If you want to stop using a drug in the United States, your only choice is often "cold turkey," a terrible name for an unnecessary risk that can often prove fatal if not properly treated. One alternative to this painful experience is a service called In Home Detox, which comes in many shapes and sizes depending on the part of the world you live in. Some doctors do it on the low; others are willing to give you take-home meds like Suboxone, and others, like Dr. Abe Malkin, will come to you. His co...
Nov 21, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 79
In music it is called Purple Syrup, Sizzerp, or Lean. At the dope house it is called liquid codeine. At the doctor's office it is called Codeine with Promethazine. Regardless of where you get it, it is more popular today than ever before. In this episode I examine Codeine and Promethazine syrup: what it is, what it does, why it is so popular, and why, like most drugs, the war on drugs has made it much more dangerous than it would otherwise be. And I talk about the power of media to teach us thin...
Nov 13, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Morgan Godvin joined me last week to talk about Oregon's Measure 110, which decriminalized all drugs around one year ago. In this powerful conversation, we discuss the results of decriminalization, the increase in overdoses nationwide, fentanyl(s) and how we can prevent them from flooding the streets, thefts of desperation, Medication Assisted Treatment success and the stigma that goes with using drugs like Methadone or Suboxone, the cost of doing time in prison, and much more. Morgan has tons o...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 77
Every day in the United States possessions and cash are stolen from citizens who have committed no crime. They can't call the police because the police are responsible for the theft. Its called Civil Asset Forfeiture. In this episode I will talk about the history of Civil Asset Forfeiture, an underhanded scheme used by police departments across the country to confiscate cash or valuable items, often without charging the owner with a crime. And it is all legal, based on a law that was passed back...
Oct 27, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 76
In this episode, I take a look at rapid (roadside) drug tests which are often used as probable cause for arrest. Police make up to 100k arrests every year using Roadside Drug tests with a failure rate high enough to require lab tests for validation of every charge in most jurisdictions. But even though you can't convict someone based on a rapid roadside test, you can arrest them and keep them locked up until they can pay the ransom or do the time. And you can use the roadside results to pressure...
Oct 18, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 75
You asked for it...literally. In this episode, Dr. Erin Boyce and I will answer many of the questions we have received over the years doing this podcast, and the specific questions sent out recently by those of you responding to my request. For Ben Why didn’t you use methamphetamine? Are you anti-Christian? Do you think of yourself as having a religious identity? What is your favorite drug? Do you think prisons should be abolished? Do you have any suggestions for recovery success? Did you learn ...
Oct 07, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 74
Hollywood feeds viewers a lot of problematic stereotypes regarding drug use, perhaps none as misleading as the notorious speedball. Users who combine heroin with a stimulant like methamphetamine or cocaine to create a single injectable liquid are said to be "speedballing," and when it is depicted on television or in books, it is used as the proverbial rock bottom of addiction, the final stop along the train of illogical and uncontrollable drug use. But injectable speedballs are actually pretty u...
Sep 29, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Stories about viral apocalypse are not new. Some of our oldest narratives play with the gloomy fantasy, and it has become a spectacle of contemporary Hollywood productions like 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Resident Evil, The Walking Dead , and Shaun of the Dead. The way we talk about contagions and diseases says a lot about what we value and how we see the world. When news networks cover COVID-19 by focusing on fear-based scenarios and blame game politics, they cater to viewers who might other...
Sep 21, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 72
As always, the Dr. Junkie Show does not provide medical advice. In this episode I discuss fentanyl(s) and why they are causing so many problems culturally right now, 100 years into a war on drugs. Fentanyl and its relatives (remifentanil, etc.) are not the problem. The war on drugs is the problem. Doctors have been using fentanyl(s) in hospital settings for more than 50 years, and they provide a number of benefits which make them preferable to other opioids in all sorts of procedures. I also exp...
Sep 14, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 71
This week marks the start of another semester of college classes, and this year I managed to get approved to teach inside the Department of Corrections; I am heading back into prison. In this episode, I discuss the classes, the approval process, and I talk about my criminal record. In a few weeks I will record the "Ask Me Anything" episode. Submit your questions at DrJunkieShow.com If you are or know an incarcerated person who has art, poetry, or creative writing that you want published, you can...
Sep 06, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Dedicated to the memory of David Poses, a rock star in harm reduction with a huge heart who left us way too soon. David Poses recently released his addiction memoir The Weight of Air: A Story of the Lies About Addiction and the Truth About Recovery. David joined me this week to me about it. We discusses ways to end the war on drugs, the rehab industrial complex, Suboxone (buprenorphine), methadone, stereotypes that don't pan out (speedballing, addiction, rehab, religion), and a lot more. We also...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 69
New York recently announced a $1.8 billion settlement with major drug distributors, and a larger $26 billion "global settlement" scheduled to follow shortly thereafter. But that money won't be devoted to methadone treatment or paying for rehab. It will probably be devoted to making the war on drugs even larger and more violent. This week I sit down with Christine Minhee, author and editor of The Opioid Settlement Tracker , to talk about why this is happening, and how we can prevent the worst of ...
Aug 24, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 68
The "Western World" has trained most who live here to feel as if monogamy is natural and normal: that it's "just the way thigs are." But humans are not wired up to live in monogamous frameworks. Evolutionarily, we fit somewhere between monogamy and polyamory, and our history as a species makes it easy to recognize why. This week's episode is all about polyamory ( poly : many, amor : love). My guest is Dr. Stephanie Webb, whose book, Use Your Words: Opening Language for Open Relationships , exami...
Aug 16, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 67
As always, the Dr. Junkie Show does NOT provide medical advice. On this episode, Elise Keller joins me to discuss the endocannabinoid system. What is it? How does it work? Why is it so un-studied? Plus what on Earth is Cannabis Coaching . Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Elise gave a Ted Talk sharing her journey to and through cannabis: "The Surprising Connection between Cannabis and Mind-Body Health". In addition to it, we also discuss methods of consumption (oral, sublingual, smoking), s...
Aug 10, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Big Pharma opioid settlements already total billions-of-dollars. In this episode, I talk about why the government is really after that money, and what these settlements mean for the war on drugs. I also introduce topics which I will cover with Christine Minhee when she comes on the show to unpack her work at opioidsettlementtracker.com . In this episode, I also discuss the "systems, not people" aspect of the so-called opioid epidemic, and how the design of the drug war ensured everything that ha...
Aug 03, 2021•37 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Addiction specialist and best-selling author Maia Szalavitz joins me to talk about her new book, Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction. Maia has been researching, writing about, and working within the harm reduction community for more than twenty years, and her latest book is just one of many required reads for anyone who is beginning to realize they have been lied to about drugs and those who use them. Maia and I discuss different frameworks of recovery, ...
Jul 27, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 64
The things we are trained to remain silent about usually involve shame. We learn from a young age to avoid particular issues: "never talk politics or religion at parties." But it turns out that the things we are taught to never talk about are usually the things we should be talking about most. What sort of world do we want to build for our posterity? What sorts of practices ought we allow to be considered religious? And who is benefitting from the suffering we see around us every day? Discipline...
Jul 21, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Dr. Travis Heath joins me to discuss many of the problematic norms in both therapeutic and academic communities. We talk about the war on drugs, therapy and how it works, systems approaches and how to teach them, gender and how it instigates unconscious (and often toxic) performances, drugs, crime, trauma, reauthoring, ideas and who owns them, approaches to therapy, and our cultural lust for revenge in place of restoration. We also discuss anti-racism, the digital commons, critical race theory (...
Jul 15, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Power is something we seldom discuss despite living enmeshed in its inescapable web. Power is "visible and unverifiable," per Foucault, and it "concedes nothing without demand," per Frederick Douglass. But what the hell does any of that mean? In this episode I discuss the performance of roles and what that has to do with power, plus Michel Foucault's idea of panoptic power, Plato's Cave, Theodor Adorno, Michel de Certeau's "referential reality," Life Imitating Art, Art imitating Life, Oscar Wild...
Jul 08, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Drugs were not always illegal in the USA. For a good deal of our history you could walk into your local pharmacy and buy cocaine, heroin or cannabis right off the shelf, without a prescription. But something changed around the turn of the century (1900), and by the 1930s the War on Drugs was in full swing. Opium was outlawed by associating it with Chinese immigrants. Cannabis was outlawed by associating it with Mexican immigrants. Cocaine was outlawed by associating it with Black men. Later, amp...
Jul 01, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 60
This short episode is a recording of a submission from repeat-guest Chris Trigg, who is currently still incarcerated in the US Federal Prison System. Chris was released in 2023. You can check out more of Chris's work (along with other prisoners across the country) in Captured Words Free Thoughts Support the show...
Jun 26, 2021•11 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Karl Marx famously described religion as, "the opium of the people," not (only) because he thought religion was a drug, but because he saw how much relief it brought to those in the most hopeless of situations. Last week I talked about religion as a drug. This week my wife, Dr. Erin Boyce, joins me to talk about the phenomenon of wokeness as a religion, and as such, a drug. We also discuss Critical Race Theory, Chronic Wokeness, US Patriotism, Racism, Cancel Culture, Patriarchy, and the differen...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 58
"Sin City" has hundreds of hotels without a 13th floor and a Roulette wheel with numbers totaling 666 in every casino. What happens there supposedly stays there. Anything is possible, or so it seems once you step onto the Strip. In this episode I will talk about how the city gets us high when we visit, or when we just think about it. Plus some history, and my favorite don't-skip destinations for visitors on a budget. Support the show...
Jun 18, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 57
In this episode, I share a bit about my past with religion (Christianity), and why I see religion as a drug. I also discuss what the word religion means in a Western context, why everyone (especially religious people) believes they are not religious yet everyone else is, the role of holy books (religions) in the formation of human morals, and why humans evolved to need religion, or rather, needed religion to evolve. Support the show...
Jun 13, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Today I will share a few stories about my experience with The New Jim Crow , a title Michelle Alexander popularized when discussing the legal discrimination of convicted criminals. The Department of Corrections (DOC) is all about a lot of things. But helping prisoners avoid recidivism is not one of them. Support the show
Jun 07, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Emanuel Sferios, host of the podcasts Drug Positive and Drug Nonsense joins me to talk about US drug policy, ending the war on drugs, MDMA therapy, Dance Safe, Fentanyl(s), test strips, stigma & stereotype, and Emanuel's theory that QAnon is a government psyop. To get your street drugs tested for fentanyl(s) and other adulterants, see DrugsData.org and check out Dance Safe either at their linked website, or your local concert, where they will test your drugs for free. Support the show...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 54
In this episode I sit down with my editor, Laura Hull. We talk about how parents should talk to kids about drugs, and we begin a 2-part discussion about Ketamine Treatment. We also discuss Judge Holmes (episode 21), class privilege, Systems Perspective, stereotypes about drug use(rs), George Floyd's murder, Andrew Brown's shooting, Kurt Cobain's suicide (or was it?), Jimi Hendrix's overdose, Amy Winehouse's alcohol consumption, and how to talk to kids about other awkward issues, like death, sex ...
May 23, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Every morning for around half a decade in the early 2000s, I would make my way to the Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) clinic in Kansas City, Missouri. For me and millions of others, methadone, Suboxone (Buprenorphine), Vivitrol and heroin maintenance therapy are invaluable to our success in life. Support the show
May 15, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Tupac Shakur once said the police are "the biggest gang in New York City." He was right. They are actually the biggest gang in the country. That might not be a bad thing (as Tupac also pointed out). There are ways to make sure that "gang" has society's best interests in mind, and that individual actions conform to that goal. Until we update the system which currently exists, we will see the same results as always. Locking up individuals might feel good in our revenge-fueled culture, but it doesn...
May 09, 2021•17 min•Season 1Ep. 51
There are 2 ways for the war on drugs to end. Both have already been attempted in countries across the globe. In Portugal, decriminalization has reduced the amount of heroin-addicted people by 75%. In the Philippians, where up to 25,000 drug users and dealers have been murdered by police and state assassins since 2016, there are new dealers and users every day to replace those gunned down by police. 3D molecular printing will change everything, and the war on drugs will suddenly be impossible to...
May 02, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 50
