 Well, as much as I like to introduce people, if you have to do it after Deborah Small, it's kind of annoying. I don't know of a better way to introduce our new executive director Maria McFarland Sanchez Moreno, but I do want to say this. When Ethan told us in January, when he told me that he was resigning, I was trying to take a day off, and the phone rang, and as Ethan did, I was like, I can't get a day! I picked up the phone, and he told me he was stepping down. I had to say I can't talk to you, and I hung up. I was angry. I knew we had a conference this year. I knew how much he carried this conference. Ethan, I hope I've done you proud in trying to hold some space that you held this year. And I also hope that I've done you proud, Maria, in welcoming you, because I know that this is a lot to hold, and a lot to pick up, and in just such a short amount of time, the elegance and grace and openness that you have brought have taken away any measure of fear, any measure of doubt, and I join the 80 staff members of DPA in being proud to say, welcome is our new Executive Director, Maria McFarland Sanchez Moreno. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Asha. Those are such beautiful words as everything that Asha says is. It's so beautiful, but thank you, and thank you, Deborah, for setting us up so in such a lovely way and your clarity of vision, and thank you to everyone who just spoke, who spoke from the heart and illustrated the many very different ways in which this terrible, terrible war on drugs is affecting us and affecting our societies. I want to just start by thanking the people who put together this wonderful four-day conference in which we've all learned so much, and those are Jim Claps. Jim, thank you. Thank you for making everything run so smoothly, for doing all the logistics, for planning this for months and months on end. Stephanie Jones and Stephanie Polito, both playing key roles. Asha for bringing together our partners, that beautiful candlelight vigil. Thanks to Hannah for bringing the international perspective, and our international colleagues from 50 countries. Thank you to Tony Newman, Megan Farrington, and our comms team for spreading the word about this event. Melissa Franke for her hard work on the app that so many of you have used. So many staff who suggested and moderated events and panels and brought people in. Thank you for coming, for being participants to all the presenters to the exhibitors. Beyond DPA, thank you to Zara Snapp and to the seven interpreters. Thank you to Karen McCallson and her team at Helms Briscoe for making things run smoothly. Thank you to the harm reduction in action display participants. Thank you to the Center for Civil and Human Rights that allowed us to have that beautiful candlelight vigil. Thank you to the Omni staff. And I want to say I was distressed that there were a couple of instances in which we heard of situations where people did not feel respected at the conference or near the conference. And I want to say that that's wrong and that's not acceptable and that we believe that everybody in this room, everybody who comes to this event, no matter your background, deserves respect, deserves to be treated with dignity and we will stand by you. And I want to say just very specifically, we appreciate the concern that was raised with us about gender-neutral bathrooms and we've tried to raise it with a hotel. And we were unable to get a solution this time, but we've taken note of it and believe us, we will make sure that this does not happen again next time. So thank you for raising concerns. You know, Michelle Alexander at the opening urged us to think big. She urged us to think about the war on drugs in the context of bigger forces at work, of white supremacy, of oppression, of global economic structures. And she's right. You can't divorce the war on drugs from that broader context or from the erosion of even the rhetorical commitment to basic principles of human rights that we're now seeing around the world. These are dark times. We're seeing a backlash of reactionary forces across the world, not only in the United States, but across Western Europe, in Asia, in places like the Philippines and Mexico, in throughout South America. We're seeing a backlash to movements that have fought for rights for many years, that have fought for democracy, for open government. And the war on drugs doesn't express that backlash in its entirety, but it is a tool by which many of these leaders are trying to exert control, trying to oppress societies, trying to instill fear in others and justify their abuse. And that means that our work today is more pressing than ever. So as we fight to end the war on drugs, let's do so with the rich understanding of the context in which it's happening. And let's do so with a clear understanding about the underlying principles that guide our work, because this isn't just about the goal of ending the war on drugs. This is about our common commitment to basic principles of human dignity, of human autonomy, of truth, of social and economic and racial justice. It's about how we stand alongside the people who are most affected, the people who are most vulnerable and most marginalized in our society and are therefore being targeted. We also have to translate that into practice. And so that means that when we look at marijuana legalization, we don't just legalize willy-nilly, we think about how, we think in a very deliberate way about making sure that when we give out licenses to people, that we do so in a way that integrates racial equity, that benefits those who have been most affected by the war on drugs. And that's not going to solve all problems, because as my colleague Cassandra pointed out yesterday, providing more access to licenses for marijuana is not going to repair the harm of generations of racism and inequality in our society, of injustice. It's not, but it's a step that we can take. It's a concrete action that we can push for right now. And we need to push for many, many concrete actions that will build together as we have our sights on the bigger picture. We need to translate all of that into reality. We also need to think big about the problems and the solutions. And that means when we think about legalizing, we don't just think about marijuana. And it means that we, when we think about decriminalizing drugs for personal use, which many of us are talking about as the next step in the drug reform movement, we have to ask questions, will that really solve all the problems that we're talking about here? Of course not. It will solve some of them. But it's going to leave a number of things out of the picture. Because the people who are producing coca, the indigenous people who are being affected by the war on drugs in Colombia and Bolivia and other parts of the world, the people who are producing opium poppies in Afghanistan, Burma, they are still going to be in trouble. And Pookie is still going to be in trouble. So we need to talk about legalization of all drugs. That has to be part of the conversation. And we need to work together. You know, part of thinking big is part, is thinking across the different silos that we're all working in, the lines that divide us. We need to know that we are all partners. Everybody in this room, in the drug reform movement, we have to think across the lines that divide us. But we also have to think about other movements that are connected to ours and how we can work together and how we can learn from each other and think about common solutions. You know, whenever you have autocratic leaders, whenever you have tyrannies, fascism, it's a classic move to try to divide and conquer. We need to respond with strength, with unity, with truth. I said it before in my opening session. You, all of you here are our heroes. This is our movement, our movement for truth, for justice, for human dignity. It's going to be really, really hard. This is going to take a long time. It's going to get a lot worse, I'm afraid. But I am confident. I know that you are all brave enough and committed enough and honest enough to make it through. And we're going to make a difference. And we're going to transform this country. And we're going to transform the world. So thank you. Thank you all for your commitment. So as we look toward St. Louis in 2019, and I remind you there are midterm elections between now and then. I can't tell you how to vote, but I can tell you to vote. There's a lot of people who don't have the privilege. You hold space for them when you cast that ballot. We can make a difference. Chloe Coburn, who was sitting in the front row, and who has made a lot of this possible, including the partnership with Afro punk that was masterfully pulled off reminds me that when we're at movement for Black Lives conferences, we close out one way. You want to try it with me? Want to try it? Y'all ready? Y'all kind of quiet. You're not bringing the Brooklyn energy. So you'll repeat after me. And this is how we're going to close it out like this. We're going to say, I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win. Let me hear you. I believe that we are going to be tired. I'm just getting started. Let's go. Go home. Be safe. Take care of yourself. And let's end this disgusting, dirty, stinking drug war. Not another day of our watch. Bye bye.