News and Commentary Archive

Explore recent scientific discoveries and news as well as CLBB events, commentary, and press.

Mission

The Center for Law, Brain & Behavior puts the most accurate and actionable neuroscience in the hands of judges, lawyers, policymakers and journalists—people who shape the standards and practices of our legal system and affect its impact on people’s lives. We work to make the legal system more effective and more just for all those affected by the law.

New Ideas for Substance Use Condition Treatment: Could Psychedelics Help?

March 19, 2024, 12:30 PM

Register for this event here!

This event will provide an overview of psychedelic treatments, including ibogaine and psilocybin, for substance use conditions. During this panel discussion, an ibogaine researcher, a certified recovery coach with lived experience, and a drug law expert will discuss existing research, potential benefits and risks, ongoing policy and legal reforms, and societal implications.

PANELISTS:

Moderator: Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow of Law and Applied Neuroscience, Center for Law Brain and Behavior at Harvard Medical School and Petrie-Flom Center; Licensed Psychologist; and Director, Brain InCite Neurolaw Library

Deborah Mash, Professor of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine; Director, Brain Endowment Bank at the University of Miami; and Chief Executive Officer and Founder, DemeRx

Mark Guckel, CCAR Recovery Coach Professional, EntheoRecovery Solutions, LLC

Mason Marks, MD, JD, Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Senior Fellow and Project Lead of the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR) at the Petrie-Flom Center; and Florida Bar Health Law Section Professor, Florida State University College of Law

Young, Vulnerable, and Betrayed: What can be done to help America’s most vulnerable children?

December 7, 2023, 12:00 PM ET

A child born in America today has a 37% chance of having their welfare investigated by the state by the time they turn 18. For black children, the probability rises to 53%. Over next 18 years, 145 million American children will be referred to child protective services. What does this mean? And what can be done about it?

This seminar is broken into two sections. First, Saul Glick, Senior International Fellow in Law, Policy, and Applied Neuroscience, and Kathryn Spearman, registered nurse and PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins, will discuss their research and upcoming paper on the impact crime related events are having on America’s children and the system which is designed to protect them. 

Second, Saul will discuss the novel intervention, C.A.R.E. (Child At Risk Evaluation), which he designed to enhance the training, data gathering, and information sharing techniques used by frontline mandatory reporters. C.A.R.E. will be piloted in early 2024 in a mid-sized American city. 

PANELISTS:

Saul Glick, MA is the International Fellow for Law, Policy, and Neuroscience for the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience a collaboration between the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior (CLBB) and the Petrie-Flom Center. After graduating with an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Saul joined London’s Metropolitan Police Service (Met), where he was a police constable (PC), a public order (demonstrations and protests) officer, and attached to various detective units. In 2021, Saul won the Kennedy Scholarship, which annually sends British post-grads on full scholarship to either Harvard or MIT; Saul was a special student attached to Harvard’s psychology department.

Kathryn Spearman, MSN, RN is a pediatric nurse and a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing whose doctoral training is funded through a F31 training grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. Ms. Spearman’s research focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment, firearm injury prevention, IPV-related homicides of women and children, and risk-assessment. Her scientific inquiry is informed by clinical experience working as a pediatric nurse with abused children in inpatient and residential treatment settings. Her BS and MSN are from the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, respectively, and she earned a graduate certificate in maternal child health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  

Aligning Criminal Practice with Addiction Science

December 12, 2023, 12:30 PM ET

Watch the recording here!

This panel discussion will be held virtually, as an online webinar. To ensure that you will receive access to the livestream and be kept up to date on any changes to the event, register now. We will send out a link to the livestream of the event to all registrants the day before and day of the event. Last registration is 11:30am on the day of the event. 

Drawing on the science of substance use disorders (SUD), this presentation will focus on legal responses to SUD that contradict neuroscience and behavioral research, such as incarcerating individuals on probation following a relapse. Implications for bail, sentencing, probation, and parole will be discussed as well as client-centered considerations. The presentation will also include science-informed criminal justice approaches that support treatment and recovery.

PANELISTS:

Introduction: Susannah Baruch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center

Lisa Newman-Polk, Esq., LCSW, Lead counsel for Julie Eldred in Commonwealth v. Eldred 

Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, Center for Law, Brain and Behavior and the Petrie-Flom Center

Neuroscience and Cannabis: Implications for Law and Policy

April 20, 2023, 12:30 PM ET

Watch the recording here!

This panel discussion will be held virtually, as an online webinar. To ensure that you will receive access to the livestream and be kept up to date on any changes to the event, register now. We will send out a link to the livestream of the event to all registrants the day before and day of the event. Last registration is 11:30am on the day of the event. 

The legalization of cannabis has raised significant questions for law and public policy. In this public event, neuroscientist Dr. Yasmin Hurd explore the science of cannabis, CBD, and the future of substance use disorder treatment. Dr. Stephanie Tabashneck then moderated a discussion and audience Q&A about the implications for law and policy.

PANELISTS:

Introduction: Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center

Yasmin Hurd, PhD, Ward-Coleman Chair, Translational Neuroscience, Professor Psychiatry and Neuroscience, and Director, Addiction Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB, and the Petrie-Flom Center

When the Science Says Children But the Law Says Adults: Trying and Sentencing Youth as Adults

April 4, 2023, 12:30 PM ET

WATCH THE RECORDING HERE!

Register for this event here!

This panel discussion will be held virtually, as an online webinar. To ensure that you will receive access to the livestream and be kept up to date on any changes to the event, register now. We will send out a link to the livestream of the event to all registrants the day before and day of the event. Last registration is 11:30am ET on the day of the event. 

All 50 states have transfer laws that either allow or require children to be prosecuted in adult criminal court for certain offenses. Attorney Marsha Levick, Esq. will provide an overview of the transfer law legal landscape and potential legal challenges to transfer laws. Neuroscientist BJ Casey, Ph.D. will speak about the science of adolescence and explore whether there is a neuroscientific basis for transfer laws as an effective deterrent to delinquency and consistent with rehabilitation. Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD will then lead a discussion on the role science can play in challenges to transfer laws.

PANELISTS:

Introduction: Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center

BJ Casey, Ph.D. Christina L. Williams Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience and Behavior, Barnard College, Columbia University and The Justice Collaboratory, Yale Law School

Marsha Levick, J.D., Chief Legal Officer and Co-Founder, Juvenile Law Center and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Stephanie Tabashneck, Psy.D., J.D., Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center