Narcotica Podcast

By now you might be wondering whether your vape pen has acquired a taste for human blood. There have been several deaths and hundreds of cases of “mysterious lung illnesses” traced back to various “vaping products,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since that sentence is incredibly vague and next to useless, we decided to bring Amelia Ruby Howard, a sociologist who studies science and technology, on the show to clear the air and tell us what’s up. Amelia begins by spelling out exactly what kind of products are being linked to what kind of illnesses, and then helps us unpack the politics of what appears to be a textbook moral panic. You can follow Amelia on Twitter here.

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: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy, Pictures of the Floating World

The post Episode XXIX: Darth Vaper The Panic Strikes Back appeared first on Narcotica.

Antibiotic resistance and doping at the Olympics are two pretty unrelated ideas, but they’re both covered in the new book ‘The Day It Finally Happens’ by author and journalist Mike Pearl, who sat down in Narcotica co-host Troy Farah’s kitchen.

The book is kind of exploring the future in an interesting way, taking a lot of these wild, worst case scenarios, like what happens when the last fish in the ocean dies or truly bizarre, hypothetical situations, like what if a real life Jurassic Park opens. It breaks down this potential future using facts and experts. This is a show about drugs (and the people who use them) and so we’re going to be talking about two chapters from the book: The Day Antibiotics Don’t Work Anymore and The Day Doping is Allowed at the Olympics.

Antibiotics are drugs and we don’t often think about the most popular way to use them: feeding them to animals. Also important is addressing antibiotic use in injection drug communities. And will we ever see a future where performance-enhancing drug use is acceptable? It’s not as unlikely as you may think, and we break down some of the fundamental ideas behind anti-doping rules.
Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter and order ‘The Day It Finally Happens’ here: http://bit.ly/2kDl3wU
Also, here is more info on that study regarding antibiotic resistance in drug-using communities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2628989/

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Sticher and more. Tell your friends about us!
Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy, Pictures of the Floating World
Image: Antibiotics: Global Panorama; Olympics: Informedmag // edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 28: Antibiotic Resistance and Doping at the Olympics with Mike Pearl appeared first on Narcotica.

Narcotica co-host Zachary Siegel was in Los Angeles for a conference on depicting drug use in Hollywood films and TV shows, so co-host Troy Farah trudged down from the High Desert and they recorded an episode in a hotel room. Despite doing Narcotica for well over a year, the pair hadn’t met in person before. (Chris Moraff couldn’t make this episode.) Picking an impromptu topic, they decided to riff on a recent USA Today article titled “The 25 most dangerous drugs.”

So… what is the most dangerous drug? Alcohol? Carfentanil? Acetaminophen? And what is with the obsession with ranking these things? Lots of riffing and banter in this episode, so take some of this info with a grain of salt (it’s not medical advice) and we’ll be back to interviewing policy experts and drug nerds next week.

Plus, we hope to get together in person with Chris in St. Louis this November 6th to 9th, for the Drug Policy Reform conference. More details here: http://www.reformconference.org/

Read the USA Today article here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/07/31/opioid-epidemic-25-most-dangerous-drugs-side-effects-death-rates/39807161/

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Sticher and more. Tell your friends about us!
Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy, Aaron Ferguson
Image: Pixabay, edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 27: What’s the Most Dangerous Drug? appeared first on Narcotica.

The Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia is often described as “ground zero” in the overdose crisis. The New York Times Magazine gave Kensington’s open air drug market the dubious title, “The Walmart of Heroin.” Of course, if you take a tour of Kensington without a DEA agent nearby, you might meet someone like Sarn, who after years of unstable housing and chaotic drug use, now has his own place to live. Operating from a Housing First model, organizations like Pathways to Housing are fighting the tides of endemic poverty, homelessness, and addiction. On today’s show, the crew interviews Sarn and Matt Tice, of Pathways to Housing, about how “Housing First” is a critical response to Philly’s overdose crisis.

Follow Matt Tice on Twitter and learn more about Pathways on their website.

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

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson 
Music: Glass Boy, Aaron Ferguson
Image: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah

The post Episode 26: Housing As Harm Reduction appeared first on Narcotica.

Kratom, a strange plant from Southeast Asia has become one of the most controversial herbs in the United States. In this episode, Troy Farah breaks down the risks and potential benefits of this unique tree and why banning it would likely lead to a devastating increase in deaths in the opioid overdose crisis with Walter Prozialeck, a pharmacology professor at Midwestern University, who has a long-standing interest in herbal medicine, including marijuana and kratom. Topics discussed on this episode, recorded June 26, include why people use kratom, the pharmacokinetics of kratom alkaloids including actual overdose potential, cicadas infected with psilocybin-producing fungi, conspiracy theories about former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, and much more.

Read Prozialeck’s paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.05.003

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

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy, Ian Sutherland and Junglemire
Additional audio engineering: Troy Farah
Image Credit: Wikipedia / edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 25: Banning Kratom Will Escalate the Opioid Overdose Crisis with Walter Prozialeck appeared first on Narcotica.

What does abortion access have to do with the war on drugs? EVERYTHING. On this episode, we talk about some of the most controversial drugs of them all, drugs that are often overlooked in the debate about reforming drug policy: abortifacients, drugs that induce miscarriage, ending pregnancies. Specifically, misoprostol and mifepristone. We speak with Lynn Paltrow, the founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women and Francine Coeytaux co-founder of Plan C Pills, co-founder of the Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research, and a founder of the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health.

If you need to obtain abortion pills, for any reason, for yourself, for your mother, for your sister, or your neighbor, go to PlanCPills.org or AidAccess.org.

You can order these drugs discreetly and they will arrive at your door with your Amazon packages and student loan bills. Here are also abortion funds in states where regressive laws are threatening a woman’s right to choose:

https://abortionfunds.org/fund/yellowhammer-fund/
https://abortionfunds.org/fund/gateway-womens-access-fund/
Here’s a great list from Bustle: https://www.bustle.com/p/11-abortion-funds-in-alabama-georgia-kentucky-other-states-you-can-donate-to-rn-17895282
You can find Lynn Paltrow on Twitter at @LynnPaltrow and advocatesforpregnantwomen.org
Learn more about Francine Coeytaux in this New York Times piece.

You can find Lynn Paltrow on Twitter at @LynnPaltrow and advocatesforpregnantwomen.org
Learn more about Francine Coeytaux in this New York Times piece.

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

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy and Aaron Ferguson
Additional audio engineering: Troy Farah

The post Episode 24: How To Get Abortion Pills Feat. Lynn Paltrow and Francine Coeytaux appeared first on Narcotica.

With perhaps the exception of fentanyl, no drug is seen as more dangerous or controversial than heroin. But when you look at decades of medical literature, it’s clear that heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine, is just another opioid, and it has a place in medicine. On this episode, Troy Farah and Zachary Siegel discuss the controversial idea of prescription heroin with Canadian journalist Travis Lupick, author of Fighting for Space.

You can follow Travis Lupick @tlupick Twitter here.

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

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy and Aaron Ferguson
Image Credit: Wikipedia / Edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 23: Bring Back Prescription Heroin! with Travis Lupick appeared first on Narcotica.

On this episode Narcotica highlights a new project from the Health in Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University called Changing The Narrative, which aims to correct flawed narratives about drugs, debunked myths, old tropes, and stigmatizing language in mainstream media. It includes a directory of expert sources that journalists can contact for a quote, or organizations looking for panelists or speakers, helping raise the standards for communication in this area.

Changing the Narrative is spearheaded by Maia Szalavitz, a drug policy reporter and author of the book “Unbroken Brain” and Leo Beletsky, Professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University, and created, in part, by our very own, Zachary Siegel. Narcotica co-hosts Troy Farah and Christopher Moraff join in this discussion about scientifically-grounded reporting on drug use and addiction.

For more info on Changing the Narrative, go to changingthenarrative.news
Find Maia Szalavitz on Twitter here and find Leo Beletsky here.

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

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy and Aaron Ferguson
Image Credit: Pixabay / Edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 22: Changing the Narrative with Maia Szalavitz and Leo Beletsky appeared first on Narcotica.

Sometimes, you’ll be reading a great piece on the drug overdose crisis that is just ruined by a crappy stock image of a gigantic syringe and a mountain of what is obviously flour or someone nodding out on the sidewalk. On this episode, Narcotica explores what accurate, tactful drug imagery should look like.

The team speaks with Nigel Brunsdon, the official/unofficial photographer of the modern day harm reduction movement, who is joining us via from the UK. He has shadowed the Chicago Recovery Alliance, Harm Reduction International, and many others on the front lines of the so-called drug war. His photos of the workers, advocates, people who use drugs, and the academics are loaded with grief, emotion, hope, and solidarity. He explains balancing privilege, relationships and representation of impacted communities through drug war photojournalism.

Follow Nigel on his website nigelbrunsdon.com and check out harmreductionphilosophy.com for more on how harm reduction works as an ideology.

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated!

We talk a lot about this image that we used from Nigel for Episode 3, memorializing harm reduction activist Dan Bigg. Here it is for reference:

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy and Aaron Ferguson
Image Credit: Nigel Brunsdon / Edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 21: Ethically Documenting Drug Use Activism with Nigel Brunsdon appeared first on Narcotica.

In this episode, Chris and Zach sit down with Eliza Wheeler of the Harm Reduction Coalition in San Francisco. Wheeler has been working in harm reduction, distributing syringes and naloxone directly to people who use drugs, for over two decades. She’s seen a lot of progress in her lifetime. But as harm reduction goes mainstream, Wheeler sees how easily the bedrock values and principles of the movement can be compromised and coopted by political forces. Zach, Chris, and Eliza talk about how funds for naloxone get in the wrong hands, how syringe exchanges deal with NIMBYism, and how the heart of her harm reduction philosophy is bodily autonomy.

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter and support us on Patreon. Your support is appreciated!

Follow the DOPE Project ‏and the Harm Reduction Coalition on Twitter.

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-Producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy and Aaron Ferguson
Image Credit: Chris Moraff / Edit by Troy Farah

The post Episode 20: The Pitfalls of Mainstream Harm Reduction with Eliza Wheeler appeared first on Narcotica.