 Thank you so much for having me here. It's wonderful to meet you, Maria. I've heard wonderful things about you now for some time and I'm excited to see you step into this new role. It's not easy to try to step in to eat the natalman shoes but I'm confident that you are wearing your own shoes and you are going to be marching this organization forward in your own shoes with all of the urgency and determination this moment requires. So thank you for stepping into this leadership role. It is really such an honor to be here with all of you. I look out and I see so many faces that I recognize, so many people that I deeply admire, people who have inspired me, whose work has guided me and challenged me in countless ways. Dorsey Nunn, Susan Burton, Jason Hernandez, the list could go on and on of the people who have made such a remarkable difference in my own life. Well I've been giving some thought to what I might say here today, how I spend my short time that I have with you and I could spend all of it just singing the praises of the people in this room and celebrating the extraordinary accomplishments, the victories that have been won in recent years and as recently as yesterday. But I want to be more than just a cheerleader right now. I want to speak candidly as someone who like many of you considers myself part of this movement but also as someone who is concerned for its future. Standing here I'm filled with such an odd mixture of overwhelming gratitude and some trepidation. In so many ways this is the best and worst of times for drug policy reform. You know on one hand as Maria pointed out there have just been you know a tidal wave of extraordinary successes, mind-blowing victories for marijuana decriminalization and legalization thanks in no small part to the brilliant and strategic advocacy of the people in this very room. Public support for marijuana decriminalization and legalization has never been higher at record highs and last November marijuana legalization initiatives prevailed in four states, medical marijuana prevailed in another four states. It seems as though we have reached a tipping point and yet at the same time in this same very moment we face an unprecedented drug crisis in this country. Drug overdoses are at a record high making the crack epidemic seem somewhat mild by comparison. A recent report by the police executive research forum revealed that drug overdose deaths totaled more than 64,000 last year a 21% increase over 2015. About three quarters of all those deaths involved opioids. America has 4% of the world's population and 27% of the world's overdose deaths and many experts predict that we haven't seen the worst of it yet. Already drug overdose deaths are more numerous than HIV deaths were in 1995, the worst year ever of the AIDS epidemic. Drug overdose last year alone outnumbered American fatalities during the entire course of the Vietnam War and yes there is outcry over the opioid crisis but it's relatively muted considering the magnitude of the crisis at hand and I know that I am not alone in being struck by the drastic difference between the two recent drug epidemics that have swept this nation opioids and crack. Now the crack epidemic killed just a tiny fraction of those who are dying of opioid overdoses today and yet a literal war was declared on poor people of color. A purely punitive militaristic response prevailed and today even though the opioid crisis is much much worse there's no wall to wall media coverage demonizing and shaming opioid users and dealers. There's no live TV coverage of drug addicts and dealers rounded up in mass raids or parading into courtrooms. There are few politicians lasting the mostly white opioid addicts portraying them as people worthy of care and compassion not despicable scum of the earth that has to be gotten rid of by any means necessary. Things are very very different this time around and we all know why. Whiteness makes the difference. If the overwhelming majority of the users and dealers of opioids today were black rather than right we wouldn't have police chiefs competing with each other over whose department is showing more compassion to people struggling with drug addiction or drug abuse. Now I am glad I want to be clear that I am very glad that the police executive research forum is actually bragging in its recent report that many police departments are sending officers to the home of addicts to pay them kind visits and invite them to treatment and offer support. But I'm not as optimistic as some of my friends about the future of drug policy in this country. I'm told that this new found tolerance and compassion for white users and abusers of illegal drugs will translate into a permanent ceasefire in the drug war and that the shifts in law and policy will inevitably benefit people of all races and classes in the long run. I have my doubts about this. Now clearly the victories for marijuana decriminalization and legalization have benefited people of all colors as arrest rates have declined dramatically in many states even though severe racial disparities do remain. Discriminatory enforcement hasn't changed much but at least the total number of people arrested and criminalized has declined. A positive development for all people of all colors. Now my concern lies elsewhere. I'm concerned about the cyclical nature of reform and retrenchment in this country particularly with respect to race. The great legislative victories to legalize marijuana in several states did not occur in a vacuum. They occurred on the very same night that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. An election that was made possible in no smart small part by deliberate explicit appeals to white racial resentment and anxiety. Now some have said this is a very very strange paradox. Progressive drug policies sweeping the nation at the very same moment that Donald Trump is elected president of the United States and a fierce drug warrior is appointed attorney general. How do we explain this crazy state of affairs? Yet from where I sit there is no paradox no mystery at all. There's a common denominator underlying both the drug reform victories and the election of Donald Trump. It's called whiteness. It's called whiteness over and over again throughout American history our nation has unleashed a wave of punitiveness whenever drugs came to be associated with black and brown people. And then predictably you can set your watch to it. When the color of drug users and dealers fades to white our nation suddenly reverses course often quite abruptly attitudes change policies change compassion bubbles to the surface of the public discourse numerous historians have documented this unmistakable pattern. And by the same token throughout our nation's history there has always been fierce overwhelming backlash against even the appearance of great racial progress always you can set your watch to that one too. And while some might argue that the racial justice gains offered by Obama's election were mostly symbolic the symbolism was powerful and deeply disturbing to millions helping to incite an electoral backlash that we should have seen coming. Now of course I don't mean to suggest that the presidential election and the drug policy victories last year were solely about race but at the same time can we honestly imagine that the drug reform victories last year and all those states would have been possible in the midst of the crack epidemic. Just for a moment try to imagine our nation legalizing any drug of any kind in the middle of any drug epidemic that was affecting primarily black or brown people. Imagine pot being legalized near the peak of the crack epidemic and then try to imagine that all of the new legal drug empires that are being launched are being led by young black men with wild afros and tattoos rather than hipster white men with cute pony tails and beards. Changing attitudes and policies became possible in recent years and large part because the media was no longer saturated with images of black and brown drug dealers and addicts. The color of drug users and dealers got whiter in the public imagination and so we as a nation got nicer. Now that's not to say these changes were inevitable. That's not what I'm saying at all. An enormous amount of hard work, blood, sweat and tears went into those victories. I just am asking us today to pause long enough to absorb the truth that the white face of medical marijuana in the media and the white male face of legal pot entrepreneurs and the white male face of drug users and abusers in his current opioid epidemic and the white face of drug heroes in the media such as those featured in Breaking Bad made it possible for mainstream white voters to feel a kind of empathy that was utterly lacking for black and brown folks just 20 years ago. Again, my point isn't to minimize these legislative victories in any way. Rather, it's my hope that we'll interrogate these victories and consider what they might teach us about the future of our movement. As I see it, this movement, this movement convened right here in this room stands at a critical crossroads. What path we take in the months and years to come will likely determine whether our movement succeeds or fails in the long run. And I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the path that we ultimately choose may have enormous implications for the success and failure of our democracy as a whole. I hope it's not controversial to say in this room that our democracy is in a state of crisis. The gravity of the situation can be overwhelming and it's tempting at times like this to narrow one's focus and to think small, to think narrowly and very, very pragmatically, even defensively about what can be done to advance a single issue in this complex and worrisome political environment. But I want to challenge all of us here today to think big, to go big or stay home. We're going to go big and now certainly don't mean let's be reckless or let's throw a reason to the wind. No, not at all. When I say think big, go big, I mean we must begin to think bigger, much, much bigger beyond drug policy and consider more carefully how drug policy fits into the bigger picture of American democracy. We must think big enough so that our victories truly become victories for all of us, all of us or none. As I see it, any victory that is dependent on whiteness in whole or in part is truly not a victory for us all. Black and brown folks may benefit so long as the face of drugs is white, but the minute that changes, all bets are off. Now you know when the New Jim Crow was first released and nobody was reading it except Dorsey and a few other folks, I had a meeting with a very influential leader and thinker in the drug policy reform movement and he said to me you know I've read your book and I agree with just about everything you say here but you know there's one thing that bothers me it seems like you're arguing here that we need to end racism in order to end the war on drugs and you know I don't think so. I think we can win this war on drugs without ending racism and I don't think we're gonna end racism in our lifetime and I intend to end the war on drugs with or without ending racism. Shortly after Trump was elected and a drug warrior was appointed Attorney General amidst a white supremacist attempted revolution I sent an email to this individual and I said well remember when you said we didn't have to end racism in order to end the war on drugs what do you think now now I was you know half joking I'm not so naive as to think we're gonna end racism just by having better organizing strategies or by waving a magic wand but I do believe that we must be committed to placing race and racial justice at the very center of the drug policy reform movement. Lately I find that when I talk to drug reformers and say things like that racial justice must be central to our movement building and advocacy people nod and say oh yeah oh yeah that's so right oh yeah and for a while I was just really encouraged by these platitudes until I started asking some follow-up questions and then I discovered that this newfound commitment to racial justice was a little thin in practice. For some advocates making race central means quoting a lot of racial disparity data and press releases. It means posting to social media the latest horrific thing that Donald Trump said and I'm not a fan of this approach. Nearly all of the available research suggests that merely sharing racial disparity data without a great deal of political and social and historical context and lots of storytelling only confirms pre-existing racial stereotypes and bias especially about blacks and crimes. There's a deeper problem lurking here and the deeper problem has nothing to do with what doesn't work to change people's minds. The bigger problem is what does work and people do change their minds when the victims of drug policy are white. That's a fact and people do become far more punitive when the face of drugs or crime is black or brown. That's a fact and these facts are not merely inconvenient. The implications are profound. Taken together these facts mean that so long as the progressive public consensus about drugs is rooted in compassion for white people the consensus will not last for long. Why? Because sooner or later the face of drug abuse will change. It always has no racial group has ever had a permanent monopoly on drug addiction and the minute the color of addiction changes that so-called consensus will begin to unravel and will be back to full-out war. Now this dilemma is not limited to drug policy of course in every area of public policy there is the risk that progressive gains that are made with white people in mind will vanish the minute black and brown people become the primary beneficiaries. Yep that's right. You know research shows that white people are more generous and forgiving with each other than those who are perceived as others. Cognitive science teaches us they can't help it most of the time. We are all primed to value and prefer those who seem like us though the preferences whites have for themselves are remarkably greater. No doubt due to centuries of brainwashing that have led them to actually believe often unconsciously that they are in fact superior. Now Mark Maurer in his excellent book Race to Incarcerate cites data showing that the most punitive nations in the world are the most diverse. The nations with the most compassionate or the most lenient criminal justice policies are the most homogeneous. You know we like to say that diversity is our strength but it may actually be our Achilles heel. Researchers have reached similar conclusions in the public welfare context. The democracies that have the most generous social welfare programs, universal health care, cheap or free college education, generous maternity leave on and on are generally the most homogeneous. Socialist countries like Sweden and Norway are overwhelmingly white. But when those nations feel threatened by immigration by so-called foreigners, public support for generous social welfare begins to erode often quite sharply. It seems that it's an aspect of human nature to be tempted to be more punitive and less generous to those we view as others. And so in a nation like the United States where we are just a few generations away from slavery and Jim Crow, where inequality is skyrocketing due to global capitalism and where demographic changes due to immigration are creating a nation in which no racial group is the majority. A central question we must face in this movement is whether we, the people, are capable of overcoming our basic instinct to respond more harshly, more punitively, with less care and concern for people we view as different. Can we evolve? Can we evolve morally and spiritually? Can we learn to care for each other across lines of race, class, gender and sexuality in all forms of difference? In times like these, clearly these questions are pressing in the age of Trump. But they're also the very questions that we must be asking no matter who is president. On the home page of the Drug Policy Alliance website, the mission statement says, the first sentence says, we believe drug policies should be based on science, compassion, health and human rights, not fear and stigma. Now I read that mission state is challenging us as a nation to alleviate each other's suffering rather than multiplying it, to respond with reason and compassion rather than fear and stigma and to honor basic human rights. It's a mission statement that points to something bigger, much bigger than just drug policy reform. Now let me cut to the chase because I know my time is running short. The fate of our democracy depends in no small part on what happens in spaces like this. Whether and how we learn to build movements that reimagine ways of seeing and relating to one another will determine the future not only of drug policy but the future of our democracy. And in so many ways, the fate of the global community hangs in the balance. Now the good news is that drug policy presents incredible opportunities for reimagining what our democracy and global community can and should be. We have the opportunity in this movement to educate people of all colors about how our ugly racial history harms us all. White folks today would have a much better public health infrastructure and more treatment options available to them if it wasn't for the birth of a racist drug war. Many white folks are suffering and dying today because of a drug war declared with black folks in mind. Thousands of immigrants are being locked up, warehoused in private detention centers that would not even exist today but for the anti-black racism of the drug war which gave birth to the private prison industry. Street is a hungry beast with an insatiable appetite. We have the opportunity to demonstrate through our movement how the same forms of racially divisive politics that help to birth the drug war and mass incarceration are playing out all over again in a strikingly similar fashion, this time leading to a system of mass deportation on a scale rarely seen in human history. We can do that through this movement and few issues, few causes, few movements provide a better opportunity to practice reparations and yes I say practice because we have a lot to learn as a nation we don't have a lot of practice at repairing historical harm that have been caused to poor people and to people of color but we can get started in a real way in this movement right here and right now and I think it's fair to say that this movement as much as any other provides an extraordinary opportunity for us to practice with one another and with the communities we serve. What it means to show care and compassion across lines of race, class and difference. People of all races and backgrounds are losing loved ones to this drug war. Some to fatal overdoses, others to addiction and millions more to prison and jail cells. Finally this movement gives us a chance to talk about capitalism in a way that's long overdue. We have a chance to raise important questions about global capitalism, our culture of ruthless competition and individualism and its possible role in creating so much of the despair that makes the United States the world leader in drug addiction as well as incarceration. By interrogating capitalism in the context of drug policy reform we can also ask important questions such as what really does a fair market look like when some groups have been systematically denied access to markets and capital. How should we structure opportunity in this new trade or in this new business and when if ever should the free market be trusted particularly when dangerous drugs are the commodity. These essential questions regarding race, capitalism, economic justice, criminal justice and reparations are all bound up in drug policy reform debates making this movement extremely fertile ground for beginning to reimagine what kind of democracy and global community we aim to co-create. Now none of this will be easy as Maria said and I won't pretend to have the answers to many of the most vexing questions. But what I do know is that simply citing racial disparity statistics and retweeting racist won't build a sturdy foundation for a truly transformative movement nor will efforts to capitalize on the empathy for white folks in the midst of an unprecedented drug epidemic. Now if we choose to think big really big and deliberately align our drug policy with the work the larger work of building a thriving multiracial multi-ethnic democracy that truly honors the lives of all of us a whole new world of possibilities begin to emerge. Suddenly we're not just fighting isolated drug policy reform battles anymore but we're steadily brick by brick building the foundation for a new way of life a new way of life together for our democracy. Now if we go down this revolutionary road and it is a revolutionary road we're gonna have to build a multiracial multi-ethnic multi-faith multi-gender grassroots movement from the bottom up. There's no way around it. We're gonna have to learn to reach across the lines that have divided us not just for decades but for centuries and we're gonna have to learn to listen to each other and argue with each other and work together to build this sturdy foundation and we're gonna have to learn to listen and accept leadership from the people who have been most harmed most stigmatized most discarded in the wars that we have waged upon them but no matter who you are or where you find yourself in this work today I hope that you will eventually come to see this beautiful vibrant raucous movement is being about much more than drug policy because it can if we let it become a movement that is fundamental to the remaking of our democracy I hope and pray that one day when the history of this movement is written that it will be said that we those of us in this room today vowed to do more than win kinder fairer more compassionate drug policies instead we committed ourselves to a revolution to placing racial justice at the center of our work to reimagining our democracy and our economy and birthing with all the courage and strength we can muster a new America let the movement begin and bear with us one moment because it is now my very very distinct honor to welcome to the stage one of the most harmed people this movement who took that harm and built a movement and secured the lives of hundreds of women who were re-entering society after being in prison please welcome the founder of the executive director and the author of becoming miss Burton Susan thank you I'm just fired up Michelle I'm deeply honored to have been asked by DPA to present you with the Alfred R. Linda Smith Award for achievement in the field of scholarship this award name for one of the most foot for one of the first scholars to courageously challenge an early iteration of the drug war recognizes those who whose contributions to drug policy reform is defining it is hard to imagine a scholar more befitting of this award than you Michelle a scholar in public service yes you know you could have chose you could have chose any path but you chose this path a difficult path and the path that we found you on that you found us on when you wrote the Neutron Chrome which Dorsey passed me his advanced reading copy but you shown a mighty light on what would surely be known as one of this period's greatest human rights tragedies and disasters people will well want to know in a hundred years how did this happen in a nation that calls itself the leader of the free world and they will turn to the work that you did work that validated we who have been so maligned when we were considered when we were when even we were considered and yet despite all the stereotypes lies and stick and stigmatizing language about we who had done time you saw us and you chose us I want to ask all the formerly incarcerated people and their family members in the audience to stand because you chose us Michelle we choose you Michelle we choose you again and again and again and before everyone gathered in this room today in the presence of our ancestors who are watching from beyond and on behalf of Drug Policy Alliance members and partners including we who have paid the cost of this drug war in time and it in blood I proudly present you the Lyndon D Smith Award Achievement Award in scholarship that was a cute kid handing the award and it was it was more than nepotism although I'm sure I'll be accused of that before my time is done but Nisa is also the daughter of someone who was incarcerated which is why I wanted her here she's lived through deportation she was 16 years old before she saw her father on a free street in another country so thank you Nisa for having the courage to stand up here I know that wasn't easy thank you to all of you who have come some of you through odds we probably can't even imagine but let us take heed of what Michelle says the revolution begins today we're gonna think big we're gonna go big and I want to say to Derek Hodel we only two minutes over we only two minutes over welcome to the 2017 Drug Policy Alliance