56% of drivers involved in serious injury and fatal crashes tested positive for a least one drug. I talked to Ari Briskman to get boots on the ground law enforcement perspective of drugged driving.

Sergeant Ari Briskman has served as a law enforcement officer since 2007. Ari is presently assigned full-time as the Commander of the Marine Unit for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Ari also serves the Sheriff’s Office as the Technical Crash Investigation Team Commander, the Auxiliary Deputy Unit Commander, and as a Public Information Officer.

Ari has dedicated much of his career to impaired driving enforcement and traffic safety. He is a certified Drug Recognition Expert, certified Drug Recognition Expert – Instructor, Standardized Field Sobriety Test Instructor, Seated Standardized Field Sobriety Test Instructor, and certified Crash Reconstruction Specialist. Ari has been recognized by courts in several counties in northern Illinois as an expert in the fields of alcohol and drug impairment.

Ari has personally apprehended over 600 impaired vehicle and boat operators throughout his career, for which he has been recognized several times by Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He has consulted with and assisted in the prosecution of hundreds of additional impaired driving cases throughout Illinois.

Ari has been contracted with various Illinois training units as an instructor to teach all the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration impaired driving enforcement courses, the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators boating under the influence courses, and his own original material. Ari serves as an adjunct instructor for the Homeland Security Training Institute at the College of DuPage teaching course material on drug impairment in the workplace. Ari is also a senior consultant for Dynamic Impairment, LLC, for whom he provides consultancy services to private businesses and court litigants on drug policies and impairment recognition.

In addition to his law enforcement duties, Ari advocates for stronger impaired driving laws and protections for crash victims as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. Ari also serves as a board member for the State of Illinois Impaired Driving Task Force and on the speaker’s bureau for the National Marijuana Initiative.

Ari holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Law Enforcement and Justice Administration and a Master of Arts degree in Public Safety Administration, both from Western Illinois University.

Drug and Alcohol Policy dates to Talmudic times. Ancient Rabbis established rules, or policy for their village. They told their people to avoid crossing to the neighboring village on the Sabbath because those neighbors had a reputation for excessing drinking.

Today drug policy can be extremely liberal - allowing free drug trade with no consequences, or very harsh - the death penalty for drug dealing. Smart drug policy strikes the right balance.

Paul J. Larkin is the John, Barbara, and Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Larkin works on criminal justice policy, drug policy, and regulatory policy. Before joining Heritage in September 2011, Larkin held various positions with the federal government in Washington, D.C. At the U.S. Department of Justice from 1984 to 1993, Paul served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General and argued 27 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also was an attorney in the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. In 1996-1997, Larkin served as Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and head of the Crime Unit for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), then the panel’s chairman. He worked in the Environmental Protection Agency from 1998 to 2004 as a special agent for criminal enforcement, eventually becoming Special Agent-in-Charge and serving as Acting Director of the EPA Criminal Investigation Division in 2004. His honors include the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, which he received in 1994 for representing the military before the Supreme Court. In the private sector, he worked at two top law firms in Washington, D.C., and as Assistant General Counsel for Verizon Communications from 2004 to 2009. Larkin received his law degree in 1980 from Stanford Law School, where he was a published member of the Stanford Law Review. He clerked for Judge Robert H. Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In 2010, he received a master’s degree in Public Policy from George Washington University. He also holds a bachelor of arts degree in Philosophy from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he graduated summa cum laude with honors in Philosophy. Born and raised in New York, New York, Larkin is a life-long New York Yankees and New York Giants fan.

Fentanyl is the public health crisis of our times with 300 deaths a day from drugs, 60% driven by fentanyl. It is a humanitarian crisis. Fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction. Quick fentanyl detection is important, and nanotechnology is playing a big role.

Dr. Shalini Prasad’s research focuses on designing miniature cellular and molecular platforms, with the goal of creating faster and more affordable clinical diagnostics.

She is currently a Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology and a professor in the Department of Bioengineering. She also holds an adjunct appointment as professor in the Department of Physics at Portland State University.

Prasad is the director of the Biomedical Microdevices and Nanotechnology Lab, which has supported 22 graduate researchers and 30 undergraduate researchers over the last eight years. Her multi-disciplinary work includes the engineering of multi-functional nanomaterials for designing portable devices and platforms for cellular and molecular diagnostics. Her research improves devices for faster, more affordable and accurate diagnosis of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and cardiovascular diseases.

Prasad earned her doctoral degree in electrical engineering in 2004 from the University of California, Riverside. Her multidisciplinary research work won her the graduate student research award in 2004. From 2005 to 2008, she worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Portland State University and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health Sciences University.

From 2008 to 2010, she worked as a research assistant professor and a content expert in the area of organic/inorganic interfaces for the Arizona State University node of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network and ASU’s Center for Solid State Electronics Research. From 2010 to 2011, she was an associate professor at Wichita State University in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Bomhoff Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering.

Prasad’s research work has been supported by a number of federal and state agencies as well as corporate entities. She has more than 30 peer-reviewed journal publications and is the recipient of a number of awards in the area of nano-biotechnology.