JustPublics@365

On Saturday April 26, 2014 the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with East Harlem resident and Certified Emergency Response Team volunteer Sam Goudif.

On Saturday April 26, 2014 the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with East Harlem resident and Certified Emergency Response Team volunteer Sam Goudif.

Reporter Jeff Mays on East Harlem Recovering from the Explosion by JustPublics@365

On Saturday April 26, 2014, the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with East Harlem resident Louise Burwell.

On Saturday April 26, 2014 the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with East Harlem resident and Community Emergency Response Team member Maricela Ortiz.

On Saturday April 26, 2014, the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with Red Cross volunteer Mary O'Shaunessy.

On Saturday April 26, 2014 the CUNY School of Public Health hosted a community conversation about the East Harlem explosion and building collapse. Community members met in groups to discuss what shared their experience and ways the community could prepare for future disasters. JustPublics@365 was there to collect stories of the people who were affected by the explosion. This interview is with East Harlem resident and chaplain Alicia Gaudi.

Melissa Mark-Viverito, Speaker, New York City Council, opens a discussion on drug policy at "Marijuana & Drug Policy Reform
in New York—The LaGuardia Report at 70," which was a symposium hosted by The New York Academy of Medicine and the Drug Policy Alliance.

Richard Bonnie, University of Virginia, give the John K. Lattimer Lecture on the history of drug policy in America.

Sam Roberts, Ph.D., Columbia University, talks about the problems with relying on medical models for regulating drug use.

Fiorello Henry LaGuardia, the hugely popular Mayor of New York City in the 1930’s and 1940’s, was known for his leadership on the New Deal and his many public works. Less widely known is that he was also a leader on progressive marijuana policy reform. Seventy years ago, The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) released a report commissioned by Mayor LaGuardia that was one of the first systematic reviews of the medical, psychological, and social impact of marijuana, investigating many of the same myths that persist about the drug today. In commissioning the report in 1939, LaGuardia was responding to Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, pushed by Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which effectively removed marijuana from the U.S. pharmacopeia and set our country down a disastrous road of marijuana prohibition. LaGuardia understood then that our drug policies should be driven by science -- not stigma, fear, and dogma. On May 1st and 2nd, the Drug Policy Alliance and the New York Academy of Medicine hosted a free conference marking the 70th Anniversary of the report and examining our current marijuana and drug policy reform efforts. This audio clip was recorded at the symposium on May 1st.

Deborah Small, J.D., Executive Director, Break the Chains, says that it makes no sense to say we need more research to determine drug policy.

This podcast is part of a series on public health and social activism in East Harlem. I interview Lynn Roberts, a professor at the CUNY School of Public Health. Dr. Roberts has worked with communities in the South Bronx and East Harlem focusing on adolescent and women’s health, violence prevention, community organizing & development, and health disparities.

Dawn Porter is a lawyer turned documentary film maker who's film, Gideon's Army, follows three public defenders in the Deep South. Her film chronicles the lives of these public defenders and emphasizes the personal stories of their clients to show the realities of, and inequalities in, the criminal justice system. In this interview we talk about how she constructed the film and what impact she hopes it will have.

In this week’s episode of the JustPublics@365 podcast series I interview Ashley Dawson, Professor of English at the College of Statan Island, CUNY about his scholarship on the history of resistance and about his work as the web co-editor of Social Text.