Mark Kleiman shares typically thoughtful and serious thoughts about legalizing cannabis. Too bad thoughtful and serious is so rare where cannabis policy is concerned. 2. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. Cannabis legalization will reduce criminal revenue, intrusive enforcement, arrest, incarceration, and disorder around illicit markets, and enhance personal liberty, consumer choice, and respect for the … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
Category: Controversies
“The only thing we heard was . . . that medication is the answer”
I recently posted on the potential harms of overtreating ADHD and its overdiagnosis. Now, the NY Times reports on problems with a study that provided the foundation for the explosion on stimulant treatment for ADHD. Twenty years ago, more than a dozen leaders in child psychiatry received $11 million from the National Institute of Mental Health … Continue reading “The only thing we heard was . . . that medication is the answer”
Why FULL recovery should ALWAYS be our goal
Yesterday, we shared Bill White's views on the dangers of under-treating addiction. Today, we have Viktor Frankl on the importance of high expectations and addressing the need for meaning and purpose in the lives of people we're helping. If we overestimate man...we promote him to what he really can be. ... We have to be … Continue reading Why FULL recovery should ALWAYS be our goal
The Unintended Consequences Of Medical “Maximalism”
The Health Affairs blog questions the American Heart Association's maximalist approach with the use of statins. The issues sound familiar. The policy implications of these guidelines are staggering. Estimates show that if these recommendations are fully implemented, close to a third of all Americans will be placed on a statin. But these developments beg the … Continue reading The Unintended Consequences Of Medical “Maximalism”
Some things never really change
Salon recently posted a history of cocaine. Has PHARMA changed at all? For serious cocaine consumers, other products were also available in the late nineteenth century. Large drug companies such as Parke-Davis in Detroit also got into the cocaine game. They developed processes for the mass production of easily crystallizable and soluble salts like hydrochloride, which … Continue reading Some things never really change
The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
The NY Times on The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder: After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating. Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs … Continue reading The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
Buprenorphine Overseas
“The history of the treatment of narcotic withdrawal is a long and dishonorable one. The trail is strewn with cures enthusiastically received and then quietly discarded when they turned out to be relatively ineffective or even worse, productive of greater morbidity and mortality… Any claim for a new method should be put forward modestly and … Continue reading Buprenorphine Overseas
Sentences to ponder
"If alcohol policies were a newly discovered gene, pill or vaccine, we'd be investing billions of dollars to bring them to market," - Dr. Tim Naimi
Treat The Symptoms Or The Cause?
This article was a good reminder that we're not the only profession struggling with whether harm-reduction should be the de facto treatment. However, it's worth noting that the statement here ("cut in half") provides considerably more information than most addicts get. A huge new study out today in The Lancet shows that reducing three … Continue reading Treat The Symptoms Or The Cause?
“Recovery High” a Respite for Young Addicts
Maybe this is a better way to address pediatric addiction? Called The Bridge Way School, the specialized high school in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia focuses on getting teenagers back on track with their education and lives after exiting rehab. It is the only school of its kind in the region – one of only … Continue reading “Recovery High” a Respite for Young Addicts
Recovery Review 