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Tag: policy

  • Drug Policy Alliance and the Recovery Movement

    I had the opportunity to sit on a panel today during a drug policy alliance session on the role of the recovery movement in drug policy discussions. While it was obvious that everyone on the panel could generally agree that the current U.S. policy when it comes to drug use, abuse, and addiction is not…

  • 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…

  • 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?

  • NIDA and ONDCP – American policy on addiction research

    At this year’s College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) Annual Meeting, I got to hear, and talk to, some of the most influential players in the American addiction research field. Here are a few highlights from their talks and our discussion: Dr. Nora Volkow of NIDA talked about a shift from Genome Wide Association…

  • Addiction stories: Alcohol, marijuana, crime, and John’s life

    The following story was shared by a young reader. I was first drawn to it because it mirrored mine to a large extent. Fortunately, John decided to pull out before he let his life go down as far as I allowed myself to go. For that, and for his courage in sharing his story, I applaud him. John’s…

  • Know before you speak – Why etiquette is important

    You know, I try to write this blog from a completely objective point of you, but guess what – I’m a person, so things take on a personal tone once in a while. There’s nothing I hate more than readers who come to this site, read a single post, and then decide they know who…

  • NY Times and Dr. McLellan – Two giants, great story about addiction

    When the NY Times picked a focus for their most recent story on addiction policy and research, they couldn’t have asked for a better representative than Dr. McLellan who after decades of addiction research is now helping to form U.S. drug policy. The man is one of my personal idols and believes, like I do, that…

  • About addiction: Animal research, food addiction, policy, and cocaine addiction

    Here are this weeks gems when it comes to learning about addiction. As usual, if you click this title’s post, you’ll get a list of our related post as a bonus! Adventures in Ethics and Science – A nice post about the current state of the animal-rights dialog Addiction Inbox – Mood Foods (and their…