Can you be a parent and an activist?
I am consumed by a difficult realization I’ve come to lately. The care my children need to be as protected as possible under the conditions of capitalism outstrips…
Tag: Thinking about things and stuff
Fear and Loathing in Atlanta
Content warning: racism, violence, mention of miscarriage. I was on my way to the airplane that would take me back home, to Canada. I boarded the train between…
Alright, let’s talk about GHB: A user’s guide.
When it kicks in, it feels like meeting an old friend for the first time. – Daniel, 34 Few drugs are as misunderstood and stigmatized as GHB (except for…
Being a grad student with ADHD: An ode to constant ontological uncertainty.
[Hi. I’m back. I’m digressing from my usual topics to get a little cathartic and personal for a bit. Don’t worry, for the next post we’ll be back…
Why abstinence-only drug education doesn’t work—in fact, it backfires spectacularly.
I talked to a lot of middle-class recreational drug users for my research. None of them had any idea when they were younger that they’d end up dropping…
The intangible narcotic: What does ‘vibe’ mean, really?
There’s a term that comes up pretty frequently when talking about electronic music events. A search within my interviews (excepts from which are quoted here) and field notes…
Drugs are… good? No, that can’t be right. Can it?
Like most academics, I’m obsessive. I spend a lot of my free time doing searches for new research on recreational drug use. I do this partly because there’s…
“Drugs are bad,” he said, sipping his beer: Legality vs. social acceptability
I’ve found it highly interesting to hear drug users trash talk other drugs, even while they’re high on their own preferred substance. Gina* thinks that alcohol is the…