When Treatment Comes at the Cost of Freedom
Chapter Titles and Time Stamps
0:00 — Introduction
3:09 — What Is the MAT Program?
11:44 — Quest Diagnostics and the False Positive Issue
14:59 — How UnCommon Law Discovered the Problem
17:04 — Scale of the Impact
22:34 — Challenging False Positives
26:57 — How Records Affect Parole
30:17 — The Catch-22 at Parole Hearings
39:57 — Due Process Violations
43:19 — Human Impact on People and Families
47:11 — Accountability and What Needs to Change
In this episode I sat down with Natasha Baker, Supervising Attorney for Litigation and Policy at UnCommon Law, to examine a deeply troubling issue unfolding inside California prisons: the use of flawed drug test results to deny people parole.
We start with the basics — what the Medication-Assisted Treatment program is, who it serves, and why drug testing plays a role in it — before uncovering why those tests were never designed to be used as evidence of wrongdoing. Then we get into what happened when Quest Diagnostics produced a wave of false positives, how those inaccurate results made their way into parole hearings, and what it meant for people who had spent years working toward release.
This episode highlights how a clinical treatment tool becomes a punishment, and how medical errors can cost people their freedom.
Natasha Tavora Baker works as Supervising Attorney for Litigation and Policy, at Uncommon Law. Natasha holds a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, and a B.A. from Boston College. Natasha leads Uncommon Law’s strategic litigation and supports its policy efforts to address the arbitrariness of the parole hearing process.
Uncommon Law brings people serving life sentences home from prison by providing the legal, mental health, and rehabilitative support California’s parole process demands, and challenging a parole system that wasn’t built to recognize who they’ve become. Over nearly 20 years, 99% of the people they’ve helped come home have never returned to prison.
Links:
Medication Assisted Treatment and Parole in California State Prisons
Revealed: drug tests in California prisons yielded false positives, affecting thousands of people
Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein
Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam
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