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Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
On Religion May 12, 2022

On Addiction and Spirituality

A Discussion with Chris Grosso

Chris Grosso

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Chris Grosso is a youth mental health group facilitator with Newport Academy, public speaker, writer, and author of Indie Spiritualist (Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster, 2014), Everything Mind (Sounds True, 2105) …

Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

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Interviews with scholars of drugs, addiction and recovery about their new books.

Science, Technology, and Society April 28, 2022

Silent Cells

The Secret Drugging of Captive America

Anthony Hatch

Hosted by Laura Stark
It’s no secret that the United States has the most expansive prison system of any nation in the world. And the US carceral system overwhelmingly and unjustly impacts Black and …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery April 15, 2022

Undoing Drugs

The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction

Maia Szalavitz

Hosted by Steve Beitler
Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction (Hachette Go, 2021) tells a long-running, but largely unknown, story of how a few people and groups – …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones April 12, 2022

The Future of Life Expectancy

A Discussion with Angus Deaton

Angus Deaton

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
In 2015, Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University and his wife Professor Anne Case published a paper highlighting the rising mortality rate among middle-aged white non-Hispanic Americans. They described "deaths …
Policing, Incarceration, and Reform April 8, 2022

The Punishment Imperative

The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America

Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Over the last 40 years, the US penal system has grown at an unprecedented rate―five times larger than in the past and grossly out of scale with the rest of …
Intellectual History March 16, 2022

The Urge

Our History of Addiction

Carl Erik Fisher

Hosted by Thomas Kingston
Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery March 10, 2022

Dead Weight

A Memoir in Essays

Randall Horton

Hosted by Jay Shifman
Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays (Northwestern UP, 2022) chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, returned to society to …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery March 3, 2022

Beyond the Narrow Life

A Guide to Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration

Kile M. Ortigo

Hosted by Steve Beitler
Kile M. Ortigo's Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide to Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration (Synergetic Press, 2021) addresses major issues that arise from the psychospiritual and therapeutic use of …
Indian Religions March 3, 2022

An Unholy Brew

Alcohol in Indian Religion and History

James McHugh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The first book on alcohol in pre-modern India, James McHugh's An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian Religion and History (Oxford UP, 2021) uses a wide range of sources from the …
Psychology February 16, 2022

The Urge

Our History of Addiction

Carl Erik Fisher

Hosted by Yael Schonbrun
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, since 2000, the United States has experienced over 700,000 deaths due to drug overdose. Addiction and substance use disorders are at …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery February 7, 2022

Fentanyl, Inc.

How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic

Ben Westhoff

Hosted by Emily Dufton
Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist whose best-selling 2019 book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic (Grove Press, 2019), was one of the …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery February 2, 2022

Strychnine and Gold

The Untold History of Addiction Treatment in the United States

Kenneth Anderson

Hosted by Emily Dufton
Kenneth Anderson is the author of Strychnine and Gold, a two-volume history of the “untold story of addiction treatment in the United States.” Anderson knows what he’s talking about when …
African American Studies January 31, 2022

Pushing Cool

Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette

Keith Wailoo

Hosted by James West
Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery January 7, 2022

Opioid Reckoning

Love, Loss, and Redemption in the Rehab State

Amy C. Sullivan

Hosted by Claire Clark
Amy C. Sullivan explores the complexity of America’s opioid epidemic through firsthand accounts of people grappling with the reverberating effects of stigma, treatment, and recovery. Taking a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental perspective …
Interpretive Political and Social Science December 30, 2021

Empires of Vice

The Rise of Opium Prohibition Across Southeast Asia

Diana S. Kim

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
In Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia (Princeton University Press, 2020) Diana Kim situates the regulation of vice at the heart of colonial state building …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery December 14, 2021

Drug Policy

Alison Ritter

Hosted by Geert Slabbekoorn
Taking a multidisciplinary perspective (including public health, sociology, criminology, and political science amongst others), and using examples from across the globe, Alison Ritter's Drug Policy (Routledge, 2021) provides a detailed …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery December 7, 2021

Smashing the Liquor Machine

A Global History of Prohibition

Mark Lawrence Schrad

Hosted by Claire Clark
Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition (Oxford UP, 2021) is a unique retelling of the history of temperance and prohibition. Rather than focusing on white, rural, conservative …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery December 6, 2021

White Market Drugs

Big Pharma and the Hidden History of Addiction in America

David Herzberg

Hosted by Jay Shifman
The contemporary opioid crisis is widely seen as new and unprecedented. Not so. It is merely the latest in a long series of drug crises stretching back over a century …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery November 24, 2021

The Drug Expert

A Practical Guide to the Impact of Drug Use in Legal Proceedings

Craig W. Stevens

Hosted by Geert Slabbekoorn
Craig W. Stevens' book The Drug Expert: A Practical Guide to the Impact of Drug Use in Legal Proceedings (Academic Press, 2021) targets academic and industry pharmacologists, pharmacology graduate students, and professionals and …
Economics November 19, 2021

Causal Inference

The Mixtape

Scott Cunningham

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Just about everyone knows correlation does not equal causation, and probably that a randomized controlled experiment is the best way to solve that problem, if you can do one. If …