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.
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.
More Americans now die from prescription pills than car accidents. The nation's response to the trend will define an era, but corporate influence threatens reform.
Phillip Smith, Drug War Chronicle. December 19, 2011.
Amnesty International has called on Iran to stop executing people for drug offenses, saying the Islamic Republic has embarked on "a killing spree of staggering proportions."
America’s ambivalent relationship with drugs and medication pushes us to ignore critical differences between drugs, while failing to appreciate useful similarities.
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.
In Zuccotti Park, occupiers do their best to handle drug use on their own terms, but it may stretch beyond their resources and give police an excuse to intervene.
After slapping additional time on Douglas' sentence, a clueless judge said he did not know drugs were available in prison. The author's own experience behind bars reveals reality.
An addict-turned-social worker explores the relationship between poverty and addiction, exposing how Medicaid cuts could have disastrous consequences on entire communities.
Scientists and sobriety veterans alike seem to agree that the addiction vaccine is an unachievable goal, but they also seem to disapprove of the dream itself.
Gretchen Burns Bergman, AlterNet. September 30, 2011.
Millions of women opposed alcohol prohibition because it was destroying lives and endangering their children. Now, they uniting to end the war on drugs
The DSM, a manual of mental disorders, will have the section "Addiction and Related Disorders," expanding what it means to be an addict and improving healthcare options.
Coffee does not make you "superhuman." The truth is that you become addicted to caffeine quickly, and soon you are drinking coffee to cure withdrawal more than for stimulation.
Jennifer Matesa, Jed Bickman, The Fix. August 18, 2011.
A sweeping new definition of addiction stakes out controversial positions that many, including the powerful psychiatric lobby, are likely to argue with.
Adriann Barboa, Micaela Cadena, Young Women United. March 30, 2011.
Treatment centers are at capacity, plus judges have no incentive, structure or support for alternatives to incarceration for drug use. Options are even worse for mothers.
Any doctor will tell you, there are no guarantees with addiction. All we can do is give people the best shot at treatment, and sadly, right now, our system is failing at that.
