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.

Much of the early work focused on dopamine and we were really looking for rewarding sorts of effects and sure enough, we only found that. But you can destroy the main dopamine-producing structures of the brain and you can still get an animal to self-administer drugs like cocaine.

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've had investigations of my lab because people didn't like what I had to say. And when you have investigations and you're doing research, you're shut down for a while. You have to start all over again. So that's one area where I paid a high price.

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.

Our ability to study the brain has been limited because of our tools and our tools have only allowed us to look at one neurotransmitter and we haven't looked so much into co-localization and co-release of transmitters. Our thinking is hampered by our tools.

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