George Will recently wrote a column on drug policy:The Economist magazine says this means that more than 200 million people -- almost 5 percent of the world's adult population -- take illegal drugs, the same proportion as a decade ago. The annual U.S. bill for attempting to diminish the supply of drugs is $40 billion. … Continue reading A reality check on drug use

Not sure what to make of this:Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The … Continue reading Bacon, cheesecake and Ho Hos, oh my!

A brief history of scholastic inebriation (Too bad they missed Robert Smith whose U of M fraternity brothers called his father to fetch him because his drinking was out of hand.)Claims injection site dropped Downtown Eastside crime 'very much exaggerated,' say copsBattling Addiction With Those Who Know It Best New UK study suggests minimal relationship … Continue reading Tab dump

The Big Picture sets its lens on drug use across the globe.

Chuck Lane writes a two post take down on medical marijuana. As turned off as I am by anything that includes the word "druggie", he more or less states my position. Personal drug possession should be among the lowest enforcement priorities and should not result in incarceration. If there is or was a legitimate medical … Continue reading Medical Marijuana Take Down

An emerging market.

I wonder what this means for addiction recovery and treatment messaging: A study that will appear in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health tracked the ways in which party affiliation related to people's responses to identical information on diabetes. Participants in the study read a mock news article on the American … Continue reading Same info, different reactions

The LA Times paints a pretty sympathetic picture of Project Prevention, a program that pays addicticted women to get themselves sterilized or use long term birth control. It closes with the following:Project Prevention makes sense to me. Although a few thousand IUDs might not make a dent in the problem, the bluntness of the gesture … Continue reading A tough approach to drug-using mothers

Cocaine Vaccine for the Treatment of Cocaine Dependence in Methadone-Maintained PatientsCocaine use doubles in Mexico in six yearsThe genetics of addiction