War on Drugs

Review: This Podcast Details the Brutal Effects of the War on Drugs

Collateral Damage tells some of the many stories of drug enforcement gone wrong.

C.J. Ciaramella | From the April 2026 issue

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(Collateral Damage Podcast)

Collateral Damage, a new podcast at The Intercept hosted by criminal justice reporter Radley Balko, examines "the half-century-long war on drugs, its enduring ripple effects, and the devastating consequences of building a massive war machine aimed at the public itself."

The episodes detail tragic deaths and other injustices that directly resulted from that futile and dangerous war, such as the 2006 death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was shot and killed during a no-knock drug raid. Atlanta police claimed Johnston was a marijuana dealer who fired first at the cops. In reality, she fired one warning shot before being killed by a volley of gunfire. The officers were acting on an uncorroborated tip. When they realized what they'd done, they planted marijuana in her basement and tried to fabricate a drug buy to cover it up.

Longtime Reason readers might remember Balko, who wrote many investigations into police and prosecutor abuses for us in the 2000s and 2010s, including reporting on some cases the podcast features.

Time has not diminished the outrageousness of cases like Johnston's or the urgency of ending the war on drugs. Sadly, policymakers have yet to learn the lessons of Collateral Damage.

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C.J. Ciaramella is a reporter at Reason.

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