Drugs and Stuff: A Podcast from the Drug Policy Alliance

On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 64, which legalized possession and consumption of marijuana for adults 21 and over and immediately reduced or eliminated many criminal penalties for marijuana in California - including the sale, and cultivation of marijuana. As the state gears up for full implementation on January 1, 2018, Matt SotoRosen, a senior trial attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, and DPA's own Rodney Holcombe, joined the show to discuss what marijuana legalization looks like in California one year later. We also dig into the oft-overlooked criminal justice provisions in Proposition 64, including record clearing or resentencing for previous criminal convictions for marijuana.

We pulled aside a handful of experts to talk with us during the Drug Policy Alliance's 2017 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Atlanta last month. Jon Perri works at change.org and his new project, Nation of Second Chances, explores the stories of many people who received clemency from President Obama. We also found time to talk about Phish, race, drug use at concerts/festivals, and nuclear war. It was a great conversation, hope you enjoy!

Dr. Malik Burnett is a general surgeon and former DPA staff member who successfully led our campaign to pass Initiative 71, which legalized marijuana for adults in Washington, D.C. in 2014. Dr. Burnett is a physician advocate and a board member of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. Currently a resident physician in the Johns Hopkins General Preventive Medicine program, Dr. Burnett analyzes the public health implications of current drug policy. Burnett, an Atlanta native, joined us to talk about marijuana legalization through a racial justice lens, and what every aspiring cannabis industry entrepreneur should know.

We pulled aside a handful of experts to talk with us during the Drug Policy Alliance's 2017 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Atlanta.

Marsha Rosenbaum sat down to talk with us about what drug education should look like for young people, and her experience as a mother, researcher and drug policy reformer trying to get schools to implement a curriculum grounded in science and harm reduction.

Rosenbaum founded DPA's San Francisco office and is the author of the prominent education booklet, "Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens and Drugs." From 1977 to 1995 she was the principal investigator on National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded studies of heroin addiction, methadone maintenance treatment, MDMA (Ecstasy), cocaine, and drug use during pregnancy. She is the author of three books, four education booklets, as well as numerous scholarly articles about drug use, addiction, women, treatment, and drug policy.

We sat down with DPA's new executive director to find out more about her history and look ahead to next week's gathering at the 2017 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Atlanta. Maria's commitment to social justice and drug policy reform dates from her childhood, which she spent mostly in Peru. She was strongly influenced by her early work at Human Rights Watch researching Colombia, where drug profits fueled massacres and official corruption.

We're back with a timely new episode. This week we sat down with Marvin Washington, former NFL player and Super Bowl champion, to talk about the war on drugs, marijuana policies in sports, socially conscious athletes, and this past week's display of solidarity across the NFL in response to Donald Trump's comments calling players who kneel during the national anthem "sons of bitches."

DPA's Tommy McDonald sits down with Ro Khanna, the U.S. representative from California's 17th congressional district, to talk about the drug war, the opioid overdose crisis and Overdose Awareness Day.

August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day. Recently, the Drug Policy Alliance held a national briefing for the press on preventing overdoses in the wake of the opioid crisis. How is the federal government responding? How can overdoses be prevented in humane, non-punitive ways? Listen in as experts, advocates and legislators offer their solutions to the overdose crisis.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is the nation's leading organization working to end the war on drugs. We focus on legalizing marijuana; criminal justice reform and ending draconian prison sentences for drugs; harm reduction policies that prevent overdoses and save lives; and we educate the public about drugs while dispelling popular myths and misinformation. Our host, Tommy McDonald, has been on DPA's media team for 12 years and worked in journalism and radio before coming to DPA, and he'll be mostly joined by Derek Rosenfeld, who has run DPA's social media since 2010. Follow on Twitter @drugsnstuffDPA