"The Wind is at Our Back"

This weekend, the Drug Policy Alliance is hosting its annual Reform Conference in Albuquerque, and DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann opened the event Thursday with a passionate speech about the momentum that drug reform feels in D.C. and across the country.

"The wind is at our back," Nadelmann said. "And we are making progress like we've never seen before." He called on the movement to continue working to create a political landscape that will allow Congress and the President to move toward harm reduction and legalization policies. The change won't come from the top until we lay the groundwork, he said. His passion and optimism is infectious and it's a speech worth watching.

Watch Nadelmann's full speech after the jump.

A few other important stories going on in the marijuana legalization and medicinal marijuana movements this week:

• The American Medical Association reversed a decade of bad policy, urging the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a medical substance to allow clinical studies.
• Breckenridge, Colorado, is adjusting to its new decriminalization policy.
• As Nadelmann points out, a ten-point gender gap in support of marijuana legalization disappeared in the last four years.

Nadelmann's speech is below. To follow along with the important conversations going on Albuquerque, watch the twitter hashtag #reformconf