The war on drugs must be re-evaluated "methodically and clinically," from a global perspective, former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75 told a MacMillan 117 audience Friday. The speech kicked off the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Northeast Regional Conference, hosted at Brown this weekend.
"We need to ask ourselves, 'Is this working?' " Chafee, a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, said of current drug policies. "We have to be honest with ourselves in looking at this worldwide problem."
Chafee, who has admitted to experimenting with cocaine and marijuana while a student at Brown, commented on the "destabilizing effect of the illicit drug trade on so many countries." He said that reforming policies "has to be done collectively" and suggested the possibility of United Nations involvement in this process. "The doors are open to a different way of looking at the war on drugs," he said.
Tom Angell, government relations director for the national SSDP, told The Herald that hearing Chafee's stance on drug policy "says a lot about how far the issue has come."
"It was really heartening to hear Senator Chafee talking about how the war on drugs has failed and that we need to have a serious re-thinking of how to move forward from here," said Angell, who founded the first SSDP chapter in Rhode Island in 2002 while he was a student at the University of Rhode Island.
Dan MacCombie '08.5, co-chair of the conference, said he was particularly pleased to hear Chafee speak about the Aid Elimination Provision of the Higher Education Act, which denies federal financial aid to students with prior drug convictions, a policy that Chafee called "backwards."
Chafee is "a respected political figure, and it's great that he came out against that," MacCombie said. "That's just one more voice to add to the chorus."
This year's conference, titled "Confronting the Drug War, Envisioning Alternatives," was the first SSDP conference to be held at Brown, though the University's chapter had the most representatives of any chapter at the national convention last November, MacCombie said.
According to Julia van de Walle '08, president of Brown's SSDP chapter, the goals of the conference were to "create cohesion" among the Northeast chapters and "reinvigorate their dedication to the cause." This year's conference drew about 80 people from 23 different schools, in addition to the core membership of around 40 students at Brown.
Beyond its general goals, co-chair Matthew Palevsky '07 said one theme of the conference was to understand "how the drug war provides a vehicle for systemic racism."
"We criminalize half of America - approximately half of Americans use an illicit substance - and we choose which cohort of that half we are going to incarcerate," Palevsky said. "Because of systemic racism, that ends up being predominantly people of color."
Brown Professor of Economics Glenn Loury addressed the issue of institutional racism in a lecture Friday night in Leung Gallery called "Racial Stigma, Mass Incarceration and American Values."
"We are a nation of jailers, and racist jailers at that," Loury said. "Today's American race-making institution, the place where the stigmatized status of blacks is reproduced and reinforced in the American imagination, is in the arena of criminal justice."
Palevsky told The Herald he was impressed at the way Loury "really opened up."
"This is a personal issue for him, as it should be for all of us, and he talked about it with such passion and knowledge that I think it affected everyone in that room," Palevsky said.
A workshop on Saturday also addressed the issue of institutional racism, focusing on the importance of anti-racism analysis in the drug policy reform movement.
Sunday's events were directed more at drug culture, MacCombie said. "One of my biggest issues with the drug war is cultural stigmatization and marginalization. ... Although that's something that all of us care about, it's often ignored."
Daniel Pinchbeck, author of "Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism" and "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl," gave a speech Sunday about the role of traditional shamanistic practices in modern society. Pinchbeck told the audience how his own personally revelatory experiences led him to consider whether it is "possible for there to be a reconsideration of psychedelics in a positive, strategic way" and whether they "could actually be useful and healing substances for our modern world."
Conference organizers said they hope conferences like this weekend's can create forums that encourage members to challenge existing policies and debate about alternative solutions.
"I think we've all realized that the war on drugs is a failure, but there's great disagreement and debate within the organization about what exactly a drug policy utopia would look like," Angell said.
"One of the most important aims of an event like this is to bring people together and to help foster that realization that you as a student on a campus are part of an international movement of young people who are concerned about these policies and their disastrous impact on our generation," Angell said.
