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

If it wasn’t rational, cont’d

Yesterday I posted about a recent NY Times column arguing for a rational model of addictive drug use: “When they were given an alternative to crack, they made rational economic decisions.” … When methamphetamine replaced crack as the great drug scourge in the United States, Dr. Hart brought meth addicts into his laboratory for similar … Continue reading If it wasn’t rational, cont’d

What happened to the “crack babies”?

    Dirk Hansen reports the good news about "crack babies":   In a paper authored by Hurt, Laura M Betancourt, and others, the investigators write: “It is now well established that gestational cocaine exposure has not produced the profound deficits anticipated in the 1980s and 1990s, with children described variably as joyless, microcephalic, or unmanageable.” The authors do … Continue reading What happened to the “crack babies”?