The way we're currently educating people about heroin is to say that heroin is so awful. Heroin is not so much the problem. It's when you combine it. It's hard to die from heroin alone.

We need to continuously put pressure on politicians to do more, because they are happy just to do nothing—it’s easier to do nothing.

I don't want to be on the bandwagon of dogging any president or anybody in positions where they have all these different constituencies.

If you're a member of a despised group, look out! They'll find a drug and associate you with its use. There are a lot of people in the gay community using methamphetamine and paying taxes and going to work and doing well.

We should decriminalize all drugs. The assumptions on which our drug policies are based are flawed.

You have rappers saying "stay off drugs, go to school" - empty verbal behavior. I think all of this became institutionalized in the early '90s. And it's become more and more solidified, more and more entrenched.

Writing in a nuanced way, getting at all the details in a way that remains interesting for the reader, is very difficult.