DRUG POLICY GROUP TO OPEN TULIA CHAPTER

The fight to change drug policy once again has come to Tulia, but this time
organizers say the battle will be spreading well beyond the borders of the
town.

As part of plans to mark the second anniversary of the controversial drug
busts, a group called Mothers of the Disappeared will be opening a chapter
in Tulia that organizers say will be the first of many in what is to be a
national effort to change the way drug offenders are treated by the justice
system.

Mothers of the Disappeared is an organization founded three years ago in
New York to fight the state's Rockefeller Drug Laws, which feature stiff
sentences for drug offenses.

The mothers hold vigils carrying pictures of their sons and daughters who
have been locked up for drug offenses. The group is patterned after a
similar group founded by mothers of children lost in fighting in Argentina.

Five members of the Mothers of the Disappeared were in Amarillo on Monday
to announce the formation of the new chapter, saying that Tulia is a
natural fit for the organization.

"We can relate to the parents in Tulia," said pastor Nazimova Varick, whose
son is serving time on a drug conviction. "We know what they're going
through, having their families ripped apart, because we're all going
through the same thing."

Elaine Bartlett, who served 16 years for a drug charge and has a husband
still in jail, said the vigils help personalize the consequences of the War
on Drugs.

"I think it puts a face to the numbers," Bartlett said. "Without that,
we're looked at as just statistics. We're not human."

The objective of the Mothers of the Disappeared is to change the nation's
drug policy.

The mothers want to see shorter sentences, more treatment and more
investment in communities and programs that fight drug abuse, the women said.

The mothers had success in generating public support for changing New
York's drug laws, so the organization is being rolled out nationwide,
starting in Tulia, said Randy Credico with the William Moses Kunstler Fund
for Racial Justice, which helped organize the mothers.

"This is the biggest social crisis since the Civil War," Credico said. "We
are going to start moving on it. We're going to mobilize, and we're going
to win this struggle whether it takes three years, five years or 10 years.
We are going to continue because we are in the right."

The mothers planned to drive to New Mexico on Monday night for a meeting
with Gov. Gary Johnson to discuss drug policy. They plan to go to Tulia to
help set up the new chapter, culminating in a rally scheduled for Sunday in
Tulia's Conner Park.