Street roots., May 20, 2016, Page 4, Image 4

News
Page 4
As other
states move to
defelonize drug
possession,
Oregon still
has harsh
marijuana
laws on the
books.
Drug Policy
Alliance's
Ellen
Flenniken
discusses drug
reform in our
state and
worldwide.
Street Roots • May 20-26, 2016
PHOTO BY DIEGO DIAZ
Ellen Flenniken is deputy director of development at Drug Policy Alliance, the nation’s leading drug reform organization.
Where Oregon stands in the drug war
BY EMILY GREEN
worldwide drug war through criminal justice
reform and the advancement of harm
reduction.
llen Flenniken grew up in the small,
With an annual budget of $14 million and
rural town of Brenham, about halfway
offices
in five states, it’s the nation’s leading
between Austin and Houston in the
heart of East Texas bluebonnet country. drug reform organization.
It was the largest financial backer of
Her parents were criminal defense
Measure 91, and since then, it’s had its
attorneys, and later her father became a
hand in legislation to make Oregon’s
district court judge. When they couldn’t find
marijuana laws retroactive.
child care, they brought their gregarious
Drug Policy Alliance also played an
daughter with them to court
integral
role in campaigns to legalize
As a little girl, Flenniken watched
American justice Texas style as it played out recreational marijuana in Colorado,
Washington, Alaska, Washington, D.C. and
before her in the nation’s incarceration
capital. She still has memories of inmates in Uruguay.
Street Roots sat down with the 28-year-
orange jumpsuits, shackled together, being
old Flenniken hours before she hopped in a
led past her into the courtroom.
truck to drive cross-country to her new
As a Caucasian with a well-to-do
home in Manhattan, where she’ll be working
upbringing, she said, she would watch “as
out of Drug Policy Alliance’s national
other people’s lives were ruined” from her
headquarters. She was the alliance’s only
seat at the outer fringes of a system she
employee stationed in Oregon.
perceived as harsh and unforgiving.
She eventually left Texas, first landing in
Emily Green: The U.N. had a General
Vermont, where she graduated from
Assembly Special Session on the World Drug
Middlebury College with a bachelor’s
Problem in April. Can you explain what Drug
degree in political science and Mandarin.
Then she set her sights on Portland, moving Policy Alliance had hoped would come of it,
and what actually came of it?
here in 2008. She worked on Barack
Obama’s presidential campaign, as U.S. Rep.
Ellen Flenniken: It was the first time
Suzanne Bonamici’s (D-Oregon) campaign
since the 1998 U.N. General Assembly
manager, and as the deputy finance director
special session (UNGASS) that there’s been
at Oregon United for Marriage.
such a momentous international convening
When she was offered the opportunity to
on the war on drugs.
work on Measure 91, Oregon’s recreational
In 1998, it took place under the slogan “A
marijuana ballot measure, she saw it as a
Drug Free World: We Can Do It” That
first step toward fixing the broken criminal
reveals the approach toward it 20 years ago,
justice system she became so familiar with
and we had hoped that there would be some
as a child.
acknowledgement of the failure of our
After Measure 91’s success, Flenniken
punitive approaches to the drug war and the
was hired on as deputy director of
lack of science and health-based policy
development at Drug Policy Alliance, a
approaches. Unfortunately, that did not
national organization aimed at ending the
STAFF WRITER
E
occur.
.... .
This UNGASS was called for by the
presidents of Colombia, Mexico and
Guatemala, largely because their countries
are some of those that have borne the
greatest burden of this war. Mexico has lost
80,000 lives - that’s 80,000 people who
have lost their lives due to the drug war.
The UNGASS was a three-day session,
and it adopted the outcome document -
which was drafted in Vienna a month earlier
- on the first morning, which just slammed
the door and basically did away with any
illusions that we had that there would be
some substantial debate on approaches to
drug policy.
E.G.: What did that outcome document
contain?
E.F.: There were some acknowledgements
of human rights, and some elements of harm
reduction. However, there was no mention of
decriminalization and no condemnation of
the death penalty for drug offenses.
One of the biggest things that came out
of UNGASS was this public letter that my
colleagues put together, which was
addressed to the U.N. Secretary General,
Ban Ki-moon, urging them to take a serious
look at the failures of our past approach and
consider a new approach to drug policy. It
was signed by both of the Democratic
presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and
Bernie Sanders; even (Patriots’
quarterback) Tom Brady signed it, Richard
Branson and Warren Buffett Having all
these leaders, not just from the United
States, but from around the world, come
together and acknowledge our failure and
See DRUGS, page 5