Jason Noble

jnoble2@dmreg.com

There are 563 planks in the Iowa Democratic Party's new platform, but much of the conversation since its approval at the party’s state convention early Sunday morning has focused on No. 293.

That’s the plank that says Iowa Democrats support “legalizing all drugs.”

You read that right: The Iowa Democratic Party’s official manifesto of beliefs and priorities says it supports legalizing all drugs, period, end of statement.

"I was kind of stunned that it got through the convention, but that’s what the convention wanted," said Mike Robinson, a member of the party's state central committee who served as chairman of the platform committee that formulated the document.

According to the activists involved in the debate, though, the issue is far more complicated than those three words suggest.

“The brevity of the document doesn’t encompass the true meaning,” said Shelly Van Winkle, a registered nurse from Muscatine and newly elected member of the party’s state central committee who was active in the platform debate.

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Van Winkle and others said “legalization” is an imperfect description of what the drug policy activists want the party to pursue. What they’re really looking for is a policy that focuses on treating and mitigating drug addiction rather than criminalizing it.

That would mean legalizing cannabis for medical purposes and allowing people addicted to opioids to use heroin under highly regulated medical supervision. It would mean regulating, taxing and tracking harmful or addictive substances and allowing their use in controlling addictions.

It wouldn’t mean heroin or methamphetamine would be available at the corner store.

State delegate Ryan Rogers, from the 2nd District, in southeast Iowa, described the approach as a “divestment strategy in the drug war” that would eliminate the cartel-controlled market for illegal drugs and keep drug users out of the criminal justice system.

“No one is advocating a libertarian drug free-for-all and putting cocaine back in Coca-Cola,” Rogers said. “The reason to support this is to step by step reform drug laws and focus on treatment over punishment.”

So why didn’t all that come through in the plank that’s now written into the platform?

The phrase “We support legalizing all drugs” was included in the proposed platform placed under consideration at Saturday’s state convention by the party’s platform committee. And it came with two alternatives: to replace “legalizing” with “decriminalizing” or to remove the plank entirely.

Van Winkle and others say they oppose the notion of “decriminalizing” drugs because use or possession of substances like marijuana or heroin could still come with fines or penalties that would be a hardship to minorities or the poor and because there’s no guarantee that decriminalization would be accompanied by a new treatment-focused approach to addiction.

Given that opposition, “legalizing” was the more inclusive term.

“I think the most difficult thing is successfully formulating a policy that communicates that we are not endorsing or encouraging drug use,” said Jonathan Green, a state delegate and central committee member from Lone Tree who backed the drug plank. “We just want to get it into the realm where it can be dealt with as a substance abuse or mental health issue rather than a criminal issue.”

Robinson, the platform committee chairman, said the plank was included because its supporters were well-organized and won over a majority of the committee and then a majority of state convention delegates. As the committee chairman, he said he accepted that result. But as a registered nurse, he said seeing the legalization of drugs added to the platform hit him "across the face like a club."

"It doesn’t reflect everyone’s interest in the room, certainly, and I don’t know how much of a majority it was," he said. "But all they needed was a one-vote majority."

In any case, the practical effect of the plank may be limited.

A party platform functions as a “collection of ideas” and a reflection of the key concerns of the party’s most dedicated members, Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Ben Foecke said. It doesn’t mandate a point of view for candidates or change any existing state or federal policies.

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“I know that neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders support the legalization of all drugs, and to my knowledge no other Democratic candidates in Iowa support that either,” Foecke said. “I’m certain no one will be pushing for that in the Legislature or Congress anytime soon. Nor do we expect they would.”

An aide to Clinton speaking on behalf of the campaign emphasized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's support for de-emphasizing federal enforcement of crimes involving marijuana and allowing research on its medical uses.

"Hillary believes that states should act as laboratories of democracy on the question of marijuana," the aide said. "At the same time, she believes that we should focus federal enforcement resources on violent crime, not simple marijuana possession and move marijuana from the Schedule I to a Schedule II drug to increase research into its medical uses."