Hello everyone!
For those of you who came to the meeting, thank you!, and please review these notes to remind yourselves of your respective tasks... for those who missed the meeting, no sweat!, this is what transpired:

Although we didn't talk about this first, I should prioritize it here becuase it is a FEHDP event occuring next week:

FEHDP, NLG, and CPIL (Center for Public Interest Law) present: "Breaking the Blue Wall of Silence," an informal discussion with retired police chief and drug policy scholar, Joseph McNamara, Ph.D. THURSDAY, OCT. 17th, 4pm-6pm, Case Lounge, JG-7th floor. This event will be catered.

Joe McNamara is a wonderful speaker... come here about police corruption and drug war failures straight from the horses mouth! For more info- read the email sent yesterday from Harlene Katzman with Joe's Bio.

Issues discusses in the FEHPD meeting of 10/11/00

1) Higher Education Act awareness campaign... (The HEA denies any federal funding to any student that has any prior drug conviction, even for mere posession.) Judy is handling this- JUDY!! You can find the text of the drug provision under Subsection (r) of section 484 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1091(r))

Basically, find the United States Code, head for chapter twenty, section 1091, and scroll down to section (r) That should take you to the text. In any case, the following text is from http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

2) The FEHDP panel on "Plan Colombia," the U.S. $1.4billion aid package Colombia. Tentative date, Thursday-Nov.30th. Organizational Tasks: Josh- will check the web events calanders to make sure the date does not conflict with other major events. Alan- will contact EDWARD PISARRO, at the political science dept. dept. in SIPA. Kiovann- will contact Jose Miguel Vivanco from human rights watch in D.C Jenny - will explore contacts from the Colombian Delegation to the U.N., i.e., a political affairs officer- or contacting a U.S. government official from the State Dept. office of Human Affairs, i.e. HAROLD COH Rene - will contact a potential speaker from the Colombian Embassy in NY. EVERYONE- will think of potential COLOMBIAN ex-patriot contacts, or simply Colombian immigrants that might offer a valuable first-hand perspective.

3) The FEHDP Webcite Andrew and Renada are in command! Kiovanna - will forward the FEHDP mission statement to appear on the homepage. EVERYONE- will email Andrew Schwartz with ideas for links, as well as any text that you think might be useful for the cite.

4) FEHDP email-announcement in DIGEST form. Most people agreed that having Anne send out a once-a-week Digest form email listing the weekly events, meetings, interesting news stories, etc, was a good idea. We should give these emails appropriate attention- and read through the digest so as not to miss anything important. In this way, we minimize the number of emails clogging your inbox. Hopefully, Andrew will incorporate this weekly Digest into the web page, and/or help Anne create the digest.

5) Student's for Sensible Drug Policy, leadership conference on Nov. 18th-19th. Check hhtp://www.ssdp.org for more info. We might get money from the student senate to send up to four FEHDP members.

6) FEHDP will host a major Conference on Drug Policy Reform at the law school sometime in the spring semester. We will begin to discuss concrete tasks and assignments at the next meeting.

7) SAVE THE DATE!! MARCH 27th, 2001- LOBBY FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM. FEHDP will lead a group of concerned Columbia students to ALBANY to join numerous NEW YORk organizations in the state's largest lobby effort for such reform. Josen- will go to the planning meeting Thursday morning at 9:30am- held by the correctional assocaition. Josen- will also make a FEHDP banner to be used at the lobby/rally in Albany.

8) Anne is putting a large binder full of drug policy resources and information in the NLG group office.

9) PRO- BONO Project...! If anyone has any connections with potential lawyers/ organizations that would take on the supervisory task for a pro-bono project where students help prisoners appeal their wrongful convictions... PLEASE CONTACT ANNE GLATZ or KIOVANNA RODRIGUEZ- we were turned down by Legal Aid due to thier lack of staff,volunteers, etc. and overwhelming work load.