The NY Times has a new piece on Suboxone. First, on its blockbuster status: Suboxone is the blockbuster drug most people have never heard of. Surpassing well-known medications like Viagra and Adderall, it generated $1.55 billion in United States sales last year, its success fueled by an exploding opioid abuse epidemic and the embrace of federal officials … Continue reading Addiction Treatment With a Dark Side
Category: Controversies
Who’s guarding the hen house?
From the NY Times: Addiction experts protested loudly when the Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new opioid painkiller last month, saying that it would set off a wave of abuse much as OxyContin did when it first appeared. An F.D.A. panel had earlier voted, 11 to 2, against approval of the drug, Zohydro, … Continue reading Who’s guarding the hen house?
a spectrum of apples, oranges, lemons, plums?
Howard Wetsman picks apart the spectrum approach of the DSM5 Making a spectrum out of the illnesses that have been put in the substance use category of DSM IV is like making a spectrum out of an apple, an orange, a lemon, a lime, a blue fruit (if there was one) and a plum. You’d … Continue reading a spectrum of apples, oranges, lemons, plums?
With Rise Of Painkiller Abuse, A Closer Look At Heroin
The number of people who had used heroin in the previous year increased between 2007 and 2012, from 373,000 to 669,000. Meanwhile, federal data from 2011 finds that nearly 80 percent of people who had used heroin in the past year had also previously abused prescription painkillers classified as opioids. via With Rise … Continue reading With Rise Of Painkiller Abuse, A Closer Look At Heroin
“The Situation” with PHARMA
Here are two sentence fragments (not taken out of context) from After Party Chat that show just how broken the pharmaceutical industry is: ...in 2012 Big Pharma spent 19 times as much on marketing as they did on research. ...Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is now shilling for Suboxone. It's hard to know where to start with … Continue reading “The Situation” with PHARMA
Binge drinking and rape
Slate has a point/counterpoint on the issue of alcohol and rape on college campuses that has gotten a lot of attention. Emily Yoffe, while placing blame on the rapists, points to binge drinking as an important risk factor for being raped. I don’t believe any of these statistics will move in the right direction until … Continue reading Binge drinking and rape
Addiction and quality of life
David Best recently wrote a piece on addiction and quality of life. On the role of community in recovery: At the heart of the recovery movement is a shift of emphasis away from “treatment” as a model reliant on professionally delivered interventions. Rather, the movement sees the recovery journey an intrinsically social process and … Continue reading Addiction and quality of life
No, Oreos are not as addictive as cocaine
Thank you, Stephanie Pappas from LiveScience! "The study performed cannot determine whether Oreos are as addictive as cocaine," said Edythe London, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who uses brain imaging to study the neural basis of drug cravings. "That question is best addressed in a comparison of how hard a rat will … Continue reading No, Oreos are not as addictive as cocaine
New drug bans
The European Union is banning menthol cigarettes. Are legalization advocates troubled by this? I'm asking sincerely. Same thing with K2 and Spice. They were banned in Michigan earlier this year, without protest. At what point does the conversation turn to the issue of eliminating restrictions on access to prescription drugs? If recreational use of pot … Continue reading New drug bans
Worth Every Penny?
Preventing HIV is a very good thing. The Atlantic has a post about the role of needle exchanges in preventing HIV. It makes a pretty compelling case that needle exchanges reduce HIV infection rates among injection drug users. I don't doubt this. And, provided it serves as an engagement point for recovery, I have no … Continue reading Worth Every Penny?
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