July 2016
SSDP Welcomes Emory Basso, Operations and Administration Associate
Students for Sensible Drug Policy is thrilled to welcome Emory Basso as the newest member of our staff! Em joined the staff in June and is working in the Washington, DC office as SSDP’s first Operations and Administration Associate, a brand new position on the growing development team. They hope to use their systems engineering background to ensure that the
Just Say Know: Taking Care of Yourself
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern Why is it important to take care of yourself, as a peer educator and activist? What are some ways that you can take care of yourself? A Peer Educator’s primary role is to educate others, but one must still be mindful of oneself in that process. Teaching others how to
July 2016 Monthly Mosaic: The Prison Industrial Complex and the War on Drugs
July 2016 Monthly Mosaic The Prison Industrial Complex and the War on Drugs Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s original motto was “Schools Not Prisons,” in response to the “Aid Elimination Penalty,” an amendment added to the Higher Education Act in 1998, which excluded students with drug convictions from receiving federal financial aid to attend institutions of higher learning. In early
Just Say Know: Programming & Presentation Skills
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern What are the necessary components to a good peer education program? What are some important skills to have when delivering a peer education program? What are some difficult questions that may come up when delivering a peer education program? How do you plan to navigate those questions? Before the Peer Education
Why Asian Americans Should Fight To End the Drug War
From Hyphen Magazine: When I was 17, I told my mom that I had tried cannabis. Cannabis was a completely foreign substance to my parents. In common use of the Chinese language, using cannabis and other drugs is known — in precise translation — as “inhaling poison.” The idea that their daughter would be “inhaling poison” was so unfathomable that
A Response to the Brooklyn K2 Overdoses
In response to an article comparing people under the influence of the synthetic cannabis substance K2 to “the walking dead,” CUNY Baruch SSDP chapter leader Leland Radovanovic submitted the following editorial to the NY Daily News. Prohibition strikes again, this time in the form of a synthetic pseudo cannabinoid created as an alternative to cannabis that doesn’t show up on
Just Say Know: Listening, Responding & Referral Skills
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern What are some questions you can ask to identify why people want to talk to you? What are some helpful things to say in response? How would you refer someone to a resource? When presenting a Just Say Know module, Peer Educators are likely to have audience members asking questions and
For My Birthday, Donate to the Organization that Changed My Life
Five years ago, I graduated from a high school class of 200 students and enrolled at the University of Connecticut, a public state university with over 30,000 people on campus. The culture shock of graduating from a rural high school to a state university was overwhelming. So I did what hundreds of thousands of college freshmen do every year: I
Anthony Carrasco Joins SSDP as Summer Policy Intern
I’m pleased to introduce Anthony Carrasco, SSDP’s Good Samaritan Policy Intern for the Summer of 2016. Anthony first got plugged in with SSDP when he and several peers reestablished the SSDP chapter at UC Berkeley in 2015. Since the Fall of 2015, Anthony served as the Vice President of External Affairs of the UC Berkeley SSDP chapter. Due to their
Just Say Know: Recovery & Strategies for Change in High-Risk Behaviors
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern Think through each of the phases of the Cycle of Change: Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance, Relapse. For each of these phases, how can you meet someone where they’re at and guide them through the cycle? On the path to recovery and a healthier lifestyle, one must always remember that change
How SSDP Prepared Me For My Internship With Drug Policy Alliance
Meet Leslie Otañez, a California State University Long Beach SSDP member. During her undergraduate years, she studied criminal justice and psychology, and now is working on her Master’s degree in criminology. She is currently working on the AUMA initiative as an intern with the Drug Policy Alliance. Read on to learn more about how SSDP prepared her for this opportunity,
Just Say Know: Harm Reduction
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern How would you explain the concept of harm reduction to someone who has never heard about it before? Review Principles of Harm Reduction. What is the most important principle to you and why? How will you apply harm reduction in your peer education work? Ex. When you’re facilitating small group presentations,
Most Laws Barring People With Felonies From the Marijuana Business Are Pure Hypocrisy
Written by SSDP Trustee Shaleen Title ’02 and originally published on TheInfluence.org. People often speak of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that come with building a new, legal marijuana industry from scratch. The opportunities are real, but the premise forgets something: This industry isn’t being created from scratch. Instead, it’s replacing two things that already existed: an illicit market from which many marginalized
Should You Support California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act?
Written by Leland Radovanovic, chapter leader of CUNY Baruch College SSDP. This post originally appeared on The Odyssey Online. The tide is coming in on cannabis legalization. Public consensus has never been higher. It’s time to legalize. One of the most important states may be next. California. They’ve had, for several decades now, a medical cannabis program. For better or
Just Say Know: Stigma
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern How has our society come to stigmatize drug use and drug users? How and why does stigma prevent people from seeking help? Stigma is the belief that a certain attribute makes an individual unacceptable, despite the presence of other positive qualities. It is a driving force behind continued drug prohibition. Our
Announcing SSDP’s 2016-17 Organizational Objectives
Each year, the Students for Sensible Drug Policy board, staff, and select students and alumni come together for an in-person “Strategy Summit.” A couple of weeks ago, we gathered in Berkeley, CA to discuss the activities and direction of the organization and came to conclusions on our plan for the upcoming year. This plan is finalized as our 2016-2017 SSDP Organizational
Just Say Know: Substance Use Disorder and Problematic Drug Use
Written by Guest Blogger Karen Walker, Peer Education Intern What are some ways you can identify if someone is exhibiting signs of addiction or problematic drug use? What is the difference between drug use and problematic drug use? What are some of the ways in which our current understanding of problematic drug use and substance use disorders help the recovery
