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
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 3/26/2023