Dr. Gabor Maté doesn’t sound like most drug addiction experts you’ve probably heard, and that may be because he works at Insite: the only supervised drug injection site in North America.

Based on a combination of those experiences and the latest in addiction medical research, Dr. Maté speaks here for almost an hour about where addiction comes for and what it really means in a person’s daily life. The Wire does an amazing job covering the sociological and political functions of the drug ecosystem, but where it sometimes falls short is in the psychology of drug abuse.

That’s where Dr. Maté comes in. While some of his theses may be controversial (e.g. many of these addicts are simply self-medicating conditions like depression or ADHD), he backs them up with solid reportage from the field and a lucid explanation of the neurochemical mechanisms of addiction.

If you enjoyed The Wire - and are fascinated to find out how season 3 would work out in the real world - I would recommend you listen. It seems like they recorded the radio broadcast rather than simply the speech itself, so it is occasionally interrupted for brief promos and program IDs.