NEW BOOK PROJECT
I signed a contract with the University of Chicago Press to produce a manuscript on the history of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder and the treatment’s relationship with the parallel war on drugs. I’ll trace the histories of methadone, buprenorphine, naltrexone and LAAM as they evolved from public health priorities in the 1970s into a predatory privatized health industry today. The book is tentatively titled Addiction, Inc: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs, and it won a J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award in 2021, a Robert B. Silvers Work in Progress Award in 2022, and a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2022.
SELECT ARTICLES
“Transforming MAT, Part II: The Swiss Way,” Points, March 2, 2024
“An Aircraft Carrier, Not a PT Boat: Transforming Access to Medication-Assisted Treatment in 2024 and Beyond,” Points, January 26, 2024
Review of David Courtwright’s “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business,” The Economic History Association, April 20, 2022
“‘I envision the methadone clinic as we now know it disappearing’: The promises and failures of methadone and LAAM,” Points, February 15, 2022
“Quiet Radicals: The Life and Work of Ruth and Edward Brecher, Part 1 - Ruth Came First,” Points, December 7, 2021
“9/11 and Drug History: An Interview with Dr. Samuel R. Friedman,” Points, September 11, 2021
“Points Roundtable: American Rehab from Reveal,” Points, September 17, 2020
“Why the 1970s Effort to Decriminalize Marijuana Failed,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 25, 2019
“Puff, Puff, Pass: Lessons From the Defeat of Marijuana Decriminalization,” AHA Perspectives on History, April 16, 2019
“The return of ‘reefer madness,’” Washington Post, April 16, 2019
“From Hippies to High Yield Insights: The Evolution of an Industry,” Points, November 29, 2018
"Richard Nixon went to war on marijuana. Donald Trump is making the same mistake with opioids," Washington Post, April 20, 2018
'“Hidden Figures of Drug History: Joan Ganz Cooney,” Points, August 16, 2018
"History shows we can't arrest our way out of the drug war," CNN, February 28, 2018
"U.S. States Tried Decriminalizing Pot Before. Here's Why It Didn't Work," TIME.com, December 7, 2017
“The Hum: A local woman’s maddening quest to understand a sound few others can hear,” Washington City Paper, July 20, 2017
“Love Me, Love My Running Shoes,” Run Washington Magazine, September 24, 2015
“Former anti-drug activists reflect on marijuana legalization,” Washington Post, April 17, 2015
BOOK CHAPTERS
Chapter “PRIDE International and Drug War Diplomacy: The Parent Movement’s Global Battle Against Marijuana,” in Cannabis: Global Histories (MIT Press, 2021)
Chapter “A Higher Calling: NORML, PRIDE and the Cannabis Culture Wars,” in The War on Drugs: A History (NYU Press, 2021)
Book chapters on NORML and Vote Hemp in Political Groups, Parties, and Organizations that Shaped America: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2019)
