When it comes to drug addiction, if we know that the vast majority of users of any drug

do not meet criteria for addiction, then it tells us we have to look beyond the drug

in order to try and understand what's going on with addiction.

Hello and welcome to the Psychology podcast. Today we welcome Karl Hart to the show.

Karl is the ZIFT professor of psychology in the department of psychology and also a professor

of psychiatry at Columbia University. He is known for his research on neuro-psychopharmacology

and his advocacy for the decriminalization of recreational drugs. He's the author of high price

and has co-authored the introductory textbook drugs, society, and human behavior with Charles

his most recent book is called Drug Use for Grownups and that's the focus of my conversation

today with Karl. I really like Karl. I really have a great respect for him as a scientist as well

as a really just a cool dude. I loved nerding out with him about the latest data and facts surrounding

the responsible use of drugs and how people, especially adults, can have more responsible use of

drugs but also ways in which society policies and the police have created a lot of racist narratives

that are not grounded in the actual facts of drug use. So what I really like about this episode is

being able to really dive into the realities of the matter and a lot of things blew my mind.

You know a lot of things might surprise you too. A lot of things you took for granted that you

thought you knew about drug use and just how many people actually get addicted to drugs by itself

is very very few and number compared to the now as we learn and instead we talk about the actual

predictive factors that are most likely to make people addicted drugs and also very importantly

we discuss very concrete changes we can make in our society to lessen deaths and lessen the

discrimination and stigmatization we have surrounding drug use among adults. So I really hope you

enjoy this conversation as much as I did and with that further ado I bring you Carl Hart.

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