STUDENT GROUP DRUMS UP OPPOSITION TO DRUG WAR

Gary Davey smokes marijuana and credits the drug with relieving pain
from injuries he received in a head-on collision that shattered most
of his bones from the waist down and confined him to a wheelchair in 1989.

G.J. McCarthy photo Corley Koprowski, a University of
Missouri-Columbia freshman, is in the audience yesterday as panelists
Andrea Brandon, left, of Urbana, Ill., and Heather De Mian of
Columbia, right, discuss the medicinal use of marijuana during a
conference of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy in the MU Arts and
Science Building.

"The benefit that is available to these people is incredible," Davey
said, referring to the use of marijuana. "There were times I
literally couldn't work."

Davey, 44, shared his story yesterday at the Students for Sensible
Drug Policy Midwest Regional Conference. The medicinal marijuana
session Davey participated in was one of more than a dozen events
held at the University of Missouri-Columbia campus.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a nationwide organization of
college students against the war on drugs, chose Columbia because of
the success of marijuana-related Propositions 1 and 2 in 2004. Cliff
Thornton, a lawyer and Green Party gubernatorial candidate in
Connecticut, was keynote speaker.

Thornton's drug reform group, Efficacy, was one of 10 sponsors for
the weekend gathering. Other sponsors are the Missouri chapter of the
National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, the Cannabis Action
Network, Green Aid and the Missouri Cannabis Coalition.

"These drugs are not the problem; the drug policies are the problem,"
Thornton said in an interview before the conference. "The drug war
has placed the African-American community into a de-evolving state."

Thornton, who is black, said drug laws that impose greater penalties
for crack cocaine violations than for powder cocaine offenses are
specifically designed to target black and lower-class people. That
means taxes are funding incarceration of people who otherwise could
be paying taxes, Thornton said. "That's why most inner cities are so
poor," he said.

Speakers at the conference included the associate county commissioner
of Marion County, Willy Richmond, and a former prosecutor from Kansas
City, Kan., Brian Leininger.

"It's scary, more than anything, how these laws have gotten stricter
and stricter," Richmond said in a panel discussion of drug statutes.
"It's not accomplishing anything."

Leininger called the drug war "not only a failure but
counterproductive. ... It took me a lot of time, I think, to come
around. But I certainly saw how fruitless it was."

Columbia Police Chief Randy Boehm, who did not attend the conference,
said he believes the war on drugs is working. "I don't think our
policies target poor and minorities," he said.

Boehm said the majority of drug-related calls that Columbia police
deal with are sales and activity in poorer areas. "The best we can
hope for is to ... cut down on violence that's related to drug
activity," he said.

The Students for Sensible Drug Policy Web site says the group
endorses "personal choice and freedom so long as a person's actions
do not infringe upon another's freedoms or safety."

But Boehm said that "drugs are not only harmful to the individual but
harmful to the community. I think that it does inherently infringe
upon the safety of the community."

Thornton said the prohibition of drugs has led to a black market that
creates violence and makes drugs cheaper and more accessible to the public.

"The only way you're going to solve this problem is to bring these
drugs inside the law," he said.

Joe Bartlett, president of the MU chapter of Students for a Sensible
Drug Policy, said the conference is an opportunity to spread
information about their campaign with students from other colleges.
He estimated 100 people are participating in the three-day event,
including 50 or 60 from outside Columbia.

Lisa Davey doesn't see her husband's use of marijuana as a threat to
the safety of her community in St. Louis.

"The fact that this is an illegal drug is a sin," she said. "The use
of marijuana has given us a near-normal life."