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ACT UP protesters take part in an act of civil disobedience near the West Steps of the U.S. Capitol in 2004.
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AIDS Disappeared From Public View Without Ending. Will Covid-19 Do the Same?

By thinking of diseases just as medical problems, we allow them to fester in poor communities.
Riot police clash with demonstrators in Medellín, Colombia, last week.
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The U.S. War on Drugs Helped Unleash the Violence in Colombia Today

Efforts to combat narcotics and communism militarized the country's security forces.
Colorful vaccination graphic

Long, Strange TRIPS: The Grubby History of How Vaccines Became Intellectual Property

Not long ago, life-saving medical know-how was viewed as belonging to everyone. What happened?
Two prison employees standing outside a prison cell.

The Truth About Deinstitutionalization

A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. The reality is more complicated.
DR. JOHN J. CRAVEN, MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH AND THE PHYSICIAN WHO LATER ATTENDED JEFFERSON DAVIS, PERFORMS AN OPERATION DURING THE 1863 SIEGE OF CHARLESTON. THE DOCTOR APPEARS TO BE APPLYING A SPLINT TO THE LEG OF A PATIENT WHILE A MAN BEHIND HIM SEEMS TO BE HOLDING A WHITE COTTON CLOTH, LIKELY SOAKED IN CHLOROFORM, OVER THE PATIENT'S MOUTH AND FACE. | LOCATION: MORRIS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. (PHOTO BY CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES)

America Has Been Through An Opioid Crisis Before

America’s first opioid crisis came after its bloodiest war, but the lessons of the original debacle have been lost in history.
Pills in a week organizer.
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Drug Companies Keep Merging. Why That’s Bad For Consumers and Innovation.

Over 30 years, dramatic consolidation has meant higher prices, fewer treatment options and less incentive to innovate.
A worker removes the Sackler name from a building at Tufts University in 2019.

The Problem of Pain

It’s easier to blame individuals for the opioid crisis than to attempt to diagnose and cure the ills of a society.
a artistic human face photo

Bring Back the Nervous Breakdown

It used to be okay to admit that the world had simply become too much.
A drawing of a person with a facial expression of pain with "Simple Bodily Pain" written above

The Fifth Vital Sign

How the pain scale fails us.

Grapefruit Is One of the Weirdest Fruits on the Planet

From its name, to its hazy origins, to its drug interactions, there's a lot going on beneath that thick rind.

How Race Made the Opioid Crisis

The fundamental division between “dope” and medicine has always been the race and class of users.
Horses with ribbons and a man counting his gambling winnings.

History’s Greatest Horse Racing Cheat and His Incredible Painting Trick

In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.
Nurse administering electroshock therapy to a patient.

The Troubled History of Psychiatry

Challenges to the legitimacy of the profession have forced it to examine itself. What, exactly, constitutes a mental disorder?
Psychedelic swirling bright colors.

The Fascinating History of Mescaline, the OG Psychedelic

From prehistoric caves, through Aztecs, Mormons, Beat poets, Jean-Paul Sartre and a British MP.

A Blizzard of Prescriptions

Three recent books explore different aspects of opiate addiction in America.

The Migrant Caravan: Made in USA

Much of the migrant "crisis" is blowback from decades of official U.S. policy in Central America.

From Drug War to Dispensaries

An oral history of weed legalization’s first wave in the 1990s.
a rolled dollar bill and cocaine on a table

How America Convinced the World to Demonize Drugs

Much of the world used to treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one. And then America got its way.
Luis Posada Carriles

Death of a Cold War Supervillain

Anticommunist militant Luis Posada Carriles, who popped up throughout Latin America over the past half-century, won’t be missed.
Ad for children's aspirin.

‘Candy Aspirin,’ Safety Caps, and the History of Children’s Drugs

The development, use, and marketing of medications for children in the 20th century.
Shafer Commission
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Nixon Made a Mistake on Pot. Will Trump Do the Same with Opioids?

Decades after Nixon waged war on pot, Trump is doing the some with opioids. It could make things worse.

When Prohibition Works

What the government's successful clampdown on Quaaludes can teach us about gun control.

Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction

Doctors then, as now, overprescribed the painkiller to patients in need, and then, as now, government policy had a distinct bias.
Bottle of OxyContin.

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain

The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts.
Reagan signing the Anti-Drug Abuse Act.

The Untold Story of Mass Incarceration

Two new books, including ‘Locking Up Our Own,’ address major blind spots about the causes of America’s carceral failure.

From Teddy Roosevelt to Trump: How Drug Companies Triggered an Opioid Crisis a Century Ago

Americans, warned President Teddy Roosevelt's newly appointed opium commissioner in 1908, 'have become the greatest drugs fiends in the world.'
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We’ve Spent a Century Fighting the War on Drugs. It Helped Create an Opioid Crisis.

The disastrous consequences of focusing on law enforcement and criminality.

How Profits From Opium Shaped 19th-Century Boston

In a city steeped in history, very few residents understand the powerful legacy of opium money.

What the "Crack Baby" Panic Reveals About The Opioid Epidemic

Journalism in two different eras of drug waves illustrates how strongly race factors into empathy and policy.

What the Guys Who Coined '420' Think About Their Place in Marijuana History

And how the term came to be code for pot-smoking in the first place.

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