Presenting: Drug Story - On Xanax and Anxiety

This episode comes to you from the new podcast Drug Story, which investigates the origins, workings and cautionary tales behind today's medical interventions. In this episode, host Thomas Goetz investigates the rise of Xanax, a drug used to treat anxiety that has become one of the world's most counterfeited and abused drugs. What happens when a drug works too well, and how do we manage anxiety in an environment that seems to fuel it? Listen to Drug Story wherever you get your podcasts. This episode mentions death by suicide. If you are suffering emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, support is available - for example, from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US, or the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123.

You can listen to Presenting: Drug Story - On Xanax and Anxiety online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Presenting: Drug Story - On Xanax and Anxiety is an episode from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford by Pushkin Industries.

This episode is 46:28 long.

This episode was published on Mar 20, 2026.

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