New Directions Conference, June 17 in Washington, DC: A Public Health and Safety Approach to Drugs

An unprecedented collection of service providers, law enforcement officials, public health and community advocates will come together to chart a new course in U.S. drug policy at the New Directions Conference on Thursday, June 17 in Washington, DC. The event will take place from 8:45 a.m.-5 p.m., in Room B338 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

Drug policy experts from across the country will address strategies for expanding treatment, coordinating prevention and enforcement, implementing overdose prevention and other harm reduction measures during the day-long conference.

When asked about the war on drugs on the campaign trail President Barack Obama said, “I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public health approach [to drugs].” Polls show the American people agree. President Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, told the Wall Street Journal last year that he doesn’t like the term “war on drugs” because “[w]e’re not at war with people in this country.” Yet for the tens of millions of Americans who have been arrested and incarcerated for a drug offense, U.S. drug policy is a war on them–and their families. What exactly is a public health approach to drugs? What might truly ending the war on drugs look like?

Two hundred of the leading experts on drugs and drug policy will come together at the conference to discuss the following topics:

• Reducing the number of Americans behind bars due to drug use
• Reducing HIV and overdose deaths
• The best forms of treatment available
• Innovative international strategies
• Do drug courts work?
• Racial disparities in drug enforcement
• The best strategies for reducing death, disease, crime and suffering

Panel members include:

• John Carnevale, Ph.D. (President, Carnevale Associates LLC, worked for the Drug Czar under three administrations)
• Allan Clear (Executive Director, Harm Reduction Coalition)
• Chris Collins (Vice President and Director of Public Policy, amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS research)
• Ronald Hampton (Executive Director, National Black Police Association)
• Daliah Heller (Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Alcohol & Drug Use Prevention, Care, and Treatment, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene)
• Ethan Nadelmann (Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance)
• Lynn Paltrow (Founder and Executive Director, National Advocates for Pregnant Women)
• Hilary O. Shelton (Director of Washington Bureau/Vice President for Advocacy, NAACP)
• David P. Soares (Albany County District Attorney- Albany, NY)
• Nkechi Taifa (Senior Policy Analyst for Civil and Criminal Justice Reform at the Open Society Policy Center)

For a full list of panel members, go to: http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/NewDirectionsAgendaFinal.pdf

The Drug Policy Alliance is co-hosting the 2010 New Directions DC Conference with the ACLU, amfAR, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, National Association of Social Workers, National Black Police Association, and Physicians for Human Rights. For a full list of partners and more information on the conference visit: http://www.drugpolicy.org/events/event.cfm?eventID=895