Have you registered yet for the 2007 International Drug Policy Reform conference? To get a better idea about what your experience might really be like, we offer this imagined "day at the conference."
Your morning begins at the Astor Crowne Plaza, our host hotel, where you wake up refreshed thanks to the room's comfortable pillow-top mattress. If you're up early, you might want to take in the hour-long yoga session offered at 7:30am. Continental breakfast starts at 8:30, and the first session of the day an hour later.

Choosing which session to go to is a bit difficult when topics range all along the drug policy reform and drug research spectrum. This morning, you opt for a panel on Drug Law Informants, which explores how misuse of police informants in the U.S. undermines our criminal justice system.

After the session you run into a friend, and spend the half-hour break catching up. You're almost late for the mid-day plenary at 11:30, and have to squeeze in at the back of the room to get a seat. The energy from that large gathering carries you right into lunch at 1 pm, and you step out of the hotel into the French Quarter to savor some of what New Orleans is famous for.

With the temperature around 60 degrees, it's a pleasant December day and you're tempted to take longer than the hour and a half allotted. Instead you hurry back for the session starting at 2:30, because you've decided to attend the panel on medical marijuana implementation practices and are eager to hear the experiences of those wrestling with this tricky issue.

After your next break, you round out the day by attending the Anti-Racist Training during the last session starting at 4:30 pm. A friend who attended the 2005 conference recommended it, and she's right - you emerge newly aware of the subtle influences of race in your own thinking and in drug war politics. At 6 pm when the panel concludes, the official conference day is over, but you are ready to explore the French quarter with friends and colleagues. . .

This is just one of many different tracks your conference experience could take. Keep an eye on http://conference.drugpolicy.org as we finalize the programming and schedule so you can see all the possibilities.

We hope to see you in New Orleans!

Stefanie Jones
Conference Coordinator
Drug Policy Alliance

and

Co-host organizations the ACLU, the Harm Reduction Coalition, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Marijuana Policy Project and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.