Addiction

How did our nation's current opioid crisis come about? What steps were -- or were not -- taken as this epidemic was first being recognized? Who should ultimately be held accountable for this widespread tragedy? What policies enabled it, and who has benefitted most from those disastrous policies? On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we feature a "live onstage" interview that host John Schummann recently recorded here in Tulsa with Chris McGreal, a senior writer at The Guardian and former journalist for BBC.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we speak with Dr. Ruth Potee, who is both a Family Physician and an Addiction Medicine Physician based in Greenfield, Mass. She's also the Medical Director for the Franklin County House of Corrections, the Franklin Recovery and Treatment Center, and the Pioneer Valley Regional School District. As such, Dr.

Our guest on ST is Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, who grew up in Oklahoma and is now based in the Seattle area. He's a medical marijuana expert who's also a clinical instructor at the University of Washington School of Medicine; his focus is on the use of cannabis in clinical practice, medical research, and education. Dr. Aggarwal holds degrees in medicine, medical geography, chemistry, philosophy, and religious studies. He'll be speaking in support of State Question 788 today (the 8th) here in Tulsa, and then he'll do so tomorrow (the 9th) in Norman, Oklahoma.

On this edition of StudioTulsa Medical Monday, a discussion about fighting opioid addiction at the individual, societal, and legal levels. Our guest is the successful OKC-based trial lawyer, Reggie Whitten. He'll be a co-lead counsel for the State of Oklahoma in an upcoming lawsuit against four different Big Pharma firms; that trial is set to begin in May of next year. Whitten's stake in the lawsuit is also quite personal; in 2002, he lost his son, Brandon, to a car accident triggered by Brandon's addiction to prescription drugs.

In the ongoing search for better treatment of mental health issues and illnesses, one crucial consideration is the trade-off between the effectiveness of a given treatment versus any unpleasant or damaging side-effects it might have. On this edition of ST, we are talking about one such treatment -- it's one that's actually been around for decades, but that is now being done in a much different (and far more nuanced) manner: electrical stimulation of the brain. Our guest is Dr. Hamed Ekhtiari, an associate investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (or LIBR) here in Tulsa.

On this installment of ST Medical Monday, an interesting if rather alarming conversation with the award-winning science reporter and author Gary Taubes, whose books include "Why We Get Fat" and "Good Calories, Bad Calories." He joins us to talk about his newest book, which is just out in paperback: "The Case Against Sugar." As was noted of this book by a critic at The Seattle Times: "Taubes sifts through centuries' worth of data.... Practically everything one wants to know about sugar -- its history, its geography, the addiction it causes -- is here.

On this edition of ST, a rather "wild ride" of a conversation with Charles Monroe-Kane, a producer and host for the long-running Wisconsin Public Radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge (which is heard locally on Public Radio 89.5 on Sunday mornings). Monroe-Kane has a new book out -- an autobiography that candidly reports on how he grew up with auditory hallucinations and bipolar disorder. It's a detailed yet breathless account that takes the reader from rural Ohio, to the Philippines, to Haiti, to Indiana, to San Francisco, to Alaska, to NYC, to Prague, and so forth.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we talk with Alan Schwarz, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated investigative reporter who (until recently) was on the staff at The New York Times. He joins us to discuss his groundbreaking new book, "ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic." It's a detailed report on why the widespread misdiagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has become a sad yet undeniable fact of American life.

The State of Oklahoma continues to top nationwide stats regarding the number of people it incarcerates. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, our state ranks second in the nation in its rate of incarceration at 700 per every 100,000 people; the national average is 471. Oklahoma also imprisons women at the highest rate in the country -- at a rate that's more than twice the national average. Come early November, voters statewide will consider two initiatives aimed at reversing these shameful and embarrassing trends.

On this edition of ST, we are pleased to welcome back to our program Dr. Gerard Clancy, TU's Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the Oxley College of Health Sciences. (Dr. Clancy has also been designated as the next President of the University.) He joins us to talk about a newly announced effort aimed at addressing mental illness and substance abuse in the Tulsa area.

(Please note: This interview first aired back in February.) On this installment of ST, we speak by phone with the author and food-and-health blogger Andie Mitchell about her widely praised new autobiography, "It Was Me All Along." In naming this title a "Best Book of the Month" for January 2015, one critic at Amazon.com gushed: "Andie Mitchell is irresistible. And by that I mean she's irresistible no matter whether she weighs 268 (at the start of this delightful memoir) or 133 (by its end).

On this edition of ST, we listen back to an interview that was recorded about a year ago with Blake Bailey, who grew up in Oklahoma City, now teaches creative writing in Virginia, and is the author of three highly regarded literary biographies (of Richard Yates, John Cheever, and Charles Jackson). Bailey has now, in his newest book, turned his attention to his own roots -- and specifically to his late brother, Scott, whose too-brief life was marked by incessant tragedy, addiction, recklessness, and mental instability.

On this edition of ST, we speak with Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, who served several years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman from Rhode Island, and who is best known as the author and lead sponsor of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. This landmark piece of legislation provides tens of millions of Americans (who were previously denied care) with access to mental health treatment. Today, Rep.

On this edition of ST, we speak with Dr. Stephen P. Hinshaw, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Vice-Chair for Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Hinshaw is also the editor of "Psychological Bulletin" --- and the co-author of a new book, "The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance," which he discusses with us today.

We speak by phone today with Blake Bailey, who grew up in Oklahoma City, now teaches creative writing in Virginia, and is the author of three highly regarded literary biographies (of Richard Yates, John Cheever, and Charles Jackson).

On this edition of ST on Health, we learn about the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health (TCBH), a state-operated facility that functions as a part of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Dr. John Schumann, our guest host, welcomes Leah Price, the executive director at TCBH, who tells us what this organization is, how it operates, and why it matters.

Prescription drug abuse is becoming more and more of a serious problem in this country. According to some estimates, sales of such drugs have quadrupled over the last decade in the United States --- and Oklahoma actually ranks number one (out of all 50 states) in deaths attributed to Rx drug overdoses. On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host Dr. John Schumann speaks with Dr. William Yarborough, a local expert in this regard. Dr.

On this edition of ST, a discussion of the neurobiology of pleasure --- and of how pleasures can turn into addictions. We chat by phone with David J. Linden, who is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.