America’s Drug Binge

America’s Drug Binge

July 8, 2026 · 60 min

About this episode

The episode explores America's complex relationship with drug use, featuring insights from writer and scholar Benjamin Fong.

Americans as a population have an unusually large appetite for psychoactive drugs, whether legal or illegal. And American history has been marked by periodic moral panics over drug use and normalization or legalization, as we’re experiencing right now. Why is that? What is it about US society that makes drug use simultaneously so appealing and reviled? Writer and scholar Benjamin Fong weighs in. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Benjamin Yen-Yi Fong, Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge Verso, 2023 The post America’s Drug Binge appeared first on KPFA.

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