**Questions for the speaker can be submitted on the Registration page.**
\nJoin us for a spec ial conversation between award-winning journalist Shoshana Walter and best selling and award-winning author Barbara Kingsolver as they chat about Wal ter&rsquo\;s book \;Rehab: An American Scandal. In this work\, Walter\ , a Pulitzer finalist\, exposes the country&rsquo\;s failed response to th e opioid crisis\, and the malfeasance\, corruption\, and snake oil which b light the drug rehabilitation industry.
\nToday\, more people have a ccess to treatment than ever before. So why isn&rsquo\;t it working? The a nswer is that in America&mdash\;where anyone can get addicted&mdash\;only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of ove rdose deaths\, our default response is still to punish\, while rehabs acro ss the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients. \;
\nIn this book\, you&rsquo\;ll find the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex\, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery. Apri l is a black mom in Philadelphia\, who witnessed firsthand how the governm ent&rsquo\;s punitive response to the crack epidemic impeded her mother&rs quo\;s recovery&mdash\;and then her own. Chris\, a young middle-class whit e man from Louisiana\, received more opportunities in his addiction than A pril\, including the chance to go to treatment instead of prison. Yet the only program the judge permitted was one that forced him to perform unpaid back-breaking labor at for-profit companies. Wendy is a mother from a wea lthy suburb of Los Angeles\, whose son died in a sober living home. She be gan investigating for-profit treatment programs&mdash\;yet law enforcement and regulators routinely ignored her warnings\, allowing rehab patients t o die\, again and again. Larry is a surgeon who himself struggled with add iction\, and would eventually become one of the first Suboxone prescribers in the nation\, drawing the scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Administrati on. \;
\nBe sure to register now to participate in this urgent c onversation and learn insight on how we might fix the system to save lives .
\nAbout the Author: \;
\nShoshana Walter is a reporter f or the Marshall Project covering the criminal justice system. Her reportin g has been honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Selden Ring\, and she has won the Knight Award for Public Service\, the Edward R. Murrow Award\, and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. She started her w ork on the treatment system at The Center for Investigative Reporting\, wh ere her work appeared in The New York Times Magazine\, in newspapers\, and on NPR stations across the country. She is based in Oakland\, California.
\nAbout the Guest Host: \;
\nBarbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist\, essayist\, and poet. Her wide ly known works include \;The Poisonwood Bible\, the tale of a missiona ry family in the Congo\, and Animal\, Vegetable\, Miracle\, a nonfiction a ccount of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023\, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel \;Demon Copperhead. Her w ork often focuses on topics such as social justice\, biodiversity\, and th e interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
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