Experts in the News

Drug policy fellow Katharine Neill Harris gave a congressional testimony on the failed war on drugs and solutions based on racial justice and harm reduction.

As the new Texas legislative session approaches, some lawmakers are pushing to expand access to medical marijuana. “I think there’s going to be a lot of focus in expanding the qualifying conditions, to include things like PTSD and chronic pain,” said Katharine Neill Harris, the Alfred C. Glassell, III, Fellow in Drug Policy.

“You are more likely to be arrested for marijuana if you are poor or if you are Black and Latino. And if you look at the data on drug use, there are not differences in drug use by race or ethnicity,” said drug policy fellow Katharine Neill Harris. “The primary factor there is not the severity of the drug use, but has much more to do with where you are, where the police are, and whether you are Black or brown.” Neill Harris is the Alfred C. Glassell, III, Fellow in Drug Policy.

Oregon’s move to decriminalize hard drugs marks a major step forward and demonstrates that reforms need to go beyond legalizing only cannabis, drug policy fellow Katharine Neill Harris said.

Conflicts between black communities and police forces can be traced back to slavery, said drug policy fellow Katharine Neill Harris. Distrust has persisted across generations, through the Jim Crow era, the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s, and into modern policing tactics that disproportionately target black communities. Neill Harris is the Alfred C. Glassell, III, Fellow in Drug Policy.