We are sad to report that the co-founder and President of Common Sense for Drug Policy, Kevin B. Zeese, passed away on September Fifth, 2020. He is sorely missed.
Kevin was one of the nation's foremost authorities on drug policy issues. He worked on a wide array of drug related issues since he graduated from George Washington University Law School in 1980.
We are sad to report that the co-founder and President of Common Sense for Drug Policy, Kevin B. Zeese, passed away on September Fifth, 2020. He is sorely missed.
Kevin was one of the nation's foremost authorities on drug policy issues. He worked on a wide array of drug related issues since he graduated from George Washington University Law School in 1980.
Kevin wrote for newspapers and journals on a range of drug issues, including an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the Colombian drug war. He also appeared on every major television network as a commentator. He served as a consultant to Walter Cronkite for the Discovery Channel special: The Drug Dilemma: War or Peace? He spoke at nationally recognized legal seminars and testified before Congress on drug related issues.
A Feb. 2005 interview with Kevin on the syndicated radio program Cultural Baggage is available. In April 2002, Kevin debated DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson at a conference hosted by Rice University's James Baker Institute. Segments of the forum, "Moving Beyond the 'War on Drugs'," including the Zeese-Hutchinson debate, are available as streaming video. A listing of articles in which Kevin appears is available by clicking here.
He was the author of Drug Testing Legal Manual, Drug Testing Legal Manual and Practice Aids and co-author of Drug Law: Strategies and Tactics, all published by Clark Boardman Callaghan. Kevin served as editor of Drug Law Report for Clark Boardman Callaghan from 1983 to 1998. In addition, he was the author of Drug Prohibition and the Conscience of Nations. Mr. Zeese was the editor of Friedman and Szasz On Liberty and Drugs and edited numerous books on drug policy and manuals on criminal defense.
Kevin Zeese litigated a variety of drug policy-related issues. Among these are the medical use of marijuana, the use of the military and national guard in domestic drug enforcement, the spraying of herbicides in the United States and abroad on marijuana, drug testing of government workers and the right to privacy as it relates to marijuana in the home. He had been a legal advisor to needle exchange workers prosecuted for their anti-AIDS efforts, buyer's clubs who distribute marijuana to the seriously ill, and medical marijuana patients prosecuted for the medical use of marijuana.
Kevin facilitated the Alliance of Reform Organizations, a network of all the major reform organizations in the United States. He served on the Executive Committee of the Harm Reduction Coalition. He served on the Board of Directors of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas and was a Board member emeritus of the DrugSense.
He was a co-founder of the Drug Policy Foundation (now renamed the Drug Policy Alliance), where he served as Vice President and Counsel, and is a former Executive Director and Chief Counsel of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Zeese served on Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's Mayor's Working Group on Drug Policy Reform and served on San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan's Harm Reduction Council. Both were efforts to implement a model urban drug policy. Zeese was also involved with advocacy related to the fatal shooting of Esequiel Hernandez, the legal rights of patients, doctors and their caregivers in California, and the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs (the UNGASS).
In 2000, Kevin Zeese was the recipient of the Richard J. Dennis DrugPeace Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Drug Policy Reform from the Drug Policy Foundation at its 13th Annual International Conference on Drug Policy Reform.
"● The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine increased slightly from 1.6 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2002 to 2.5 in 2006, decreased to 1.3 in 2010, then increased to 8.2 in 2022; the rate in 2022 was 12.3% higher than the rate in 2021 (7.3) (Figure 5).
"● The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (subsequently, psychostimulants), which includes methamphetamine, amphetamine, and methylphenidate, was 4.0% higher in 2022 than the rate in 2021 (10.4 compared with 10.0).
"● In 2022, 107,941 drug overdose deaths occurred, resulting in an age-adjusted rate of 32.6 deaths per 100,000 standard population (Figure 1).
"● Overall, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths nearly quadrupled from 8.2 in 2002 to 32.6 in 2022; however, the rate did not significantly change between 2021 (32.4) and 2022 (32.6).
"● Between 2021 and 2022, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths for males increased 1.1% from 45.1 to 45.6, while the rate for females decreased 1.0% from 19.6 to 19.4, although this decrease was not significant.
"In general, synthetic cathinones are classified as stimulants or amphetamine-type stimulants [109, 110]. However, the pharmacological effects of individual derivatives are strictly dependent on the type of substituents and their location, and the differences in pharmacological profiles between individual cathinone derivatives are considerable.
"The NPS phenomenon remains a considerable challenge due to its evolving nature. The range of compounds currently on the drug market is constantly changing, with new and previously unknown substances entering the market every year.
"The phenomenon of new psychoactive substances (NPS) is an ongoing problem in modern forensic toxicology. One of the most important groups among NPS are synthetic cathinones, which are derivatives of cathinone, a natural alkaloid found in the shrub Catha edulis.
"Illicit drug use at music festivals has been the subject of Australian public and media attention following the drug-related deaths of six young Australians across two festival seasons in 2019 and 2020 (Lee, 2019), and a further young Australian at a festival in February 2023 (Australian Associated Press, 2023).
"The most recent data shows that drug producers continue to create new substances to avoid legal controls, although the rate at which new psychoactive substances are now entering the market appears to be slowing. Between 2016 and 2022, typically around 50 new psychoactive substances appeared on the market for the first time each year; this fell to 26 in 2023. In addition, around 400 previously reported new substances are detected on the market each year."
