction programs in Baltimore, fought for similar reforms in Maryland, joined the board of the Drug Policy Foundation and later Drug Policy Alliance, and continued to speak out boldly for both incremental and transformational reforms. To present this year's award, Kurt Schmoke Award for Achievement in the Field of Law, please welcome DPA's New Jersey State Director, Roseanne Scotty. It is my great pleasure to present this award to Senator Booker tonight. Senator Booker has been a long time friend of Drug Policy Alliance and a long time advocate of drug policy reform. Even at the beginning of his career, when a lot of people, a lot of elected officials tend to be more cautious, he was not. Senator Booker began his career in the great city of Newark, New Jersey, Newark in a house when he ran for city council. He went on to serve as mayor of Newark and for the last three years he has been our junior senator from New Jersey in Washington, D.C. He very quickly has emerged as a leader in Congress advocating for sentencing reform, harm reduction policies, an end to solitary confinement for juveniles, fair hiring practices for formerly incarcerated people, and recently he introduced legislation to legalize marijuana on the federal level and across the country. When Cory said that he was first announced that he was running for the Senate, I said to him, are you sure you want to go to Washington with all that ugliness, with all that craziness? And he said to me, you know, Roseanne, I am a prisoner of hope, and Cory Booker is someone who gives us hope for the future. He's someone who gives us inspiration to go on and to keep fighting that good fight. Cory couldn't be here tonight in Atlanta to accept that award because he's very busy in Washington, D.C. fighting that good fight, but he did take time to film an acceptance of this award and provide a message for all of us here at this conference, so please put your hands together for Senator Cory Booker. I am so sorry that I can't be there with you tonight. I want to thank everybody who's a part of the Drug Policy Alliance for giving me this honor, really named after somebody that I have respected since the days I was aspiring to be a mayor myself. Kirchmoke is somebody that I've relied on as a model, as a friend, and obviously when it comes to drug policy was a courageous trailblazer, so thank you for this honor. But if you give me the moment, it's actually I that want to honor you all. This organization from the time I was a city council person has been so powerful in shaping my policy beliefs and helping me to develop a deeper understanding about the way out as a guy who was living in Newark, New Jersey, to see how the war on drugs wasn't a war on drugs, it was a war on people, to see that there are clear policy ways to get out of this horrible trap. I just want to say to Ethan Natelman, who has been a hero to me personally, one of those people I met early in my life who was a friend, who was smart, insightful, and really mentored me on policy issues, I'm sorry you're retiring, I'm kind of angry at you. If it wasn't for Maria, who was a tremendous coming to replace you, I would probably, you know, have to, you know, go Jersey on you, which is a compliment because going to Jersey is the only way to go. Anyway, I want to say thank you to you Ethan, I want to say how excited I am about Maria, and of course I want to give a shout out to Rosie Ann Scottie, who's been a dear friend of mine as well for many years doing incredible work. I just want to let everybody know that that's the key word, work. We have a lot of work to do. The war on drugs or criminal justice system right now is a cancer on the soul of our country. And what is happening to so many communities is so against who we say we are, a nation of liberty and justice for all. We who are patriots who believe in these ideals, we have work to do. We still have a nation, as Brian Stevenson says, that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than poor and innocent, we have work to do. We are the nation, the land of the free and yet we have a quarter of all the nations, of all the planet earth's imprisoned people. Here in the United States, we have work to do when we see that our prisons are full of the most vulnerable people, the disabled, the mentally ill, the veterans that they're filled of people who are addicted and disproportionately poor people and people of color, we have work to do. And so I want to thank you for all that you all have done to move the debate, to enact policies, to advance the cause of justice, but we have a mountain still to climb. So thank you for this award. It really is something that should be shared by all of us because there are so many folks in that room right now that embody these ideals and these principles, but I can barely sit still when I know what's going on right now in this nation after the savage war on drugs has taken the American prison population increased at 500 percent, how our precious resources as a society have not been poured into schools or infrastructure, but has been poured into building more and more prisons to warehouse, more and more potential. When I walk around my own neighborhoods and neighborhood in Newark and see still how people are being preyed upon by a broken system, we have work to do. So thank you for this award. Let's embrace each other tonight. Let's comfort each other tonight. Let's celebrate ground gain, but I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and continuing to fight the work because the United States of America that has ideals like equal justice under the law and liberty and justice for all. Our promise, our ideals are still not made real in the lives of millions of Americans. And so this work that we're doing must continue and must persist. And Ethan Nadelman, you may be retiring from your job, but you're not retiring from the movement. I'm so grateful for your work, but I'm keeping you in the game. And you'll be only a phone call away from me, I pray. God bless everybody. God bless America. Let's make our nation real. So thank you, Senator Booker, for setting up this next award so nicely.