Director of Drug Use Initiatives at Vital Strategies

Dr. Daliah Heller’s research interests include urban health policy, criminal justice, community-oriented healthcare, and drug use epidemiology and interventions. She is actively involved in policy analysis and research to promote criminal justice reform via healthcare innovation, and law enforcement diversion models for people who use drugs.

Dr. Heller has served as Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care, and Treatment, at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and earlier, as the Director of Harm Reduction in the Department’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control. Before joining government, she built and led one of the country’s leading harm reduction service organizations, based in the South Bronx.

Dr. Heller’s implementation science experience focuses on drug policy alignment and coordination across municipal government agencies, substance use services integration into general health care, and practice improvement for criminal justice responses to drug use. She is currently the Director of Drug Use Initiatives at Vital Strategies.

Clay Conrad author Jury Nullification,  Juries have been delivering independent verdicts in the interest of justice for over 800 years, serving as the final check on government's power to pass unjust, immoral, or oppressive laws that leave citizens at the mercy of sometimes jaded or corrupt courts and legislatures. This was what the Founding Fathers feared, and this is the reason why they guaranteed trial by jury three times in the Constitution – more than any other right.

Phillip Smith is a senior writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a drug policy journalist for the past two decades. He is the longtime author of the Drug War Chronicle, the online publication of the non-profit StopTheDrugWar.org, and has been the editor of AlterNet’s Drug Reporter since 2015. He was awarded the Drug Policy Alliance’s Edwin M. Brecher Award for Excellence in Media

Roger Goodman has worked in government and politics. Before his election to the Legislature in 2006, Roger had already served as senior staff in the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., and here in Washington State he had served as a state agency director. As the youngest son of a college political science professor, Roger’s rigorous undergraduate and graduate education in law and public policy prepared him for a life of public service.

At the State Capitol, Roger has served for many years as Chair of the House Public Safety Committee, with jurisdiction over the state’s criminal justice system. When he first arrived in the Legislature back in 2007 he had already hit the ground running, appointed as Vice-Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a position he held for six years.

Roger is ranked as one of the most effective legislators in the United States, as half of the bills he has introduced have been enacted into law

Dana runs the only shop in the world where any adult can come in and buy a variety of psychedelic mushrooms or LSD or DMT or kra or COA Lee for other wonderful and forbidden products like that. SEE Full Hour Transcript below:

Philippe Lucas PhD is a cannabis and psychedelic researcher, a lifelong patient access advocate, and President of SABI Mind, a clinic group providing access to psychedelic-assisted therapy in the treatment of mental health, pain and substance use disorder. Philippe founded the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, one of Canada’s first non-profit medical cannabis dispensaries, and was a founding Board member of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies Canada and co-founder of the Victoria Association of Psychedelic Studies. He is the Primary Investigator of the Canadian Psychedelic Survey (2022) and co-PI of the Global Psychedelic Survey (2023), and previously coordinated a prospective observational study of ayahuasca as a treatment for trauma and addiction in cooperation with a BC indigenous Band. Additionally, Philippe worked as VP, Global Patient Research & Access at Tilray (2014-21), where he was part of the leadership team for the company’s first 7 years of operation and oversaw a comprehensive international clinical and observational cannabis research program. 

Philippe is extremely community involved, serving as a Victoria City Councillor and Board member of the Capital Regional District from 2008-2011. He has been invited to present his research before the Canadian House of Commons and Senate on numerous occasions, and has worked with governments around the globe to develop evidence-based drug policies. Philippe has received a number of accolades for his patient research and advocacy, including the Americans for Safe Access Researcher of the Year Award 2021, the Cannabis Council of Canada Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal."

Steve Downing was Deputy Police Chief of Los Angeles. Discussion revolves around the decade' long escalation of draconian tactics in the drug war ranging to the attempt on Trumps life and VP Harris now running for President of the US.

Cliff Schaffer established the world's largest online library of research into the drug laws at http://www.druglibrary.org. The reason I established the site is simply because I had read some of the major research on our drug laws and I just became astounded at their stupidity. There is no other area in which the law is so completely out of touch with the available research.

Dr. Richard Watkins, former Texas warden joins prominent Houston attorney Clay Conrad, the author of Jury Nullification to discuss jail overcrowding around the US. PLUS we have an interview with Freeway Rick Ross, the LA entrepreneur the CIA chose to sell a billion dollars worth of cocaine for them, to finance the Iran Contra affair.

Veronica Wright is the founder of the National Coalition for Drug Legalization, a nonprofit that supports drug legalization through research and community outreach. She is a community leader and a strong advocate for the legalization of all drugs.