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Dave Fratello

Organization

Address

Campaign for New Drug Policies

1250 6th Street - #202
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310-394-2952

Communications Director
Americans for Medical Rights
Santa Monica, CA

Communications Director
Californians for Medical Rights
Santa Monica, CA

Communications Director
Drug Policy Foundation
Washington, D.C.

Quotes

On California Proposition 36

"But the ‘granddaddy' of the campaign, in the words of campaign spokesman Dave Fratello, is California Proposition 36: If it passes in November, it will not only represent a substantial step toward decriminalizing the possession of all illegal drugs, from methamphetamines and PCP to heroin and cocaine; it will very likely send a message from one end of the country to the other."

"Declaring War on the Drug War," Peter Schrag, The American Prospect, September 24, 2000.

"Dave Fratello, a private drug-policy adviser who helped draft the initiative, said the vote signaled a desire for change.

" ‘People have lived with our punitive drug war for 20 or 30 years now,' Fratello said. They've experienced it enough to say: This doesn't work.' "

"Focus Put on Law's Success," Ty Phillips and Crystal Carreon, The Modesto Bee, November 13, 2000.

On Medical Marijuana Initiatives

Responding to criticism of Dennis Peron, owner of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club and author of California's Proposition 215, the first state initiative that legalized marijuana as medicine in 1996:

" ‘Where there is a little more need and a little more tolerance, the [medical marijuana] providers have felt comfortable coming out and being public with what they are doing,' said Dave Fratello, spokesman for Americans for Medical Rights, a group campaigning for passage of state laws legalizing medical marijuana.

"Fratello said his group anticipates four election battles in 1998 in Maine, Alaska, the District of Columbia, and Colorado in the push to legalize medical marijuana.

"Ultimately, he said, the goal is to change federal laws to reclassify marijuana as a legal drug. It is in that nationwide effort, Fratello says, that Peron's in-your-face style hurts."

"Activist's Tactics Anger Many in Medical Marijuana Movement," Mary Curtius, Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1997.

"California and Arizona voters changed the politics of the drug war when they approved ‘medicalization' ballot initiatives in 1996."

"The multi-state initiative strategy is designed, in part, to force or facilitate the rescheduling of marijuana, with the underlying risk of relieving pressure for reform. If federal officials choose to build a firewall behind medical marijuana, but in front of legalization, hopes for repeal of prohibition would dim."

"Whatever the federal reaction, the fight for medical marijuana offers benefits that abolitionist critics often overlook. In addition to being a compassionate step in itself, changing state laws on medical marijuana tends to put the right issues into play and the right people on the defensive. It raises questions about the nature of drug prohibition and the rationality of its enforcers. It enhances the credibility of reformers and attracts allies who may ultimately be persuaded to support more radical change."

"The mechanism for allowing medical use is to carve exemptions into existing criminal laws. That seems to reduce the power of the state, especially since it forces those charged with implementation to change their tactics, sometimes fundamentally. Police in California, for example, are learning that marijuana they seize may be someone's medicine, in which case they have to give it back."

"If opponents of the drug war want to have an impact, rather than focusing on the perfect policy or waiting for revolutions in the public's thinking, we have to reach out to new people, find working compromises, and advance concrete proposals. Proposals rooted in medicalization concepts currently have the greatest public appeal, notwithstanding the recent vote in Washington state. The more moderate and sensible our proposals seem, the better our chances of success. At the same time, if it is true that any successful challenge to the drug war, even on a relatively narrow issue, threatens an overly rigid paradigm, so much the better. We can't count on overthrowing the generals with modest peace offerings. But in the very strange world of U.S. drug policy, it just might happen."

"The Medical Marijuana Menace," Dave Fratello, Reason Online, March 1998.

"The mechanism for allowing medical use is to carve exemptions into existing criminal laws. That seems to reduce the power of the state, especially since it forces those charged with implementation to change their tactics, sometimes fundamentally. Police in California, for example, are learning that marijuana they seize may be someone's medicine, in which case they have to give it back."

"If opponents of the drug war want to have an impact, rather than focusing on the perfect policy or waiting for revolutions in the public's thinking, we have to reach out to new people, find working compromises, and advance concrete proposals. Proposals rooted in medicalization concepts currently have the greatest public appeal, notwithstanding the recent vote in Washington state. The more moderate and sensible our proposals seem, the better our chances of success. At the same time, if it is true that any successful challenge to the drug war, even on a relatively narrow issue, threatens an overly rigid paradigm, so much the better. We can't count on overthrowing the generals with modest peace offerings. But in the very strange world of U.S. drug policy, it just might happen."

"The Medical Marijuana Menace," Dave Fratello, Reason Online, March 1998.