Introducing The Killing Drugs, a new podcast about synthetic opioids around the world

Over 100,000 Americans are dying of drug overdoses annually. On The Killing Drugs: Synthetic Opioids around the World, host Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings, interviews leading experts on the devastating synthetic opioid crisis to find policies that can save lives in the United States and around the world.

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JONATHAN CAULKINS: In an era when fentanyl gets mixed into everything, every street drug is potentially dangerous. One pill can kill is not hyperbole.

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REGINA LABELLE: In our traditional response to drug use and substance use disorder has been very one size fits all and reliant upon law enforcement. So, that’s why this shift to acknowledge harm reduction as part of the continuum of care was so important, but also not easy.

VANDA FELBAB-BROWN: Hello, I am Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and host of the new podcast, The Killing Drugs: Synthetic Opioids Around the World. With more than 100,000 Americans dying of drug overdoses each year, the fentanyl crisis in North America, already the most lethal drug epidemic ever in human history, remains one of the most significant and critical challenges we face as a nation.  

In this podcast and its related project, I am collaborating with leading experts on this devastating public health and national security crisis to find policies that can save lives in the United States and around the world. In the podcast, you’ll hear interviews with top academic experts, policy pioneers, investigative journalists, psychiatrists, and other medical and social work clinicians about their research, which the project will publish online in the fall, and their on the ground experiences and policy work.

Subscribe to The Killing Drugs now on your favorite podcast app or visit us at Brookings dot edu slash Killing Drugs to learn more and start getting episodes as soon as they are published in the coming weeks.

KEITH HUMPHREYS: When I go to San Francisco or Portland, I usually have to say people who don’t use drugs matter.