The meeting was held in
Room 302 of the First Unitarian Church. Meeting started at 7:00 pm.
Members and guests present
were Dean Becker, Art Smart, Duane Jones, Vicky LeVasseur, Frank Gill, Faye
Hamilton, Dr. Al Robison, Clayton Jones, Jerry Epstein and Steve and Cheryl
Nolin. Meeting called to order at 7:05
PM. Guest speaker for tonight’s meeting is Dean Becker.
Dean is Community Liaison
for Drug Policy Forum of Texas and President of the Houston chapter of
NORML.
Dean started the meeting by
introducing the group to his radio show, Cultural Baggage on Pacifica Radio
station KPFT 90.1 FM which airs every week at 6:30 pm. He also told group about
his 420 Drug war News that airs at 4:20 each and every day on KPFT.
He briefly discussed the
segment of the Cultural Baggage show called “Coward of the Week”. He also told
group that the new time slot has really helped the ratings of the show and has
allowed him to have guests such as Kevin Zeese, Keith Stroup and Sanho Tree and
other notable guests on at an earlier time slot.
Dean also told group about
his NY Times Drug Truth internet chat with guests like Judge James P. Gray and
other notable reformists. Jerry asked
Dean what we can do to help with his radio show. Dean informed the group that
contributions to KPFT during fund drives would help keep him on the air. Dean
informed us that people are emailing and phoning the execs of KPFT to please
keep Cultural Baggage at the 6:30 time slot and to make it an hour show instead
of only 30 minutes.
Art asked Dean to do a
press release on his Coward of the Week segment and others in the group readily
agreed. Dean also spoke in depth for the need of Drug Reform but knew he was
preaching to the choir.
Frank and Dean told group
they were going in front of City Council and invited all members of the group
to do likewise. Jerry brought up the importance of what Dean and Frank would be
saying and group discussed what would be best to say to them. Frank told the group what transpired when he
spoke at Mr. John Culberson’s Town Hall Meeting.
The meeting was adjourned
around 9:00 PM. The next meeting is scheduled for August 21st.