G.D. Hancock, Ph.D.

Contact

Media and interview requests, speaking, policy inquiries — and where to turn if this is happening in your family.

Get in touch

Who to contact about what

Media and interviews
Email with the outlet, the topic and your deadline. She takes both in-person and remote interviews. Press materials are below.
Speaking
Conferences, panels and university talks.
Policy and research

Legislative staff, defence lawyers and researchers. Four papers bear directly on drug-induced homicide prosecutions:

All of her work is listed on the research page.

If your family is going through this
She reads what is sent to her, but she is one person and not a lawyer. The organizations on the organizations page include groups that work directly with affected families and can respond faster.

Send a message

Email gdweise@hancockonaddiction.org

Press kit

The Criminalization of Addiction: One Family’s Fight Against Mandatory Minimums in the Opioid Crisis is an account of a prosecution: Scott Hancock is serving twenty years in federal prison for sharing fentanyl with a friend who died. His mother, a financial economist, spent the years after his sentencing studying the law that put him there. The book sets one family’s case against the evidence on drug-induced homicide statutes and mandatory minimums.

Images

Higher-resolution files for print are available on request.

Book

Title
The Criminalization of Addiction: One Family’s Fight Against Mandatory Minimums in the Opioid Crisis
Author
G.D. Hancock, Ph.D.
Ebook
Kindle, October 2025
Paperback
The Criminalization of Addiction: The US vs Gary Scott Hancock Case, September 2025, 262 pages. ISBN 979-8-218-76914-7
Buy
Amazon (opens in a new tab)

Reviews

“It’s especially important for lawmakers, medical professionals, and families dealing with addiction.”

— Literary Titan, 4 stars

Short biography — 50 words

G.D. Hancock, Ph.D., is a financial economist and Professor Emerita who spent three decades teaching and publishing in finance. After her son was prosecuted under federal drug-induced homicide law and sentenced to twenty years, she turned to studying how the United States criminalizes addiction.

Long biography — 200 words

G.D. Hancock, Ph.D., earned four degrees in finance and economics and began her academic career at the University of Missouri in 1988, earning tenure in 1994 and retiring as Professor Emerita after more than three decades of teaching and publishing. In 2019 her son, Scott, was arrested and later prosecuted under federal drug-induced homicide law; only then did she learn the extent of his opioid addiction, which had begun at age sixteen following a legitimate prescription. He was sentenced to a mandatory twenty-year federal prison term. Determined to understand how addictive behavior could be treated as homicidal behavior, she retired early and turned to criminal drug law, federal sentencing, addiction science and the medical evidence surrounding substance use disorders. What began as a mother’s search for answers became a scholarly investigation of the criminalization of addiction in the United States. She was diagnosed with Stage III esophageal cancer while completing the work and continued it through treatment. She has been named one of Florida’s Most Influential Women for her contributions to criminal justice reform, and writes, speaks and advocates for evidence-based drug policy and sentencing reform.

Suggested interview questions

  1. Drug-induced homicide statutes convict without proving intent to kill. How did that become acceptable in American law?
  2. You spent thirty years in finance. What did that training let you see in these prosecutions that a legal scholar might miss?
  3. Prosecutors describe these laws as a tool against dealers. Who is actually being charged?
  4. What would you say to a family whose child has just been charged under one of these statutes?