Click Here to watch the Symposium

A Step Forward: Creating a Just Drug Policy for the United States

The Oregon Law Review is proud to present a day-long symposium, A Step Forward: Creating a Just Drug Policy for the United States, forty years after Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize marijuana.

The substantial social and economic costs of the drug war, which include more than a trillion dollars spent over the last forty years, have led many to question--and voters in Washington and Colorado in 2012 to answer--whether alternative regimes to criminalization are a worthy policy goal. Our symposium brings together experts from a range of disciplines to explore the issue of drug policy, including the benefits and drawbacks of our nation's drug laws, potential alternative approaches such as regulated distribution and medicalization, judicial innovations in drug treatment, and the unresolved legal and policy questions surrounding the recent state marijuana initiatives.

Our participants include Earl Blumenauer, Member of the United States House of Representatives; Suzanne Bonamici, Member of the United States House of Representatives; Bruce Turcott, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington; David Blake, Deputy Attorney General for the State of Colorado; Ann Aiken, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Oregon, and many others.

We look forward to hosting the following speakers:

• Ann Aiken, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Oregon
• Michele Alexandre, Professor, University of Mississippi School of Law
• David Blake, Deputy Attorney General, State of Colorado
• The Honorable Steven Alm, First Circuit Court of Hawaii
• Jane Bambauer, Professor, University of Arizona College of Law
• Earl Blumenauer, Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Suzanne Bonamici, Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Ernest Drucker, Professor of Public Health, Columbia University
• Jefferson Fish, Professor of Psychology, St. John’s University
• Fred Foldvary, Professor of Economics, San Jose State University
• Chris Gibson, Officer, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program
• James Gray, Retired California Judge
• Abigail Hall, PhD Fellow, Economics, George Mason University
• Beau Kilmer, Director of Drug Policy Research, RAND Corp.
• Alex Kreit, Professor and Director of Social Policy, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
• John Redman, Director of Demand Reduction, California HIDTA
• Charles Manski, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University
• Daniel Robelo, Researcher, Drug Policy Alliance
• Bruce Turcott, Assistant Attorney General, State of Washington
• Mark Tushnet, Professor, Harvard Law School
• Michael Vitiello, Professor, University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law
• Daniel Werb, Researcher, International Centre for Science in Drug Policy

Full Program and Participant Biographies Here

Click Here to Read OLR's Volume 91 Symposium Issue