VERMONT REIMAGINING DRUG POLICY CONFERENCE 2023

November 9, 2023 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

A one-day convening to examine the harms of existing criminal approaches to drug use and policies designed to strengthen systems of care & support

Agenda

10:00 am Welcome and Introduction, Kassandra Frederique

Keynote Presentation: Dr. Sarah Wakeman

11:00 am Panel Discussion: Harms of Criminalization

  • Jennifer Carroll, Ph.D., MPH, North Carolina State Univ.

  • Morgan Godvin, Health in Justice Action Lab, Member of Oregon Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council

  • Valena Beety, Law Professor, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

12:00 - 12:45 pm Conversation: Criminalization in Vermont

  • Jessica Brown, Associate Director, Center for Justice Reform, Vermont Law and Graduate School

12:45 - 1:00 pm Break

1:00 pm Panel Discussion: Reforms in Practice Worldwide

  • Niamh Eastwood, Release U.K.

  • Kennedy Stewart, MA SFU, PhD LSE, Simon Fraser University

  • Corey Davis, J.D., M.S.P.H., Network for Public Health Law

Kassandra Frederique, MSW is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading organization working to end the war on drugs and build alternatives grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights. Frederique is an internationally-recognized expert and advocate on drug policy reform. Frederique holds an M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University and a B.S. in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University. (Full Bio)

Speakers

Sarah Wakeman, MD is the Senior Medical Director for Substance Use Disorder at Mass General Brigham, Medical Director for the Mass General Hospital Substance Use Disorder Initiative, program director of the Mass General Addiction Medicine fellowship, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wakeman is the Author of "Barriers to medications for addiction treatment: How stigma kills" (Full Bio)

Jessica Brown, JD is the Associate Director of the Center for Justice Reform at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Brown served for twenty-four-years as a public defender in Vermont and New Hampshire, in both the state and federal criminal legal systems. She is actively involved in initiatives to develop restorative justice programs and treatment models, and to address racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile legal systems. (Full Bio)

Corey Davis, J.D., M.S.P.H., serves as Director of the Network for Public Health Law’s Harm Reduction Legal Project. Corey was previously a Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) and served as Employment Rights Attorney at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania. Davis has authored several recent studies assessing the impacts of decriminalizing low-level drug possession in Oregon. (Full Bio)

Niamh Eastwood is the Executive Director of Release. Niamh is a member of the Expert Steering Group for the Global Drug Survey, an Associate Member of the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at Middlesex University, a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University. She is also a committee member for DrugScience and has been a technical advisor to the Global Commission on Drug Policy. (Full Bio)

Morgan Godvin, is a writer and drug policy expert. She founded Beats Overdose, a harm reduction provider for the music and entertainment industry. She is a research associate with Health in Justice Action Lab and a councilmember on Oregon’s decriminalization Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council. She was formerly incarcerated. (Full Bio)

Valena Beety, is a law professor, an innocence litigator, and a former federal prosecutor who founded the West Virginia Innocence Project, obtained presidential grants of clemency for drug offenses, and co-edited a guide to causes of wrongful convictions, The Wrongful Convictions Reader. Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights and has written extensively about people who are harmed in our criminal legal system. (Full Bio)

Kennedy Stewart, BA Acadia, MA SFU, PhD LSE is an associate professor at the SFU School of Public Policy and Director of the SFU Centre for Public Policy Research. He is a former Member of Parliament (2011-2018) and Mayor of Vancouver (2018-2022), and author of Decrim: How We Decriminalized Drugs in British Columbia. (Full Bio)

Jennifer Carroll, PhD, MPH, MA is a medical anthropologist with interdisciplinary training in cultural anthropology, epidemiology, and clinical research, whose research explores lived experiences of substance use and the impacts of drug policy on the health and wellness of people who use drugs. (Full Bio)