Birth of an Activist

Thirty years ago tonight, I became an activist for drug policy reform.

The lady whom I was dating and I were at the 1994 Houston Freedom Festival on Sunday evening, July 3rd. We listened to great live music on the banks of Buffalo Bayou at Eleanor Tinsley Park. She and I were sipping our beers. Then someone passed a joint.

I hadn’t smoked weed since my job instituted random drug testing a few years earlier. I knew I’d be back at the plant in two days and didn’t want to take a chance on testing positive. So I passed the joint without taking a hit.

Speaking of hits, then it hit me. I’m at a damn Freedom Festival, but I don’t even have the Freedom to take a Free hit off a Free joint that someone Freely passed through the crowd.

Random drug testing won’t catch Friday night users of cocaine, heroin, mushrooms or acid, because those drugs are water soluble. They and their metabolites are quickly eliminated in the urine over the weekend, so that by Monday morning, any test will be negative.

Not so with marijuana. It and its metabolites are fat soluble, and therefore they aren’t quickly eliminated in the urine. They take much longer to result in a negative drug test. So companies that use random drug testing are actually encouraging employees to switch from marijuana to more dangerous drugs such as cocaine, heroin, mushrooms and acid.

None of that’s for me. I just preferred weed. But random drug testing prevented it.

So thirty years ago tonight, I decided to get involved in the drug policy reform movement. I volunteered for KPFT radio, Houston NORML, the Houston ACLU, and Houston MediaSource. Eventually, I was elected president of Houston NORML, and a few years later, president of the Houston ACLU. I produced and technically directed the Houston MediaSource cable TV show “Drugs, Crime and Politics” (and later, “Sex, Truth and Videotape” featuring the late Ray Hill). I was a founding board member of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas (DPFT), along with several scholarly luminaries in the field.

But despite all those efforts, random drug testing remained a fixture throughout the rest of my career. Until I retired last August.

I felt like Rip Van Winkle waking from a 3-decade sleep. I woke up to find that I could buy weed from a dispensary listed on Google Maps, surrounded by dozens of other customers doing likewise throughout the day, without fear of some undercover cop lurking in the dark shadows busting me.? Yesterday I enjoyed a THC-infused sparkling drink at the local pizzeria.

At long last, I’m a free man! I can microdose my cannabis: Just one shallow hit maybe twice a week. As a 71-year-old geezer, I’m a lightweight. Takes almost nothing to fly high.

Freedom at last! Too bad I don’t still have my prostate gland to enjoy it with me.