Drug Policy Forum Of Texas

Minutes of the October 21 Meeting

1. In attendance: Dean Becker, Bobbie Culberson, Heyward Dixon, Jerry Epstein,

Tami Halphen, Faye Hamilton, Pam Johnson, Clayton Jones, Duane Jones, Ann and Bob Lee, and Al Robison

2. The elevator was out of order, which meant that Clayton had no way of getting to the third floor, so we met instead down in one of the children’s play areas on the first floor. The meeting finally got started at around 7:30 pm.

3. Al had just recently returned from two weeks in Alberta, so he gave a brief summary of the climate of opinion (on the need for drug policy reform) there as he perceived it. As in the U.S., there are wide differences from one locality to another. Vancouver, for example, appears to be at least as tolerant on marijuana as San Francisco, whereas the rest of the country seems more like the U.S. than many American reformers might imagine. U.S. drug policy is increasingly being seen as unnecessarily extreme, however.

4. Jerry and Al summarized the plans they had been discussing with colleagues in Austin for next year’s legislative session. Since there was no speaker, most of the rest of the evening was devoted to just discussing different ideas on how we might do a better job of educating both legislators and their constituents about the need for drug policy reform. Since the DPFT office as well as Ann and Bob themselves are almost out of the blue trifold (“Why these conservative Republicans want to end drug prohibition”), we also discussed what changes we might want to make to a new edition.

5. Bob and Ann once again offered to have the annual Christmas party at their place on Monday, December 16, and this offer was quickly and gratefully accepted.

6. The meeting was adjourned at around 8:45 PM.