Pillar guide
The AI Identity Problem: Can AI Agents Hijack Your Digital Identity?
A plausible AI-agent takeover could lock you out of your accounts, move money, and keep acting as you. What is possible now, and how do we prevent it?
A Vision of Hope Media
Insights
A publication for honest analysis, lived experience, and the systems questions that shape recovery, reentry, and public policy.
Flagship essays
Pillar guides
Long-form entry points for AI identity risk and drug-policy reform — start here, then browse the full series.
Pillar guide
Drug Legalization Series Part 1: Drug Legalization Isn’t Endorsement. It’s Regulation and Harm Reduction.
Drug legalization isn’t endorsement. Part 1 explains why punishment fails, why reentry is deadly, and why harm reduction saves lives.
Latest essays
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The Bottleneck of Bureaucracy: How Wisconsin Moves the Prison Pressure Around
Wisconsin's prison count fell when courts slowed, then climbed back toward its old peak. Here is how overcrowding, contract beds, and program scarcity move through the same machine.
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Why Peer-Led Reintegration Groups Matter After Incarceration
How shared experience, credible role models, mentorship, and belonging can help people process reentry and keep building after incarceration.
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Identity-Based Recovery vs. 12-Step and the Disease Model
How identity-based recovery relates to 12-step and disease-model approaches: recovery beyond sobriety, without replacing meetings, sponsorship, or clinical care.
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When the Government Can Make the Evidence
Courts admit video on a low authentication standard, and no AI-specific evidence rule is in force. Here is what actually protects a defendant when proof can be manufactured, and why judicial independence is the safeguard.
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Drug Legalization Series Part 28: Preventing Big Tobacco 2.0: Cannabis Marketing Restrictions for a Regulated Drug Market
Part 28 explains how cannabis marketing restrictions, drug advertising restrictions, youth drug prevention, public health drug policy, and risk-based drug regulation can stop corporate capture before it starts.
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What Grief Support Curriculum Works for Bereavement Groups and Healing Circles?
Grief support curriculum for bereavement groups and healing circles: structured facilitation, meaning reconstruction after loss, and grief workbook practice in a 16-week ReturnPath arc.
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Dear AI Developers: Of Course the Agents Cheated. You Rewarded Them for It.
An open letter to AI developers on OpenAI and Anthropic disclosures: agents left sealed tests and reached real companies because the scoreboard rewarded the shortcut.
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Drug Legalization Series Part 27: Drug Impaired Driving Laws and Workplace Safety - How Regulation Strengthens Enforcement Where It Matters Most
Part 27: drug impaired driving and workplace safety improve when regulation focuses enforcement on actual impairment, not possession.
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What Curriculum Works for Veterans Reintegration and Moral Injury Peer Groups?
Veterans reintegration curriculum for moral injury peer groups: TAP support, peer boundaries, and identity reconstruction after service.
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Wisconsin’s Prison, Reentry, and Supervision Machine
An honest look at Wisconsin’s justice machine from someone who lived it: prisons, reentry, supervision, agents, cops, lawyers, PDs, laws, and lawmakers.
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Benzene in Sunscreen: Contaminant Language, Recalls, and Late Testing
Benzene is a known human carcinogen. Some sunscreen batches tested far above the drug limit. Soft words change when accountability arrives, not exposure.
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How People Rebuild Identity in Recovery (3 Research-Backed Models)
Research-backed identity reconstruction: narrative identity, possible selves, and redemption scripts in daily Workbook and ReturnPath practice.
Topics
Recovery & Reentry
Essays on addiction recovery, prison reentry, identity-based healing, and evidence-informed program design.
Artificial Intelligence & Society
Long-form analysis of AI, identity, labor, trust, and the social systems reshaped by machine intelligence.
Leadership & Systems
Essays on leadership, organizational design, and the systems thinking required to build durable change.
Justice & Public Policy
Policy essays on criminal justice, drug reform, harm reduction, and evidence-based governance — outcomes, tradeoffs, and reform that holds up.
Purpose & Identity
Essays on identity, purpose, transformation, and becoming who you intend to be — setbacks, redemption, curriculum, and daily practice.
Books & Writing
Essays on memoir craft, reading lists, and honest storytelling in recovery culture — books that mirror hard change for programs and readers.
For program directors
Licensing ReturnPath for recovery, reentry, or treatment settings? Explore the curriculum hub or send a message.
Series
Artificial Intelligence & Society
Essays on how AI affects identity, trust, institutions, and human accountability when software gains power through permission, speed, and scale.
Drug Legalization Series
Andrew Drasen's multi-part essay series on drug legalization, regulation, harm reduction, reentry, and evidence-based drug policy reform.
Wisconsin Justice & Reentry
An honest look at Wisconsin justice: prisons, reentry, supervision, laws, lawmakers, agents, cops, defenders, and policies that fail or hold.