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Addiction Treatment Admissions in the United States: Everyone, meet TEDS
Dirk Hanson What a difference a decade makes. Between 1998 and 2008, addiction treatment admissions in the U.S. increased markedly for methamphetamine (crystal meth), prescription opiates, and marijuana. Treatment admissions for alcohol and cocaine declined over the same period, while heroin admissions remained roughly the same. The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), which the Substance…
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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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About Addiction: Prescription drugs, Alcohol prices, and prevention among teens
You know you care about addiction, and you know you love reading addiction news and research – A3 does it all for you and gathers things up in a nice little package we call our weekly “about addiction” post. It’s the fastest way to get the information you want, even if you didn’t know it…
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About Addiction: DUI, Psychedelics, Smoke, and the Brain!
You know it and love it – here is our weekly post about addiction research, news, and more interesting tidbits from the wonderful world of the internet. I guarantee you’ll know more about addiction, drugs, and the brain, after reading it! DUI because you think you’re sober? Check your BAC Science Daily– A study found that…
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Hold that needle: Acupuncture for holistic addiction treatment?
Acupuncture treatment is supposed to help heal numerous conditions including cancer, depression, and more. Well, when it comes to addiction treatment, poking with needles seems to provide pretty mixed results. Holistic addiction treatment – Addiction research fact or fiction? The use of holistic addiction treatment methods, especially ones that originate in disciplines outside of Western…
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Addicts’ brains depressed but normal users… normal.
A paper that’s about to be published in the journal Science has found at least part of the difference between the brains of addicted individuals and those that use recreationally. The question as to why only some people get addicted to drugs has been a difficult one to answer. Still, there’s no doubt that only…
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The brain after cocaine – White matter damage and addiction treatment
The brain damage left behind after long-term cocaine use can apparently tell us quite a bit about how well a cocaine addict will do in addiction treatment – as long as we assess the right kind of damage. Different kinds of brain matter I’ve talked before about the fact that use of cocaine, and other…
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They do it in the movies!!! Smoking, teens, and being cool
Contributing co-author: Jamie Felzer Celebrities get their fair share of flack for inappropriate behavior on screen. Only recently, research regarding the effects of onscreen violence, even in cartoons, making youngsters act more aggressively made some serious noise. So what about smoking? If kids see their favorite stars smoking cigarettes in films, would they be more…
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Helping Addicts with medications for cravings
If we could make it so drug addicts could stop craving the substances that have brought them to their knees, would relapse rates drop and addiction-treatment success rates soar? I sure hope so! Medications that stop cravings? I’ve already written about a study by the renowned addiction researcher Barry Everitt showing that medications could be…