chris moraff

Episode 81: Harm Reduction Against the Prison-Industrial Complex

February 2, 2023 Narcotica Criminal Justice, Episodes, Stimulants 01:15:43 0 Comments

Harm reduction is an imperfect philosophy that serves as the only wedge between prohibition and what we all really want, which is a healthy, productive society. If more police and prisons could make drugs safer, we’d have a lot less overdose deaths and problematic addiction. But that’s not what’s happening. Drugs are more available than ever, while overdose deaths continue to shatter records. If this is a war, we lost long ago. (Of course, as we repeatedly emphasize on this show, not all drug use is addiction and in fact, most of it isn’t.)

Instead we have the prison-industrial complex. We have cops and judges that take on the role of doctors. We have a system that is designed to oppress, marginalize and criminalize rational human behavior. Yet, harm reduction in prisons — arguably the one place where it is needed most — is almost completely absent.

On today’s episode, Narcotica co-host Troy Farah spoke to someone who is sadly, currently behind bars. Because of that, we are using their adopted pseudonym, C. Dreams. C. is a writer and advocate interested in prison and criminal justice reform, LGBTQ rights, harm reduction and government and cultural criticism. She has studied history and theology with the Third Order of Carmelites and completed degrees in Systematic Theology and is currently studying law. C. has some brilliant writing being published in Filter Magazine. They talk all about drug use in prisons, from K2 to fentanyl, a positive methamphetamine story, the problems with lack of syringe access, let alone access to buprenorphine or methadone, and much much more.

Follow C. on Twitter at: @UnCagedCritique

Read C’s writing in Filter Magazine here: https://filtermag.org/author/c-dreams/

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 26: Housing As Harm Reduction
Episode 75: Copaganda — The Favorite Tool of Drug Warriors with Alec Karakatsanis
Episode 45: Overdose Is Tragic, Not Murder with Morgan Godvin

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. We just opened a shop where you can order Narcotica merch: narcocast.myshopify.com Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!
Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel, Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1
Image: Shannon O’Toole via Flickr // edit: Troy Farah
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye

Episode 80: A Messy History of Methadone with Dr. Zoe Adams

December 31, 2022 Narcotica Addiction, Episodes, Opioids 01:16:58 0 Comments

At Narcotica, we’ve often talked about how methadone is one of the most over-regulated substances on the planet. It’s not a perfect drug — nothing is — but it helps a lot of people. So why is it so hard to access?

On this episode, the crew (Zachary Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah) speak with Dr. Zoe Adams, an internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, whose thesis was a narrative history of methadone. It’s a long, strange chronicle, from its development in Germany, to becoming a mainstay in Nixon’s War on Drugs, but what’s most surprising is how little has changed. Learn about why this drug is so scrutinized, stigmatized and what people are doing to make it more available.

Follow Zoe on Twitter at: @zoe_m_adams

Read Zoe’s thesis here: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ymtdl/4049/

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

Episode 73: Oh No! Not Naltrexone! with Nancy Curran

Episode 65: Restoring Trust in Doctors Amidst The Overdose Crisis with Dr. Ben Cocchiaro and Dr. Ashish Thakrar

Episode 67: Methadone in the Time of Covid with Danielle Russell

Episode 48: Moms And Methadone with Elizabeth Brico

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. We just opened a shop where you can order Narcotica merch: narcocast.myshopify.com Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel, Aaron Ferguson

Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1

Intro voice: Jenny Schaye

Episode 76: How To Change Your Mind About ALL Drugs with Veronica Wright

August 5, 2022 Narcotica Criminal Justice, Episodes 00:49:51 0 Comments

Certain celebrity authors want to help you accept that certain drug use is OK—and there’s nothing wrong with psychedelic exceptionalism, but it overlooks the biggest destructive forces of the drug war. Yet, legalizing drugs like meth, heroin and cocaine remains a hard sell for even the most progressive of drug policy reformers. So how do we cross this bridge?

Narcotica co-host Chris Moraff speaks with Veronica Wright, founder of the National Coalition for Drug Legalization. They discuss how prohibition is far worse than the drugs deemed too dangerous for public consumption, and only works to worsen health inequities and harms from drug use. However, the transition from prohibition to a future where drug use isn’t criminalized won’t be easy. Veronica shares what helped her change her mind on this issue and the future of drug use that she envisions.

Follow Veronica on Twitter at: @veronicawright8 and visit the National Coalition for Drug Legalization’s website here: https://www.nationalcoalitionfordruglegalization.org/

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 51: The Joy of Drug Use with Dr. Carl Hart
Episode 68: Is The Drug War Getting Better… Or Worse? with Zach Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah
Episode 58: How Racism Fuels The Drug War with Kassandra Frederique

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. We just opened a shop where you can order Narcotica merch: narcocast.myshopify.com Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

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

Episode 74: Cannabis And Capitalism — Preventing Another Big Tobacco with Shaleen Title

July 13, 2022 Narcotica Cannabis, Episodes 00:58:43 0 Comments

For good reason, about 150 million people use cannabis, according to the World Health Organization. That’s around 3 percent of the global population or the entire population of Russia. In most places, smoking the flowers or extracts of this plant can come with some steep legal consequences: long prison sentences, heavy fines, loss of civil rights, the state may take away your kids or deny you medical care. You may even get executed.

For some of us, especially if we live in places where cannabis is legal, such dire consequences for using cannabis can seem like a distant nightmare. But even as we slowly emerge from the dark ages of marijuana prohibition, we’re encountering entirely predictable problems: unchecked capitalist greed. So yes, while it’s worth celebrating our emergence from the dark ages of cannabis prohibition, we risk entering into different forms of prohibition, oppression and inequality at the hands of the so-called “free market.”

Narcotica co-host Troy Farah talks with Shaleen Title, an Indian-American attorney and longtime drug policy activist who has been writing, passing, and implementing equitable cannabis laws for over 20 years. She is a former top regulator for the state of Massachusetts, where she served as commissioner of the Cannabis Control Commission from 2017 to 2020. She is the author of “Fair and Square: How to Effectively Incorporate Social Equity Into Cannabis Laws and Regulations” and “Bigger is Not Better: Preventing Monopolies in the National Cannabis Market.”  Currently, her primary focus is running the nonprofit think tank Parabola Center, which pushes for cannabis policies to protect people rather than corporate profits.

Follow Shaleen on Twitter at: @shaleentitle

Read Bigger is Not Better: Preventing Monopolies in the National Cannabis Market

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 63: Delta-8-THC And Other Obscure Cannabinoids with Jason Wilson
Episode 58: How Racism Fuels The Drug War with Kassandra Frederique
Episode 53: A Life of Getting Lit with Tommy Chong

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. We just opened a shop where you can order Narcotica merch: narcocast.myshopify.com Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: edit: Troy Farah

Episode 72: When The Trip Doesn’t End with Ed Prideaux

May 28, 2022 Narcotica Episodes, Psychedelics 01:17:41 0 Comments

Psychedelics and other drugs can trigger a condition called Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, a terrible name for a real condition that we don’t have much data on and is poorly understood. But while it’s clear that psychedelics shouldn’t be illegal, it’s also clear we’re still learning about some of the risks. This fascinating and often distressing phenomenon deserves a closer look, but not everything about it is devastatingly tragic, either.

In this episode of Narcotica, co-host Troy Farah talks all about HPPD with Ed Prideaux, a master’s student in psychology at the University of East London with a background in journalism. Ed is currently focused on researching and addressing the problems, possibilities and questions raised by HPPD: a broad, under-researched and not entirely uncommon condition in which people experience sustained and distressing changes to their visual perception (among other effects) after psychedelic trips. Ed has lived with these visual effects for nearly seven years, and is affiliated with a nonprofit launched last year to promote harm reduction around HPPD called the Perception Restoration Foundation.

Follow Ed at https://edprideaux.journoportfolio.com/
Visit the Perception Restoration Foundation at: Perception.Foundation

Some more info on perception as a hallucination: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2022/02/is-reality-a-hallucination-the-neuroscientist-anil-seth-thinks-so

Some of the studies mentioned in this episode:
The abuse potential of medical psilocybin according to the 8 factors of the Controlled Substances Act
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29753748/
Flashback phenomena after administration of LSD and psilocybin in controlled studies with healthy participants
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35076721/
Adverse effects of psychedelics: From anecdotes and misinformation to systematic science
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F02698811211069100

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 57: Autism, Acid and the Altered Brain with Aaron Orsini and Justine Lee
Episode 64: LSD And Psilocybin For Physical Pain? with Greg McKee and Dr. Johannes Ramaekers
Episode 59: Psychedelic Extinction—How Poaching Endangers Some Psychoactive Plants with Dr. Anya Ermakova

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. We just opened a shop where you can order Narcotica merch: narcocast.myshopify.com Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

*Note: Troy says niacin is Vitamin C, it’s actually Vitamin B3. We regret the error.

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: David J / Flickr // edit: Troy Farah

Episode 68: Is The Drug War Getting Better… Or Worse? with Zach Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah

March 3, 2022 Narcotica Episodes, Opioids, Overdose Crisis, Psychedelics 01:10:13 0 Comments

On this episode, Narcotica co-hosts Zachary Siegel, Chris Moraff and Troy Farah interview each other, riffing on one question: Is the drug war getting better… Or worse? They cover everything from nitazenes, Dopesick, the Drug User’s Liberation Front, banning psychedelics like DiPT, benzo dope, West Virginia, buprenorphine, psychedelic exceptionalism, drug testing, crack pipes, supervised consumption sites in NYC and much, much, more.

Their conclusion? You’ll have to listen to find out. OK, not really: Like many things, it’s a mix of both progress and backsliding. Narcotica’s founders discuss their current frustrations and what’s giving them optimism in America’s longest running war, a conflict directed at people. Maybe the end is in sight after all.

Follow Chris Moraff on Twitter: @moraffreports
Follow Zach Siegel on Twitter: @ZachWritesStuff
Follow Troy Farah on Twitter: @filth_filler

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 27: What’s the Most Dangerous Drug?
Episode 58: How Racism Fuels The Drug War with Kassandra Frederique
Episode 51: The Joy of Drug Use with Dr. Carl Hart

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

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

Episode 67: Methadone in the Time of Covid with Danielle Russell

February 8, 2022 Narcotica Episodes, Opioids, Overdose Crisis 00:58:10 0 Comments

Harm reduction programs like syringe access, supervised consumption or even just handing out condoms on the street, can be some of the only access to healthcare some people encounter. Definitely not all, but some people who use drugs routinely shun going to the doctor—not because they don’t care about their health, but because our for-profit healthcare system treats almost everyone who uses an illicit substance like complete shit. And people who use drugs have been treated like pariahs long before the covid pandemic, but things got way worse once the virus came to town.

Previously on Narcotica, co-host Chris Moraff did an episode all about how doctors need to work harder to rebuild the patient-trust relationship. And many medical professionals are doing that work, which makes such a huge difference. It’s hard to understate how valuable it can be to receive nonjudgmental medical care that doesn’t hinge on absolute abstinence.

That episode, number 65, which we encourage you to listen to after this one, came from the perspective of two amazing doctors, Ashish Thakrar and Ben Cocchiario. However, on this episode, we want to talk to someone from the other side of the aisle to get a different viewpoint from someone with lived experience in this area.

Why would you go to a healthcare provider for an infection or injury if you’re going to be lectured about your drug use, even if it has nothing to do with why you’re there? Or you might be forced to hand over your urine or have your possessions rifled through by a nurse. Even for people that don’t use illegal substances, our healthcare system is a nightmare to try and navigate. It only gets worse if you happen to self-medicate or enjoy chemicals that aren’t sanctioned by the FDA.

Narcotica co-host Troy Farah speaks with Danielle Russell of Phoenix, Arizona, who is currently a justice and social inquiry PhD student at Arizona State University. She studies how the criminalization of substances used for personal pleasure has become a key issue and tool for social control, contributing to the ongoing legacy of racialized criminalization and mass incarceration in the U.S. Having personally experienced many of the harms that impact people who use illicit drugs, she is passionate about mutual aid and working to change the structures that impose harms on the bodies of drug users. Her research interests are oriented towards community-based participatory research.

Follow Danielle on Twitter @DopefiendPhD and you can read the study she co-authored here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33461838/

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 65: Restoring Trust in Doctors Amidst The Overdose Crisis with Dr. Ben Cocchiaro and Dr. Ashish Thakrar
Episode 48: Moms And Methadone with Elizabeth Brico
Episode 56: Drug Use During Disaster with Aaron Ferguson

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

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

Episode 65: Restoring Trust in Doctors Amidst The Overdose Crisis with Dr. Ben Cocchiaro and Dr. Ashish Thakrar

November 19, 2021 Narcotica Episodes, Overdose Crisis 01:05:20 0 Comments

Over the past two decades, as fatal drug overdoses have risen precipitously, few professions have been hit harder by the crisis than the medical community. Physicians in particular have found themselves in the no-win position of being both blamed for the overdose crisis, which claimed more than 100,000 American lives in the past 12 months, while being tasked with containing it.

According to one dominant narrative, it was cavalier doctors who sparked the crisis in the first place, by overprescribing habit forming narcotic painkillers to millions of Americans after being softened up at lavish dinners and then duped by nefarious pharmaceutical reps using fudged data.

But that’s overly simplistic. For starters, it ignores the fact that the greatest spike in drug deaths came when doctors reigned in opioid prescribing after authorities started targeting so-called pill mills. This left tens of thousands of pain patients stranded and paved the way for the introduction of illicitly made fentanyl into the U.S. to fill unmet demands.

Narcotica co-host Christopher Moraff delves into this topic, asking how the medical community can work to restore trust from their patients who are justifiably suspicious of the U.S. healthcare system, speaking with doctors Ashish Thakrar and Ben Cocchiario, who both work for the University of Pennsylvania medical system in Philadelphia, a focal point of the overdose crisis. They cover everything from methadone prescribing to overfunding the DEA, all of it underlining the importance of patient autonomy.

Follow Ben Cocchiaro at UPenn
Follow Ashish Thakrar on Twitter @especially_APT

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 46: Behind The Pharmacists’ Counter with Jessica Moreno
Episode 36: Moral Hazards and Naloxone, A Toxicologist’s Perspective
Episode 30: Getting Wrecked with Dr. Kim Sue

Follow Narcotica on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Stockvault // edit: Troy Farah

Episode 61: Undoing Drugs—Harm Reduction’s Early History with Maia Szalavitz

July 27, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 01:06:29 0 Comments

We’re truly living through a disaster. Drug overdose deaths rose nearly 30 percent in 2020 to a record high 93,000. This is no longer an “opioid” crisis. What I mean is, 2020 overdose deaths linked to stimulants, especially methamphetamine, also broke records. The other key development here is the further entrenchment of illicit fentanyl in the drug supply, it’s a contamination at mass-scale. At this point, we’re in a poisoning crisis driven by one thing: prohibition.

But harm reduction is the movement that continues to push back against draconian drug policy, even when the odds seem against us. Longterm listeners of this show will be familiar with how harm reduction saves lives, but how did this movement get started in the first place?

To learn more, all three Narcotica co-hosts —Zachary Siegel, Troy Farah and Chris Moraff—speak with author Maia Szalavitz, whose new book Undoing Drugs—The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction—is available now. We discuss the struggles of syringe access in the early days to the present, the challenges of being a functioning drug user, and how harm reduction can help address policy changes beyond drugs.

Follow Maia on Twitter @maiasz

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us! Rate us! And thanks for your support!

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 22: Changing the Narrative with Maia Szalavitz and Leo Beletsky
Episode 51: The Joy of Drug Use with Dr. Carl Hart
Episode 20: The Pitfalls of Mainstream Harm Reduction with Eliza Wheeler

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

Episode 60: Perinatal Panic—Drugs, Pregnancy and Stigma with Ria Tsinas, Joelle Puccio and Erika Goyer

July 16, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 01:40:24 0 Comments

One area where drug stigma especially persists, even among harm reduction advocates, is the prejudice against mothers and pregnant people who use drugs. Even some people in syringe exchange or who work in drug policy are against the idea of people with the capacity for pregnancy, (i.e. anyone with a uterus), using pretty much any drugs for any purpose.

It’s not clear why the principles of harm reduction that we extend to almost everyone else suddenly stop when it involves a fetus or a uterus. But the lives of pregnant people are no less important than anyone else who uses drugs, and the same attitudes of stigma, abstinence-only and surveillance don’t work here either—they just make the situation worse.

Narcotica co-host Troy Farah speaks with not one, but three guests from the Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction, a non-profit that focuses on people with the capacity for pregnancy, who also happen to use drugs. They are:

Ria Tsinas, based in Portland, Oregon, who works at Outside In as a syringe exchange specialist and community health worker. She is also the mother of a wonderful kid.

Erika Goyer, based in Austin, Texas, Advocate at National Perinatal Association and co-founder at Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction. She is also a parent.

And Joelle Puccio, a travel nurse who is sometimes based in Seattle, Washington and works as a voard of directors at The People’s Harm Reduction Alliance.

Learn more at perinatalharmreduction.org/

Follow Joelle on Instagram @joellepuccio
Follow Ria on Instagram @gtsinas
Follow Erika on LinkedIn

Follow Narcotica on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and support us on Patreon. Help keep this podcast ad-free! Your support is appreciated! We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and more. Tell your friends about us!

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 48: Moms And Methadone with Elizabeth Brico
Episode 30: Getting Wrecked with Dr. Kim Sue
Episode 24: How To Get Abortion Pills Feat. Lynn Paltrow and Francine Coeytaux

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

 

Episode 58: How Racism Fuels The Drug War with Kassandra Frederique

June 12, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 00:55:46 0 Comments

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:
Episode 44: Reimagining Public Health and Racial Justice with Dr. Ricky Bluthenthal
Episode 30: Getting Wrecked with Dr. Kim Sue
Episode 11: Beyond Borders — How the U.S. Exports Dangerous Drug Policy with Sanho Tree

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson / Troy Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Aaron Ferguson / Nomad1
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Pixabay edit: Troy Farah

Episode 56: Drug Use During Disaster with Aaron Ferguson

May 1, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 00:56:22 0 Comments

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.

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 51: The Joy of Drug Use with Dr. Carl Hart
Episode 18: Drug User Unions – The Rebirth of Harm Reduction with Jess Tilley and Albie Park
Episode 42: Supervised Consumption is an Essential Service

Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson / Troy Farah
Music: Glass Boy / Suhov
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Justin L. Flickr edit: Troy Farah

Episode 55: Street Sampling Synthetics, from Carfentanil to Xylazine with Alex Krotulski

April 23, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 00:44:56 0 Comments

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

Episode 50: Sicarios and Supply Side Economics with Stewart Scott

January 25, 2021 Narcotica Episodes 01:01:36 0 Comments

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 Stewart Scott, 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

Episode 31: Supervised Consumption: Narcotica Breaks Down Safehouse Ruling with Av Gutman

October 21, 2019 Narcotica Episodes 1 Comment

Safehouse is safe, for now. On Wednesday Oct. 2, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that a supervised injection site proposed by the nonprofit Safehouse would not violate a provision of the Controlled Substances Act, known as the “Crack House” statute, authored by none other than Democratic presidential frontrunner, Joe Biden. On today’s episode, hosts Troy, Chris, and Zach are joined by Philadelphia Inquirer’s Abraham Gutman. Gutman has been cranking out fiery editorials in support of harm reduction, criminal justice reform, and tons of other topics for Philly’s biggest newspaper. He breaks down the complicated legal, political, and social implications of the Safehouse ruling and what comes next. 

You can follow Gutman on Twitter and read his work 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 

Photo: Holden Blanco 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Episode 20: The Pitfalls of Mainstream Harm Reduction with Eliza Wheeler

May 31, 2019 Narcotica Episodes 0:55:16 0 Comments
via Troy Farah

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

Episode 19: Debunking Bupe Diversion Myths with Molly Doernberg

May 11, 2019 Narcotica Episodes 0:35:27 0 Comments
If you ask many, many people whose lives have been upended by opioids, buprenorphine is a life saver. It can literally cut the risk of a fatal overdose by half or more in folks who have an opioid addiction. Also known as Subutex or Suboxone, buprenorphine is one of the three FDA approved medications to treat what’s formally known as opioid use disorder. It’s a partial agonist at opioid receptors, relieving cravings but with far less risk for overdose than other opioids like heroin, which are full agonists.

Zachary Siegel, Troy Farah and Christopher Moraff speak with Molly Doernberg, a grad student at Yale School of Public Health, who co-authored a recent paper called “Demystifying buprenorphine misuse: Has fear of diversion gotten in the way of addressing the opioid crisis?” which was published in the journal Substance Abuse last April. They discuss what buprenorphine is, why people take it, and why stigma and fears that buprenorphine may be used illicitly are actually contributing to more overdose deaths.



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Read Doernberg’s paper here: https://doi.org/10.1080/08897077.2019.1572052 and follow her 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

Episode 13: Beyond Borders – “Drug War Capitalism”

March 8, 2019 Narcotica Episodes 0:55:37 0 Comments

For the last installation of Narcotica’s Beyond Border series, Zachary Siegel interviews Dawn Paley, journalist and author of “Drug War Capitalism.” Paley’s scholarship and research situates paramilitarized drug violence in countries from Colombia to Honduras in historical, political, and economic context. On the show she discusses how the War on Drugs benefits big businesses across the hemisphere. Paley has reported about the War on Drugs from Mexico, South America, and Central America for The Nation Magazine, and recently finished her Ph.D. from the Autonomous University of Puebla in Mexico.

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

Producers: Chris Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Music: Glass Boy