Episode Details

Eric is a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and he most recently wrote the book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities, which I reviewed here. Be sure to check out his recent report on the social construction of racism in the United States.

You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For three excerpts from my conversation with Eric — on the comparatively little racism of the US compared to other countries; on the anti-immigrant views of new immigrants; and on why Barack Obama would be considered “white supremacist” today — head over to our YouTube page.

After listening to last week’s episode with Shawn McCreesh, a reader shares his own family experience with opioids:

My mother had terminal cancer when I was in college in the mid 1980s, in a far-ish suburb outside of Boston. After the cancer got to a certain point, and only then, she was prescribed morphine. It is my understanding it was only prescribed in terminal cases. Even after getting a prescription, it wasn’t easy to get. I remember my stepfather had to drive about 30 minutes to the nearest pharmacy that sold it, since it wasn’t available everywhere. He went to a pharmacy close to the hospital and handed over his license, and they logged where every drop went.

The question is, how did we go to a strictly controlled substance with very specific indications to a very similar class of drugs that was doled out like candy to high school football players with minor neck injuries? 

I think the answer is that it was a patented pharma product where the owners could make a lot of money. They spent a lot of money lobbying doctors to write scripts and legislators to make sure the scripts could be written. Everyone made money but the patients. Voila. Here is your crisis. It was entirely manufactured because the healthcare system is not designed to keep the population healthy, but to make money for a certain group of people and companies.  Health care, like so many other vital services in America, including higher education and housing, has been fully monetized.

As people like Shawn McCreesh continue to survey the carnage, the person at McKinsey who designed Perdue’s sales strategy probably made partner and is now a wealthy, respected, and an upstanding member of his community — and you can bet it isn’t Shawn’s hometown, Hatboro.

Another reader’s two cents:

I found the interview with Shawn McCreesh very interesting. Once again, a subject that I had no interest in turned out to be fascinating.

I have children around that same age who have dabbled in drugs. From my experience, this gets down to bad parenting. Leaving prescription drugs where they can be stolen. Being unaware that your medication is missing. Your children becoming addicts without you knowing. 

Another reader lends his expertise to clarify a point about drug treatment meds:

Great conversation with Shawn McCreesh, thanks for doing it. I’m a psychiatrist with significant experience treating substance abuse (though not that much treating opioid addiction). Shawn mentions that Suboxone may be even worse than other opioids, and describes his friends having a very bad reaction. However, Suboxone (really the buprenorphine ingredie