Ben Boyce - a talk on the war on drugs, crime, and addiction

Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm, with doors opening at 5:30pm. The speaker's presentation will probably start around 6:00. Speaker: Ben Boyce

Bio: Ben Boyce spent time in prison throughout the early 2000s for crimes of theft committed to support his addiction to heroin and cocaine. He now teaches colleges classes at CU-Denver on campus and as part of their in-prison education program. In addition to authoring books and academic research related to addiction and the war on drugs, Ben also hosts the Dr. Junkie Show podcasts devoted to harm reduction and education. Email: Benjamin.Boyce@ucdenver.edu

Topic: As the war on drugs ramps back up after half a decade of harm reduction and compassion beginning to inform policy, the rates of addiction, overdose and incarceration related to the war on drugs are also growing. Addiction and prison are two spaces most of us spend our lives trying to avoid, leaving us uniformed as to what's going on and why it's happening. We've also been bombarded by propaganda about both the drug war and the prison industrial complex from mainstream media who profit off of spectacles of misery. Boyce will talk about his own experience as an addicted person, the truth about addiction, harm reduction and the war on drugs, and the future of prison education, which offers a pathway out of the US's revolving door of incarceration. For far too long, America has turned away from the real causes of crime and addiction. Let's talk about how to fix that. Views expressed by event speakers and participants are their own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of Secular Hub.