This week I talk about the kratom wars: the argument over whether kratom is a deadly drug or a miracle cure (or somewhere in between). While some states are currently trying to ban kratom, others are working to make it easier and safer to get. Meanwhile, the federal government has been a bit all over the place on it, and with Trump 2.0 gathering early steam by pandering to Project 2025 nationalists, it's hard to say what attempted legislation might materialize in coming years. So let's talk about kratom.

Check out the American Kratom Association to get involved or to find safe suppliers, local activists, or more information about kratom.

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This week I tackle some of the questions and comments I've been getting over the last couple months. I talk about Trump's neoliberal agenda, his capture of the Evangelical Right, Consistency and Accountability in both criminal justice and religion, and I clean up some of what I may have missed during the last few episodes I've done on these issues.

This episode was mostly unscripted and it's all over the place, but hey, some people enjoy rants, so if that's you, have at it.

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This week Dr. Christy Perez (C Dreams) is back to talk about her new projects, and to be dragged back into old theological debates. We talk about trans rights, Christianity, the capture of Evangelical Christianity by MAGA, expectations for the next 4 years, the anti-fact stance of the recent anti-trans executive order, and we spend way too long spinning our tires trying to figure out which parts of the Bible we should read as legitimate, which parts we should disregard, and how on Earth anyone is supposed to know the difference (but if you've listened for long, you already know that's just me).

You can find out more about Dr. Perez's work here. Christy's (Dr. Perez's) personal website: Www.UnCagedCritique.com
Her new organization's website is: Www.poderunides.org
You can email her at Christinasvida@gmail.com or at Cperez@poderunides.org
Her social media is fabulous. X @UnCagedCritique IG @UnCagedChristy

Dr. Perez's work is also available on Filter Magazine's website.

https://gofund.me/52983010

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This week I get back to the heart of the show: drug policy, drug addiction, and drugs. I talk about free will as it relates to the war on drugs, addiction and intoxication, and I dig into genetics, criminal justice, punishment and prevention.

The nonsensical notion of free will, which I've yet to hear defined with any sort of coherence, plays no part in addiction, and our insistence that it does has allowed us to construct a culture that maximized both the occurrence and the severity of addiction.

I plan to do a follow up show to respond to questions or comments you have about this (or any) episode. Let me know what you want to hear.

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This week I talk about coffee: the history, the pharmacology, the politics and the legal battles. I take a dialectical perspective, which just means I focus on both sides of the coffee discussion: it has been blamed for sexual promiscuity and inability to perform; it has been the instigator of both dictatorships and revolutions; it has been labeled both a drug and an anti-drug in different times and places.

I also talk about caffeine as a drug and the reason we don't live in a world where we are at war with caffeine in the same way we are at war with so many other drugs and drug users. I discuss Coca-Cola's caffeine lawsuit, cocaine/coca, feminist movement and coffee, neoliberalism and coffee, and the USA's persistent habit of meddling in the affairs of S. American countries.

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This week I finally finish the topic a started a few weeks ago: religious trauma and why religion often makes people into worse versions of themselves without them noticing. I discuss two of the most important questions in life: how does one find truth, and how does one decide on morality. And I point out the many ways that religions, particularly Christianity, disrupts the process by which we do both while preventing us from noticing our lack of recipe for finding either one (truth or morality). Now days, most of us practice objective morality in which we make our own rules and morals based on what feels right to us. But religious people do so without ever having to admit it; they say they take their morals from holy books while selectively skipping those rules they don't think should apply anymore.

As always in these episodes on religion, I'm not attacking Christians. I am criticizing an idea, not people. If you practice a religion, the challenge here is not to give it up (unless you come to the conclusion it's not true), but rather to practice it responsibly and to value the truth enough to make sure you are practicing the correct form of your religion.

To see Kenneth Copeland's full interview with Inside Edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LtF34MrsfI

To see Kevin thank God and no one else for saving him from 37 stab wounds: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=944370430207535

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This week I get back to the roots of the show and talk about drugs, specifically alcohol. How does it work?
What does it do in the body?
Why is it so popular in so many cultures?
How has capitalism both attacked and encouraged alcohol use at various times?
Why did prohibition happen in the first place?
How did our relationship with alcohol change as neoliberal capitalism expanded?

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The title of this week's episode is a shout out to philosopher Bertrand Russell, who wrote a book by the same name: Why I am not a Christian. This week I talk about religion as an addiction, responsible use of religion, how religion often programs people to avoid accountability and double down on things they know are not true, the problem with the Bible and other religious books, and lots more.

*Of all the many things people complained about in this episode, there is one error that is worth fixing: the goats I claim Jesus threw off a cliff for no reason were actually pigs. See Mark 5.

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