OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Much of the coverage of the "Shadow Conventions" that have been held
alongside the Republican and Democratic conventions this year has focused on
atmospherics and certainly the atmospherics are there.

One spokesman told a reporter the get-together at Patriotic Hall in Los
Angeles this year would be like a 24-hour "happening," and in some ways it
was. Aging hippies mingled with Generation Y malcontents and Yuppies in
suits, all talking about the need for thoroughgoing change in the system,
change the two major parties weren't likely to address with any degree of
seriousness.

Arianna Huffington provided whatever star power and glamour she possesses
and the crowds packed into every corner of the hall and the eight floors of
the building were enthusiastic and noisy.

Some of the street protestors dropped by. It was all very colorful, to say
the least.

Beyond the atmospherics, however, the Shadow people delivered on the promise
to provide substantive discussion of issues.

The first day's session was devoted to campaign finance reform and today's
will present an impressive line-up on the problem of enduring poverty amid
impressive economic growth.

Yesterday's sessions on the "Failed Drug War" brought together experts and
folks on the front lines that made it an impressive and comprehensive
one-day program on aspects of the drug war.

Perhaps most impressive was the number of elected officials from both
parties willing to "come out" with a conviction other officials share but
lack the political cover or intestinal fortitude to say: the drug war has
not only failed to keep drugs from "our kids" and can't succeed, it has done
immeasurable harm to the American social fabric and to millions of peoples'
lives.

I knew that Gary Johnson, the Republican governor of New Mexico, had
questioned the drug war. I was not prepared for him to be so strong in his
convictions, so well-informed, so willing to put himself on the line for
what he thinks is right.

Gov. Johnson is the kind of Republican any conservative would be proud to
embrace.

He's a self-made businessman, building a one-man handyman service in 1974
into a company that employed 1,000 people in 1994. He's a fiscal
conservative.

He's an athlete who works out every day and has run the Ironman Triathlon in
Hawaii three times, a happily married father of two daughters.

He doesn't smoke, drink or do any kind of drugs.

For whatever reason, however, he has developed a capacity to make
intelligent distinctions. He urges everyone he knows not to use alcohol or
tobacco, but doesn't think they should be illegal. He notes, however, that
some 400,000 people die prematurely from using tobacco, several hundred
thousand die prematurely from using alcohol - and 5,000 people a year die
from all the drugs the government has declared illegal. "We are willing to
arrest 1.6 million people a year - half for marijuana, half of those
Hispanic and a disproportionate percentage of the rest African-American - to
fail to prevent those deaths," he says. "It doesn't make sense and it does a
great deal of harm.

A business with such policies would have been bankrupt years ago." One of
the more egregious side effects of the war on drugs, Gov. Johnson notes, is
that it destroys the capacity to make distinctions. "About 95 percent of the
people who use marijuana do so the way other Americans drink a cocktail, and
everybody knows it," he says. "Yet law enforcement is forced to treat every
one of those people as somebody with a serious problem who needs to be in
forced rehabilitation.

It's just not so, and a policy based on a lie is bound to fail." Orange
Countians know about Judge Jim Gray, who introduced Gov. Johnson. But I
didn't know Mayor Ross "Rocky" Anderson of Salt Lake City not only ended
city support for the DARE program but is using his position to call for
rethinking the drug war. "Politicians are more terrified of a 30-second
attack ad than of supporting an ineffective, wasteful, inhumane policy that
destroys families," he says. Maybe that's changing.

Rep. Tom Campbell, the Republican candidate for U. S. Senate in California
spoke, and has developed into a forceful drug war critic.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters was on the program.

Rep. John Conyers, the veteran Michigan Democrat wasn't, but came by to lend
support. California state Sen. Tom Hayden was there, sounding like a
moderate compared to others.

A state legislator from Oregon came. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were
unscheduled speakers.

Jesse Jackson came. Comedians Bill Maher and Al Franken appeared.

Doctors and patients told their stories.

You didn't see any of that inside Staples. Maybe next time.