public history
How the War on Drugs Packed Jails
Fifty-five years later, the impact of the War on Drugs continues to be felt in how it dramatically expanded the use of pretrial detention and money bail.
drug addiction
8 posts in ‘drug addiction’
A closer look
West Coast Progressives Did Not Cause This Crisis
A revival of War on Drugs–style punishment aims to score political points against liberal cities—but it won’t make us safer, and it won’t reduce opioid deaths.
first person
Hope You Get This
My earliest memories of life were being loved by my father. I couldn’t imagine then all the ways Black men’s lives are endangered.
interventions
Patients Need Care, Not Policing
Providing hospital inpatients who use drugs with safe ways to do so is a critical part of what it means to “do no harm.”
Beyond Reform
Punishment in All but Name
Drug diversion programs are hyped by reformists as alternatives to prison—but they function just like punishment and people often end up incarcerated anyway.
public health
Surviving Abstinence
Abstinence-only drug treatment doesn’t work. For people in prison, where drugs flow freely, such programs simply place them at greater risk of relapse.
advocacy
Philly’s Safe Consumption Fight
Public skepticism about scientific research, coupled with echoes of the war on drugs, have hindered our city’s ability to respond to our overdose crisis.
public health
The Essentialism of Addiction
We must challenge the dominant carceral narrative that one is born an addict and a criminal—rather than constructed as one by those in power.