589. Why Has the Opioid Crisis Lasted So...

<p>A Trump executive order is giving retail investors more access to private markets. Is that a golden opportunity — or fool’s gold?</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://law.duke.edu/fac/defontenay/">Elisabeth de Fontenay,</a> professor of law at D ... Show More

<p>Thoroughbred auction prices keep setting records. But tracks are closing, gambling revenues are falling, and the sport is increasingly reliant on subsidies. Is that the kind of long shot anybody wants? (Part three of a series, “<a href="https://freakonomics.com/the-horse-is-us ... Show More

<p>The world has changed a good bit since <i>Freakonomics</i> was first published. In this live anniversary episode, Stephen Dubner tells Geoff Bennett of <i>PBS NewsHour </i>everything he has learned since then. Happy birthday, <i>Freakonomics.</i></p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOU ... Show More

<p>Monica Bertagnolli went from a childhood on a cattle ranch to a career as a surgeon to a top post in the Biden administration. As director of the National Institutes of Health, she’s working to improve the way we find new treatments — despite regulatory constraints and tight b ... Show More

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The United States is in the midst of an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths due to opiate painkillers. Its causes are varied, but there's no question that physicians share a large part of the blame. Little discussed is that this is actuall ... Show More

<p align="center"><em>"We should never, ever forget that addiction treatment is a search for meaning in a place other than using drugs."</em></p> <p align="center"><em>—Nancy Campbell, historian of drug addiction</em></p> <p>(This is the third and final chapter of a three-part se ... Show More

In the past two decades, media images of the surprisingly white “new face” of the US opioid crisis abounded. But why was the crisis so white? Some argued that skyrocketing overdoses were “deaths of despair” signaling deeper socioeconomic anguish in white communities. Whiteout: Ho ... Show More

<p>Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing.</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCE:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://economics.mit.edu/ ... Show More

<p>For 37 years, Rick Doblin has been pushing the F.D.A. to approve treating post-traumatic stress disorder with MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. He tells Steve why he persisted for so long, why he doesn’t like calling drug use “recreational,” and what he learned from his pet wolf. ... Show More

<p>What do the most creative people have in common?  How open-minded are you, really? And what’s wrong with ordering eggs Benedict? </p><p>Take the Big Five inventory: </p><p><a href="http://freakonomics.com/bigfive">freakonomics.com/bigfive</a></p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES ... Show More

<p>Drug policy feels very unsettled right now. The war on drugs was a failure. But so far, the war on the war on drugs hasn’t entirely been a success, either.</p><p>Take Oregon. In 2020, it became the first state in the nation to decriminalize hard drugs. It was a paradigm shift ... Show More