Perspectives on social justice and change

By Daniel Jabbour

## Who is this guy anyway? * Founded the [Psychedelic Society of San Francisco](http://PsychedelicSF.org) [@PsychedelicSF](http://twitter.com/PsychedelicSF) to encourage honest open education about entheogens * Started a "Students for Sensible Drug Policy" ([@SSDP](http://twitter.com/ssdp)) chapter in college, served as a state director * Engaged in lobbying at the state and national level * Worked with Drug Policy Alliance, NORML, SAFER

* Been coding since grammar school * Former black-hat (and got suspended from middle and high school for it) * Learned I really like building things more than breaking them down * Started my first company out of High School, [iWebPress](http://iwebpress.com)

Presently, I Hack the Future (@KidsHtF)

... and I also started a company called Amoeba

@AmoebaSoft

## About SSDP * Largest grass-roots organization working to find alternatives to the failed “War on Drugs” * We empower young people to come up with alternatives to punitive drug war policies * Focus on policies that affect students

## US SSDP Chapters

## International Chapters * Canada * Mexico * Columbia * United Kingdom * Poland * Nigeria

## Drugs? Tech? What's the point? * The government is ill-equipped and slow to legislate on social justice issues * Whether we're talking about drugs, the DMCA, or the idea of [legislating 3d printers](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/18/like-it-or-not-i-think-3d-printing-is-about-to-get-legislated/) * The government cannot stop the distribution of material it makes illegal through legislation, and making up new crimes only creates new criminals

## Why we fight: SSDP * Drug war is a war on youth * Over 50% of marijuana arrests in this country are people under 29 years old * HEA takes away financial aid for students with drug convictions in college * Office of national drug control policy spent more than $1.5 billion on its media campaign since 1998 * Those ads aren't just a waste of money: in 2006 a government study showed the ads weren't just ineffective but actually increased drug use in some populations. Response? Bury the research

## Empowerment * Seeing injustices every day, in drug policy or tech, be it Aaron, or [Weev](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/ipad-hack-statement-of-responsibility/), or the kid we've never heard of, pisses me off and empowers me to seek change * When I was younger and living on the east coast, my first taste of activism was around [DeCSS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS). Jon was lucky he was a minor at the time * Ilya, founder of [Diaspora*](http://diasporaproject.org/) died last year because of the weight of his quest... to slay the dragons

# Ilya Zhitomirskiy * I met Ilya when I first moved to SF and he happened to live in my apt building * His first question: "What are you passionate about?" * He, much like Aaron, much like many of us in this room, want to change the world * For Ilya, that meant slaying the "dragons," the political parties, the banks... * Many their memory live on in each of us, as we shall pick up the sword and slay the dragons in their honor

Importance of the Youth Movement

Youth movements promote and enact the most influential, positive, powerful changes in our society
No social justice reform movement ever succeeded without a youth movement
There’s a reason: training the leaders of tomorrow, who in turn engage their peers
SSDP is cross-political: conservatives, liberals, law students, doctors, scientists
Empowering students with skills beyond drug policy

Throughout American history, it's been the young people that have promoted and enacted the most influential, positive and powerful changes in our society: whether you’re talking about the civil rights movement, or any other social justice movement. And that’s what makes a social justice movement succeed. None of them have ever succeeded without a big bold student movement. We’ve got a movement, we’re growing and we’re taking over. And there’s a good reason for this: when we train the leaders of tomorrow, they return to their communities, and train their peers And ultimately some of these future leaders will enter politics in their lives SSDP is a great example... is cross-political: conservatives, liberals, law students, doctors The skills students learn take them beyond drug policy SSDP alumni have gone on to start companies, not just engage in policy work. But many alumni also move on to political careers

## Timeline of a Movement * We all make the mistake of measuring movements in the brevity of our own lives. Movements don't work that way * Consider racial justice. When did that movement begin? The day the first slave was brought to America. * Took more than 150 years before there was an actual abolitionist movement in the mid-19th C

* “The ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice, ” said Theodore Parker in 1853 * ... and he went on, "my eyes are not good enough to see the end of that arc, but I know that it’s there" * Four years later, Dred Scott went to Supreme Court * In 1857 the only Supreme Court ruling on slavery - upholds it brutally * Chief Justice Tawny actually said blacks were insubordinate and inferior beings ... and would never have the rights that the white man was bound to respect

* Almost four years later the civil war broke out * In 1865 the 13th amendment was passed, ending slavery * Within 4-5 years “black codes” are passed * Jim Crow laws institutionalized * 100 more years of racial subjugations * And for another 100 years it was the worst system since slavery, and resulted in many deaths in a struggle that didn't seem possible to win

* In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed * 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed * 1968 Fair Housing Act was passed * Knocked out Jim Crow? * Just as Jim Crow had been a successor to slavery, the new creative oppression became the “War on Drugs” * In 1968 only a couple hundred thousand people in prison for all offenses in the US * Today there are over 2.4 million in prison, and we're the jailingest country in the world with 25% of the world's prisoners and only 5% of the world's population.

* That’s 300 years * Better in 1965 than 1865? * Sure. Better today? Of course * But, we aren’t finished yet * Movements are never over, they have victories and they have defeats and they go on longer than your lifetime * You never get to win, you just get to fight

The ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.