Opioids are some of the best drugs ever invented. News flash! But that’s not something you’ll hear from the mainstream media anymore. No, the official message is that opioids are only problematic and even in the instances where they are prescribed by doctors, there’s this baggage, this stigma and shame attached to it. And no,... The post Episode 91: Drug Surveillance Won’t Stop at Opioids with Liz Chiarello appeared first on Narcotica ....
May 25, 2025•55 min
The endless whac-a-mole of the drug war, banning one chemical as soon as three more become popular, can never be won. That just isn’t how chemistry or human nature works. But that hasn’t stopped profiteers and special interest groups from pushing the same old strategies, none of which has resulted in significantly lowering overdose deaths... The post Episode 90: Navigating Shifting Chemical Landscapes with Claire Zagorski appeared first on Narcotica ....
Mar 02, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Last year was a crazy time for drug policy and 2025 is looking to up the ante on the chaos. Narcotica hosts Chris Moraff, Aaron Ferguson and Troy Farah reflect on what went wrong, what can be done and what to hope for, even in the midst of an escalating crisis. They discuss the recent... The post Episode 89: Can Good Drug Policy Survive 2025? appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jan 10, 2025•45 min
Harm reduction means so many different things to so many different people, and some have even grown weary of the way the term has now been weaponized. How do we get back to the true core of helping people? Maybe by returning to the roots of the harm reduction movement to understand why these practices... The post Episode 88: Helping Harm Reduction Flourish with Joy Rucker appeared first on Narcotica ....
Sep 26, 2024•55 min
On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about drug testing but not the tedious ways in which you should (probably) do it. There are plenty of great guides out there which we’ll link to one or two in the show notes. Instead, we’re going to discuss how drug testing equals empowerment. It’s more than just... The post Episode 87: Drug Testing Equals Empowerment with Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta and Charlton Roverson appeared first on Narcotica ....
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Narcotica and Narcomedia are proud to share an exciting new sibling podcast, Naturally Noncompliant, which is about people who stand in line and fight for safe supply, especially methadone, the original safe supply. Methadone is the first frontier in this fight, and this show emphasizes the voices of patients and directly impacted people in that... The post Bonus Episode: When Nothing Changes Nothing Changes from Naturally Noncompliant appeared first on Narcotica ....
May 28, 2024•32 min
Naloxone is a miracle drug. Calling any drug a miracle can be problematic, but admittedly there are a few of them, in my opinion: penicillin, insulin, mifepristone and misoprostol, thorazine, viagra (cough, cough) and yes, naloxone. I think it qualifies as a miracle drug, something that works so well it is astonishing. So many people... The post Episode 86: Why Naloxone Still Matters with Nancy D. Campbell appeared first on Narcotica ....
Apr 29, 2024•1 hr 15 min
If you only get your international drug policy history from Netflix, you might think that the drug traffickers in Mexico are a smart, coordinated system of violent sociopaths that control the government. They are cartels. Therefore they have leadership, and hierarchies and tangible targets that can be taken out just like in a Call of... The post Episode 85: “Narcoterrorism” is just another forever war lie with Oswaldo Zavala appeared first on Narcotica ....
Feb 09, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Like some kind of perverse fishing expedition, we’re all familiar with the drug warriors’ favorite form of theater: the drug bust. Every police department seems to do this, posing their officers with huge (or even tiny, inconsequential) bags of drugs, stacks of cash and sometimes a cache of weapons, propping everything up as if it’s... The post Episode 84: How Drug Seizures Damage Public Health with Drs. Bradley Ray, Jennifer J. Carroll and Brandon del Pozo appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jan 12, 2024•1 hr 10 min
The War on (People who Use) Drugs has claimed over a million victims in the last two decades, every fatal overdose representing deep policy failures that attempt in vain to control normal human behavior: self-medicating and inducing euphoria. None of this wonky policy bullshit matters much when you’re the parent of a child who dies... The post Episode 83: The Parents Who Oppose The War on Drugs with Tamara Olt and Gretchen Bergman appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jun 15, 2023•1 hr 20 min
The Drug War is more brutal than ever. Overdose deaths are still shattering records, there’s talk of war with the cartels, increased penalties are just making things worse, there’s little money for harm reduction programs or addiction treatment, yet plenty of cash for prisons, cops and the DEA, weird new drugs are appearing that no... The post Episode 82: Drug War Activism and the Future of Harm Reduction with Louise Vincent appeared first on Narcotica ....
Apr 20, 2023•1 hr 12 min
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... The post Episode 81: Harm Reduction Against the Prison-Industrial Complex appeared first on Narcotica ....
Feb 02, 2023•1 hr 16 min
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... The post Episode 80: A Messy History of Methadone with Dr. Zoe Adams appeared first on Narcotica ....
Dec 31, 2022•1 hr 17 min
People have this conception that San Francisco’s streets are just overflowing with human shit and people injecting drugs in the open. Stereotypes about California being overrun with homeless encampments and open-air drug markets abound, as if these things don’t exist in other states, while politicians in Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, warn against so-called progressive... The post Episode 79: Is California Really Progressive on Drugs? with Dr. Isaac Jackson appeared first on Narcotica ....
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min
A future where abortion drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol are trafficked just like fentanyl or methamphetamine or where birth control is sold on the street corner like crack cocaine is really not that distant of a reality, if it’s not already happening. The drug war is deeply intertwined with reproductive rights. That’s not always obvious... The post Episode 78: Drug Use in a Post-Roe World with Dinah Ortiz appeared first on Narcotica ....
Sep 26, 2022•55 min
The United States sure loves to cage people. Incarceration statistics can be shocking, but they can be cited so often that they can lose their potency. It can seem abstract or just the way things are. But it is completely immoral that the U.S. throws more people into cages than any other country for which... The post Episode 77: Harm Production — The Hazards of Drug Courts with Dave Lucas appeared first on Narcotica ....
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 5 min
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... The post Episode 76: How To Change Your Mind About ALL Drugs with Veronica Wright appeared first on Narcotica ....
Aug 05, 2022•50 min
No matter what the problem is, whether it’s fentanyl overdoses or mass shootings, the solution to all of our problems is always more money and bigger budgets for police, prosecutors and prisons. Funny how that works, right? If crime goes up we need police, if crime goes down it’s because of the police, so we... The post Episode 75: Copaganda — The Favorite Tool of Drug Warriors with Alec Karakatsanis appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jul 25, 2022•58 min
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... The post Episode 74: Cannabis And Capitalism — Preventing Another Big Tobacco with Shaleen Title appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jul 13, 2022•59 min
Naltrexone, also known by its brand name, Vivitrol, is an opioid antagonist that kicks opioids off of opioid receptor in the brain, not unlike naloxone. But thanks to a combination of overprescription, unscrupulous marketing practices and ubiquitous use over more effective alternatives, naltrexone is a very controversial drug. In fact, a common reaction is Oh... The post Episode 73: Oh No! Not Naltrexone! with Nancy Curran appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jun 25, 2022•1 hr 9 min
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... The post Episode 72: When The Trip Doesn’t End with Ed Prideaux appeared first on Narcotica ....
May 28, 2022•1 hr 18 min
It’s easy to hate the massive pharmaceutical corporations that extract obscene profit from the healthcare system—and there are many, many reasons why you should distrust these companies, although the situation is far more complex than “Big Pharma = bad.” But how did we get here? How did medical care get so expensive, so complicated and... The post Episode 71: Aduhelm, Obscene Drug Prices and Big Pharma Tactics with Dr. John Abramson appeared first on Narcotica ....
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Imagine banning a chemical that we all make in our bodies. But that’s exactly where drug war logic takes us and why testosterone is Schedule III on the Controlled Substances Act, alongside ketamine and buprenorphine. Testosterone is painted as some dangerous substance that must be locked up. These outlandish fears led to restrictive laws which... The post Episode 70: How Testosterone Bans Criminalize the Body with Adryan Corcione appeared first on Narcotica ....
Apr 04, 2022•53 min
Psychedelics are not exactly taking the same path that cannabis has taken to the mainstream, but there are some similarities. In the late ‘90s and early aughts, when medical cannabis was first starting to take hold in California, quasi-legal businesses popped up overnight, with a lot of questionable quality control and these shops were often... The post Episode 69: The Promise and Peril of the Psychedelic Mainstream with Shelby Hartman and Madison Margolin appeared first on Narcotica ....
Mar 21, 2022•54 min
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... The post Episode 68: Is The Drug War Getting Better… Or Worse? with Zach Siegel, Chris Moraff ...
Mar 03, 2022•1 hr 10 min
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... The post Episode 67: Methadone in the Time of Covid with Danielle Russell appeared first on Narcotica ....
Feb 08, 2022•58 min
Booze is one of the most ancient and most prolific drugs in society, yet for some reason, it’s always placed in some separate category. Drugs and alcohol. Even at Narcotica, we’ve done over 65 episodes about drugs and not one of them has focused solely on ethanol. We just haven’t gotten to it yet, we’ve... The post Episode 66: Overlooking Alcohol and The Nature of Addiction with Dr. Stanton Peele appeared first on Narcotica ....
Jan 22, 2022•1 hr 9 min
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,... The post Episode 65: Restoring Trust in Doctors Amidst The Overdose Crisis with Dr. Ben Cocchiaro and Dr. Ashish Thakrar appeared first on Narcotica ....
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 5 min
These days, there isn’t an ailment some Silicon Valley-esque startup is trying to treat with psychedelics. Of course you have depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD and fear of death for the terminally ill—there’s some good data for treating all of that—but some of the more obscure treatments include anorexia and eating disorders, sexual dysfunction, dementia, and... The post Episode 64: LSD And Psilocybin For Physical Pain? with Greg McKee and Dr. Johannes Ramaekers appeared first on Narcotica ....
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Nearly half the U.S. population now have access to adult-use cannabis. Marijuana is a medicine, if it’s cultivated or extracted right, and millions of people find relief or pleasure from this fantastic plant. But as legalization accelerates, regulations have struggled to keep up. Most experts and maybe many consumers would agree that cannabis is not well... The post Episode 63: Delta-8-THC And Other Obscure Cannabinoids with Jason Wilson appeared first on Narcotica ....
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr 14 min
