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Recovery = Abstinence… Or not
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) just release a new definition of “recovery” from mental health and addiction: A process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential. I’ll give you 10 seconds to find a key missing ingredient…
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U.S. Drug overdose deaths are increasing
The second leading cause of accidental death in the US is drug overdose (JAMA 2007). Prescription painkiller overdose deaths (opioid analgesics like OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone) account for nearly half of the 36,450 total fatal overdoses with 15,000 deaths that have claimed a number of celebrity lives including famous actor Heath Ledger (CDC 2011). With…
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About Addiction: Drug Withdrawal in Newborns, Heroin, and Harm Reduction
There’s so much to learn about addiction nowadays – Psychological theories, new stories, neuroscience research, and more. At All About Addiction we try to make the information easy to digest, so when you need to sort of the latest information about addiction, come see us, we’ll help. Harm reduction – Heroin and Injecting Drugs Irish…
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Global Commission on Drug Policy: Legalization, decriminalization, and the war on drugs
A commission made up of some big names, though not really any names of addiction or drug researchers I noticed, just released a report that’s making a lot of noise throughout every news channel including NPR (see here, and here for stories) and others (see CNN). They want the debate about the current state of…
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Harm reduction – Why the bad press for addiction treatment that works?!
How many of you think that giving a crystal meth user condoms will increase their drug use? Probably not many. What if instead the question had to do with giving that same user clean needles rather than having them share a dirty one? Or having him reduce his drug use instead of stopping completely? I…
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Releasing the motivation bottleneck – Helping addicts by making recovery easier
My friend Patrick as SpiritualRiver reminded me of an issue that I think is somewhat obvious to many drug addiction researchers but may not be to others. The way I see it, there is a specific reason behind much of the research into medications, or other interventions, that will help drug addicts in their transition…
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Black tar heroin – Pure Death
Back in the 70s, heroin was mostly filler, and the good stuff was 5% pure or so. Nowadays a new, more potent, version of the stuff is killing people all around the country with widely varying purities as high as 90%. What makes black tar dangerous When heroin was weak, shooting it was the best…
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About Addiction: Drug use, Addiction Recovery, and smoking
We’re back with our weekly post about addiction news and research. We’ve got harm reduction in Australia, heroin ads that don’t work, the impact of drug abuse on children, and more. Get your 30 seconds of education for the day. Using Drugs – Heroin, HIV, the law, and recovery The Australian– There is a state…
