As a run-up to this event, the world had been divided into 10 sections:

1. Australia and New Zealand Consultation

2. Eastern Europe and Central Asia

3. Latin America and the Caribbean Consultation

4. N. Africa and the Middle East Consultation

5. North America Consultation (Vancouver)

6. South Asia Consultation

7. SE and E Asia and the Pacific Consultation

8. Sub-Saharan Africa Consultation

9. Western Europe Consultation

10. North America Consultation (St. Petersburg-attended only by supporters of the war on drugs)

Each section had their own Beyond 2008 conference, with between 100 and 150 NGOs from those sections of the world participating. From each of those consultations about 20 NGOs were chosen to represent their section in Vienna.

Much hard work went into struggling with Calvina Fay, the Executive Director of Drug Free America Foundation and Save Our Society From Drugs (S.O.S.) who was also there, acting for the US drug czar. They have a great deal of power and money. The good news is that their power is weaning. Fewer NGOs supported that side of the debate than I expected.

Representative NGOs from eight of the 10 formerly convened conferences reported that their consultations agreed much too much money is being spent on supply reduction (meaning drug interdiction, arrest and imprisonment of those involved in the drug culture). Those NGOs wanted to treat drug abuse as a health problem.

We spent three days hammering out a document which suggested the direction the United Nations take in world drug policy over the next 10 years. The document had to be arrived at through consensus opinion, which precluded any one voting on anything. You can imagine how hard that might've been.

Graham Boyd, ACLU Drug Law Reform Project, offered the following synopsis of the outcomes on his [url=http://blog.aclu.org/author/gboyd/ ]blog[/url]:

“Dispatch from Vienna, Day Three: A Global Consensus for Drug Policy Reform”

“The first-ever meeting of ordinary people, representing the entire globe and discussing the state of the world’s drug policy, concluded today in Vienna with a unanimous, united call for a new approach to drug control policy. Here are the highlights of our resolution:

• We recognized "the human rights abuses against people who use drugs"

• We called for "evidence-based" drug policy focused on "mitigation of short-term and long-term harms" and "full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms"

• We called on the U.N. to report on the collateral consequences of the current criminal justice-based approach to drugs and to provide an "analysis of the unintended consequences of the drug control system"

• We called for comprehensive "reviews of the application of criminal sanctions as a drug control measure"

• We recognized harm reduction as a necessary and worthwhile response to drug abuse (harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of drug use, incorporating a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence; harm reduction strategies meet drug users "where they’re at," addressing conditions of use along with the use itself)

• We called for a shift in primary emphasis from interdiction to treatment and prevention

• We called for alternatives to incarceration

• We called for the provision of development aid to farmers before eradication of coca or opium crops

“In other words, we voiced the need for a very significant shift in direction for drug policy at just about every level.”

Of course, whether the UN acts on any of it remains to be seen.

Please read Graham's full blog at http://blog.aclu.org/author/gboyd/.

Here are some pictures:

1. UN Drug Czar Antonio Marie Costa talking to assembly of NGOs—arrived quite late due to plane problems. Costa’s idea of useful statements were aimed at belittling the NGOs that leaned toward harm reduction; "We must move beyond these debates between a drug-free world and a free drug world," and “Legalizers say no to Marlboro but yes to Skunk.” It turned out the pro harm reduction NGOs were the vast majority of those represented in the assembly.

2. A tell-tale moment as Drug-warrior type NGOs (Calvina Fay in green representing those attending the St. Petersburg conference) and Daniel Reist of Center for Addictions Research of British Columbia & Gillian Maxwell of Keeping the Door Open (representing those attending the Vancouver conference) presented conflicting summaries of what NGOs from North America wanted the UN to do. This was the only one of nine sections of the world that had to have two different conference to represent their NGOs.

3. Rod Skager an award winner at the New Orleans DPA conference, representing Beyond Zero Tolerance and Jack Cole at a point where I tried to insert a particularly important point into the document. The original read:

Call upon the CND to:

c. evaluate its own work and identify ways in which its effectiveness might be improved.

I ask that “ways” be struck and “alternative paradigms” be inserted in its place.

Rod Skager is reacting to Calvina Fay’s howl from the far side of the room of “Oh no,” which could be heard by everybody.

The conference presented the possibility of entering “New Text proposed for inclusion in the Declaration or Resolutions.

The procedure adopted at the Forum was to review and amend the text of the draft Declaration and Resolutions first. New text and recommendations would be reviewed, time permitting, once consideration of the initial draft was completed. Where participants had completely new text they wished to be considered for inclusion, they were asked to submit the text in writing. The text in this document is provided for information. It was not reviewed, debated or adopted by the Forum.

LEAP had joined ENCOD and other NGOs in trying to get the following “New Text” to be inserted in the Resolution but the time for the insertion was used up by dilatory, absurd, and frivolous motions presented by those few NGOs in favor of continuing the drug war:

Proposed additional text – OBJECTIVE 3

Recalling that the 1997 World Drug Report contained an interesting chapter on the debate on legal regulation of drugs, which chapter could and should have served as the start of a more detailed discussion on this issue;

Regretting that this was the last we heard about it;

Noting that the term “control” is misplaced for a situation in which the market of illegal drugs is not controlled by UNODC or by governments, but by criminal organizations;

Noting that since 1997 no more effort has been made by UNODC or CND to consider alternative drug control strategies;

Mindful that in every organisation that is dealing with complex problems, everyone involved is being stimulated to “think outside the box”, except in the drugs issue; Mindful that Executive Director Costa regularly belittles this issue by portraying proponents of legal regulation as being in favour of a world of free drugs – whereas this not seriously being proposed by anyone;

Call upon Member States, UNODC and CND to undertake a mature, rational and thorough study of alternative drug control policies, and consider ways forward that are more humane, just and effective than the current prohibitionist framework. (ENCOD)

A presentation of the new text had been organized with backup from several “Legalize & regulate” organizations, however, the other side was successful in delaying the final resolution of the original document to the point where there was no time left to discuss the new text we wanted to insert into the resolution.

4. Caitlin Padgett of Youth Rise and Kris Krane of Students for Sensible Drug Policy battling Calvina Fay and her group of supporters of the drug war, for inclusion of a statement that young people are the main portion of drug users. It would seem innocuous but the drug-warriors fought its inclusion for about half an hour. I think the real reason for the arguing was to run out the clock so there would not be time to add passages of new text to the Declaration. (see Proposed additional text below)

5. Michel Perron in the pink tie chaired the conference. He is CEO of Canadian Center on Substance Abuse. I can’t say enough about the abilities of Mr. Perron in obtaining a consensus opinion, virtually on every word of a 12 page final document. There were no votes taken. Consensus meant that there could not be one person who continued to voice disagreement out of 300 representatives as diverse as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and Drug Free America Foundation. Do you have any idea how hard it was to forge a consensus from that mass of NGOs? The man on the right of the picture is David Turner. David was also essential, as he quickly molded each new statement into a workable sentence for presentation for possible consensus. As we worked the entire screen behind the facilitators was filled with a word document that had been created by the facilitators as a summary of all of the suggestions that had already been submitted by the nine sections of the world reporting. That was the starting point, so we instantly saw the changes we were making to that document. Up would go a new set of two to three words only to be instantly challenged and replaced with four or five other words, to be replaced with others, and so on. Sometimes after many minutes of this the sentence would suddenly revert back to its original and the consensus would be that we could all live with that.

Click here to view Graham Boyd's blog in its entirety.

Eleanor was a close friend, a colleague, and an unbeatable advocate for sensible thinking in a world that is desperately in need of such people.

I had the pleasure of spending several weeks in the company of Judge Schockett over the last four years. Eleanor joined LEAP by email, July 2, 2003 saying,

"I retired from the circuit bench Dec.31, 2002. (I served two six-year terms). I was referred to this organization by John Chase of the November organization. My interest in this subject dates back to 1958 when I wrote my senior paper at Tulane Law School on the administration of the drug laws in the United States. Matters have only gotten worse in the intervening years as I observed when in the Criminal Division of the Court. The main reason I did not take senior judge status is that I wanted to have my civil rights back, so I could speak out on political as well as judicial issues. I am in full agreement with your mission statement and would like to do whatever I can to contribute to a more responsible drug policy."

It wasn't very long before we realized we must recruit her as a member of the LEAP Board of Directors. Eleanor sat through what seemed at the time to be endless hours of board meetings as we shaped our organization. Her advice was always clear and concise. On many occasions she saved us from making major mistakes.

In those four years, Eleanor never turned down a venue arranged to present LEAP's goal to end drug prohibition. She was absolutely tireless. I had the honor of traveling with Eleanor and retired Detective Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, Eddie Ellison, to New Zealand. In two-weeks we made 90 presentations in that country. Then we were off to a week at the International Harm Reduction Conference in Melbourne, Australia.

My wife accompanied us on that trip and became another of Eleanor's many friends. Eleanor visited us at our home in Medford, Massachusetts many times.

Eleanor fought cancer for the last year, but after a regime of chemotherapy thought she had beaten it. She never complained about her own plight. She told me how ridiculous it was that doctors in North Carolina would charge her $105 per pill to alleviate the nausea caused by her chemo treatment when a simple marijuana cigarette would have accomplished the same thing -- without the side affects. She said that just made her more determined to work to end prohibition of all drugs.

Judge Schockett traveled to New Orleans last December to join 1,200 of us at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference. She spoke on one of the panels and helped us plan our strategy for our continued struggle.

We will all miss her wonderful sense of humor and her biting wit. She was never shy about stating her views on drug policy or about standing up for people in need. When I think of all I have learned from Eleanor and all the ways she has touched my life I feel very sad to have lost her, and that with only this relatively short amount of time with her. I can not imagine how her family feels after knowing Eleanor for a lifetime. Without her LEAP will not be the same. But I can almost hear Eleanor repeating Joe Hill's, famous words as he faced his eminent death, "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize."

We will miss her.

Jack A. Cole
Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

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On the first side it says, “Nearly 80 percent of Americans who use drugs are employed.” That puts the lie to DEA’s argument that drugs automatically cause crime and all drug use is drug abuse. The brochure goes on to state that DEA “strives to help employers understand and identify drug use on the job and develop drug prevention programs for the workplace.”

On the second side it says, “Drugs are readily available to America’s youth, and many see little risk in using illicit drugs.” This means the entire war on drugs has been a failure in keeping drugs out of the hands of our children, as well as in convincing youngsters not to use drugs.

We all knew that; it is just nice to see DEA put it in writing.

But DEA still contends, “To counter these trends, DEA supports well-designed youth programs such as… Drug Abuse Resistance Education …. that provide the tools needed to resist drug use and offer positive alternatives.” Of course we have over a hundred studies that say D.A.R.E. doesn’t work at all and some of the studies indicate that D.A.R.E. may even cause their students to be more likely to use illicit drugs. Apparently, DEA is not aware that D.A.R.E. itself has finally admitted the only drug it may have anything to do with preventing use of is tobacco.

In the 1997 ten kilograms of Reactor-grade plutonium (enough to make an atomic bomb) was valued at $56,000. If plutonium sells on the underground market with a thousand percent mark up, ten kilograms would cost $560,000.

The drug war has been and continues to be the cause of voter disenfranchisement, imprisonment of non-violent persons, unlawful searches, and unnecessary deaths of innocent civilians as well as police officers. This juggernaut has now added another travesty of justice to its already lengthy list of offenses: banishment.

Andrew Feldmar, a well known Vancouver psychotherapist who spent a semester in the U.S. at the Johns Hopkins University's Ph.D. program in theoretical statistics and conducted Ph.D. work with Dr. Charles Osgood in psycholinguistics at the University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana in 1969, was denied entry into the United States permanently. His crime: Dr. Feldmar had published an article in the spring 2001 issue of the journal Janus Head , explaining his legal participation in scientific studies on LSD that took place in England nearly 40 years ago.

Last summer Feldmar made his customary trip to the U.S. border to meet up with an old friend in Seattle. Feldmar has been traveling to the U.S. for work and to see his family five or six times a year. Plucked from the line by the Blaine border guard for a random search, Feldmar was soon subjected to a three-hour detainment after the guard's quick Google search turned up the article penned by Feldmar. He was then told by an official that under the Homeland Security Act, he was being denied entry due to "narcotics" use.

Mike Milne, spokesperson for U.S. border and protection based in Seattle, supposedly quoting from the U.S. Immigration Law Handbook section which refers to "general classes of aliens ineligible to receive visas and ineligible for admissions" said, "Persons with AIDS, tuberculosis, infectious diseases are inadmissible" And from his interpretation of Section IV. "Anyone who is determined to be a drug abuser or user is inadmissible. A crime involving moral turpitude is inadmissible and one of those areas is a violation of controlled substances." This is true if there was no arrest, no victim, and no criminal record, concluded Milne, "Admitted drug use is admitted drug use."

The "ideological exclusion" provision of the Patriot Act has been used to deny visas to foreign scholars whose political views the government disfavors, thereby preventing United States citizens and residents from hearing speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

We are truly operating in the "Big Brother" territory of George Orwell's 1984.

Think of what this means. Any drug-policy reformer who has ever publicly admitted to having used an illicit drug-no matter in what country, no matter how long ago-may be barred from coming to the United States.

LEAP member Eugene Oscapella weighed in on this issue giving a damning indictment of the American security system and the drug war. Oscapella is an Ottawa lawyer, who lectures on drug policy issues in the department of criminology at the University of Ottawa. He also works as a policy advisor to a range of government agencies and departments, including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Oscapella said, "This is about the marriage of the war on drugs and the war on terror, and the blind, bureaucratic mindset it encourages. Government surveillance in the name of the war on drugs and the war on terror is in danger of making us all open books to zealous governments. As someone mentioned at a privacy conference I attended in London, U.K., several months ago, all the tools for an authoritarian state are now in place; it's just that we haven't yet adopted authoritarian methods. But in the area of drugs, maybe we have."