EXTRA: The Opioid Tragedy — How We Got Here

额外:阿片类药物悲剧-我们是如何到达这里的

Freakonomics Radio

社会与文化

2024-06-03

41 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

An update of our 2020 series, in which we spoke with physicians, researchers, and addicts about the root causes of the crisis — and the tension between abstinence and harm reduction.

单集文稿 ...

  • Hey, there, it's Stephen Dubner.

  • We just finished a two part series that looked at the very long lasting opioid crisis.

  • It's horrible.

  • It's absolutely horrifying.

  • We learned why the opioid epidemic has endured, and we learned about the billions of dollars in settlement money and how that should be used.

  • Don't spend any money on anything.

  • Some other funding stream covers.

  • Today we wanted to play for you a bonus episode, an update of a piece we published in early 2020, a piece that was also about the opioid crisis.

  • As you will hear, the crisis seemed to be leveling off back then, but as it turned out, it wasn't.

  • It continued to worsen, especially during the pandemic, although there are signs that now it really is leveling off.

  • In this episode, we spoke with some University of Pennsylvania physicians about an addiction treatment that they thought should be universal.

  • They can get it as part of routine medical care, just like they might get their insulin for their diabetes or their blood pressure medicine.

  • So is this treatment now universal?

  • That's probably a no.

  • You'll also hear a bit more from Stephen Lloyd, the Tennessee physician who was featured in our new series.

  • And stick around to the end of this episode for an update on the team at Penn Medicine.

  • As always, thank you for listening.

  • This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything, with your host, Stephen Dubner.

  • Jean Marie Perrone is a professor in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • I'm an emergency medicine physician and a medical toxicologist, which means I was trained in poisonings and overdoses.