Kleiman To Discuss US Drug Policy on Thursday, 9/20 at 4:30 PM Talk: “What Drugs Should Be Legalized? How Legal Should They Be?”

The presence of illicit drugs within the United States is no secret. Despite strict prohibition of access to intoxicants, some Americans regularly exhibit criminal behavior to obtain and use them. Nonetheless, extreme constraints on drug use require extensive law enforcement and often result in the jailing of nonviolent citizens. The answer may lie in good drug policies, which balance risks and costs of free availability against those of various sorts of control. The optimal policy may vary per drug; yet, for some, such policy may positively affect American society.

Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs will speak on such an approach to illicit drug usage. This fall he is a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia’s Batten School of Leadership and Policy, and a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Justice. He teaches courses on methods of policy analysis and on drug abuse and crime control.
Mr. Kleiman edits the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis and serves on the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Research Council. He is the author of When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and co-author (with Angela Hawken and Jonathan Caulkins) of Drugs and Drug Policy and (with Hawken, Caulkins, and Beau Kilmer) of Marijuana Legalization. Previous books include Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results and Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control.

Mr. Kleiman holds a B.A. from Haverford College and an M.P.P and Ph.D. from Harvard, where he taught before coming to UCLA. In addition to his academic work, Mr. Kleiman provides advice on crime control and drug policy to governments here and abroad. He has held policy positions with the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of Boston.

Please join us for the Professor Kleiman’s talk, “What Drugs Should Be Legalized? How Legal Should They Be?” at Rocky 3 at 4:30 pm, September 20, 2012.