The scale and darkness of this epidemic is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew.
I used to support legalizing all drugs. Then the opioid epidemic happened.
America’s worst drug crisis shows what can happen when a dangerous, addictive substance is made easily accessible.
Killer Opioid Fentanyl Could Be a Weapon of Mass Destruction
Fentanyl is so potent that a few milligrams can be fatal. Could it be used to attack the U.S.?
The Modern Moloch
On the streets of early 20th-century America, nothing moved faster than 10 miles per hour. Responsible parents would tell their children, “Go outside and play in the streets,” all day. And then the automobile happened. And then automobiles began killing thousands of children, every year. Much of the public viewed the car as a death machine.
Opinion | How to Win a War on Drugs (Published 2017)
Portugal treats addiction as a disease, not a crime.
Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?
Civilizations can carry a surprising number of parasites and live. But there’s a line — Rome crossed it, the Gilded Age toed it, and for the first time in history, we can measure it.
The American Age Is Over
Emergency Triad: The United States commits imperial suicide.
Kofi Annan On Why Drug Bans Are Ineffective
Drugs are dangerous, but current narcotics policies are an even bigger threat because punishment is given a greater priority than health and human rights. It's time for regulations that put lives and safety first, argues former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Sanitizing the Psychedelic Revolution
Big Pharma is rushing to monetize ancient healing practices, but what’s left might not be the same medicine
The Global Decline in the Mental Health of the Young
One of the major findings in wellbeing research until recently was that happiness was U-shaped by age and unhappiness hump-shaped by age. There was a midlife crisis — a finding reported in well over 600 published papers using data on 145 countries. It was present in both developing and developed countries. And it was persistent over time. The finding of a peak in ill-being in midlife was consistent with Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s work on mortality and the so-called “deaths of despair.”1 In the US in particular and to a lesser extent in other countries, White prime-aged individuals without a college degree had high death rates from suicide, drug overdoses, and cirrhosis of the liver. Drug overdose deaths in the US, for example, peaked at midlife ages. In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that overdose death rates per 100,000 by age rose from 13.5 for 15-to-24-year-olds to 45.6 for 25-to-34-year-olds and 60.8 for 35-to-44-year-olds, and then declined to 53.3 for 45-to-54-year-olds, 49.2 for 55-to-64-year-olds, and 14.7 for those over the age of 65.2 The morbidity data matched the mortality data.
Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin?
A popular, growing class of drugs for obesity and diabetes could, in an ideal world, help us see that metabolism and appetite are biological facts, not moral choices.
How we rank the world's most pressing problems (and why)
We started with global health, then pandemics. Now we focus on AI risk. How our views changed and what problems we'd recommend you work on today.
Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults
The changes in daily life induced by the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to longstanding concerns about social isolation in the United States. Despite the links between the physical setting for individuals' daily lives and their connections with family, friends, and the various institutions of collective life, trends in where American adults spend their time have been largely overlooked as researchers have focused on how and with whom they spend their time. This article analyzes data from the American Time Use Survey over a timeframe spanning nineteen years and argues that the changes in Americans' daily routines induced by the COVID era should be seen as an acceleration of a longer-term trend: the rise of time spent at home. Results show that from 2003 to 2022, average time spent at home among American adults has risen by one hour and 39 minutes in a typical day. Time at home has risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities. Preliminary analysis indicates that time at home is associated with lower levels of happiness and less meaning, suggesting the need for enhanced empirical attention to this major shift in the setting of American life.
Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults
The changes in daily life induced by the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to longstanding concerns about social isolation in the United States. Despite the links between the physical setting for individuals' daily lives and their connections with family, friends, and the various institutions of collective life, trends in where American adults spend their time have been largely overlooked as researchers have focused on how and with whom they spend their time. This article analyzes data from the American Time Use Survey over a timeframe spanning nineteen years and argues that the changes in Americans' daily routines induced by the COVID era should be seen as an acceleration of a longer-term trend: the rise of time spent at home. Results show that from 2003 to 2022, average time spent at home among American adults has risen by one hour and 39 minutes in a typical day. Time at home has risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities. Preliminary analysis indicates that time at home is associated with lower levels of happiness and less meaning, suggesting the need for enhanced empirical attention to this major shift in the setting of American life.
Drugs as weapons against us: the CIA's murderous targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac, and other activists
Drugs as Weapons Against Us meticulously details how a …
The AI Apocalypse Is Already Here | Compact
Americans do not care for artificial intelligence. Recent polling shows that their attitudes mostly range from ambivalence to horror.
America has a loneliness epidemic. Here are 6 steps to address it
Lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a new advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General.
