 I'm gonna say no more. I want you to say drug war no more No more war on No more war on people Yes Alright reformers now. I want to introduce somebody who? Has never ceased to impress me Somebody who basically I hate to cuss so early in the morning, but he knows his shit is That's simple, but at the same time he's always willing to learn He's always willing to to listen and he's always willing to better his craft as we strive for sensible drug policy I want you to get some air in your lungs and please welcome our fearless leader eat the natal men Thank you Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I should thank you if it for those brave words Thank you Congressman Paul is thank you Stephanie for the amazing amount of work. You've done putting this together So and first if we could all just start By thanking the people of Colorado and Washington to for leading the way on freedom in America And I also have to say I Want to see her Nuestros amigos and comrades the may go the brazil argentina oligoy the Costa Rica Argentina the latin america bienvenidos a mi país y bienvenidos al primer estado junto con Washington que dice no más a la provisión de marijuana y también quiero decir Oh, hola, oh, hola Can a primero mess an approximate mess an approximate mess and Uruguay Tom yeah, Tom yeah You'll get that Okay. Well, look, I mean we all I Gotta say what I want to talk about today I mean it's about both the process of our taking our movement to the next stage And it's also about the ways in which we challenge ourselves intellectually and brought it out, right? Because when I always my colleagues over here and we talk about the DPA thing, you know the drug policy alliance thing What's the DPA thing? It's about always finding the ways to connect the dots To connect the dots that we are not just a moral movement for legalizing marijuana and we're not just a movement for reducing Incarceration we're not just a movement within the United States and we're not just a movement for treating addiction as a health issue We are always trying to weave and spin and that's what I think what I find so Wonderful about this job and this task in this life is about the ways it requires each of us to open up To open up to something new right and that includes our hearts and our minds as well So part of what I'm gonna do today is to offer a whole lot of apologies and a whole lot of thank yous And some of them are going to be heartfelt and some of them will be a bit cynical All right, but I gotta say one way or another we are moving forward and we do have a long way to go We do have a long way to go. I mean God knows, you know, we have hit the tipping point I think we've hit the tipping point on marijuana, you know And for years I've been saying to my friends and allies who start talking this tipping point I say, you know, don't say that yet Don't say that in 2008 or not because you can only say you hit the tipping point so many times before you lose your credibility But we I think have hit the tipping point We've hit the tipping point because of what Colorado and Washington did and what Uruguay is going to do We've hit the tipping point because the Justice Department and thank you to the Obama administration for given these states a little bit of room To run we've hit the tipping point. Did you love the way we arranged that Gallipol to show up two days ago? I Wish I could claim credit But 58% of our fellow citizens say it's time to legalize marijuana So we're gonna do this, right? We're gonna do it this right, but that does come with my apologies as well and these are sincere apologies. I Apologize to those of you in Colorado and Washington and Uruguay Because you're gonna have to bear the burden of leadership That means your system's gonna have to be tighter and more restricted and constrained Then sometimes seems reasonable It means you have to put up with all sorts of bullshit from neighboring states and from feds and others Just so that others can follow so that the rest of the country can be reassured that this is the right way to go And I apologize to those of you under the age of 21 Because we wish we could make it legal for people who are down to the age of 18 at this absurdity of retaining the prohibition on people between 18 and 21 But what we know is that you look at those public opinion polls all those people in the middle who we need to come our way Get scared and I apologize to To those of you who have made a decent living growing and producing and distributing good quality weed to all of us in here because You know the fact of the matter is the capitalist forces at work in a prohibitionist market are Violent and brutal and ugly But we also know that the capitalist forces at work in a legal market are even more brutal in some respects And we know that the people who may come to dominate this industry are not the people who were part of this movement So you have my commitment that I will do the best and drug policy alliance will do the best to ensure that those people Who have risked their lives and earned a decent living in this industry that one way or another we will try We cannot promise we will deliver but we will try to ensure that in a legal world of legal marijuana That there are millions of jobs including for those people who worked in this industry before We'll do our best But you know of course And you'll have to forgive me if I repeat what I've said in past years here We are not of course just a movement of people who like marijuana and relish our psychedelics And who can't stand the fact that the government wants to take away our freedom and treat us as criminals for what? We put in our body for the weed. We smoke the psychedelics that inspire and all the other drugs We enjoy and that we do so responsibly right? We are also a movement of those people who have seen the worst that drugs can do of the people who hang on and Embrace sobriety every day of the people who have that addiction running through multiple generations of their family of the people Who have seen their kids start with weed and go on to harder drugs of the people who have lived with siblings and others dying of HIV and Hepatitis C and seen the horrors of drug addiction our society who wish that we could have a drug-free society But know that that is not impossible that is not possible and we're also of course The people who don't give a damn about drugs But who can't stand the fact that we live in a country that has less than five percent of the world's population But almost 25 percent of the world's prison population That we live in a world in which racism permeates our drug policies that we live in a world in which we prefer to let people die Then provide them with a clean needle or an antidote on a lot so to prevent their dying that we live in a world In which prosecutors and law enforcement are willing to shred the Constitution in the name of a war on drugs that we live in a world in which doctors shy From carrying out the professional Responsibilities because of drug war ideologies that we live in a world That propagates mist to our children and puts them at greater risk. So who are we this growing drug policy reform movement? We're the people that love drugs We're the people that hate drugs and we're the people that don't give a damn about drugs But every one of us believe that this war on drugs is wrong wrong wrong That this is no way to live with the reality of drugs in our society in America and around the world now What is it? We're fighting for What is it? We're fighting To legalize it all Well, some of us. Yes, some of us. Yes, some of us believe deeply in our hearts and everything we think that in fact The best way would be to treat every drug the way we treat alcohol or cigarettes today and that might be the answer And there's a possibility that those of us who think that way may in fact be right May in fact be right But what I also know is that to make that argument to the broader public the public that has Engaged and accepted now that marijuana should be legally regulated But cannot imagine doing that with the other drugs that we need to hold their hands and engage them on a different basis When people say to me, so what is it Ethan? What are you? What a drug policy alliance? What are you guys fighting for? And I step back and I give them an intellectual construct. I say let me put this in one admittedly long sentence And I'll start by saying imagine all drug policies is arrayed along a spectrum at the one end the you know the Saudi Arabia Singapore, you know cut off their heads pull out their fingernails throw them away and pseudo drug treatment cams whip them You said it down to the other end, you know, you know no controls whatsoever Cigarette policy the 60s, you know Milton Friedman's wet dream, right? And imagine this spectrum from the most punitive to the most free market and everything that lies in between and that one Sentence I would say that drug policy reform can be defined as is that we seek To reduce the role of criminalization and the criminal justice system in drug control To the maximum extent consistent with protecting public safety and health We seek to reduce the role of criminalization and the criminal justice system in drug control to the maximum extent consistent with protecting Public health and public safety. We want to move it down down down We want to get rid of those mandatory minimums and reduce those prison those prison populations, right? We want to we want to end the criminalization of drug possession and embrace the Portugal model We want to take marijuana out of the criminal justice system, and we want to treat addiction more and more as a health issue We want to ensure that people have clean needles and the help they need We want to get resources shifted from the criminal justice system to health and education We want to make sure that the people struggling with whether they're pharmaceutical or heroin that naloxone is in every medicine Clabbit in America so that they are not dying, right? We want to move it down down down and then we want to see how much further can we push it How much further can we push it before the risks if they exist a broader legalization exist, right? We know what's happening with opioids in America today that they're out there more and more and as many people died last year in America of an accidental overdose has died in an auto accident and that that is not acceptable We know that the answer to that however is not more cops and Prosecutors and criminal laws and prescription monitoring systems and all sorts of other sorts of things We know that the answer to that as with all of dealing with drug policy is a health approach and an information approach and good Samaritan laws and allowing pharmacists to make this stuff available because overdose in many respects is becoming a new HIV and hepatitis C It's the thing that we need to deal with honestly and directly and I'm asking every one of you who is here Because you care first and foremost about legalizing marijuana Make a commitment to also help solve that problem and not by just by telling everybody that Marijuana is a better painkiller than the opioids because it is for some but it's not for others But that's part of our building a movement that also part of our building a movement Is that once we legalize marijuana and once we benefit from marijuana's exceptional place in American and global society That you won't wash your hands of being a drug policy Reformer that you'll look around and you'll see the other people rotting behind bars because of their involvement with other drugs That they're being punished for putting in their body the same thing that we wanted to put in our body That you'll make that commitment to continuing to fight to end the war on drugs and then even when one day We do end the war on drugs Yes, hopefully I'll retire at that point. I hope that but you know There's other evils in our society the racism and xenophobia the ignorance and prejudice that we cannot allow to persist and continue Because building a movement a movement from freedom and justice requires that we keep this unity and build out from this unity now How do we do that? You know I've been thinking about this a lot and the thing I keep coming back to is that wonderful prayer a Prayer that was crafted by Ronald Niebuhr and the theologians in years past and braced by our friends who are in recovery today And if I could just modify it a bit, you know that prayer that says grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change the courage to change the things we can and Wisdom to know the difference That's a prayer not just for people hanging on to sobriety every day, but a prayer for all of us Now what does that prayer mean more broadly for a movement? When I started thinking I was reflecting about all the years. I've been building drug policy alliance and asking myself what What's the defining feature of those of my colleagues at DPA and others in the movement who have been most successful? You know, I think it is I think it's been that willingness to step out of their comfort zones That comfort zones are a handcuff and you know And it gets harder and harder to step out of those comfort zones as we get older and older It's just a nature of things But finding the way it's when you step out of your comfort zone It's when the shy person who fears to speak gets up like if it did today and speaks It's when the person who thinks they can't write just keeps writing and writing and writing until it flows out of them It's when the person who thinks they're just comfortable with the marijuana issue branches out to the broader issue It's when the people who think that their only thing that we're only reason they're fighting the war on drugs Is because of how racist it is begins to understand all the other dimensions of this struggle It's when the people in Latin America who think that if only the America would get out of the way We could solve our problems understand that this is a broader global struggle It's the ways in which we challenge ourselves to read our books and challenge our own prejudices It's the ways in which the people in recovery stop damning the people in methadone and understand that they're part of this movement too Right. It's the ways. It's all the ways in which we challenge ourselves And open up to a new way of thinking and being and building this thing Right, you know because the fact of the matter is we may be at the tipping point on marijuana But two states down and 48 to go and hopefully one country down in 200 to go That's a long way to go It's a long way to go and that means we got to be smart, right? It means it means that some of the greatest challenges, you know, we said you cannot what can we not change? What is that serenity piece about? That's most for me. It's first and foremost about dealing with my fellow allies You know one thing you know when you're in a political movement is the people who give you the most grief the people you most want to Strangle, it's not our opponents out there. It's our fellow allies Damn, I think sometimes we just know them too well and when people say why can't we all just get along and I say to the people So why can't I shut the hell up? What do you mean get along? We're human beings. We gotta fight We gotta fight it out. That's what building a movement is about, but you know what also it is about It's about understanding. It's about understanding Right that even as we fight and hate our allies That we keep our eye on the prize That we keep our eye on our prize that we do not let internist in conflict and conflict over Strategies and tactics and girlfriends and boyfriends and credit and funding get in the way of taking us to the next level But the things we can change the things we require the courage to change That's about ourselves That's about our ability each and every one of us to grow to know the moment to follow and the moment Moment to lead to know the moment to say I am not just gonna settle for being a part of this movement I want to be a part of this entire Movement and that the more that I can open up myself to this broader movement the more I know The more I know about the leadership that Portugal is providing in terms of ending the criminalization of drug possession The more I know about the news in New Zealand just did but by providing a Pathbreaking model for legally regulating drugs that people use for recreational purposes the more I know about the leadership provided by Switzerland other European countries and allowing people who cannot stop using street heroin to get their Heroin from a legal source the more I know about the medical benefits of marijuana and with the evidence is there the more I know about it what it means to do honest drug education the more I know About the origins of these drug laws and the right way in which racism permeates the origins of these drug laws The more I open my heart to understanding the way racism even if it may not exist in the laws of our society Still exists in the systemic structures and minds and conscious and unconscious of our society Understanding what all of that is about that is the personal growth that is required and that is the courage that we need That is the courage we need because if we're a tipping point on marijuana We're only at a turning point when it comes to reducing mass incarceration in America You know Attorney General Holder and Obama Damn them for saying four years ago that they would provide no leadership on this issue and certain wait until we get a second term if We do But thank you President Obama turned your holder for making good on that promise that one of the second term came You would provide some leadership, but more of that leadership needs to be showing because you know something You know what ultimately I'm fighting for when it comes to mass incarceration America We have in America been truly exceptional Nobody in the history of democratic societies has locked up our fellow citizens the way that we do Nobody has nobody has locked up black people the way that we've locked up black people Nobody has done these sorts of things. I'm fighting So that America can become average I want our rates of incarceration to be the middle and I want us to have the freedom to look at another country doing Incarcerating people the way we do and to accuse them as people are choosing us of committing a massive violation of human rights in our society but the fact is Going from 2.3 million people behind bars to becoming average means going from 2.3 million people behind bars down to half a million behind bars I'm worried that as we see these numbers begin to drop and they are going to begin to drop that will be Satisfied just when we get them under 2 million, but we cannot be satisfied then We cannot be satisfied when they're under 1.5 million and we must not be satisfied if we reduce Incarceration by half a million in America in the last next decade, but land up putting another five or ten million into the supervision of the criminal justice system because ultimately This is a long term struggle for freedom For freedom for freedom and liberty yes and compassion and justice and health and science But it is for freedom and for liberty Any one of us fighting against racism fighting for more access to drug treatment fighting for harm reduction If you are not saying those words freedom and liberty and that's what this struggles about every day Then you are selling short the values that we struggle for that when Michelle Alexander talks about this being the new Jim Crow The fight against slavery Jim Crow was a fight for freedom and justice and equality as is the fight against the war on drugs today So we are We are Building a moment and we are going to build this we've got one generation down and two or three generations to go I fear to say There is no Berlin wall of drug prohibition going to come tumbling down tomorrow when it comes to mass incarceration We're in it for the long term But we are a movement for freedom and justice We do stand on the shoulders and follow in the footsteps of other movements for personal freedom and social Justice the movements for gay rights and civil rights and women's rights and even the movement to abolish slavery in America And every one of those cases are opponents Appeal to the fears and prejudices of the majority the fears around people's children and around the freedom of those and what What happened to society if those people became free if those people were treated as equal the fears that some in the Moral would be the future if we allowed freedom to flourish But in every case those movements fought back They fought back by standing up and by coming out of the closet by demanding their own equality By looking at the books and the history books and the science books and putting out the arguments to appeal to those people Who are not themselves members of the oppressed? But understood that are pressing a minority of which you are not a part is no way to live in a free society So thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this movement. God bless you all. We are gonna win this one