My latest guest is Emily Dufton. Emily is an independent scholar and historian who has written a lot about drugs over the years. Her first book, Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017), told the roller-coaster story of the marijuana-legalization movement since the 1960s. Her new book, Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs (University of Chicago Press, 2026), is about methadone maintenance and other forms of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) during roughly the same time period.
As Emily explains, most addiction researchers will tell you that the best way to treat opioid addiction is medication-assisted, yet this approach to treatment continues to carry heavy stigma and is underutilized in the United States. In her book, and in this conversation, Emily explains why. We also talk about being a writer, growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Nixon Administration, Emily getting hazed by Jerome Jaffe, and more.
As always the podcast is available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Pocketcasts, and the Substack app.
Episode Outline
0:00-5:08: Introduction.
5:08-13:15: Academic versus popular publishing, book synopsis and inspiration, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) defined.
13:15-17:24: Allentown, deindustrialization, and opioids.
17:24-21:24: Researching MAT, Michael Massing’s The Fix, getting hazed by Jerome Jaffe.
21:24-29:15: The history of methadone, the Nazis, methadone maintenance in the USA, Vincent Dole and Marie Nyswander.
29:15-38:40: The US in the 1960s, the French Connection, heroin in Vietnam, Nixon’s declaration of “war on drugs,” the supposed John Erhlichman quote.
38:40-48:29: Nixon’s concerns about crime, Jeff Donfeld and Bud Krogh, Robert DuPont, Jerome Jaffe, the advantages of methadone, the very loud critics and methadone’s fall from grace in the 1970s.
48:29-1:10:07: The revival of MAT, the AIDS crisis, COVID-19, the story of Buprenorphine, heroin in the ‘90s, the Drug Abuse Treatment Act of 2000, the launch of Suboxone, Shaun Thaxter, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals.
1:10:07-1:17:57: Why isn’t MAT reaching more people?
1:17:57-end: Outro.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit isaaccampos.substack.com
