Some think labelling it a disease is a helpful way to think about addiction; others think this makes the addict helpless in their fight against addiction. Two academics debate both sides of the coin.
What exactly is addiction? What role, if any, does choice play? And if addiction involves choice, how can we call it a “brain disease,” with its implications of involuntariness?
It’s not just energy-hungry pot farms: the ties between energy and drugs run deep. Can we develop a national drug policy drawing on the lessons of the domestic oil and gas boom?
We don’t know enough about the people who use painkillers non-medically to make the judgement that there is a natural transition from legal to illicit drug use.
Hoping to avoid the pitfalls and tropes of drug genre photography, documentary photographer Aaron Goodman spent a year following three addicts enrolled in a heroin-assisted treatment program.
Why have the demographics of heroin use changed so much? For that, we can look to dramatic increase in prescriptions for opioid painkillers, such as Oxycontin or Vicodin.
Teen drug abuse is a real problem with 46% of high school students hooked on some addictive substance. Recovery high schools are offering a new model of treatment.
Paul Hayes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
You would be forgiven for thinking that Russell Brand, that radical left-winger and advocate of revolution, and Iain Duncan Smith, Conservative secretary of state for work and pensions, didn’t have anything…