Bookmark: MAP's link to shadow convention items:
http://www.mapinc.org/shadow.htm

Note: Shadow Convention websites:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/
http://www.shadowconventions.com/

THE SHADOW CONVENTION KNOWS WHAT AILS AMERICA

LOS ANGELES - Alice's Restaurant it's not, but you can get everything you
want here - in alternative politics.

Organizer Arianna Huffington calls it the Shadow Convention - a place where
Al Gore and Joe Lieberman would fear to tread, but where the Rev. Jesse
Jackson, Al Franken and Ram Dass are among an eclectic lineup of speakers.

Just a 10-minute walk from the Democratic Convention, at 1920s-era Patriotic
Hall, the Shadow Convention is a magnet for nearly every movement and idea
whose time hasn't come. The common thread is that America's promise is
unfulfilled due to a pathology of corporate greed.

Today's theme is "The Failed War on Drugs." Hemp advocates are pushing for
legalization of industrial hemp, even as they peddle Hemp-made hats, Hemp
butter, and Hemp nut vegan lip-balm - all produced with foreign-grown hemp.

Methadone maintenance advocate Holly Catania said yesterday that her
treatment organization, The Lindesmith Center, is non-partisan.

"Neither party is talking about drugs because it's a dangerous topic,"
Catania said. "Politicians don't like to be soft on drugs."

Heroin overdose deaths are on the rise, but public health authorities prefer
to fret over the West Nile virus even though it takes far fewer lives, she
said.

"Poverty and the Wealth Gap" was yesterday's theme, addressed by the Rev.
Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), author Jonathan Kozol, and Rabbi Michael Lerner,
among others. Lerner claims to be the "only American rabbi" publicly
criticizing Gore's selection of Lieberman.

Statistics not mentioned in President Clinton's speech last night show 35
million Americans living below the poverty level - a $16,000 income - and a
poverty rate double that of Canada and four times that of the Western
European democracies.

"Millions of Americans have a sense of frustration with both parties," said
Jackson. "That's why you see the Reform Party taking root on the right and
the Green Party taking root on the left. The Constitution as interpreted by
the Democrats and Republicans is not providing people with self-evident
rights."

Other Shadow Convention groups include Boston-based INFACT, Campaigning for
Corporate Accountability, which is calling for a boycott of Kraft Macaroni
and Cheese because it is manufactured by Philip Morris, the tobacco company.

Citizens Against Human Experimentation is planning a rally opposing
government use of "low-frequency electromagnetic waves, radio frequency
hypnosis and ultrasound" to harass political activists.