What’s Missing From the Overdose Crisis Conversation

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From a young age, James T. Morrison used drugs to help him feel better. He started with pills that were prescribed to him–medications like Xanax and Klonopin–but he soon moved on to basically whatever he could get his hands on. In this episode, James discusses his experience with substance use disorder, housing instability, and the criminal justice system. At a time when public officials and policy experts are debating ways to address the overdose crisis in the U.S., James discusses what humane drug policies could look like and how we as a society need to completely change the way we talk about drug use. We first learned about James’ story from an essay he wrote in Slate titled One More Day. If you’d like to check out some of our previous episodes about substance use and recover, here’s a short list: I Can't Fix It: A First Responder on Heroin I Felt Like the Story Had To Change: Life After Heroin How Jeff Daniels Got Sober, Again Falling In Love...With Heroin Margo Price After Cheating and Drinking NOTE: We want to mention that this episode mentions suicide and self harm. If you or someone you love is struggling, please call 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Podcast production by Cameron Drews Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:15.8	On the show last week I interviewed San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who's leading the city during a deadly fentanyl crisis and is now facing a tough re-election campaign and an impatient voting public concerned about community health and public safety.
0:17.8	But with drug dependency and illegal and dangerous drug markets, there are no fast and easy answers.
0:24.8	This week on the show, I talk with James T Morrison, a writer in his early 40s who lives in Fresno,
0:30.6	California.
0:32.6	He started his adult life in a tenuous cycle of mental health crises and living between
0:37.8	the streets, shelters, and hospitals along the Central California coast, and he nearly died of a drug overdose.
0:45.0	I first learned about James in a piece he wrote for Slate, about his path to using,
0:50.0	and about why he calls for government sanction manufacturing of drugs for a safer drug supply.
0:57.0	James is married now and a grad student in writing at Fresno State.
1:02.0	He's managing his sobriety with
1:03.4	Suboxone and prescribed psychiatric medication.
1:06.5	We've done many episodes over the years on death, sex, and money
1:10.3	about addiction and recovery, particularly about the destructive and deadly toll of opioids on people and communities.
1:18.0	There are links to some of those episodes in our show notes,
1:21.0	and in my newsletter this week, I'm writing about some other great
1:24.1	reporting that's informed and updated my thinking about the best way to help
1:28.7	users get healthy and to keep communities safe.
1:35.0	James has been an opioid user. For him, drug you started with popping more than his prescribed anxiety medications
1:40.0	when he was still a teenager.
1:42.0	And we discuss, or joust really at some moments,
1:45.2	about different interventions and approaches
1:47.6	to stem the cost of drug addiction.
	...

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