The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs

by Kojo Koram

A gripping global investigation into the future of drugs—who profits, who suffers, and what comes after the War on Drugs

From America’s plantation-turned-prison at Angola to Silicon Valley’s psychedelic boom, The Next Fix tracks a seismic shift in global drug policy. Kojo Koram—legal scholar and acclaimed author of Uncommon Wealth—travels across five continents to uncover how criminalized substances are being rapidly rebranded as commodities in a new, billion-dollar industry. Cannabis dispensaries now trade in what once led to life sentences. Psychedelics are the darlings of biotech. But for many, the old world hasn’t ended: prisons still swell with the poor, and enforcement falls hardest along lines of race and class.

This is not a polemic for or against legalization. It is a powerful, clear-eyed reckoning with how we got here—and what kind of future we are building in a world hooked not only on drugs, but on economic “fixes” of every kind. Combining reportage, political analysis and vivid personal testimony, The Next Fix tells the untold story of drugs, capitalism and inequality in the 21st century.

Genres: Drugs, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

Published July 28, 2026

Reviews

[Louis Collier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometime over the last 20 years, I stopped wondering *whether* drugs would be legalised, and started wondering *when* they would be. Kojo Koram makes a compelling case that in 2026, the most pressing question we must add to the list is “How might, and how *should*, any potential legalisation occur?”

“The Next Fix” provides clear and well-argued answers to these questions, while also making sure the stories of those most affected by the war on drugs are placed front and centre (sometimes quite movingly so). It’s an excellent, up-to-date take on the subject, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in drug policy.

[Eleanor Shearer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kojo Koram is such a fantastic and compelling storytelling and covers his subject matter with admirable breadth, empathy, and is detailed and specific without losing sight of the broader political economic context that haunts so much of the "war on drugs"

[Frank Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A necessary if terminally received appreciation of centuries of work. You’d wish for answers, but you can’t get that from any work trying to analyze post-capitalist noise. What this really is is a documentation of where we stand in a society that no longer cares about reparations or even, at the least, the repercussions of the violence inflicted by capitalism. It’s an excellently researched and thoughtfully//considered examination of where we stand with drug culture that doesn’t need but doesn’t doubt a way forward.

Thank you to Verso and NetGalley for the free advance electronic copy of this book.