Moms against the drug war

Moms against the drug war

Robin Schneider remembers Christmases as a young child: sitting in a visitation cell at a federal prison in Indiana, chatting with a father she saw only two or three times a year. The visit was short. The drive with her mother and two brothers was long. Her father had been busted and imprisoned on a marijuana conspiracy charge when she was 3 years old. 

"I had a really tragic childhood because my father was incarcerated on a marijuana-related charge," say Schneider. "It destroyed my childhood. It ruined my brother's life and ruined my mother's life. Taking away a parent who has committed no violent crimes, putting him in jail, is a disservice for American families, having to spend Christmases in a visitation cell instead of around a Christmas tree."

The arrest of Schneider's father came in a paramilitary raid where police busted in wearing masks with guns drawn. 

"That's a vision that never leaves your head," says Schneider, 33. "Being a kid in a raid is very traumatizing. There is no night that I don't lay in bed and pray to God that I never get raided again. They found naked pictures of my mother, lined them up, made comments about her and confiscated them. I think that my dad did use marijuana, but he certainly wasn't some big time criminal. Why do they kick in the door and run in like that and point guns at kids? ...

"It affected my self-confidence; I spent years and years in therapy. One time in my life I was assaulted, and I blame that on the fact that my father was absent and my mother had to work her butt off to support us."

By drug war standards, Schneider's life might be considered collateral damage — the innocent people who get hurt when you go after the guilty party. But she's fighting back. Last month she exhibited the self-confidence to co-found Michigan Moms United to End the Drug War along with activist Charmie Gholson, a mother of three who publishes the Ann Arbor-based Midwest Cultivator, a publication supporting medical marijuana issues. But Michigan Moms is not about medical marijuana. Its focus is ending the drug war. The organization was kicked off on June 17, the 40th anniversary of the President Richard Nixon's declaration of the War on Drugs. 

"It's really a group of mothers throughout the state of Michigan who, for one reason or another, have decided that the drug war is a failed war," says Schneider, a mother of four. "It's ruined hundreds of thousands of lives and destroys families. We want drugs to be treated as a public health situation rather than a criminal situation." 

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