Managing Editors:
Claire Davey succeeded Greg Bond as Managing Editor of Points in January 2022. She is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK and is a recipient of the University Research Scholarship. Her research explores identities in sobriety, particularly within online communities. Her former degrees are in Gender, Sexuality & Culture (MA) from Birkbeck, University of London and History (BA) from the University of Bristol. Claire also presents Club Soda‘s Meet the Scholar webinar series on themes of alcohol, sobriety, and wellbeing, and is an active member of the Drinking Studies Network. @C_G_Davey
Mary Magnuson joined Points as a Managing Editor in August 2022. Mary is an MS student in Environment & Resources with a certificate in science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She researches human dimensions of wildlife, particularly community coexistence with urban coyotes, and is broadly interested in the intersection of science and society. She has a BS in Conservation Biology and Life Sciences Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a 2022 AAAS Mass Media fellow.
Contributing Editors:
Bob Beach is a cultural historian interested in the history of cannabis in the United States before the 1960s. He’s written on marijuana history and folklore, drug war activism, and recently, marijuana legalization in New York State. He is a doctoral candidate in the history department at the University at Albany, SUNY. While writing for Points and finishing the degree, he adjuncts at Utica College, teaching courses in U.S. and drug history. When not working on cannabis history, he’s a standup comedian, improv actor, and sketch maker at the Uptown Theater for Creative Arts in Utica, NY. He is an aspiring podcaster and YouTuber, working on interesting and informative ways to blend comedy and history for a popular audience. Follow Bob on Twitter: @Bob_Beach1
Peder Clark: Peder Clark is a historian of modern Britain, with research interests in drugs, subcultures, health, everyday life, and visual culture. He completed his PhD in 2019 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and and holds a position at the University of Strathclyde. His current research focuses on Ecstasy (MDMA) and ‘raving’ in Britain between 1985 and 2000. He tweets @pederclark
Sarah Brady Siff: Sarah Brady Siff is visiting assistant professor at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, in affiliation with the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center (DEPC). She is a historian of modern U.S. law and politics specializing in the history of drug control. The DEPC is supporting her work on two book manuscripts. “Tough on Dope: Crime and Politics in California’s Drug Wars” is a survey of local and state drug prohibition efforts from 1850 to the mid-1960s, including issues of federalism and constitutional law. “Weed Killers: Cannabis Eradication in the United States” covers the unsuccessful, century-long campaign of American marijuana prohibition with an emphasis on agricultural and environmental policy as well as law enforcement. Siff’s 2019 article “Burn, Sell, or Drive: Forfeiture in the History of Drug Law Enforcement” in the Ohio State Law Journal proposes that customary drug-related seizure and forfeiture practices in the United States are rooted in founding-era tax law.
Stefano Tijerina: Stefano Tijerina teaches in the areas of international business, comparative business, and ethics at the University of Maine’s Maine Business School. Prior to his academic career he worked in the areas of international banking and non-profit management. He received his B.A. in Comparative Politics from Clark University, a Graduate Certificate in International Relations from Universidad de los Andes, and his M.P.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Maine. His current research centers on the business dynamics of the Western Hemisphere from a historical perspective, including the dynamics of informal markets.
Managing Editor Emeritus:
Emily Dufton holds a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University. She is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America. She was the managing editor of Points from 2014–2016 and from 2018–2020. She also served as the media officer for the Alcohol and Drugs History Society. She is currently working on her next book, a history of how the federal government has handled, and funded, the development of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder. Email Emily at emily.dufton@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @emily_dufton
Greg Bond: Greg Bond was managing editor of Points throughout 2021. He is currently the Archivist for the Joyce Sports Research Collection, one of the most significant sports history manuscript and archival collections in the country. He formerly held positions as the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy (AIHP)’s Head Archivist and served as Associate Director for AIHP and Senior Editor of AIHP’s journal History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals.
Founders of Points:
Joe Spillane is Professor of History at the University of Florida. He has authored Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States (Johns Hopkins Press, 2000) and co-edited Federal Drug Control: The Evolution of Policy and Practice (Haworth Press, 2004). More recently, he authored Coxsackie: The Life and Death of Prison Reform (Johns Hopkins Press, 2014). His current drug-related research agenda includes: the history and development of drug abuse liability assessment; reflections on the nature of drug epidemics; and examinations of drug war “harms” in historical context.
A 20th-century literary and cultural historian, Trysh Travis teaches in the Center for Women’s Studies & Gender Research at the University of Florida. She has published on the gender and power of addiction and recovery, spirituality, and bibliotherapy in a variety of scholarly and popular venues. Her book The Language of the Heart: a Cultural History of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey appeared in 2009. The anthology Rethinking Therapeutic Culture, which she co-edited with Timothy Aubry, has just been published by University of Chicago Press.