Despite the cold, the Drug Policy Alliance’s biennial Reform conference vibrated with excitement as approximately 1,800 people filed into the Detroit venue November 12. The majority—70 percent—were attending for the first time, with 15 percent from the city itself and many from countries around the world, all eager to engage and strategize on how to end the drug war.
The local activists, community members and grassroots organizations that pushed for the international event to come to Detroit would see it as a reflection of their city: full of grit, resilience and fight.
The opening plenary started with a sobering reminder to the crowd that they were there at a critical moment in fighting global authoritarianism—as the drug war continues, with the Trump administration’s lethal attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean, the recent conviction of Drug User Liberation Front founders in Canada, and the Brazilian government’s deadly raids on its people.
Leaders insisted that the momentum renewed in Detroit would outlast the democratic backslide.
But while leaders characterized the current moment as unlike other times, they insisted—evoking the history of the drug policy reform movement—that the momentum renewed in Detroit would outlast the democratic backslide.
In this difficult and distressing context, Reform’s major themes included healing, compassion and collaboration. The opening plenary featured a variety of speakers discussing their own or a family member’s experience with drug use and incarceration, and the impacts on relationships.
Panelists shared how their siblings’ or parents’ experiences of drug use informed their own ideas about the drug policy reform movement. And they reflected on how many people who have experienced drug- and prohibition-related harms are politicized by the opposition and then used against the movement, instead of being welcomed into the community.
The panel explored the complexity of loving a person but not their drug use, the harms of the criminal-legal system and the healing that can be found in grief. Lisa Daniels, founder of the Darren B. Easterling Center for Restorative Practices—named for her son, who was killed during a drug transaction in 2012—discussed her personal connections with these topics.
“We can name harm without condemning people, and we can call for accountability without resorting to punishment.”
“We’ve been conditioned to see people as either victims or perpetrators, innocent or guilty, worthy or disposable, and real healing and real justice demand that we hold more complexity,” Daniels said. “We can name harm without condemning people, and we can call for accountability without resorting to punishment. When we do that, we make space for policies and practices that are rooted in care and not in control.”
Despite her grief, Daniels refused to let the prosecutorial system use her pain to further its agenda. She used her status as a “victim” to ask for leniency. Following the trial of the man who was convicted of killing her son, the judge reduced the sentence by half.
Amid much focus on healing and family systems, the November 14 plenary session centered on people with disabilities and their experiences at the intersection of drug use and bodily autonomy.
“How is the War on Drugs a disabling system?” was a question put to panelists. Sebastian Margaret, founder of the Disability Project of the Transgender Law Center (TLC), answered: “It’s a war. It’s a war that’s been wrought by a government on its civilians and it’s not actually a ‘war on drugs,’ and when we fall into that language manipulation, we miss the truth of what it’s warring against.”
“It is a war on people who happen to use drugs, on people who are doing what they can in whatever ways they can, to survive.”
“It is a war on poverty. It is a war on Black people,” they continued. “It is a war on people who happen to use drugs, on people who are doing what they can in whatever ways they can, to survive the really brutal conditions that marginalized people in this country, including disabled folks, navigate all the time.”
The Disability Project’s main goals are to build infrastructure, policy and strategies that increase their communities’ ability to live while recognizing that ableism is rooted in eugenics and state control. The session covered laws that historically fostered public disgust toward disabilities, and how some current laws hide behind different language but perpetuate the same violence.
“I think what is interesting about disgust … as someone who was born with disabilities, my body was not my own,” said Ericka Ayodele Dixon, senior national organizer at the Disability Project. “Not only was I taught my body was not my own, but I was also taught to be disgusted by my own body. Disgust is really designed to corrode us, from both from the inside in terms of internalized ableism but also … in movement building.”
Josey Scoggins, executive director of the Great Lakes Expungement Network, meets people where they are to get their criminal records, often concerning drug convictions, expunged. The organization has facilitated 3,700 expungements and provided approximately $7 million in free legal aid.
Scoggins, an attendee at Reform conferences since 2012, had been invited for the first time to share her experiences in both drug policy and disability justice on the main stage.
“I don’t talk about being disabled a lot because I don’t have to … I look like this. I made a decision to be whatever I am … and people kept coming up to me and being like, ‘I felt that.’”
“Being born generationally disabled, into the system and SSI, making today $892, regardless if you live in California, New York, Idaho or Michigan, it doesn’t matter. That’s the standard payment,” Scoggins said of the difficulties of living within the system. “You don’t get more money for having kids. You can’t save more than $2,000. How are you going to move into a house?”
Despite the severe challenges imposed—with drug convictions and disabilities combining to deny many people jobs, and government assistance inadequate to support education, housing or independence—many do find a way to survive and even thrive through fighting these injustices together.
“I don’t talk about being disabled a lot because I don’t have to … I look like this,” Scoggins told Filter after the conference. “I just got up [on stage] and made a conscious decision to be whatever I am…and people kept coming up to me and being like, ‘I felt that,’ and that’s enough for me.”
The session ended with a call to those involved in drug legalization through medicalization. The movement, panelists said, has historically used medical necessity as a path to regulation—putting people with disabilities forward to push access, but then leaving them out once the drugs are legalized. A current example is how veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are at the forefront of campaigns for medical access to psychedelics. Will legalization ensure their access, given costs, the insurance system and other barriers?
Other strands of the conference buzzed with conversations around different aspects of drug policy and harm reduction, the role of research and the looming authoritarian threats.
Speakers discussed the masking of the anti-drug movement as an anti-pharmaceutical move toward natural wellness.
One panel focused on the impacts of Trump-administration rhetoric on public opinion, and within communities of people who use drugs. Speakers discussed the masking of this anti-drug movement as an anti-pharmaceutical move toward natural wellness through initiatives such as “healing farms.” They pointed out how the framing historically targets people of color, and focuses on placing responsibility with the individual, rather than the unmet need for wrap-around services.
Another session explored the impacts of policing on people engaged in sex work and other street economies. It featured perspectives from people with lived experience, and from harm reductionists working to resource people on the streets with the things they need to survive. Other conversations included the distinctions between sex work and sex trafficking, and how policing of sex workers and people who use drugs makes trafficking worse, by stripping people of bodily autonomy.
Besides many panels, the conference included collaborative sessions and affinity groups for people to strategize or simply hold community with those of similar experiences. One session focused on next steps for harm reduction in Detroit, featuring local groups like SOOAR and Detroit Recovery Project. In another group session, researchers and academics came together to discuss recent funding cuts, issues facing participant-forward research, and how to center evidence in drug policy.
Practical workshops meanwhile took place throughout the week, including the Harm Reduction and Overdose Prevention (HOPE) training put on by Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), the largest youth-led organization working to end the drug war. This included a presentation and distribution of kits containing naloxone, drug-checking tools and more.
Reform ended on November 15, with a closing plenary titled: “The Master’s Tools Won’t Tear Down the Master’s House: What Do We Do When We Go Home?” Its purpose was to integrate the conversations that took place during the week into daily practice. The consensus was that the movement needs to engage more people outside of it, and build coalitions that promote longevity.
Ways to do this, panelists said, include democratizing information and using language that meets people where they are and is readily understandable, as well as inclusive.
Artistic expression was also discussed as a means of quieter resistance. Trail of Truth is a national memorial art exhibition that displays painted tombstones of the loved ones that people have lost. Visible at Reform, these exhibits are designed to give space to people who have lost someone in the drug war to process their grief, find empathy and build relationships with others experiencing loss.
In closing, the final message was to continue to foster connection, because the work cannot be done by a single person. Authoritarianism relies on turning people against each other, leaders said, but the connections and tools that come out of gatherings like Reform enable people to unite in pursuit of a better future.
Photographs courtesy of Alaina Jaster
The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, previously received a restricted grant from the Drug Policy Alliance. The author is the chair of SSDP’s Science Policy Committee. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies.
A different version of this article, originally published on November 19, inadvertently broke Reform conference reporting rules of which the author had not been made aware. The article has been revised accordingly and republished.