PSYCHOACTIVE

Adam Strauss is an actor and comedian who created a play, The Mushroom Cure, about his own struggles with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and his attempts to cure, or at least ameliorate the symptoms, with psychedelics. Critics have described his show as “a hilarious ride through OCD,” “a fabulous, perceptive trip,” and “hugely intelligent and incredibly engaging.” Adam and I discussed his life with OCD, how OCD compares to other addictions and forms of mental illness, how taking psilocybin mushrooms helped and whether other psychedelics might have as well, why he went back to a 12-step program - OC Anonymous - after finding some success with psilocybin, and why calling 911 while under the influence of mushrooms to discuss an existential experience is rarely a good idea.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Drug policy in Russia is -– no surprise -- highly repressive. But that was not entirely the case in the early 2000s, when dozens of harm reduction programs operated around the country and a drug liberalization law resulted in fifty thousand people being released from prison. Anya Sarang is probably Russia’s best known harm reduction advocate. We discussed the evolution of illicit drug use, markets and policies in her country, including the transformative impact of the rapid shift to online drug markets a few years ago; the fanatical hostility of Russia’s narcological establishment to methadone and other opioid substitution treatment; and the rise, fall and bare survival of harm reduction activism and services in an ever more repressive country. We also talked about how President Putin’s drug policies compare with drug policies elsewhere in Asia and the former countries of the Soviet Union, and the ways in which his approach to illicit drugs foreshadowed the broader repression now underway in Russia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Rodrigo Duterte became president of The Philippines in 2016, he launched a drug war that was distinguished by his encouragement and approval of extra-judicial killings by police officials and their associates. Although widely condemned by foreign governments, this drug war, which has killed between ten and twenty thousand people, appears to retain the support of most Filipinos. Gideon Lasco is a brave scholar who has researched both illicit drug use and the drug war in his country. We talked about the use of shabu (methamphetamine) in the Philippines, why most Filipinos support Duterte’s drug war, who opposes it, how the drug war has evolved over the past six years, and the extent to which it really differs from drug wars elsewhere in Asia and other countries. I was also curious about what will happen now that Duterte’s presidential term is ending.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Until it was supplanted by LSD in the 1950’s and 60’s, mescaline was the best known and most popular psychedelic in the world. It’s the key psychoactive ingredient in peyote, which has been used for millennia among indigenous people in the Americas and often demonized and prohibited by civil and religious authorities who feared it. Mike Jay, whose latest book is entitled Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic, is broadly regarded as the outstanding historian of psychoactive drugs around the world. We talked about that rich history, which included experimentation with mescaline by writers, poets, painters and scientists as well as the head of the Mormon Church, its impact on psychiatry, investigation into its potential as a truth serum and weapon by the CIA and the military, its use by prominent counter-cultural figures, and why it was largely displaced by LSD and other psychedelics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chef Nikki Steward is one of the most famous and talented of chefs who cook and bake with cannabis. She describes her brand “The High End Affair” as a traveling “infused culinary experience" and has curated large dinner parties for Snoop Dog, Dave Chapelle, DJ Khaled and many other celebrities. I’m an eager consumer but an inexperienced chef so I peppered her with questions: Is there something different about cooking for people who are high on cannabis and how does she standardize dosing? What about cooking for people who use cannabis as a medicine? Have old school techniques of cooking with cannabis become obsolete with high potency extracts and does she use all parts of the cannabis plant? How does she keep from getting too high when she’s tasting as she cooks? And how does she deal with the challenge of people “overdosing” at a dinner?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam Quinones is a distinguished journalist and author who has reported on America's opioid crisis for over a decade. His 2015 book, Dreamland, examined the spread of prescription opioids and then heroin across the country. His new book, The Least of Us, focuses on the spread of fentanyl and P2P methamphetamine, and their devastating impact on people and communities. We discussed all of this, including the evolution in illicit drug networks, racial differences in drug use, Sam’s skepticism of hard reduction, and my skepticism of his policy recommendations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Few countries have suffered the consequences of ineffective prohibitionist policies for so long or severely as Mexico.  Professors Alejandro Madrazo and Catalina Perez are among the world’s leading experts on this subject.  I wanted to know:  How did the criminal organizations that traffic in drugs get so powerful?  Why is it a misnomer to call them “cartels”?  What explains the extreme violence?  How pervasive is not just the corruption but the fear of violent reprisals among Mexico’s most senior political figures?  What’s the role of the Mexican military, and how has it been impacted by its evolving responsibilities in the country’s war on drugs?  Is the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, doing anything differently from his predecessors?  Does growing support for drug policy reform offer any hope?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Exploring the first legal safe injection site in the USA called OnPoint NYC. They discuss the support from city officials, police presence, and the response from the community. They also delve into the root causes of drug use, relapse and harm reduction, expanding services, and promoting nicotine vaping.

Philippe Bourgois, along with his co-author Jeffrey Schonberg, spent over a decade getting to know a group of homeless people in San Francisco whose lives revolved around their injection drug use. The result of their research was one of the greatest of all drug ethnographies, a book called Righteous Dopefiends. It's a remarkably intimate book, full of detailed descriptions of people's lives and the community that forms around injection drug use. He describes the different rituals that go into preparing and using heroin, as well as both the generosity and duplicity that surround its use. Today, we'll talk about this book as well as his newer research centered on drug use in Los Angeles and Tijuana. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you ever wonder about the actual lives of people who sell illicit drugs – their fears and aspirations, their family lives, their business models and moral codes, and their fates once their drug dealing days are behind them? Philippe Bourgois is a distinguished anthropologist, currently teaching and directing the Center for Social Medicine and Humanities at UCLA. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he befriended and gained the trust of street-level drugs dealers in East Harlem, New York and wrote an award winning book about it, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Years later, from 2007 to 2018, he embarked on a similar project in Philadelphia. His ethnographies are unparalleled in the depth and intimacy of their analysis of inner city drug dealers and markets. This is the first episode of a two part interview, in which I was also curious to understand how Philippe managed the inter-personal and moral challenges of becoming so deeply involved in these worlds. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.