Stories by Maia Szalavitz
Maia Szalavitz is a columnist at The Fix. She is also a health reporter at Time magazine online, and co-author, with Bruce Perry, of Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential—and Endangered (Morrow, 2010), and author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006).
Posted on Mar 31, 2012, Source: The Fix
Naloxone is a cheap, safe drug that could save countless people from overdosing on heroin and other opiates. So why isn't it in every first-aid kit?
Posted on Mar 12, 2012, Source: The Fix
Abuse of meds by America's teens has reached epidemic proportions. But if we're serious about keeping kids away from Oxy and Adderall, we need to get honest with them.
Posted on Jan 27, 2012, Source: The Fix
The media trumpets a crisis in Rx painkiller addiction, but only 1% of patients get hooked. The result? Doctors treat patients like addicts, while addicts escape responsibility.
Posted on Jan 9, 2012, Source: The Fix
Much of what is portrayed in the media as “professional treatment” isn’t based on evidence of what works and can lead to boundary violations and outright abuse.
Posted on Nov 30, 2011, Source: The Fix
America’s ambivalent relationship with drugs and medication pushes us to ignore critical differences between drugs, while failing to appreciate useful similarities.
Posted on Nov 7, 2011, Source: The Fix
With America facing the greatest income gap since the Great Depression, the largely unpublicized link between financial inequality and drug addiction suggests big trouble ahead.
Posted on Jul 22, 2011, Source: The Fix
As the White House prepares to launch a billion-dollar anti-Oxy war, here are some crucial facts about who gets addicted—and why.
Posted on May 17, 2010, Source: William Morrow Press
What the social impulses of teenage girls may reveal about the development of altruism.
Posted on Nov 25, 2008, Source: Huffington Post
We can't ignore science like Bill Clinton did and install a drug czar who will ignore science and push dogma.
Posted on Jul 7, 2007, Source: Huffington Post
Over the GW takes us inside "tough love" teen programs which pose as rehabilitation clinics, but offer their patients steady physical abuse and humiliation.
Posted on Mar 14, 2007, Source: Huffington Post
Jailing Richard Paey for taking pain pills serves no one -- not taxpayers, not pain patients, and certainly not the image of America as a decent, humane country.
Posted on Sep 1, 2005, Source: STATS
Being labeled a 'meth baby' by the media can do more harm to children than the methamphetamine itself.
Posted on Apr 26, 2005, Source: STATS
What did the Partnership for a Drug Free America study really say about teens and prescription drug use?
Posted on Apr 19, 2005, Source: STATS
There's a lot to debate about teen drinking -- but you'd never know it from the way the issue is covered by news organizations like '60 Minutes.'
Posted on Mar 15, 2005, Source: STATS
Looking for misstatements, myths and outright errors about drug addiction and recovery? Watch CNN's 'House Call.'
Posted on Mar 8, 2005, Source: STATS
There's no evidence to support the Today show's claims that an increasing number of suburban moms are using methamphetamine.
Posted on Feb 15, 2005, Source: STATS
Despite The New York Times' bleak picture of addiction recovery, methamphetamine addicts have relapse rates no worse – and no better – than for those of any other drug.
Posted on Jan 5, 2005, Source: STATS
Why is the media still hyping an unproven and possibly deadly treatment for addiction?
Posted on Oct 6, 2004, Source: STATS
Pregnancy rates, STDs and abortions among young people are at record lows – so why does the media continue to insist that the teen 'hook up' is a new and alarming trend?
Posted on Sep 7, 2004, Source: Reason
Why are millions of Americans being undertreated for pain? Because prescription painkillers have become the new frontline in the 'drug war.'
Posted on Apr 8, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Partnerships between government agencies and the media could have the unintended result of teaching kids a lot more than the feds want them to know about drugs.
Posted on Feb 19, 2002, Source: AlterNet
By focusing on addiction treatment and prevention, Bush is doing exactly what Clinton did: talking treatment and funding law enforcement.
Posted on Oct 18, 2001, Source: AlterNet
When boomers did it, promiscuity was "free love," breaking the law was "questioning authority" and getting high was "mind expansion." But if their children dare experiment, it's off to boot camp or worse.
Posted on Oct 12, 2001, Source: AlterNet
Rapidly expanded maintenance prescribing could dramatically affect drug markets. But in order to work, such prescribing must be done right -- and in the right places.
Posted on Sep 4, 2001, Source: AlterNet
The drug reform movement is celebrating a few states' transition from incarceration to treatment for non-violent drug offenders, but the new programs may not help those who want it most.
Posted on Aug 27, 2001, Source: Village Voice
Net filtering software censors much more than sex and violence. It also blocks alternative political perspectives from reaching one-third of American households.
Posted on Aug 21, 2001, Source: Village Voice
Heroin use, and heroin overdoses, are on the rise. But the drug naloxone could save the life of an overdose victim with one harmless injection. Too bad users can't get access to it.
Posted on Aug 14, 2001, Source: AlterNet
A generation of crack users are beating their addictions by switching to marijuana, but cops still attack pot operations, driving up prices and steering users towards harder drugs.
Posted on Jul 25, 2001, Source: AlterNet
Boot-camp style drug treatment programs profess to help kids with addiction. Some describe their methods as torture.
Posted on Jul 17, 2001, Source: The American Prospect
Over the last 10 years, more than two dozen teenagers have died in so-called "tough love" programs. It's a result of the kind of deregulation Bush would have in all social services.
