From the archives of our sister podcast AMERICAN DIAGNOSIS

The U.S.'s unique history of slavery and race relations have played no small part in how we approach drug abuse and addiction differently from other developed countries—from the supposed “Negro cocaine fiends” of the early Jim Crow era… to the “law-and-order” politics that emerged, partly, in response to the race riots of the Civil Rights years… to “crack babies” in the '80s. But our history may, finally, be changing. Guests: Ekow Yankah, Professor of Law and Criminal Theory at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School; Philippe Bourgois, Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Center for Social Medicine and Humanities in the Psychiatry Department at the UCLA Medical School and author of Righteous Dopefiend; and David Courtwright, Professor of History at the University of North Florida and author of Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World and The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits.

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