There's this racialized bifurcation of sympathetic and unsympathetic drug users. And then there's this other thing going on, which is the drug dealer. We need to stop treating what are social problems as criminal problems. The idea that we're going to solve the problem of drug use and addiction through criminal justice interventions is one that has failed this country for decades.
Featuring Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg on how American capitalism and its illusions of whiteness both created the opioid crisis and shaped the response to it. We are discussing their book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America.
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