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Category: Opinions

  • 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…

  • Two Million Dollars a piece – The cost of drug use and violence

    The average cost to society of a lifelong criminal = About $2 million I’ll get into more of this in later posts (I already talked about the cost of addiction prevention versus treatment versus enforcement), but if that cost of drug use and violence doesn’t cry out for a better application of money to prevention…

  • Body image and medicalization: Socially relevant behavioral “addictions” beyond drug use

    We know that addiction can go beyond drug use, but are we becoming addicted to making our bodies perfect? I put “addiction” in parentheses here because I think it’s important to distinguish substance-related addictions from behavioral ones. There’s no doubt that people’s behavior can become compulsive in the same way addicts become compulsive about using,…

  • Sometimes it just takes blind faith – Depression and drug use

    I don’t normally like sharing this kind of stuff, but I think that if the point of the blog is be truthful, I need to cover all bases. When it comes to depression and drug use, I have personal experience with the connection. When depression hits – Drug use and self-medication I don’t always wake…

  • Alternatives to animal testing for drug safety come to the U.S.

    Here at A3 we’re not new to the animal research debate but we don’t feel as if we’re on the front lines either, especially after working along side researchers who get death threats, dangerous mailings, and Molotov cocktails thrown at their cars (see here for other article on animal research). Still, I know that my…

  • The forest and trees of addiction

    It’s unfortunate that some people look at substance abuse problems from their vantage point only – Everyone seems like them whether normal users, light abusers, abstainers, or hard-core alcoholics (recovered, recovering, or not). The world is full of individuals arranged in loosely associated groups. Unless one can acknowledge that real, important, and consequential differences exist,…

  • Busy, busy, busy – Nothing quiet on the All About Addiction front

    Okay, I feel like I’ve been slacking on the writing for A3 recently. After finally finishing my Doctorate at UCLA a little more than a month ago, things have been surprisingly hectic for me. In case you hadn’t read it here or on the Huffington Post, I’ve been getting a little more exposure recently, some…

  • Should all drugs be decriminalized? A UK debate

    Bob Ainsworth, a senior UK politician, calls for a policy of decriminalizing all drugs to replace the failing War on Drugs. What might a system of decriminalization look like and could decriminalization better place us to meet public health and crime targets than under the current system of prohibition?

  • Monitoring the Future by NIDA: Teen alcohol and drug use data from a national survey

    One of the perks of being an alcohol, drug use, and addiction researcher, as well as of writing for a website like this and Psychology Today, is that sometimes we get to talk to people that most can’t reach or to receive information that others might not have access to. NIDA‘s Monitoring the Future, a…

  • Recovery from addiction: Stigma and many obstacles, but no excuses!

    Many of the people in my life nowadays forget that I’m an ex-convict. Still, I get daily reminders that the “ex” part of convict doesn’t carry much weight. I also know that I have it easy because I have a Ph.D. after my name. For many others in recovery, things are even harder. Still, when…