A provocative take on the nicotine replacement therapy as a smoking cessation strategy. The website has a strong bias for quitting smoking cold turkey, but this seems well sourced. Well worth the time it takes to read it. I'd love to see a retort. Highlights here:Surveys from California (2003), Minnesota (2002), Quebec (2004), London (2003), … Continue reading Is the U.S. Government’s Quitting Policy Killing Smokers?

NAADAC has developed a voter's guide so that you can find out how your elected officials have voted on legislation that impacts treatment and recovery.

From Scotland:The study, by Glasgow University’s Centre for Drug Misuse Research, has shown that the vast majority of addicts on the £6.5m-a-year heroin-replacement programme are still taking illegal drugs years later. According to the study, which followed 695 drug users from 33 addiction centres across Scotland, 97% were still taking methadone or illegal drugs three … Continue reading Methadone programme fails 97% of heroin addicts – U.K.

SAMHSA reports that:Misuse of prescription drugs is second only to marijuana as the nation’s most prevalent drug problem, and the annual average number of people using pain relievers non-medically for the first time exceeds the number of new marijuana users according to a study released today by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration … Continue reading New Nonmedical Users of Prescription Pain Relievers Outnumbered New Marijuana Users

STATS.org weighs in on the Wall Street Journal's criticism of the Cochrane Collaboration's recent review of research on 12 step facilitation (TSF). In my opinion, the STATS author has a bias against 12 step recovery and specialty addiction treatment. (I'll acknowledge a bias in favor of both.) Some examples:Her statement about 12 step "baggage". Her … Continue reading Is AA Effective?: Wall Street Journal vs Cochrane Collaboration

The CBC reports:An unpalatable additive is being added to computer dusting products in an attempt to discourage aerosol inhalant abuse, a consumer electronics company announced Thursday.This is interesting because just yesterday I received an email pointing out that youtube.com has a lot of videos of kids using this stuff to get high.

A PIRE study found that:Researchers studied 227 recovering alcoholics following treatment, and found that greater attendance of AA or other meetings resulted in improved rates of abstinence or in less intensive alcohol consumption in the event of relapse. These beneficial effects were not influenced by gender, religious preferences, psychiatric disorders or whether the patient had … Continue reading AA and other meetings benefit variety of alcoholics

Another study on the effects of alcohol on adolescents:Whereas brain development during adolescence may initially serve to "safeguard" youth from certain effects of alcohol such as intoxication and hangover, it will also likely make them more vulnerable to the longer-term effects of alcohol. Even though the adolescent brain has the capacity to adapt to an … Continue reading Adolescent Brains Are Insensitive To Alcohol For A Short Time, But At Great Cost

Suprising findings from another new study:...researchers found that smokers admitted to the ICU who received nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) during their stay had a higher risk of death than smokers who did not receive NRT.

From a new study:More than 75% of college students who reported using prescription stimulants illicitly last year chose amphetamine-dextroamphetamine products, like Adderall, over methylphenidate products, like Ritalin. ... the primary motives for illicit use were to enhance academic performance, while less than a third of illicit users intended to get high or experiment with these … Continue reading College Kids Choose Adderall over Ritalin for Illicit Use