About Steve Beitler

My work as an historian of medicine focuses on how pain has been understood, treated, experienced, and represented. Before completing a doctorate at UC-San Francisco in 2016, I worked for 27 years as an executive speechwriter, financial communications manager, and government relations director at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent. I'm currently an Affiliated Research Scholar in UCSF's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Steve Beitler’s work in the history of medicine focuses on how pain has been understood, treated, experienced, and represented. His recently published articles examined the history of opiates in American football and surveyed the history of therapeutic drugs. He can be reached at steve@stevebeitler.com

NBN Episodes hosted by Steve:

P. E. Caquet, "Opium's Orphans: The 200-Year History of the War on Drugs" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

October 12, 2022

Opium's Orphans

P. E. Caquet
Hosted by Steve Beitler

The global war on drugs began some 150 years before US President Richard Nixon launched the current chapter of America’s drug war in 1971. In Opium’s…

Daniel Bergner, "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches" (Ecco, 2022)

August 4, 2022

The Mind and the Moon

Daniel Bergner
Hosted by Steve Beitler

Why is our understanding of the mind so limited? How do cells become consciousness? What are the limitations of a biological model of the mind and it…

Timmen Cermak, "Marijuana on My Mind: The Science and Mystique of Cannabis" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

May 24, 2022

Marijuana on My Mind

Timmen Cermak
Hosted by Steve Beitler

Few substances have been researched as extensively, and debated as fiercely, as cannabis. In Marijuana on My Mind: The Science and Mystique of Cannab…

Maia Szalavitz, "Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction" (Hachette, 2021)

April 15, 2022

Undoing Drugs

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 …

Kile M. Ortigo, "Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide to Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration" (Synergetic Press, 2021)

March 3, 2022

Beyond the Narrow Life

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 issue…