Pubdate: Mon, 17 Dec 2007
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Author: Brent Hopkins, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

WAR ON DRUGS HAS UNLIKELY FOE

As a friend of presidents and hobnobber with governors, David Fleming 
makes an unlikely insurgent against the War on Drugs.

He's been dubbed by a local business weekly as "The Valley's Most 
Powerful Person," chairs the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and 
doles out dollars to charity by the millions.

He works for one of the world's largest law firms. He can preach for 
hours about business tax, government reform and transportation.

With his immaculate white shirts, slicked-back hair and easy 
familiarity with powerful people, Fleming embodies The Man.

"I smoked marijuana once, 25 years ago," he said. "I got high for 
three hours and decided: 'Yecch. This is not for me."'

Although it was not for him, he doesn't begrudge those who opt for 
comfort with a bong or a needle. The Man, a registered Republican and 
consummate insider, thinks the drug war is "stupid."

And he's putting his money - and his reputation - on the line to try 
to win more recruits to his cause.

Fleming and his wife, Jean, put thousands of dollars of their 
considerable personal fortune into producing "Smoke Screen," a 
90-minute docudrama promoting the medical marijuana movement.

They've previewed it for local politicians and powerbrokers and are 
looking for film festivals.

Jean Fleming co-wrote the script and produced the film. David Fleming 
narrates it. After years of research, he effortlessly tosses off 
statistics used in the film in his deep, even voice.

"The War on Drugs has cost the American taxpayer $1 trillion since 
1972," he said. "We're paying $69 billion a year to make a health 
problem into a criminal one."

That's the libertarian side of him talking - he's also a board member 
of the Reason Foundation. But while Fleming can go on at length about 
drug stats from a policy standpoint, he's also got a personal stake.

His wife, a former Miss Illinois turned actress, suffers debilitating 
pain from post-polio syndrome. Several months ago, she obtained a 
prescription for medical marijuana. At night, she takes a few drops 
of liquid THC or snacks on a pot brownie to ease the pain.

"Here's Jeannie, well-to-do and a pillar of society, using 
marijuana," Fleming said.

"And I could be thrown in prison by Bush," she interjected.

That's Bush as in President George W. - the one who named her husband 
as a trustee for the James Madison Foundation, a group of 
politicians, jurists and two private citizens that hands out 
scholarships for teachers. Fleming has a photo of him and the 
president in his office.

The couple have an unusual marriage. He hangs with Gov. Arnold 
Schwarzenegger. She wears a Barack Obama T-shirt. The two disagree on 
many political issues, but they vehemently agree about the need for 
drug-policy reform.

"Look, I'm an old lady, so I can say what I want to," she said. "In 
the '60s, I used to go to parties where cocaine was passed around and 
snorted. Nothing ever went up my nose, but I smoked marijuana."

At the same time, Fleming was practicing law and building his life in 
the establishment. When Nixon made the drug war a priority in 1972, 
Fleming didn't give it a second thought.

"I just went along with it: Sure, drugs are bad," he said. "The 
government says so. I'll agree with that."

Back then, Fleming says, 1.3 percent of the population was addicted 
to drugs, which sounded alarming. He looked into it some more and 
found that in 1915, 1.3 percent of the population was also addicted. 
In 2007, he says 1.3 percent is still hooked.

"This War on Drugs is a disaster, and it has been for years," he 
said. "It's financed gangs for years. If a thinking person washes 
their mind of all the things they've been brainwashed with, they'd 
have to come to the same conclusion."

But that's a conclusion that neither Fleming would have reached on 
his or her own. It took a personal tragedy for each to get their 
minds to change.

For Jean Fleming, it came in the late 1980s, long after she'd given 
up recreational smoking and settled into writing screenplays.

"My son got in trouble with drugs again," she said. "I got very upset 
and couldn't function very well - as families do when someone who 
wouldn't hurt a fly gets thrown in prison."

Her son got busted with coke in a duffle bag in New Zealand. He got 
some prison time and then somehow managed to escape, only to get 
busted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and extradited 
back to New Zealand.

A decade later, David Fleming saw tragedy of his own, when he lost a 
son to a cocaine overdose.

"It turned out to be pure, and he didn't know it," he said. "That's 
what happens with illegal drugs. If they were regulated and 
controlled, that wouldn't be an issue. By doing what we've done, 
we've turned the whole drug business over to the bad guys."

He began reading up on the subject and arrived at his present 
position: The government should not only legalize drugs, it should 
license and sell them. The tax money generated from sales could then 
fund medical and educational initiatives to help people kick unwanted 
addictions.

As he refined his point of view, Jean Fleming decided to write a 
movie and her husband put his money to work. She met up with Todd 
Nelson, an actor she'd met in a vacuum-repair shop, and the two wrote 
"Smoke Screen" together.

As firmly rooted in the establishment as the Flemings seem, Nelson is 
their polar opposite. He wears a crystal necklace and his hair long.

"I've always had an interest in legalizing drugs because I've had 
friends who've been arrested," Nelson said. "At the time we started 
writing, I didn't even smoke marijuana, but I thought it was unfair 
for me to advocate something I hadn't experienced. So I sacrificed myself."

That drew a chuckle from David Fleming, who does not get high, smoke 
cigarettes or drink anything harder than club soda, but Nelson continued.

"Changing the drug laws would be the single best thing we could do 
for society," he said.

Not so, Los Angeles police Deputy Chief Michel Moore said. While he 
noted state law allows for medical marijuana use - and that federal 
law does not - Moore disagreed that giving people access to whatever 
drugs they want would be such a panacea.

"Legalization of drugs would bring higher property crime rates and 
more people using drugs because the social stigma would be removed," 
Moore said. "The consequences of that use can lead to them losing 
their jobs, losing their families and resorting to more crime."

Councilman Dennis Zine, a retired police officer who still serves as 
an LAPD reserve, agreed that legalizing harder drugs would be a 
problem. But he's OK with medical marijuana - and believes more 
people will come around as a result of Fleming's advocacy.

"He's at Latham and Watkins, he's a Fernando Award winner, one of the 
buildings at Valley Presbyterian Hospital is named for them," Zine 
said. "They're honorable people in this community. There are lots of 
people like them who are in the shadows - and I respect their desire 
for privacy - but the Flemings have actually stepped forward."

Drug reform is nothing new, nor is the medical marijuana movement. 
But the chorus normally comes from college campuses and guys sporting 
Grateful Dead T-shirts, not directors of the Los Angeles Police 
Foundation and former fire commissioners.

"He didn't come to this position because he's got hippie roots or 
he'd like to do some cocaine and not have anybody bother him," said 
Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation. "But certain 
things get him really worked up - transportation, the budget, things like that.

"And one of the things he sees as really screwed up is the War on Drugs."

Maybe the movie will get people to change their minds, Fleming said. 
He doesn't care if it makes any money, just that the politicians 
whose home numbers he keeps in his Rolodex will be willing to take up 
the issue.

If necessary, he'll distribute it on the Internet, trading revenue 
for the educational benefit.

"It's taken a long time, and we've still got a big hill to climb," he 
said. "People have been literally brainwashed for years about this. 
But they're starting to open their eyes." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake