New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

By Marshall PoeScience

New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery episodes

February 08, 2014 Karen G. Weiss, “Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community” (Northeastern UP, 2013)
In this episode, I sit down with Karen G. Weiss, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, to talk about her book, Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community (Northeastern University Press, 2013). We discuss the subculture of the “party university,” and how such an environment normalizes and encourages extreme binge drinking and reckless partying. We talk about how extreme partying harms students as well as the larger community, and why students willingly put themselves (and others) at risk for victimization. We discuss why the party subculture appears so resistant to change, and why efforts from university personnel and law enforcement often appear futile. We also explore possible ways to transform the party subculture and address the problems it causes.
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55 min
November 26, 2013 Eugene Raikhel and William Garriott, eds., “Addiction Trajectories” (Duke UP, 2013)
Addiction has recently emerged as an object of anthropological inquiry. In a wonderful, focused volume of ethnographies of addiction in a wide range of contexts, Eugene Raikhel and William Garriott have curated a collection of essays that each follow a particular “addiction trajectory.” Addiction Trajectories (Duke University Press, 2013) includes studies that trace epistemic, therapeutic, experiential and experimental transformations across time and space. Collectively, they blend approaches from ethnography and science studies. Readers who are interested in historical ontologies, the concretion of new diseases and illnesses, the history of pharmaceutics and drug use, local styles of medical and clinical reasoning, the politics of healing, and the spaces of experimentation will find much of interest here. Eugene and Will generously made time to talk with me about the volume itself the workshop with which it began, and their own fascinating contributions on addiction medicine in Russia and methamphetamine addiction in rural West Virginia. Enjoy!
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1 hr 16 min
August 19, 2013 Ioan Grillo, “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency” (Bloomsbury, 2012)
Today I spoke to Ioan Grillo about his book El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Bloomsbury, 2012). This book is an excellent introduction to the state of conflict between drug cartels themselves, the government and the Mexican community. This is not an academic study of criminology. Ioan has reported from Mexico for many years and he has brought together his accumulated wisdom into this book. The final product provides the multi-dimensional story and analysis of the events in that country. He explains how external factors such as the war on drugs in Columbia and internal issues relating to the nature of governance in Mexico have influenced the current situation. But this is more than just a retelling of criminal activity. Ioan gives an insight into the social aspects of the drug culture including the glorification of the participants in popular music and the religious justifications used by some cartels. El Narco is a fascinating book that read to me like a sci-fi almost post-apocalyptic world that actually exists. It is hard for someone from a more stable Western environment to comprehend this alien culture. Having said that Ioan’s account is not a sensationalized account of the events in Mexico but more an empathic expose of a very violent and ungoverned part of the world. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in organized crime and the broader social context in which it operates.
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41 min
May 09, 2013 Kathleen J. Frydl, “The War on Drugs in America, 1940-1973” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs.” We are still fighting that war today. According to many people, we’ve lost but don’t know it. Rates of drug use in the US remain, by historical standards, high and our prisons are full of people–many of whom are hardly drug kingpins–who have violated drug laws. And, of course, it all costs a fortune. What to do?
In her book The War on Drugs in America, 1940-1973 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), historian Kathleen J. Frydl argues that there is a better way to control drugs. She points out that prior to the “War on Drugs” the Federal government had controlled the distribution of narcotics and other drugs largely (though not entirely) by means of taxation. The “Federal Bureau of Narcotics” was a branch of the Department of the Treasury. The run up to Nixon’s “War on Drugs” and the war itself changed all that: enforcement of drug laws was transferred to the Department of Justice. Essentially, the Fed had criminalized drug distribution and use and told the states to aggressively pursue distributors and users, or else.
According to Frydl, this was a disastrous move. Better, she says, to de-criminalize and even legalize drugs, control them by means of taxation, and support prevention and treatment initiatives. It’s a controversial position, and near the end of the interview we debate it at some length. I hope you enjoy the discussion.
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1 hr 4 min
March 07, 2013 Paul Kan, “Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security” (Potomac Books, 2012)
The violence in Mexico is receiving a lot of media attention internationally. Paul Rexton Kan has produced a book that provides us with a comprehensive and comprehendible introduction to the background to the conflict and its effects. Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security (Potomac Books, 2012) is a relatively short book packed with detailed information. The book covers the nature of the drug war, the cartels involved, the national and international responses and the effects of this war on the local and international communities. But this is not just a descriptive work. Kan provides us with his recommendations for solutions and predictions about the future of the conflict. In particular, he draws comparisons between treating this as an insurgency and spells out how a counter-terrorist response would not be the correct way to deal with the issue. This is high intensity crime and requires a high intensity policing response. Overall the book is an excellent introduction to the very complex drug war in Mexico, as well as being a source of practical and realistic policy options for addressing a conflict this large.
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51 min
October 09, 2012 Chris Cooper, “Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat: The Science Behind Drugs in Sport” (Oxford University Press, 2012)
This past August, the saga of Lance Armstrong came to its inglorious end. The seven-time champion of the Tour de France and Olympic medalist ended his defense against charges that he had engaged in blood doping during his cycling career. In the judgment of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the end of Armstrong’s challenge was effectively a concession of guilt. The body responded by stripping Armstrong of his titles and banning him from cycling competitions. Armstrong, however, has continued to maintain his innocence. It appears that many Americans agree with him. In various polls conducted after the USADA’s actions, large majorities of respondents stated their belief that Armstrong had not engaged in doping. But outside the US, opinion of the cyclist is somewhat different. As Peter Beaumont remarked in The Observer, the real question is not whether Armstrong engaged in doping, it’s why his fall from grace didn’t come sooner.
Lance Armstrong now joins a notorious collection of athletes who have been stained by allegations or proof of doping: baseball’s Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, sprinter Marion Jones, swimmer Michelle Smith, cross-country skiers Olga Danilova and Larissa Lazutina, Chinese swimmers of the late 1990s. Chris Cooper begins his study of the science of doping with what was perhaps the most shocking episode of a champion athlete caught doping: Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who set the world record in the 100-meter dash at the 1988 Seoul Olympics only to be stripped of his record and gold medal days later. As Cooper points out, athletes had long been using anabolic steroids. And indeed, Johnson was not the only sprinter in that race to have been found using drugs. But the fall of the gold medalist in the Olympics’ marquee event brought the use of performance-enhancing drugs to broad public attention. Since 1988, great athletic accomplishments have been viewed with suspicion, while athletes have been obligated to pee in cups.
Athletes still take performance-enhancing drugs. Why? What benefits, if any, do they gain? Chris’ book, Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat: The Science Behind Drugs in Sport (Oxford University Press, 2012), addresses these questions. As a researcher in biochemistry, Chris explains what the drugs do, and whether they work. We learn from the interview that doping does provide a clear advantage, in some instances. But in other cases, the drug’s effects are slim–which raises the question: should they be banned?
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52 min
July 31, 2012 Isaac Campos, “Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs” (UNC Press, 2012)
Isaac Campos is the author of Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Campos is an assistant professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. His book traces the intellectual history of marijuana from Europe to Mexico and the ways in which usage of the drug was portrayed – as a source of madness and violence — in the Mexican media. Campos turns on its head the popular myth that drug regulation in Mexico derives from US sources. For political scientists and for all those interested in the issue, the book offers a deep historical context for the current “war on drugs” and related violence in the US and in Mexico.
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38 min
June 26, 2012 David Linen, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good” (Viking, 2011)
What happens in our brains when we do things that feel good, such as drinking a glass of wine, exercising, or gambling? How and why do we become addicted to certain foods, chemicals and behaviors? David Linden, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins, explains these phenomena in his latest book, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good (Viking, 2011).

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36 min
November 15, 2011 Erica Prussing, “White Man’s Water: The Politics of Sobriety in a Native American Community” (University of Arizona Press, 2011)
For the past half century, Alcoholics Anonymous and its 12-step recovery program has been the dominant method for treating alcohol abuse in the United States. Reservation communities have been no exception. But as Erica Prussing vividly describes in her new book,White Man’s Water: The Politics of Sobriety in a Native American Community (University of Arizona Press, 2011), a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment does not, in fact, fit all.
An assistant professor of anthropology and community and behavior health at the University of Iowa, Prussing lived for three years on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, working with community organizations, building long-lasting relationships, and gathering testimonies of alcohols’ often disruptive impacts on the lives of many Northern Cheyenne. While many young women have embraced the 12-step program, others – particularly of the older generation – find its moral assumptions foreign and unhelpful. What emerges from Prussing’s account is not a reductive and totalizing “Cheyenne culture” but rather a complex negotiation of tradition, community, and recovery in the face of persistent colonial challenges. This nuance and attention to detail makes Prussing’s call for indigenous self-determination in health care all the more powerful.
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49 min
June 15, 2011 Eric C. Schneider, “Smack: Heroin and the American City” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)
When I arrived at college in the early 1980s, drugs were cool, music was cool, and drug-music was especially cool. The coolest of the cool drug-music bands was The Velvet Underground. They were from the mean streets of New York City (The Doors were from the soft parade of L.A….); they hung out with Andy Warhol (The Beatles hung out with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi…); they had a female drummer (The Grateful Dead had two drummers, but that still didn’t help…); and, of course, they did heroin. Or at least they wrote a famous song about it. We did not do heroin, but we thought that those who did–like Lou Reed and the rest–were hipper than hip. I imagine we would have done it if there had been any around (thank God for small favors).
We thought we had discovered something new. But as Eric C. Schneider points out in his marvelous Smack: Heroin and the American City (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), the conjunction of music, heroin, and cool was hardly an invention of my generation. The three came together in the 1940s, when smack-using bebop players (think Charlie Parker) taught the “Beat Generation” that heroin was hip. Neither was my generation the last to succumb to a heroin fad. The triad of music, heroin, and cool united again in the 1990s, when drug-addled pop-culture icons such as Jim Carroll (The Basketball Diaries), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), and Calvin Klein (of “heroin chic” fame) taught “Generation X” the same lesson. History, or at least the history of heroin, repeats itself.
For white, middle-class folks like me heroin chic was an episode, a rebellious moment in an otherwise “normal” American life. But as Schneider makes clear, the passage of heroin from cultural elites to the population at large was not always so benign, particularly in the declining inner-cities of the 1960s and 1970s. Here heroin had nothing to do with being cool and everything to do with earning a living and escaping reality. For millions of impoverished, hopeless, urban-dwelling hispanics and blacks, heroin was a paycheck and a checkout. The drug helped destroy the people in the inner-city, and thus the inner-city itself.
In response to the “heroin epidemic” of the 1960s and 1970s, the government launched the first war on drugs, focusing its energy on “pushers.” But there were no “pushers” because–and this is the greatest insight in a book full of great insights–pushing was not the way heroin use spread, either among middle-class college kids or the down-and-out of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. No one pushed heroin on anyone. Rather, users taught their friends how to use; in turn, those friends–now users–taught their friends, and so on. Heroin stealthily spread through personal networks. The only part of the process that was visible was the result: in the case of suburban college kids, bad grades and rehab; in the case of poor urban hispanics and blacks, crime and incarceration.
Not surprisingly, when the heroin “epidemic” ended, it was not due to the war on drugs. Heroin simply fell out of fashion, in this case being replaced by another fashionable drug, powder and crack cocaine. Today we are fighting cocaine just as we fought heroin, and, by all appearances, with similar success.
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1 hr 14 min

About New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery episodes

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