Since 2002 the Beckley Foundation has organised a series of seminars, Society and Drugs: A Rational Perspective, to address the issue of drug use in society from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The aim of the seminars is to achieve a rational overview of the scientific, medical, social, political and economic issues surrounding the use and abuse of drugs, both legal and illegal, and promoting a health orientated, evidence-based approach to global drug policy.
These seminars bring together experts from a wide range of disciplines to examine the latest evidence on:
- The effects of different drugs on the brain, behaviour and health.
- The effectiveness of different methods of informing and educating the public, particularly young people, about drugs and the consequences of their use.
- The issues of prevention and treatment of addiction, including the relative merits of education and rehabilitation versus criminalization and incarceration.
- The likely consequences of changes in legislation, and their implications for public health, law and order, and the economy.
- Examining alternative policy options to the current prohibitive approach.
For more information about each one of our seminars click here.
Psychedelics can trigger insight, but behavior change takes time and a changed environment to take root. Through personal stories, participants will explore the concept and process of change in psychedelic therapy. How do psychedelics redefine medicine and science, and how can we effectively reintegrate them into contemporary society? Speakers: Neal Goldsmith Psychotherapist and Counselor Rick [...]
House of Lords, Westminster Palace, London 2nd & 3rd October, 2008 This seminar saw the launch of the Beckley Foundation’s Global Cannabis Commission Report on the first day, and a high-level review of preparations for the UNGASS Review of Global Drug Policy in 2009 on the second. We have confirmed the attendance of a select [...]
House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London 4TH December 2006 9.30am – 5.30pm This seminar was arranged to review the preparations for the forthcoming global review of the international drug control system. The review by national governments, under the auspices of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is likely to consist of [...]
As part of a series of seminars entitled, ‘Society & Drugs: A Rational Perspective,’ the Beckley Foundation hosted a discussion over dinner at The Royal Society on Wednesday 19th February 2003. This followed a public talk involving three speakers sponsored by The Royal Society and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, entitled “Narco-odysseys.” Biographies of the [...]
Development of a Rational Scale to Assess the Harm of Drugs of Potential Misuse Article in the Lancet 2007: 369, 1047-1053 (Full Text) One of the recurring themes of the Beckley Foundation seminars over the last few years has been highlighting the haphazard and inflexible nature of the current classification system for illegal drugs, which [...]
