Narcotica Podcast

Few social justice groups have put in as much work to end the war on (people who use) drugs like the Drug Policy Alliance. Since 2000, DPA has been behind some landmark drug reforms, such as leading a campaign to enact major reforms of New York’s notorious Rockefeller drug laws, assisting in a public education campaign that saw Uruguay legalize cannabis in 2013, not to mention funding and drafting the Oregon drug decriminalization measure that passed last year. According to the organization, DPA has played a pivotal role in roughly half of the campaigns that have legalized medical marijuana in the U.S.

Narcotica co-hosts Zachary Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah speak with Kassandra Frederique, the executive director of DPA, who has been with the organization since 2009 as an intern. We discuss everything from racist policing, cannabis reform laws, and the future of drug policy reform.

This interview was recorded around the time of the Derek Chauvin trial, so some states, like New Mexico, had not yet legalized adult-use cannabis.

You can follow Kassandra Frederique on Twitter: @Kassandra_Fred and learn more about Drug Policy Alliance’s work at drugpolicy.org

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel

The post Episode 58: How Racism Fuels The Drug War with Kassandra Frederique appeared first on Narcotica.

For many people, psychedelic drugs like LSD or psilocybin are their first major introduction to a profoundly altered state of consciousness. Mental conditions like autism or ADHD are other forms of consciousness, although they don’t wear off after 12 hours and so-called ‘neurotypical’ people often have misconceptions about these mental arrangements. Many folks with autism don’t see their condition as a defect or something to be fixed, an attitude that has sparked the neurodiversity movement. But, autism does come with its own set of challenges, some especially find difficulty in socializing with others.

A very early body of scientific research suggests that psychedelics could help with some of the challenges of autism. MAPS, for example, has explored using MDMA to treat social anxiety caused by autism. But some folks with autism aren’t waiting for the science to catch up and are trying psychedelics to explore how it can help some of the challenging aspects of autism.

Narcotica co-host Troy Farah speaks with Aaron Orsini, author of the book Autism On Acid: How LSD Helped Me Understand, Navigate, Alter & Appreciate My Autistic Perceptions and Justine Lee, a graduate student in pharmacology at UC Irvine with a B.S. in neurobiology.

You can follow Aaron Orsini on Twitter: @AutismOnAcid and order the anthology Autistic Psychedelic here.

Troy also wrote about this in Filter Magazine, so you can read more about the up-to-date science on this topic and how scientists are studying psychedelics with autism.

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel

The post Episode 57: Autism, Acid and the Altered Brain with Aaron Orsini and Justine Lee appeared first on Narcotica.

Our planet is in crisis, plagued by an increase in wildfires, floods, hurricanes, freak storms and outbreaks of disease. As a result, we’re seeing more and more people isolated, left to fend for themselves, as the cracks in public infrastructure only seem to widen.

To use one prominent example, the state of Texas has been slapped with recurrent cataclysms and catastrophes of late, most recently the February winter storm that crushed the power grid, leading to food and water shortages, which left at least 111 people dead.

At Narcotica, we always wonder about what happens to people who use drugs whenever ecological disaster strikes. Co-hosts Zachary Siegel and Troy Farah talk with Aaron Ferguson, who works as an outreach provider in Austin, Texas and is also on the leadership team of the National Drug Users Union. (Aaron was also a our co-producer on the show for about 20 episodes and volunteered to help with sound editing this one as well!)

We discuss everything from the evolving drug trade in Texas to the cult-like mentality that can sometimes manifest in the addiction recovery community and much more.

You can follow Aaron Ferguson on Twitter: @sciencenotheism and watch The Methadone Manifesto, a recent webinar hosted by the Urban Survivors Union. Aaron also co-authored a piece in the National Academy of Medicine discussing some of the public health challenges addiction treatment services faced during the recent Texas storm.

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel

The post Episode 56: Drug Use During Disaster with Aaron Ferguson appeared first on Narcotica.

Amid a wave of synthetic drugs in recent years, Kensington, Pennsylvania has emerged as the locus for a different kind of experimentation, through a new generation of freelance entrepreneurs. Their bathtub chemistry is often guided by trial and error—leaving doctors, public health officials and harm reductionists struggling to understand the latest side effects.

Last year, a concerned toxicologist from the nonprofit Center for Forensic Science Research & Education (CFSRE) at the Fredric Rieders Family Foundation, the academic and research arm of NMS Labs outside Philadelphia, conceived of a new testing program. It employs sophisticated mass spectrometry to reveal the composition of retail-level street drugs.

Alex Krotulski, an associate director of the CFSRE, spoke to Narcotica co-host Chris Moraff about everything from synthetic cannabinoids like 5F-APB to carfentanil to xylazine.

You can follow Alex Krotulski on Twitter: @alexkrotulski and read Chris’s report on this subject in Filter Magazine.

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Suhov
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 55: Street Sampling Synthetics, from Carfentanil to Xylazine with Alex Krotulski appeared first on Narcotica.

There’s a “twindemic” raging across the state of West Virginia: Covid-19 has collided with an outbreak of HIV and hepatitis C. If that’s not bad enough, West Virginia has the highest overdose death rate in the nation. The CDC recently called the HIV outbreak in Kanawha County, West Virginia the “most concerning” in the country. Make no mistake, this outbreak is preventable, and is largely driven by the failure of local governments to provide syringe service programs to people who use drugs.

Even worse, West Virginia lawmakers are actively trying to pass legislation to further restrict harm reduction programs across the state. Covering this disaster of health and reactionary politics is Lauren Peace, a local investigative reporter at the nonprofit news outlet Mountain State Spotlight. Lauren has been providing vital on the ground coverage of embattled harm reduction programs—programs like Solutions Oriented Addiction Response (SOAR) that are working against a toxic backlash to prevent more HIV cases from spreading and save lives.

This episode is a one-on-one conversation with co-host Zachary Siegel and Lauren, who discusses what it’s like on the ground in West Virginia and the endless battle to put out science-based information in the face of stigma and misguided narratives about harm reduction. Plus, a bit of news at the top of the show about Biden’s pick for ONDCP director (read Zach’s piece in Filter) and Senate Bill 334, a piece of harmful legislation moving through West Virginia’s legislature.

You can follow Lauren on Twitter: @LaurenMPeace and read her work at Mountain State Spotlight.

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 37: Covering Culture and Drugs with Substance with Kate Knibbs
Episode 19: Debunking Bupe Diversion Myths with Molly Doernberg
Episode 36: Moral Hazards and Naloxone, A Toxicologist’s Perspective with Ryan Marino

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Lasers
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Bill Dickinson via Flickr // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 54: West Virginia, America’s Worst Overdose and HIV Hotspot with Lauren Peace appeared first on Narcotica.

It’s kinda weird hearing people say “weed is mainstream” now, when merely possessing the plant stuff can still earn you serious consequences in many parts of the world. But the growing popularity of cannabis is unmistakable. Marijuana is now a global, multi-billion dollar industry—well, to be fair, it always was, only now it’s all legitimate and overtaxed and commercialized instead of enriching drug cartels. 

Regardless, cannabis is more popular than ever, with a rapidly growing fandom among older generations. Even Martha Stewart is into CBD now. But while it’s great to see so many people starting to dig the awesome benefits cannabis sativa offers, it’s important to contextualize the culture and history that got us here. 

On Narcotica, we’ve done more than 50 episodes about all kinds of drugs: opioids, meth, cocaine, psilocybin magic mushrooms, ketamine, even sorta obscure stuff like antibiotics and salvia. But we’ve never done an episode entirely devoted to cannabis! How weird is that? One of the world’s most popular drugs, one I use every day and we just… haven’t gotten to it yet.

So we thought we’d start things off with a bang and bring in one of weed’s biggest fans, none other than comedian, musician and world famous stoner Tommy Chong, of Cheech and Chong fame. We discuss everything from prison life to getting high in old age to how ‘Up In Smoke’ became a blockbuster hit to the emerging cannabis industry.

You can follow Tommy on Twitter @tommychong

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 2: Anthony Bourdain, Suicide and the Myth of Cross Addiction
Episode 49: Salvia: Psychedelic Oddity (Plus, Canada’s Emerging Psilocybin Scene)
Episode 25: Banning Kratom Will Escalate the Opioid Overdose Crisis with Walter Prozialeck

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Jesse Spillane
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Wikipedia / FreeSVG // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 53: A Life of Getting Lit with Tommy Chong appeared first on Narcotica.

Maybe it seems like an obvious question, but why is certain drug use illegal in the first place? Don’t you, as a human being, have some bodily autonomy and doesn’t that extend to alterations in the mind as well? What about the fundamental right to change your mind?

On this episode of Narcotica, co-hosts Troy Farah, Chris Moraff and Zachary Siegel talk with Casey William Hardison about cognitive liberty, the freedom of thought, and how that relates to prohibiting some drugs but not others. Hardison is a giant in the underground chemistry scene, who has rubbed shoulders with many legends in obscure chemistry: Sasha Shulgin and Darrell Lemaire, for example, and he was featured on Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, in the episode ‘The Lazy Lizard School of Hedonism.’

In the past, Casey operated several infamous drug labs producing things like MDMA, LSD and 2C-B. That’s all behind him, but unrelated to that, Casey has had a bit of legal trouble lately, which we’ll discuss more, but his central argument in court is quite unique. 

This episode is being produced in collaboration with Filter Magazine. Troy wrote an article that goes into some more detail about Casey’s life and the implications for this court case. You can read the article at filtermag.org

You can follow Casey on Twitter @asthouwilt

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 49: Salvia: Psychedelic Oddity (Plus, Canada’s Emerging Psilocybin Scene)
Episode 15: Accurate, Compassionate Drug Journalism with Filter Magazine
Episode 17: Using DMT To Contact Aliens

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Checkie Brown
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Pixabay // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 52: The Fundamental Human Right to Get High with Casey William Hardison appeared first on Narcotica.

Dr. Carl Hart has long been known as America’s preeminent drug scientist. If you listen to our show regularly, you’ve probably heard of him. He appeared briefly way back on Episode 6, talking about crack-cocaine. For the uninitiated, Dr. Hart is a neuroscientist at Columbia University, and he’s published well over 100 peer-reviewed, scientific papers, which produces vital knowledge and understanding of how drugs work not only in the brain, but how they work in people’s lives and society at-large.

But lately, Dr. Hart has taken his work outside the lab with his new book, “Drug Use for Grown Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear.” On this episode, Narcotica co-hosts Zachary Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah discuss with Dr. Hart everything from using cannabis while pregnant to housing as harm reduction to taking MDMA as a way to romantically connect with your partner.

We debunk a lot of myths, but especially the idea that drug use is only a form of self-medication. Sometimes—a lot of the time—people just use drugs to feel good. Acknowledging the joy of drug use is essential to dismantling the war on people who use them.

You can follow Dr. Hart on Twitter @drcarlhart and learn more at drcarlhart.com

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 47: Can Harm Reduction and Cops Coexist?
Episode 44: Reimagining Public Health and Racial Justice
Episode 27: What’s the Most Dangerous Drug?

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Revolution Void
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Hartwig HKD Flickr // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 51: The Joy of Drug Use with Dr. Carl Hart appeared first on Narcotica.

On this episode, we discuss how Mexico became a flashpoint of the war on drugs, broader trends in American foreign policy and drug policy, as well as the evolution of synthetic drugs as the main category of illicit narcotics. Our guest is Scott Stewart, a security analyst who for years penned one of the best annual assessments of Mexico’s evolving cartels for Stratfor and has since transitioned to Torchstone Global, a private security consulting firm. 

Scott has worked in the trenches of intelligence and security for 35 years and began his career in army reserve and National Guard intelligence before spending 10 years as a special agent with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. 

During the height of the drug war’s surge under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Scott was assigned to protect a Colombian judge who had signed an arrest warrant for Pablo Escobar. In 1993 he traveled to Bogota to help the Colombian government investigate a car bombing at a school supply market.

You can follow Scott on Twitter @stick631 and learn more at torchstoneglobal.com

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 11: Beyond Borders — How the U.S. Exports Dangerous Drug Policy
Episode 31: Supervised Consumption: Narcotica Breaks Down Safehouse Ruling with Av Gutman
Episode 34: “Inside the Bloody War on Drugs”

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Chandiliers
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Pixabay // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 50: Sicarios and Supply Side Economics with Scott Stewart appeared first on Narcotica.

Most people know salvia as the weird psychedelic drug at head shops that you try once, have a bizarre, uncomfortable experience and never touch it again. But there’s so much more to salvia divinorum, psychedelics and plant medicine in general. Narcotica co-host Troy Farah speaks with Dr. Ivan Casselman, from Vancouver, B.C., Canada, who has a Ph.D. in Plant Science, studying their analytical chemistry and genetics and works as the Chief Psychedelics Officer for Havn Life Sciences.

We discuss all things salvia divinorum, including ethnobotany and indigenous use of this plant, its strange effects compared to ‘classic’ psychedelics like LSD, and how to safely use and understand this drug. Plus, we get into Canada’s evolving psychedelic scene and what the future might hold for entheogens in the Great White North.

Follow Dr. Ivan Casselman on Twitter @drivancasselman

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 41: What Does It All Ketamine?
Episode 17: Using DMT To Contact Aliens
Episode 35: Holding Space — The Values of Trip Sitting

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Chris Zabriskie
Image: Wikimedia Commons // edit: Troy Farah

The post Episode 49: Salvia: Psychedelic Oddity with Ivan Casselman (Plus, Canada’s Emerging Psilocybin Scene) appeared first on Narcotica.