Interview with Professor Robert MacCoun on Drug Policy

Here is a fascinating interview of Professor Robert MacCoun about “The Psychology and Politics of Drug Policy.”  The 36-minute interview was conducted by Nina Catalano as part of the Law and Mind Science Seminar at Harvard Law School.

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Biography

Robert MacCoun, a psychologist, joined the faculty of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Policy in 1993 and the Boalt faculty in 1999. From 1986 to 1993 he was a behavioral scientist at The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan private research institution. He has published many studies of jury decision making, alternative dispute resolution, illicit drug dealing, alternative drug laws, harm reduction, gays and lesbians in the military, media biases, and bias in the use and interpretation of research evidence. He is on the National Academy of Sciences committee on drug policy research and analysis, and in 1999 he was a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Table of Contents

00:15 — How do you see the relationship between scientific research and drug policy?

05:34 — What role does the media play in public drug policy debates?

07:50 — What’s up with the drug policy reform movement these days?

11:36 — How does our scientific understanding of addiction impact the legalization debate?

17:31 — What are your thoughts about the California ballot initiative to legalize and tax marijuana?

28:10 — What are the current trends with regard to marijuana and public opinion?

32:44 — Can you tell us how you got involved in the intersection between psychology and the law?

Duration: 35:24

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For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “News about the Captured Situation of Food Policy,” “The Situation of Medical Research,” “Andrew Papachristos Explains Why Criminals Obey the Law – Video,” and “The Situation of Criminality – Abstract.”