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Last week we had one of those unusually good days. I just wanted to share it with you.

The first news of the day was a report from Oregon that the state supreme court had upheld the constitutionality of the ballot initiative we drafted and won in 2000 to reform the state's asset forfeiture laws. The initiative did three important things: it rewrote the state's forfeiture practices by preventing private property from being forfeited unless the individual was convicted of a crime; it limited the amount of assets forfeited in accordance with the severity of the crime; and it directed the proceeds from forfeited property toward the funding of drug treatment programs instead of law enforcement budgets.

Then we received a $25,000 contribution in the mail from Governor Corzine's foundation, thanks entirely to a timely request by our fellow board member, Jason Flom.
Then DPA's New Jersey director, Roseanne Scotti, called to report that the syringe access and pharmacy sale bill we’ve been working on for years just passed the Assembly Health Committee. That’s the third successful committee vote in as many weeks. We still have a ways to go but we have more momentum than ever.

And I just returned from a delightful dinner at the home of our fellow board member, Mathilde Krim, with Walter Cronkite, his friend Joanna Simon, and Bob Newman. Walter Cronkite is a member of our honorary board as well as the signer of most of DPA’s fundraising letters, and we’re optimistic he will do even more to help DPA advance our mission. He is an incredible ally.

I wish we had more days like this. If we did, the war on drugs would end that much sooner.

Posted by Ethan Nadelmann.
http://www.nooked.com/news/itemtrack...0e7731fcb30629

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