Senior Fellow Lawrence McQuillan, author of California Dreaming appears on KPBS radio in San Diego. McQuillan discusses the public pension system in California and offers a detailed plan on how to fix the underfunded system. His plan would convert public pension systems across the country into defined contribution plans, similar to private 401k-type retirement plans. This would protect taxpayers from bailing out failed public pension systems and also protect current retirees from having bankruptcy courts take away their promised pension benefits. McQuillan also talks about other reform ideas to fix the man-made financial disaster facing many cities and states across the United States.

Each year, the U.S. government spends over $30 billion on the drug war and arrests more than 1.5 million people on drug-related charges. Currently more than 318,000 people are behind bars in the U.S. for drug violations—more than the number of people incarcer-ated for all crimes in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain combined. Have current drug laws deterred drug abuse and reduced crime? What are the real costs of this country’s war on drugs? Is there a link between the homicide rate and the amount of resources given to drug prohibition? Please join us as Boston University economist Jeffrey Miron (author of the major new book, Drug War Crimes) and former San Jose police chief, Joseph McNamara, examine these questions and explore real alternatives to America’s “War on Drugs.”

Jeffrey A. Miron

Boston University Professor of Economics and author of the new book, Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition. His articles on Drug Policy have appeared in Social Research, Boston Globe and the London Observer. He received his Ph. D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Joseph D. McNamara

Research Fellow, Hoover Institution. Former Chief of Police, San Jose, CA and Kansas City, MO. He has published articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and other publications. He has been a commentator for NPR and has appeared on Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Sixty Minutes, and other programs.

Ethan A. Nadelmann

Founder and Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading organization in the United States promoting alternatives to the War on Drugs. Dr. Nadelmann received his Ph.D. and J.D. from Harvard University and a Masters degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His speaking and writings on drug policy have attracted international attention and appeared in Science, American Heritage, National Review, and others.

Research Fellow Randal Rucker (co-author of Plowshares and Pork Barrels: The Political Economy of Agriculture) appeared on the John Batchelor Show to discuss the resilience of honeybees through private beekeeping in the face of colony collapse disorder.