J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD

After saving all of my photos–ironically, seeing vacation photos was why I joined many years ago–I left Facebook roughly a month ago. Several years ago during a visit in Nashville, my former teacher Larry Churchill was decrying so many of Facebook’s predatory practices and he said something to the effect of “I’d run from that platform.” His words continued to resonate with me over the years and last month it was just time for me to go.

I joined Twitter about a decade ago when the publisher of my book Almost Addicted said I needed to be on Twitter to help promote the book. From the jump I was an ambivalent user at most who’d been thinking that I might sign off. When Elon Musk bought Twitter that just about sealed the deal in and of itself.

Alas, I quit Twitter yesterday, after seeing a Washington Post article on Elon Musk in which Musk was quoted as saying, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” How many different ways is that statement just plain hideous?

I’m delighted that KCRW: Life Examined public radio in LA devoted this segment to mental health care and honored to have been a guest on the show. You can find the broadcast here.

So honored to have my research cited by John Oliver! Monica Malowney and I have written about how absurdly difficult it is to access behavioral healthcare in the U.S. many times over the years. It’s so absurd that comedians keep quoting our research, including 2 of my absolute favorites Hasan Minaj and now John Oliver (about 14 minutes in)!

You can find the full text of the letter here.

On the surface, the notion of “letting voters decide” on a state by state basis whether abortion ought to be legal might seem to make sense, but given the dramatic lengths that states like Texas (where I now live) and other similarly minded states have gone to suppress votes, such justifications for overturning Roe V. Wade are beyond hypocritical. The majority of this country doesn’t want Roe overturned and I’d wager that most in Texas don’t want Roe overturned. Nonetheless, white conservative men (predominantly) are gonna continue to make it hard for the (widely varied) people’s voice to be heard.

Democracy is a nice concept that would be amazing to see in actual practice such that everyone’s voice was heard.

I am super proud of this piece with Harvard medical students Anand Chukka and John Messinger in which we make the case that buprenorphine street sales ought to be decriminalized. The US is overdue for creating sane policies to deal with the scourge of addiction and the opioid overdose crisis.

Interesting discussion about the path I took to end up in medicine as well as some basic issues in medical ethics. You can hear the podcast here.