Happy Travels at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference

I’ve been working pretty intensely on Europe projects for five months nonstop. Now that I’m home, I’ve given myself a little two-day holiday. So where do I go for a break? To a convention about something not directly related to European travel! This little trip to Georgia is a vacation for a professional traveler.
I’m at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Atlanta, freshening up my tired mind with a different kind of stimulus. In this clip, I’m being drummed into the big hall with an amazing variety of people for our welcome and a keynote address by Michelle Alexander (author of “The New Jim Crow”).
There’s an intangible value in being with a group of people who care. So many people complain about this or that. But there are ways to actually mobilize and make a difference in our society, and conventions like these are a good springboard. My point: While you may not get an invitation in the mail, groups like this one are eager to enroll newbies. For a couple hundred bucks, you can have your official nametag, your schedule binder, and a chance to connect with the leading movers and shakers in whatever cause arouses the activist in you. Along with this convention, I’ve enjoyed an affordable housing convention in Portland, a big agriculture and world hunger convention in Des Moines, a pharmaceutical industry gathering about medical marijuana in Everett, and others. Each one had an impact on my outlook, and each one was wide open to anyone who was interested.
If you care about good citizenship, I consider conventions like this one to be very good travel.