Health Advocacy Training Webinar - "Separate and Unequal: Methadone, Buprenorphine and the Making of a Two-Tiered Treatment System”

As the U.S. marks National Opioid and Substance Awareness Day this September, this webinar traces how a century of drug policy and legislation established a racially and socioeconomically segregated treatment system for opioid use disorder. Marco Antonio Ramos, MD, PhD, historian and psychiatrist at Yale, will walk through the history of methadone and buprenorphine for addiction. From the racialized origins of methadone clinics to buprenorphine's rollout as an office-based, "private" alternative, Professor Ramos will argue that this legacy has produced a system of psychiatric care segregated by race and class that persists today. Understanding this history is essential for anyone working to expand equitable access to medications for opioid use disorder amid the ongoing overdose crisis.

About our Speaker:

Marco Antonio Ramos, MD, PhD, is a historian, psychiatrist, and Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. His research focuses on the history of drugs and health justice across the Americas in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His first book Just Dreams: Radical Psychiatry, Terror, and Human Rights in Cold War Argentina (UNC Press, forthcoming in 2027) draws on the personal archives of physician-activists to recover the radical visions of psychoanalysis that “disappeared” amid the fascist terror of the last dictatorship in 1970s Argentina. His next project will focus on the history of psychedelics, especially ayahuasca, in Latin America. Along with Dr. Ayah Nuriddin, Dr. Ramos is also co-director of the Community Histories Lab (CHL) at Yale School of Medicine. The CHL aims to unearth local histories of New Haven and Yale University that promote justice along the lines of race, class, disability, gender, and sexuality.

NOTE: Zoom details will be sent with your ticket receipt. Please contact lisa.capitani@d4dpr.org if you do not have an email from info@d4dpr.org or doctors@d4dpr.org.

D4DPR webinars and events are supported by our members and donors, and may be supported with funding from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the Open Society Foundations (OSF), and an unrestricted grant from the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART). Support does not influence D4DPR’s policy positions or educational content.