Beth Macy on RAISING LAZARUS: HOPE, JUSTICE AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S OVERDOSE CRISIS

“And so, then I thought, Who do I most admire? Who taught me the most, and also, they're doing it for completely selfless reasons, right? And I thought, Oh, that moment and the parking lot. So, I thought, I'm going to start a book in the parking lot of a McDonald's dumpster in a dying town and show you how, in the most unlikely places, magic is happening.” Beth Macy’s 2018 bestseller Dopesick and the Emmy-nominated Hulu streamer it inspired have helped changed our national conversation about Opioids and addiction. Her new book, Raising Lazarus, takes a new approach to our ever-growing crisis, focusing on solutions and the people bringing those solutions to our communities. Beth joins us on the show to talk about harm reduction, meeting people where they are, organizing at a local level, the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and the behavior of the Sackler family, activism, and more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.

 

Featured Books (episode)

Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy

Dopesick by Beth Macy

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

 

Featured Books (TBR Topoff)           

Undoing Drugs by Maia Szalavitz

Death in Mud Lick by Eric Eyre

 

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

 

A full transcript of this episode is available here.