Silverman came to this conclusion while he worked as a campus organizer for the campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act’s aid-elimination penalty,[3] which denies financial aid to students with drug convictions.
As part of his work, Silverman prompted students to describe the details of the police stops and searches leading to their minor drug arrests.
[1] In 2003, Flex secured funding from the Marijuana Policy Project grants program[5] to create its first docudrama, BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters, hosted by Ira Glasser, past executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
[6] The film illustrates scenarios of police encountering citizens in various situations and how the relevant civil rights should be asserted in regards to the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
Successes include victories against D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's Safe Homes Initiative and an attempt by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to implement random searches of Metro passengers.