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Prologue

Ira tells the story of Dave, a former heroin addict who, with his friend Chris, launches a podcast inspired by the Howard Stern Show. Except it’s all about heavy drug use.

Act One: Two Dope Kings

Producer Dana Chivvis picks up the story of Dave and Chris and their show “Dopey.” (27 minutes)

Prologue

Producer Sean Cole heads to Toronto to see if it was true what he heard: that lots and lots of the bartenders who used to serve him drinks there were on coke at the time. Then Sean takes Ira through a catalogue of the various professions in which people tend to get high.

Act One: High on the Corporate Ladder

Producer Alex Blumberg introduces us to Richard, a former executive at a big time marketing firm who smoked pot daily — sometimes at work. As it turns out, Alex is intimately familiar with how Richard's getting high kept him from focusing on the important things in his life.

Act Two: You Were So High

Our listeners sent us 2,600 emails with their own getting high stories. Contributor Elna Baker read a ton of them (other staffers read the rest).

Act Four: Straight Man

Comedian Marc Maron, who's been off drugs for more than 15 years, says he still thinks it's okay to laugh at funny drug stories. And then he tells us one of the funniest we heard while putting this show together.

Act Five: DEA Agent Takes a Hit

Producer Brian Reed recounts one of the more riveting arguments he's ever heard about whether marijuana is dangerous or relatively benign. It takes place in Congress.

Act Seven

MaryEllen Bowman tells Ira about celebrating her 22-year-old daughter Rachel Hala’s baby shower this week. A year ago, she says, she was planning her daughter’s funeral instead.

Act Two: 21 Chump Street

At three high schools in Palm Beach County, Florida, several young police officers were sent undercover to pose as students, tasked with making drug arrests. And this, this is the setting for a love story, reported by Robbie Brown.

Act Two: In Country, In City

For decades, the writer Alex Kotlowitz has been writing about the inner cities and the toll of violence on young people. So when he heard about a program at Drexel University where guys from the inner city get counseling for PTSD, he wondered if the effect of urban violence was comparable to the trauma that a person experiences from war.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass tells the story of Florencia de Benito Juarez, a small town in Mexico where a new drug gang recently took over. They promised peace and tranquility, and for the most part, they're making good on those promises.

Act One: Part One

Ira reports from Glynn County Georgia on Superior Court Judge AmandaWilliams and how she runs the drug courts in Glynn, Camden and Waynecounties. We hear the story of Lindsey Dills, who forges two checks on herparents' checking account when she's 17, one for $40 and one for $60, andends up in drug court for five and a half years, including 14 months behindbars, and then she serves another five years after that—six months of itin Arrendale State Prison, the other four and a half on probation.

Act Two: Part Two

We hear about how Brandi Byrd and many other offenders end up in Judge Williams' drug court. One reason drug courts were created was to save money by incarcerating fewer people.

Act Three: Get Rich or Die Trying

Planet Money's Chana Joffe-Walt has this story about a really ambitious million dollar idea: Getting people to see the good side of death. Planet Money is a collaboration between NPR and This American Life.