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The Myth Of “Loss of Control” As A Scientific Truth Of Addiction
All About Addiction aims to be a place where an open conversation about issues relevant to addiction can be discussed. To that end, the following is a piece from Christopher Russell that challenges the notion that people in some way lose control over their behavior suggesting instead that their seemingly compulsive behavior is actually volitional.…
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Replacement therapy as addiction treatment – Why it makes sense
I’m a little sick and tired of hearing discussions that continuously talk about opiate replacement therapy (think methadone, suboxone, subutex) as not being true addiction treatment because those individuals are still using a drug. While some recent advances will hopefully allow more and more people to achieve medication assisted recovery through antagonist therapies (like naltrexone…
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Understanding addiction research will require us to argue our corner but be flexible to change corners.
Its great to be a part of A3, I hope you enjoy my first post.
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Biology versus Choice: Is a simple explanation of addiction enough?
At the recent Addictions conference, held in D.C. and sponsored by Elsevier, a well known academic publishing house, I got myself into one of those long debates with a fellow addiction researcher. The question we were debating was whether addiction is primarily biological or if it is mostly a matter of personal choice. We ran…
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Proposition 19 defeated – The false hope of change with young support for Prop 19
Well, no matter the hope for some before November 2nd, voters in California chose not to pass Prop 19 – the legislation that would have made that State the first in the Union to explicitly legalize the sale of marijuana within its borders. I’ve already said that I support the drug’s decriminalization, and I would…
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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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Proposition 19 – Marijuana legalization or nothing? The business of weed
On November 2nd, California voters will be asked to determine whether they’d like to change the legal status of marijuana, and for the first time ever, advocates of legalization may actually accomplish their goals. There are a number of reasons why a well-intentioned voter would choose legalization, from the potential billions of dollars in tax…
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Drug legalization – For, against, and in between options
A recent assembly bill in California is the latest legal proposal that the state begin to regulate, and collect taxes, on marijuana. This is one of the first bills for drug legalization we’ve had in a while. Most of my readers probably assume that I believe drugs have no place in our society, but this…