off and then to thousands but it's still alive and well it's like a pounding funder of anti drug as styria in one thousand nine hundred six we must do something anything and that meant grasping at straws and not looking ahead at what the costs are going to be or what might be effective while i was on the hill i increasingly became convinced that the war on drugs was a mistake it was. counterproductive and i wanted to put my energy into ending it and so in january one thousand nine hundred eighty nine i started the criminal justice policy foundation. and that is been the opportunity for me for the last twenty five years to. mobilize different kinds of strategies to end drug prohibition a lot of it has been through other organizations i helped start families against mandatory minimums and my office i'm still very active with students for sensible drug policy. and with one force me against prohibition. and so a lot of my work is advocacy. strategizing you know what are the ways to change drug policy in the form from the. justice system. there are. countless numbers of people who are in prison