 Sometimes get somebody gives a talk at a DPA conference. That's so good that when they come back here this year 50 people go. I remember your talk my guy Well, there was somebody who gave a talk last year that two years ago that just really resonated and I want to bring him up To give us just a slightly longer talk. I said you got 10 minutes This is a guy who is one of my best friends and mentor. He's the longtime former head of the ACLU He's the chairman of the board of the Drug Policy Alliance and his name is Ira Glasser Well, if anybody Needed to know what we were fighting for That last presentation was it right We're about We're about freedom. Yes, we're a movement for liberty. Yes We're a movement for justice. Yes, but we're a movement against What you heard We're a movement against injustice and we're a movement against the Fundamental and profound immorality of what the drug war has meant. I was saying As I was saying two years ago The moral arc of the universe is long Very long too long But it bends toward justice It does bend toward justice But it doesn't bend by itself You got to get up on top of that arc and lean on it and push on it and sit on it and bend it It won't bend without us won't bend without you It's bent a long way and it's a long way yet for it to bend a long way Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, Jr. And what I think was his last speech before he was murdered in 1968 and people were asking him well, how long is this fight for racial justice going to take and you remember from two years ago What I told you he said he said how long? Not long Because no injustice can last forever How long not long? Because no injustice can last forever So I was coming out here on the plane Wednesday and somebody came up to me Ethan said the first of many and sort of stunned me by recalling that speech from two years ago and Remembered particularly that that how long not long refrain and said to me well, I guess it wasn't long now You know Colorado and Washington and we've won well No, we haven't won Not only because that's only two states out of 50 But because it's only one issue out of many and we haven't won because we haven't We haven't won because we haven't even consolidated the victories in Colorado and Washington You know the fundamental principle of all social justice movements is that no victory ever stays one You always think wow, we really won this and then you forget you underestimate your adversaries You underestimate the powers that are aligned against you You don't remember that they're as smart and as tough and more resourceful than we are and they fight back and if you don't Protect the victory you won it unravels So that is the first step ahead and then of course you have to extend those victories to all the other places That don't yet have them and then you have to move on to all the other issues because marijuana legalization ain't enough so the message at this moment in time is Not how long not long the message at this moment in time is something that Winston Churchill of all people said At an early point in World War two when Britain finally won its first significant battle against the Nazi German war machine, which had seemed unstoppable and Everybody was just thrilled and excited and also felt as we may have felt about what happened in Colorado and Washington Wow, we won and Churchill got on the radio and said There's every reason to be encouraged by this But this is not a reason to celebrate We haven't won He says this is not the end of our struggle This is not even the beginning of the end But it is perhaps the end of the beginning and that's where we are We're maybe at the end of the beginning and While we have every reason to be encouraged by our victories It is way premature To celebrate this has been true of all social justice movements, you know as many of you know I'm a little bit of a baseball nut and My paradigmatic Experience of racial justice was being nine years old when Jackie Robinson became the first black ball player With the sainted Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 I Say for all you people in Los Angeles the sainted Brooklyn Dodgers and On April 15th, 1947 when Jackie Robinson stepped on to the field at Ebbitt Field That wasn't the end of the struggle That wasn't the end of the fight for racial justice in baseball That wasn't the beginning of the end either But it was probably the end of the beginning and there was a lot of struggle that followed it Seven years later on May 17th, 1954 The United States Supreme Court ruled that separating school children on the basis of skin color was unconstitutional It's incredible pivotal Transformational victory But it wasn't the end of the struggle for racial justice Nearly six decades later had ain't over yet and it won't be over anytime soon And it wasn't the beginning of the end But it was again one of those victories that one could say it was the end of the beginning a little over a year later in December of 1955 a woman named Rosa Park sat down on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on a seat that was reserved for whites and Was taken off by force and a then unknown Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr.. Stood up and organized the Montgomery bus boycott in her behalf and It ended after a long time With the Montgomery bus rules that separated people out by race and relegated blacks to the back of the bus It changed those rules It was a fantastic victory a Spark and ignition to the civil rights movement that followed But it wasn't the end of the struggle was it? No, it wasn't and it wasn't the beginning of the end, but it was an end to the beginning and in 1972 when the Supreme Court of the United States finally decided that the 14th amendment promise of equal protection of the laws applied to women too and and And and applied to sex discrimination that was a great transformational moment But it was hardly the end of that struggle Which isn't over yet? It was hardly even the beginning of the end, but it was perhaps the end of the beginning and so here we are and I think we can legitimately say we are at the end of the beginning and it's been a long hard fight for many in this room I Often said, you know, it's not The fight for social justice is not a sprint. It's a marathon, but it's not even just a marathon It's a marathon relay race and It never ends and you can't measure progress by the brevity of your own life Because it feels like a long time when you've been doing it for 35 or 40 years It does but what is that when what you're fighting against has been in place and Institutionalized and cemented into the body of the country for hundreds of years You can't turn that over in 30 or 40 years. It feels like it's long, but you're only running one leg of that race So what you do what we all do and it's why it thrills me to see all of you here You run that race is hard and as long and as fast and as strategically as you can and you keep running and you fall down That's not a sin It's a sin not to get back up and you get back up and you keep running and then at some point you hand the baton over and Other people keep running and maybe you see the end of the race and maybe you don't see the end of the race but the race goes on and I've been running this race a long time. I ain't tired yet. Are you tired? and We're on a train now is the way I think of it. We're on a train of drug policy justice We're on a train and the train has left the station now and it ain't turning back We're on that train and the train is unstoppable. I think and And that doesn't mean that we're not going to suffer defeats and that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be obstacles on the tracks And that doesn't mean that we aren't going to get our head handed to us on this issue or that issue along the way but the train is now unstoppable and That's not because we won marijuana reform in Colorado and Washington I'll tell you why the train is unstoppable the train is unstoppable because we're all on it that and I've Been running this race long enough to know it wasn't always the case that we were all on it Sometimes most of us weren't in the room at all Sometimes very few of us were on it and the train didn't work real well It needs everybody stoking the fires and steering the train and pushing the train when it gets stuck And now it's unstoppable because we're all on it increasingly so We have liberals on this train. We have conservators on this train not enough, but we'll get more Because you always have to ask the conservative what exactly it is you're trying to conserve And And we have libertarians on the train Yes, we do And we got we got formally incarcerated people on the train. Yes, we do FIP And we got people who've been banned from voting because they've been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses We've got those people on the train We've got black people and white folks and Latinos on the train We got a rainbow on the train and not just individuals now we're getting Organizations and institutions on the train. We had the N double ACP on the train Tell you that wasn't always the case But they're on the train now And we have women on the train and we better damn well have women on the train because They're among the most victimized people in this drug war Especially women of color We have women on the train Who aren't about to let the government use their pregnancy as an excuse to oppress them? And we have students on the train, you know a lot of social justice movements and they're not quiet And we have parents on the train mothers Yep, we have harm reductionists on the train and recovery people And heroin insisted treatment folks on the train and we have AIDS activists on the train It's a lot of cars in this train and the people aren't separated We don't have you know these folks in one car and these folks in another car. There's no doors on this car And all of these folks on the train are not passengers. They're all running the train They're all steering the train. They're all pushing the train and They're all loud. They make more train more engine noise than the train engine does and This train is Unstoppable it's going on It's left the station And now the question is How long is it going to take to complete this journey and you know what the answer is Right Now, you know when I say not long and when Martin said not long back in 1968 We weren't talking about a few days We weren't talking about a few months We were just talking about Not just our lifetime We were talking about not long You know when the Bible says that God created the earth in seven days the catch is What was a day exactly and so, you know, we're we're moving along We've already made a couple of big victory stops, right? This train has already had victory stops here in Colorado and in Washington and That's only two states out of 50. So how long is it going to take to finish that journey? How long? not long because because the That's right because the train of justice the train of justice is rolling now And we have another victory stop scheduled in Uruguay in just in just a couple of weeks and as Ethan said that's one country out of 200 and that's only marijuana reform So how long will it take to complete that journey? Not long. No Not long and so I ask you as I asked you two years ago and What you have more reason to answer with more enthusiasm this time than last time How long will it take for our train of justice to complete its journey? How long couldn't quite hear you? How long was the train is rolling now, right? The train is rolling now. How long not long How long not long? We are on that train and the train is headed home and I welcome you to the end of our beginning Thank you Ira. Thank you