Possible paths for drug reform? Panelists at Petrie-Flom book talk discuss constitutional challenges to punitive drug laws and forward directions

Drug reform panelists at a Petrie-Flom book talk argued that the missed constitutional challenge is a key reason punitive drug policy has persisted. Author David Pozen discussed his book, "The Constitution of the War on Drugs," focusing on how the 1960s and 1970s featured a “period of possibility” for privacy and other constitutional arguments, which later narrowed in the courts. Panelists referenced cases affecting drug law outcomes, including Griswold v. Connecticut and later appellate decisions that treated drug privacy claims as requiring a “fundamental” threatened interest. The conversation connected reform setbacks to enforcement escalation and to legal and political ideas about liberty versus the pursuit of happiness. Jeannie Suk Gersen and moderator Mason Marks linked today’s renewed attention to drug and psychedelic policy to earlier constitutional frameworks, noting that drug reform groups rarely use constitutional claims in their attacks on criminal drug laws.