On 11/24/2022 activists with Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), with support from the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), DC Marijuana Justice (DCMJ), and Maryland Marijuana Justice (MDMJ), rallied at the White House where they urged President Biden to follow-through with his commitments from the the 2020 election campaign to release all federal prisoners incarerated for cannabis charges.

Interviews outside of the United States Supreme Court, on June 25, 2022, the day after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling was released, upending 49 years of constitutionally protected access to abortions services under the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

The hiatus is over! For this episode, Scott is joined by Stanford Fraser, a Public Defender in Prince George's County Maryland, and a recently announced candidate for State’s Attorney. They discuss the imbalance of power given to prosecutors and the state criminal punishment apparatus inside the courtroom, and the reforms Stanford envisions for PG. They go on to discuss police reform and harm reducation and how prosecurotial policy & power, when misdeployed, can contrinute to preventing oversight of police officers and diminish the effectiveness of harm reducation efforts.

For this bonus episode of Prohibited, Scott joins Euguene Leventhal on the History of Drugs in Society podcast for their 23rd episode "Harm Reduction and Cannabis Policy".

Stay tuned for the Prohibited's last four episodes of season 2 in March and April.

For this episode, Scott was joined by drug policy reform expert Sam Tracy to discuss the results of the 2020 elections and the various drug policy reform campaigns around the US, from psilocybin mushroom therapy, to drug decriminalization, to medical & adult use cannabis. They also speculate on what a Biden-Harris administration might mean for drug policy reform and why control of the senate may be the most important factor moving forward.

“This is the most important election of our lifetime” is something we hear every election cycle in this era of hyperpolarization. For this episode, Scott is joined by YouTube essayist and politico, Yusuf Takes, for a discussion of why that statement is true this time, in 2020. In this conversation, Scott and Yusuf explore Yusuf's his recent YouTube video essay "Is #Trump Becoming a Dictator" and breakdown some of his analysis of why Trump, uniquely among American Presidents, encompasses each of the dictatorial characteristics as defined by those who study how and why democracies fail.

For our first episode which is explicitly about gaming or gambling, Scott sat down with the organizers behind the three separate ballot initiatives to bring gaming & gambling to six sites in the state of Nebraska which already have race tracks for horse racing. Discussion includes the roller coaster campaign to gather signatures during the covid-19 and the politics of the opposition to which includes racist, anti-indigenous fear-mongering and interference from the State’s Governor and Secretary of State.

After having collected hundreds of thousands of signatures in order to appear on the November ballot, the campaign to bring medical cannabis to the state of Nebraska was abruptly ended when the state's Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative's eligibility to appear. Scott is joined by John Cartier and State Senator Anna Wishart to discuss the fallout from the decision, the potential effects on all future ballot initiatives in the state, and what is next for cannabis law in Nebraska.

Prohibited returns to the topic of harm reduction with Garrett Reuscher, a drug policy reform veteran who currently works as a substance use counselor and mental health therapist in NYC. Garrett and Scott discuss how stigma and coercive systems conspire to make substance use more dangerous than need be. Later, they lighten the mood by going over some of Garrett’s social media rants which are inspired by his anger over society’s treatment of drug users and people experiencing substance use disorder.

For this Episode, Scott is joined by Jake Agliata from the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD). Jake is a human rights scholar and an advocate for the humane treatment of people who use drugs. Scott and Jake take a deep dive into the international human rights convention framework and how that framework informs policing across the globe before delving into how States engage with international definitions around human rights, which can often lead to state-sanctioned violence, profiling, and oppression.