Everything You Know About Drugs is Wrong: The Making of Addiction and a New Approach to Overdose in America

Author/Contributor(s):	Murray, Stephen P.
Publisher:	Prometheus
Date:	8/17/2027
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

Why do we keep making the same mistakes in our treatment of the overdose crises? Stephen Murray, nationally recognized overdose expert, hotline director, and former paramedic, believes that criminalization, stigma, abstinence-only recovery models, and the moralization of drug use have not stopped people from using drugs. Instead, these factors have reshaped how they use—hidden, rushed, and alone— which turns moments of risk into fatal ones. By reframing overdose as a crisis of presence and failure of policy, Everything You Know About Drugs is Wrong offers a bold, humane vision of safety rooted not in punishment or perfection, but in making it possible for people to stay, to be seen, and to survive.

Through vivid, intimate portraits, including a fisherman revived by his crew and then fired for it, a former D.A.R.E. rapper who was forced onto the streets, and a mother whose daughter was taken over a misread drug test, this revolutionary book shows that overdose risk is not the result of individual recklessness. It’s the result of system design. When drug users tell the truth, does honesty bring support or punishment? Again and again, Murray reveals the same pattern: people do not die because no one cared, but because caring carried consequences. Fear of losing housing, children, jobs, freedom, or dignity, has taught people to disappear when their presence matters most.

Murray reflects on the systems currently in place, asking exploring how the institutions we trust to keep people safe – from police to schools, public health to treatment industries – have made overdose more likely. Culminating in a new and powerfully compassionate framework for reform, Everything You Know About Drugs is Wrong asks readers to move beyond self-blame and judgment toward a deeper understanding of how harm is produced, and how it can be prevented.