Wednesday, April 9, 2008

At the end of March, the Drug Policy Alliance helped bring an important training to San Diego. The Recovery Ambassador Workshop, offered by the Johnson Institute and hosted by local re-entry program Second Chance, brings the tools of advocacy to people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction--but the skills the workshop teaches are valuable for all drug law reformers.

DPA brought seven people to the training, giving scholarships not only to people in recovery but to people who believe that substance dependence is a matter of individual and public health and that people struggling with current or past drug use should not be discriminated against.

John Prieto, a Proposition 36 graduate and a case manager at People in Progress in Los Angeles, received a DPA scholarship to attend the training. He drove all the way to San Diego from the San Fernando Valley to attend the all-day training on Saturday. He was accompanied by several locals, including Reverend Dennis Malone, an advocate for formerly incarcerated people, and Randy Hencken, an active drug law reformer.

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, DPA’s deputy state director for Southern California, said, “Even though it was a Saturday, the event was well-attended and people were very engaged. Everyone took away something different from the training, but what we got was more than skill-building. It was movement building.”