Opioids

Drugs on the Docket Season 2

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The Drugs on the Docket podcast is back with Season 2! The six episodes, all available to stream now, unpack ATF sting operations, the history of drug abolitionist policies and constitutional law, the revival of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, compassionate release and the 2018 First Step Act, the role of law enforcement in harm reduction, the relationship between stigma and substance use, 2024 SCOTUS decisions impacting drug policy, and more.

Guests include Alison Siegler and Erica Zunkel of the University of Chicago, Tasha Perdue of The Ohio State University, Sydney Silverstein of Wright State University, David Pozen of Columbia University, the Honorable Carlton W. Reeves, Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and Chris Geidner of Law Dork News.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and YouTube Music

The Drugs on the Docket podcast is back with bonus episodes

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In our first bonus episode, host Hannah Miller and co-host Douglas Berman look back at Season 1 Episode 1. The episode provides updates and insights into the continued struggle to change the crack to powder cocaine ratio from 18:1 to 1:1 and further reduce unwarranted sentencing disparities.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.

Drug Enforcement and Policy Center launches Drugs on the Docket podcast

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Drugs on the Docket is a production of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center (DEPC) at The Ohio State University. Each episode explores how U.S. court rulings—primarily those handed down from the Supreme Court—impact drug law and policy and continue to shape the War on Drugs. Drugs on the Docket unpacks various ways courts have engaged with and responded to the opioid epidemic, police discretion, the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, and more. The series, hosted by Hannah Miller, invites guests with expertise in criminal justice, drug policy, and drug enforcement to help us break down the sometimes complex and always interesting stories behind today’s drug law landscape.

All six episodes are available now on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and YouTube.

Learn more

Safety First

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Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens by the Drug Policy Alliance is the nation’s first harm reduction-based drug education curriculum for young people in the United States. The free curriculum consists of 15 lessons that can be completed in a 45- to 50-minute class period.

Learn more

Modeling Health Benefits and Harms of Public Policy Responses to the US Opioid Epidemic

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This piece, aimed at estimating health outcomes of policies to mitigate the opioid epidemic, concludes based on its findings that “policies focused on services for addicted people improve population health without harming any groups.”

Sourced from Abstract in link.

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137764/

Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to its Social and Economic Determinants

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“Overreliance on opioid medications is emblematic of a health care system that incentivizes quick, simplistic answers to complex physical and mental health needs. In an analogous way, simplistic measures to cut access to opioids offer illusory solutions to this multidimensional societal challenge.”

Sourced from Abstract in Link.

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5846593/

Today’s nonmedical opioid users are not yesterday’s patients; implications of data indicating stable rates of nonmedical use and pain reliever use disorder

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“Health care in general, and pain and addiction management in particular, are nuanced undertakings. Current public policies aimed at reducing opioid-related deaths ignore such nuance in favor of ham-handed, empirically dubious, and demonstrably harmful dictates. Americans suffering from chronic pain, and those from whom they receive their treatment, deserve medical care managed through better-informed and more even-handed policy.”

Sourced from Abstract in link.

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6369835/

Whitewashed: The African American Opioid Epidemic

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This piece aims to expose the ways in which we have focused our attention in regards to the opioid epidemic almost exclusively on white communities, leaving many African American communities who suffer in similar ways without the same care, attention, or exposure. Treatment and response plans should include African Americans as apart of the conversation, and this paper aims to support that claim with data and studies.

Link: https://chiul.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Whitewashed-AA-Opioid-Crisis-11-15-17_EMBARGOED_-FINAL.pdf