The Fix

The Fix was my first attempt at writing about my scientific research for a popular publication. I had written a fair bit on issues around drug addiction when I was a freelance journalist, but when I started writing The Fix, it turned out that it was a lot easier explaining other people’s ideas compared to my own. My editor Amy Macfarlane was friendly but relentless in pushing me to think harder about the implications of the work I was describing. I was doing my PhD when I wrote the article, and I had had it bludgeoned into my head that scientific findings should always be written about with great caution. Under Amy’s editorial guidance, The Fix ended up being a kind of trial balloon for some big scientific ideas I had been thinking about but had been too cautious (scared?) to advance into the world (it also won a National Magazine Award in Canada, which was wonderful). Those ideas are now the basis of my research work on injection drug use prevention which you can learn about here: https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-016-0114-1.

In the meantime, enjoy The Fix…

Link to Article