The Opioid Crisis and the War on Drugs with Dr Jeffrey Singer

Economics Explored

100,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses in a 12 month period, mostly with opioids. A conversation on the US Opioid crisis and the failed War on Drugs, and why a Harm Reduction approach is preferable, with Dr Jeffrey Singer MD from the Cato Institute.

About this episode’s guest - Dr Jeffrey Singer MD

Jeffrey A. Singer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and works in the Department of Health Policy Studies. He is principal and founder of Valley Surgical Clinics Ltd., the largest and oldest group private surgical practice in Arizona, and has been in private practice as a general surgeon for more than 35 years.

He is also a visiting fellow at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Singer is a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the American Council on Science and Health. From 1994 to 2016, he was a regular contributor to Arizona Medicine, the journal of the Arizona Medical Association. He served on the Advisory Board Council of the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University from 2014 to 2018 and is an adjunct instructor in the Program on Political History and Leadership at ASU. He writes and speaks extensively on regional and national public policy, with a specific focus on the areas of health care policy and the harmful effects of drug prohibition.

He received his BA from Brooklyn College (City University of New York) and his MD from New York Medical College. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Jeff is @dr4liberty on Twitter.

Links relevant to the conversation

The North Carolina study:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26333030/

The Harvard/Johns Hopkins study on misuse rates in opioid naive post-surgical patients:

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5790

The Cicero study on the rise of heroin as the "gateway" drug:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28582659/

Jeff’s report in the Journal of Pain Research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6369835/

Jeff’s Quadrant article on e-cigarettes:

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2021/10/whose-lungs-are-they-anyway/

Thanks to the show’s audio engineer Josh Crotts for his assistance in producing the episode.

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