Maiz Szalavitz is the author of Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, and the New York Times bestseller Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction.
Below are current articles by Maia Szalavitz.
Photo by Bettina Hansen of The Seattle Times
This Is What Neuroscientists and Philosophers Understand About Addiction, The New York Times, 4/24/2023
People Can’t Get Their A.D.H.D. Medicine, and That’s a Sign of a Larger Problem, The New York Times, 3/25/2023
Seeing Addiction as a Learning Disorder Changes Everything, The Basis: The Brief Addiction Science Information Source, 3/17/2023
People Have a Right to Nonreligious Rehab, The New York Times, 3/11/2023
We Can Reduce Homelessness If We Follow The Science On What Works, New Scientist, 1/26/2023
I Don’t Mind if You Say You Have ‘a Little OCD’, The New York Times, 1/22/2023
‘Entire Body Is Shaking’: Why Americans With Chronic Pain Are Dying, The New York Times, 1/3/2023
It’s Not Just About Pot. Our Entire Drug Policy Needs an Overhaul, The New York Times, 12/11/2022
How to Talk to Kids About Drugs in the Age of Fentanyl, The New York Times, 11/08/2022
The Most Important Question About Addiction, The New York Times, 9/29/2022
Something Better Than a Tent for the Homeless, The New York Times, 8/24/2022
The Story You’ve Heard About Cities, Drugs, and Mental Illness Is Wrong, Wired, 6/21/2022
Why Forced Addiction Treatment Fails, The New York Times, 4/30/2022
How the Drug War Died, The Nation, 4/11/2022
What the Opioid Crisis Took From People in Pain, The New York Times, 3/7/2022
Doctors Prescribing Opioids in Good Faith Should Not Be Prosecuted, Scientific American, 2/25/2022
Opinion: We’re Waging the Wrong Battle Against Opioids, Undark, 2/4/2022
Treating Addiction as a Crime Doesn’t Work. What Oregon Is Doing Just Might, The New York Times, 1/26/2022
Opioids Feel Like Love. That’s Why They’re Deadly in Tough Times, The New York Times, 12/6/2021
How Key Early Ideas Helped Shape Today’s Harm Reduction Movement, Filter, an excerpt from Undoing Drugs, 11/23/2021
Rethinking What it Means to Recover from Addiction, Time, 9/29/2021
Book talk on Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, Drug Policy Alliance Department of Research and Academic Engagement, 9/22/2021
The FDA Shouldn’t Support a Ban on Kratom, Scientific American, 8/12/2021
The Pain Was Unbearable. So Why Did Doctors Turn Her Away?, Wired, 8/11/2021
How Drug Users Developed a Key Approach to Fighting Covid, The New York Times, 7/23/2021
Harm Reduction Is the Best Approach for COVID and Drug Addiction, Scientific American, 7/7/2021
We’re Overlooking a Major Culprit in the Opioid Crisis, Scientific American, 5/28/2021
What the Incredible Achievements of ACT UP Can Teach Activists Today, Filter, 5/19/2021
Pain and Isolation Are Driving America’s Lockdown Overdose Surge, Vice, 2/18/2021
Maia’s writing from 2018-2020 is here.
Last updated 4/24/2023