Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s first Director of Marijuana Coordination
Andrew Freedman is a native Coloradan– graduating from Cherry Creek High School in 2002. He graduated from Tufts in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science, and from Harvard Law School in 2010 with a law degree. Upon law school graduation, Andrew joined the Hickenlooper for Colorado campaign where he was tapped by Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia to be his Chief of Staff. During his time with the Lieutenant Governor, the office won a $45 million Race to the Top Grant for early childhood education, created the Office of Early Childhood, helped passed the READ act, and collaborated with Mile High United Way to create the Colorado Reading Corps. Andrew left the Lieutenant Governor’s office in 2013 to become the Director of Colorado Commits to Kids, the Yes on 66 campaign, Colorado’s largest effort to date to overhaul the education funding system. In 2014, Andrew was appointed as Colorado’s first Director of Marijuana Coordination. As Director, Andrew’s mission is to ensure that the regulation of Colorado’s retail and medical marijuana, including marijuana education, youth prevention and substance abuse treatment efforts, are handled in an efficient and effective manner.
Professor Sam Kamin, Director of the Constitutional Rights & Remedies Program, Sturm College of Law, University of Denver.
Sam Kamin joined the faculty at the Sturm College of Law in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professor at the end of the 2004-2005 academic year. Holding both a J.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Kamin is active in the Law and Society Association and in the field of law and social science generally. Professor Kamin’s research interests include criminal procedure, death penalty jurisprudence, federal courts, and constitutional remedies. He is the co-author of two books analyzing California’s Three Strikes and You’re Out Law and has published scholarly articles in the Virginia Law Review, The Indiana Law Journal, the Boston College Law Journal and Law and Contemporary Problems, among others.
Pat Linden is Counsel at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, where he is an executive committee member of the firm’s emerging companies and venture capital group and works out its Denver and Boulder offices.
Mr. Linden’s legal practice is focused on representing emerging growth companies and their investors. He has extensive experience counseling clients with venture capital and private equity financings, and M&A and securities transactions. He also routinely structures complex partnership and joint venture arrangements, and banking and other debt transactions. Mr. Linden further supports his clients with board of director and shareholder matters, employment based equity plans and day-to-day contract advice. Prior to joining Faegre Baker Daniels in 2012, Mr. Linden was a partner with two major regional law firms, Sherman & Howard and Kamlet Shepherd & Reichert. He has a BS in Business Administration, MS in Finance and Juris Doctor, each obtained from the University of Denver.
Titus Peterson served as a prosecutor for five years in the Colorado Fifth Judicial District Attorney’s Office, under the Honorable Peter F. Michaelson. He began as a deputy district attorney and was eventually promoted to lead felony attorney for Clear Creek County, where he prosecuted all drug-related felonies as well as violent crimes.
From Titus’s view, the drug war often directly took resources away from violent crimes. “Because grants that go toward fighting the drug war put an excessive amount of limited resources toward investigating, indicting and prosecuting non-violent offenders, violent offenses and theft often go under-investigated and therefore the culprits are not prosecuted or indicted,” he says.
The saddest part of the drug war that he witnessed was children who were convinced to turn their parents in. He explains, “In order to have drug war grants renewed, police and prosecutors must show that they are utilizing the grant though indictments and convictions. Sadly, this often led to the practice of going into schools to convince children to turn their parents in. I saw many parents, who otherwise were law abiding citizens with good jobs, pulled into the criminal justice system. Some of these children who had been convinced to turn their parents in were taken out of their homes and placed in foster care. The result was that the children were used to get funding for law enforcement and then disposed of in a system that really did nothing to help their situation.”
A graduate of Skidmore College and the University of Colorado, Titus is now an attorney practicing personal injury, criminal law and international law. He is a former president of the Chamber of the Americas and a recipient of the Skip Boyd Chase Human Rights Award. He joined LEAP in 2012.
