The Dr. Junkie Show

In this episode, Dr. Erin Boyce (aka "The Other Dr. Boyce") joins me to talk about what's going on in the world. We discuss the frequency of mass shootings, the current state of social media, and we draw some lines between current social climates and the war on drugs.  We also talk about Capitalistic systems and spaces that violate the rules—like this podcast. We discuss the ongoing...

The CDC claims that as many as 1 in 68 children are on the autism spectrum. But that might not mean what you think it means. If you don't have much personal experience with someone on the spectrum (or even if you do), you might not understand what autism is, how it works, or how it impacts addiction.  Autism isn't an under-wiring of the brain; it's an overwiring of sorts. And once t...

The US is on a shrinking list of countries that haven't yet recognized how counterproductive the war on drugs is. As we have continued to kill and arrest drug users, making the problem worse, other countries have seen tremendous results in decriminalization, and in some even legalization and regulation of drugs. In this episode I'll  walk through various drug laws and how they work acros...

In 1994, producer Frank Darabont teamed up with author Stephen King to create their first prison movie, The Shawshank Redemption . It was based on King's short story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," from his book, Different Seasons: Four Novellas . Despite disappointing sales during its time in theaters, the film would become a cult classic. Nearly 30 years later, it&a...

In the episode, I talk about the police. And while I'm at it, I talk about the United States.  Follow the links to learn more... ...about Duterte's war on drugs and his daughter's political career which looks to carry on his legacy. ....about Biden's current and past stance on drugs . ...from bell hooks talking about violence as an expression of masculinity in her book Feminism...

In this episode I talk about the biological, social and cultural consequences of punishing addiction, a counterproductive habit that's become so normalized in the US that many of us can't imagine doing things any other way. But as the data make clear, the best way to get people to stop using drugs is to get them to want to stop using drugs. And the best way to get them to want to stop is...

We humans have learned a lot about drugs from experimenting on rats. In this episode I discuss the findings of those experiments, and I show (yet again) that the war on drugs is designed in a way that ensures as many people as possible will struggle with addiction, and that their addictions will be as bad as they could possibly be. We couldn't design a less effective system if we tried (and I...

It isn't just PSAs with our brains as a fried egg. Sometimes it's Euphoria's Mouse, a Latino drug dealer with face tattoos who forces a young girl to take fentanyl at knifepoint. Other times it's reruns of Robert Downey Jr. in Less than Zero, or Tupac and Tim Roth in Gridlock'd —characters suffering the predictable consequences of using heroin in the movies: their lives fa...

Marshall McLuhan famously said "The medium is the message." That's where we begin this week. You have probably seen the headlines in recent weeks, "Philadelphia drug supply polluted with Veterinary Tranquilizer." As our self-created "opioid epidemic" continues, we can expect similar drugs to pop up, boogie men for the government and the press to blame for a probl...

Ketamine, also known as Special K, is a drug that has only been on Earth for slightly longer than I have, and in that time we've seen an incredible cultural shift in how it's viewed. Where Special K was once a dangerous street drug kids were using to get high, now Ketamine treatment is the frontier of antidepression therapy, the first of what will probably be many glutamate inhibiting dr...

Last month HBO's drug-fueled hit Euphoria wrapped up season 2 with a bang. And my living room had a few lively days of discussion following the short season. So instead of doing the review alone this year, I invited my fabulous partner, Dr. Erin Boyce, to join me.  We talk about Jules, Rue, Nate & Fezco's violence, drug dealers and the stereotypes surrounding them, plus what we think...

In the 1990s we called it Hippie Crack. In the early 2000s we called them Party Balloons. Today the kids call them crackers or whippets. They are all the same things: Nitrous Oxide, aka "laughing gas" that your dentist might offer you for a particularly painful procedure.  In this episode I discuss the history of Nitrous Oxide (N2O), its medical applications, its illegal use, plus the da...

Portugal decriminalized all drugs more than 20 years ago, in 2001. In this episode, I share my thoughts on Portugal's drug policy and I explain how it works: the good, the bad, and the not-yet-finished. Portugal's decriminalization efforts have lowered overall drug use rates by almost 75% and greatly reduced the most dangerous types of drug use through education and (barebones) compassio...

Captured Words/Free Thoughts is a non-profit publication dedicated to sharing poetry and artwork inspired behind prison bars. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this edition, both in submissions and in recording audio to bring these pieces back to life. Guest Speakers: Meghan Cosgrove, Dr. Erin Boyce, Dr. Stephen Hartnett, Dr. Bill Yousman and students from CU-Denver's "Communication,...

You can watch the video version of this episode, complete with slides and visuals, at YouTube . If you have ever wondered what it is like to sit in a classroom where I am teaching, this is the episode for you. The audio is from a guest lecture I gave at a local college. I managed to cover a lot: tolerance, sensitization, dopamine, the thrill of the hunt and the thrill of the feast, liking versus w...

Know someone inside prison who makes art? Want to strike up a relationship with an artist in prison? Just want to get involved in a great organization helping incarcerated artists get their work out there? This is the episode for you.  The Justice Arts Coalition is a nonprofit organization that works to unite activist, incarcerated people and educators seeking to create and share art created insid...

Getting out of prison is overwhelming. There are people who can help. Remerg is a non profit organization that can help with anything you might need or want to know during that process of reentry. Founder Carol Peeples and director of communications Roohallah Mobarez join me this week to talk about reentry after incarceration, ways to prepare, and organizations that can help. You can check out Rem...

The Dr. Junkie show does not offer medical advice. In this episode I take another shot at describing how cocaine works in the body. I talk about where it comes from and how it's produced, why it is so extreme in its effects, and how we can regulate and decriminalize it to put all illegal drug dealers out of business overnight. Plus, I discuss sleep cycles and why they are so important, Sigmun...

Neuroscientist Dr. Judith Grisel joins me to talk about mechanisms of addiction and why we can't stay high forever. We also discuss antiopioids, trends in drug use,  tolerance, sensitization, how to talk to kids about drugs, and why youth is both the most common and most dangerous time to become addicted to drugs. Plus we cover how drugs work in the brain, how cannabinoids might actually be a...

Feminist scholar bell hooks passed away in late 2021, leaving behind a legacy that will outlive her by generations. She taught us what feminism is and why we should not be afraid of it. She explained why media (music, TV, film, etc.) teaches us things about the world without us realizing we have learned anything. She reminded us that rap music is not a reflection of black life in the United States...

In this episode, I take you along on my first experience of injecting heroin. Rituals of use are a big part of addiction. They have increasingly become the focus of both  addiction researchers and treatment providers. When we do something that makes us feel better (take a drug, place a bet, make a move, hit the gas, take a trip, etc.), we begin to feel the effects of that action before we actually...

The United States is obsessed with policing drugs and those who use them, yet the most deadly, well-studied drug in existence, nicotine, is a regulated product, legal to buy once a consumer is 21 years old. According to the WHO, tobacco, when used properly, will kill half of all people who don't stop using it. And because cigarettes are so obviously dangerous yet still widely distributed and...

I have recently received so many questions about the book that I thought I would spend an episode talking about it. Dr. Junkie: One Man's Story of Addiction and Crime that will Challenge Everything you Know about the War on Drugs is available on Amazon and Barnes & Nobel. This autobiographical account of addiction and crime in the United States reveals the design-flaws of the current War...

In this episode, I explain what it is like to teach college classes in a correctional facility. And I focus on one of my favorite academics and authors, bell hooks, who anchors our classroom discussions about feminism, an idea that many of us have totally misunderstood. I cover the "feminist waves," how media impacts our beliefs, and why many of us think feminism is something very differ...

What is the difference between medical cannabis and recreational marijuana? Is it a good idea to get your medical card even if you live in a state where Marijuana is legal? How about research: have they started applying the scientific method to this plant? It would be so great to know someone who you can just ask about these things. Luckily, I do know someone. Her name is Katie Sullivan. Katie is...