You’re invited to a film and discussion designed to tease out and involve participants in interactive dialogue about heroin addiction and alternative methods of addressing the issue in the U.S.

Raw Opium is a feature length documentary (and two-part TV series) about a commodity that has tremendous power – both to ease pain and to destroy lives. The opium poppy is the raw material for heroin, fueling a vast criminal trade larger than the economies of many countries.

This event will screen the episode Raw Opium: Pain, Pleasure, Profits. We will see how this flower has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role – not just in the lives of people who grow, manufacture and use it – but also in the increasingly tense sphere of international relations. In the process, our assumptions about addiction and the War on Drugs are challenged.

Following the film will be a dynamic question, answer and discussion session led by IPS Fellow Sanho Tree who is also director of IPS’ Drug Policy Project and Jasmine L. Tyler, deputy director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance.