“To Write a Book”

I Never in my life thought that I would write a book. But It Happened.

I never in my life thought that I would write a book. But it happened. It began more than twenty years ago when I started clipping news articles about our nation’s drug policy out of magazines and newspapers. Just clip them out, underline a few points, make a few notes, and put them in a drawer. Then as time went on, I started jotting down a few thoughts about the problems we were actually inflicting upon ourselves by our policy, and other thoughts about what possible alternative policies might look like.

Momentum built up over the years, until on April 8, 1992, I held a press conference behind the Santa Ana Courthouse and publicly stated my conclusions based upon my experience as a judge of the superior court, a federal prosecutor, and a criminal defense attorney in Navy JAG, that our drug policy had failed, and that there had to be a better way. That led to quite a few interviews, community forums and discussions. And all the while, I kept reading, listening and learning.