Reception | 3:30 – 4 p.m.
Event | 4 – 5:15 p.m.

Brookings Mountain West is pleased to host a live panel discussion with UNLV faculty experts and Brookings Senior Fellow, Vanda Felbab-Brown on the critical topic of the fentanyl crisis in America. The devastating impacts of synthetic opioids in the United States cannot be overstated: more than 100,000 Americans are dying of drug overdoses annually, with fentanyl as a major contributor. Health experts have called the fentanyl crisis in North America the most lethal drug epidemic in history.

Brookings senior fellow and policy expert Vanda Felbab-Brown and UNLV experts will discuss the impact of the fentanyl crisis in Southern Nevada. Their collective work was recently featured on a popular Brookings podcast series hosted by Felbab-Brown, The Killing Drugs: Synthetic Opioids around the World. The podcast series takes a comprehensive look at the fentanyl crisis nationwide and around the world, and features 2 episodes with UNLV faculty from the UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine and Department of Criminal Justice at UNLV. 

In this live panel, faculty will discuss their work to combat fentanyl abuse in our region, and provide policymakers, law enforcement leadership, and community nonprofits an inside glimpse at the obstacles to prevention, education, and treatment faced by those working on the epidemic’s front lines.

Panelists

Vanda Felbab-Brown, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology; Director – Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors; and Co-Director – Africa Security Initiative

Lisa Durette, Associate Professor, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program; Director, and Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health

Sara Hunt, Executive Director of BeHERE Nevada; Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health; and Director of the UNLV Mental and Behavioral Health Training Coalition

Anne Weisman, Associate Professor and Director of Well-Being & Integrative Medicine

Alexis Kennedy, Professor of Criminal Justice