Century of Lies

On this edition of Century of Lies, part one of a conversation with award-winning journalist and NY Times best-selling author Maia Szalavitz. Maia and host Doug McVay talk about harm reduction, drug policy, and Maia's new book Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction.

On this edition of Century of Lies, host Doug McVay is joined by Brandon Marshall, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health and founding director of the People, Place & Health Collective, to discuss harm reduction, recovery, community organizing, and Rhode Island becoming the first state in the nation to approve establishment of supervised consumption facilities.

This week on Century of Lies we examine the protests rocking Colombia. Congress’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on the Colombia protests July First. We hear from three of the witnesses: Elizabeth Dickinson, a Senior Analyst for Colombia with the International Crisis Group; Angela Maria Penagos, Director of the Agri-food Initiative at the University of the Andes; and José Miguel Vivanco, Director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch. We’ll also hear from Claudia Cardona with Corporación Humanas in Colombia on “strengthening the role of the UN human rights system in drug policies: The case of arbitrary detention.

This week on Century of Lies, drug policy reform moves forward around the world. In the US, Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced the Drug Policy Reform Act on June 15. In Scotland, the Government has introduced a new drugs policy that includes support for supervised consumption facilities. We hear from Angela Constance, Member of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government’s Minister for Drugs Policy, and from Tommy Sheppard, a UK MP for Edinburgh East and member of the Scottish National Party.