Born on October 30th

"You have to be open-minded, and you have to be critical, and you have to let go of your predispositions about what you've been told that doesn't have foundations in evidence."

"I have a hard time arguing with stupid people."

"Drug reformers get seduced by politicians who co-opt our language but who make no meaningful change. And when we don't hold politicians accountable, we contribute to harm."

"Perhaps, for once, we should try interventions that are informed by science and proven to work."

"If we were going to look at how pharmalogical drugs influence crime, we should probably look at alcohol."

"If you are funding researchers to look primarily for pathology, not surprisingly, that is what they are going to find and report on."

"If we stay focused on data and the real issues, we can tailor our inventions to enhance public health and safety while decreasing the likelihood of racial discrimination."

"All children will do things that you may not want them to. That's part of parenting."

"In the hood, you have a problem with somebody, you have to deal with it. The outcome is pretty immediate."

"I'm the only tenured black faculty in the sciences at Columbia, in the middle of Harlem."

"It's not a crime to make a mistake; in fact, it's human. I certainly have made mistakes."

"Skills that are employable or marketable, education, having a stake or meaningful role in society, not being marginalized - all of those things are very important."

"As a parent, a scientist, and educator, what I know is that it's always better to provide the education that will help keep my children - all people - safe, even if I don't want them to engage in the behavior."

"I went to college in the Air Force, and I went to college at the University of Maryland, who had college campuses on Air Force bases."

"Politicians move when the public requires them to move."

"One of the things we know about people is that people are not very courageous in general."

"Drug reformers need to be hyper-vigilant. I understand that when you've been oppressed so long, so thirsty for truth, that when someone comes along and gives you a sip of water, you think that they're the savior. But in that water there may be cyanide."

"The strange proposition that black intellectuals - regardless of their training - are 'race experts' mainly because they are black is naive and potentially dangerous."

"Disregard belief systems that aren't based on empirical studies."

"I am committed to the people who are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars being used to fund unethical people and corporations."

"Most of the stuff that parades as drug education in this country is just rubbish with no foundation in evidence."

"I grew up in the hood in Miami in a poor neighborhood."

"It takes some courage to say you were wrong."

"It is my mission to put sensible and evidence-based information above politics and exaggeration."

"Trump has been - has shown himself to be the most ignorant president that we've ever had. He has shown himself to be the one that disregards law more so than any other president we've had."

"My research has taught me many important lessons, but perhaps none more important than this: drug effects, like semesters, are predictable; police interactions with black people are not."

"It turns out that the term 'diversity' can be anything from black faculty to military veterans. Well, I am both, but have yet to be subjected to discrimination because I'm a veteran."

"Teaching university students affords me the opportunity to demonstrate to young adults that they don't have to be perfect to make contributions to their country."

"I am certain that my white colleagues, when faced with an emergency situation, wouldn't think twice about calling the police. This, however, may not be the case for their black and Latino students."

"The way we have been thinking about brain science is that people show you pretty pictures, pretty images, and you think that that tells you something about how they behave. It doesn't."