The Lazarus Drug

Hidden Brain

Hidden Brain Media

Arts, Science, Performing Arts, Social Sciences

4.6 • 40.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2019

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More than 70,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2017 — many of them from heroin and other opioids. One of the most widely-used tools to confront this crisis is a drug called naloxone. It can reverse an opioid overdose within seconds, and has been hailed by first responders and public health researchers. But in 2018, two economists released a study that suggested naloxone might be leading some users to engage in riskier behavior — and causing more deaths than it saves. This week, we talk with researchers, drug users, and families about the mental calculus of opioid use, and why there's still so much we're struggling to understand about addiction. This episode originally aired in October 2018.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today's episode is a favorite from the Hidden Brain Archives.
0:04.3	It first aired in October 2018.
0:07.7	This episode contains strong language and mature themes.
0:11.0	If you're listening with young kids,
0:12.5	I strongly urge you to save this one for later.
0:15.3	This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantan.
0:21.3	There's an old saying,
0:22.8	the best things in life are illegal, immoral, or fattening.
0:28.8	There's another way to think about this.
0:30.8	Many things that give us pleasure,
0:32.8	sex, food, adventure, they contain risks.
0:38.1	As a smart species, we've come up with ways
0:41.1	to minimize those risks,
0:43.3	condoms, seatbelts,
0:45.9	drugs to lower cholesterol.
0:49.4	But something interesting happens as we do this.
0:52.0	As we move the risk-benefit calculation for each activity,
0:55.6	away from the risk end of the spectrum,
0:58.4	to the benefit end of the spectrum,
1:00.6	we imagine people will become safer.
1:03.2	Seatbelts, for example, will keep drivers from getting hurt.
1:07.0	Now that would be true if people kept doing things
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hidden Brain Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Hidden Brain Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.