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March 2, 2026 edition
This week, I talk with investigative journalist and bestselling author Sam Quinones (Dreamland, The Least of Us) about the piece of the homelessness crisis we’re often encouraged to treat as secondary: synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamine, and its connection to the rapid rise of street psychosis and encampment life.
Sam explains how today’s meth is fundamentally different from the “tweaker” era of the 1990s and early 2000s: cheaper, purer, more abundant, and more destabilizing. Known as P2P meth, this new form was perfectly suited to mass industrial production and reshaped street homelessness across the country, including places that historically had little visible homelessness at all.
We also talk about the limitations of a single-cause narrative (“it’s all housing costs”), the realities of Housing First, and why many recovery stories begin not with compassion-as-policy, but with the unpopular intervention that removes access to drugs: arrest and incarceration.
And then for something completely different . . . Sam talks about his delightfully unexpected new book, The Perfect Tuba, and why band, discipline, and collective effort may offer a strange but persuasive antidote to a culture increasingly engineered for addiction. (Don’t look at me; I played oboe in the orchestra.)
Guest Bio:
Sam Quinones is an investigative journalist and bestselling author whose work focuses on addiction, drug trafficking, and social breakdown in the United States. He is the author of Dreamland, which examined the origins of the opioid epidemic, and The Least of Us, about fentanyl, methamphetamine, and the transformation of American street life. His latest book, The Perfect Tuba, explores community, discipline, and fulfillment through the unlikely world of band and brass instruments. He writes the Dreamland newsletter on Substack and hosts a podcast on addiction, recovery, and public policy.
Housekeeping
✈️ The Unspeakeasy is now officially coed and will focus on in-person events going forward. But don’t worry, we’re offering three women’s retreats this year. The first is in L.A. in April and is open for registration now. The others are on the East Coast in the fall, plus our big coed overnight retreat-a-polooza in October. Visit our retreat page for dates and more info.
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