Change Makers - Homicide by Overdose: Criminal Law in a Drug Crisis

Description

Change Makers is a thought leadership series which brings together the best academic, judicial and industry minds to solve global problems.

About this Event

Around the world, the human, social and economic costs of illicit drugs are soaring. Overdose deaths in the USA and Canada have reached such a point that both nations have declared public health emergencies. The numbers are also on the rise in Australia.

In the USA, public authorities are increasingly turning to the criminal law to address the overdose crisis, treating overdose deaths as homicides, and prosecuting friends, family members and acquaintances.

What role should the criminal law play in addressing this public health crisis in the USA, Canada and Australia?

Speakers

Keynote speaker:
Professor Leo Beletsky, Northeastern University
Leo Beletsky is a Professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, US, where he is the faculty director of the Health in Justice Action Lab. Beletsky’s research focuses on the public health impact of laws and their enforcement, with special expertise in addiction, infectious disease transmission, and the criminal justice system. He is currently applying his career-long interest in drug overdose to the North American’s opioid crisis.

Chair:
Associate Professor Kate Seear, Monash University
Kate Seear is Associate Professor in law at the Faculty of Law, Monash University, and convenor of the Australian Drug Lawyers Network. She is a founding member of the Faculty’s Health, Law and Wellbeing group, a former Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow and the author of numerous books, articles and reports on drug law, policy, stigma and hepatitis C.

Panel includes:

Sione Crawford is the CEO of Harm Reduction Victoria, the state organisation representing people who use and people who inject drugs. He has been working in community and peer based organisations for around fifteen years in a variety of roles from policy to peer education to management. Prior to Harm Reduction Victoria he managed the ACT user organisation, CAHMA and was Director of Programs & Services at the NSW user organisation, NUAA.

Dr Adrian Farrugia is a Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University.

Dr Kari Lancaster is a Senior Research Fellow and Scientia Fellow at the Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH) at UNSW, and an Honorary Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Ms Adriana Buccianti, whose son Daniel passed away from an overdose at a music festival in 2012. She is now an advocate for drug policy reform.

Partners

This event is supported by the Health, Law and Wellbeing group in the Faculty of Law at Monash University, and the Australian Drug Lawyers Network.

Change Makers Series

Introducing Change Makers, a thought leadership series which brings together the best academic, judicial and industry minds to solve some of the biggest problems facing our society.

At Monash Law we produce influential research which seeks to engage with our local and global communities, and impact positively on people’s lives.

Change Makers is more than just another series of speeches. Change Makers aims to be the catalyst for creating real change by providing follow-up opportunities for action and collaboration.