Potency And Supply: Fentanyl, Meth and The “Drugification” of Culture (Podcast)
“How can anyone be doing drugs when we all know fentanyl is in everything?” We at UT SMART hear this question a lot from community leaders across the state. How is it that people keep risking their lives when we know for a fact that drugs are more lethal than ever?
Sam Quinones, award winning author of Dreamland and The Least of Us, two books that dive deep into the social and cultural realities of the overdose crisis, may have the answer to that question.
We talk about the two factors defining this moment: extreme potency and staggering supply. We have never seen this many powerful drugs be so widely available at any time in world history, and we dive deep into the implications of this new reality.
We go beyond drugs and overdoses in this conversation. We talk about homelessness, small town economics and how we really need to think about the overdose crisis as more than just a problem of addiction.
By the end, we examine how much of our overall culture has been “drugified,” everything from coffee to social media to chicken nuggets, and this drugification is playing out with the same dynamic as fentanyl and methamphetamine: hyper-potency and overwhelming supply.
Finally, we talk about hope, and how even the least of us can make a real, tangible difference.
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Hosted and produced by Jeremy Kourvelas. Original music by Blind House.