grumblebee's post about cell size and scale the other day was quite fascinating. Pulling back to the home for that site, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah delivers educational materials on genetics, bio-science and health topics ranging from stem cells to gene therapy, and from epigenetics to heredity. Explore the neurobiology of normal and addicted brains and the genetic contribution to this chronic disease.
posted by netbros on Oct 31, 2009 - 4 comments

Here's a strange one for the books: Science has taken notice that a really, really LARGE proportion of schizophrenic patients smoke. In fact, Scientific American Mind reports that an average of 85% of schizophrenic patients smoke cigarettes compared to only 20% in the general population. Many schizophrenics also appear to have abnormal thermoregulation, an impaired ability to understand body language, an inability to perceive an optical illusion called "the hollow mask illusion," an impaired ability to produce a brain protein known as the muscarinic M1 receptor, and an abnormally large number of genetic mutations known as CNV's or "copy number variations."
posted by mdpatrick on Sep 29, 2009 - 65 comments

Seeking - How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting.
posted by nickyskye on Sep 6, 2009 - 40 comments

The first ever North American study into prescribing diamorphine to addicts was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. And the outcomes are positive. This is the latest in a growing line of research studies into diamorphine prescribing. The Netherlands and Switzerland have both completed major studies that showed extremely positive outcomes in treatment resistant populations. Germany has recently begun a study along these lines, and a British study is about to report it's outcomes any minute now.

How often must a positive outcome be replicated before something becomes part of mainstream treatment provision?
posted by PeterMcDermott on Aug 20, 2009 - 56 comments

What happened to the Trainspotting generation? Heroin and Scotland: the relationship continues.
posted by peacay on Aug 16, 2009 - 51 comments

On 200 mg a day of baclofen, in an important meeting with several associate deans of my college and three new department chairs (I was made chair of my philosophy department just a few weeks before I tried to commit suicide), I fell asleep with my head on the conference room table and, for 40 minutes, everyone was too embarrassed to wake me. Somnolence is the most obvious and inconvenient side effect of baclofen. I reduced my dosage to 100 mg a day, and started taking it only at bedtime. A few days later, a colleague asked if I had changed my medicine. ‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Why do you ask?’ She is German, an analytic philosopher, and therefore very direct: ‘You are drooling less than you were.’

My Life as a Drunk is a searingly honest essay by novelist and philosophy professor Clancy Martin about his experiences with alcoholism, AA, valium and baclofen.
posted by Kattullus on Jul 1, 2009 - 46 comments

"The 2000 census found that nearly 23 percent of families living in Letcher County, KY, fell below the poverty line. The median household income in most counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making on average $12,000 a year." The White Family by Carl Kiilsgaard [more inside]
posted by saturnine on Jun 23, 2009 - 45 comments

Are US tobacco companies conspiring to make tobacco more addictive through additives or aren't they? Ever since the first reports published in 1999, this has been debated off and on for years as the tobacco lobby defended itself against allegations of racketeering and outright lies. Recently they lost the case. But the question of American cigarettes being more addictive than others still remains unsettled.
posted by infini on Jun 11, 2009 - 16 comments

What is the best way to respond to your son's drug addiction?
Write a book? No!
Write two books? Yes?

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines [more inside]
posted by andoatnp on May 11, 2009 - 35 comments

The novlist Julie Myerson has written a book, The Lost Child, about her son's addiction to cannabis, the violent behaviour she says this caused and her tough love policy. Extract. Her son is angry that she's published it, and says his parents over-reacted: "I wasn't doing anything that most other teenagers do, but such was their naive terror of drugs they were acting like six-year-olds". It comes out through MumsNet that Julie Myerson was the anonymous author of a Guardian column, "Living with Teenagers," which described her children's behaviour candidly without their knowledge. Extract. Myerson first denied this. The Guardian discusses whether it was right to publish the columns. Myerson is interviewed about whether she was right to publish The Lost Child. Her partner, and son's father, Jonathan Myerson supports her: This is an emergency. Her son says she's addicted to writing. [more inside]
posted by paduasoy on Mar 15, 2009 - 160 comments

In a recent report for the Abell Foundation, University of Maryland Criminologist Peter Reuter asks whether, in light of the evidence from Switzerland, The Netherlands and elsewhere, Baltimore might not be the best place to try the first US heroin maintenance programme?
posted by PeterMcDermott on Feb 28, 2009 - 17 comments

Addiction: thousands of studies have been done claiming that it is a disease, often using rats in isolated cages with a bar-press system of delivery, showing they will repeatedly get high even if it means starving to death. Bruce Alexander was a skeptic, questioning the ecological validity of all such results: "They were said to prove that these kinds of dope are irresistible, and that’s it, that’s the end of the addiction story right there," and after delivering one particularly fruitless seminar in 1976, he decided to build Rat Park to conduct his own studies... [more inside]
posted by tybeet on Feb 12, 2009 - 47 comments

According to legend, Einstein was eating chocolate when he came upon the theory of relativity. These sites are all about chocolate and candy in general. Chocolate Obsession. Hyperbole? Maybe. Just a little. Ok, a lot. Chocolate does have a lot to offer, though. It is a one of a kind food characterized by a truly unique and intense flavor. The idea of Jim's Chocolate Mission came after a discussion with friends about the greatest chocolate bar. Was is the Wispa? Galaxy? Clark? The Chocolate Review is most likely to review English chocolate because that's where they're from, but they also do imports. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Feb 8, 2009 - 39 comments

In December 2003, Brent Cambron gave himself his first injection of morphine. Save for the fact that he was sticking the needle into his own skin, the motion was familiar--almost rote. Over the course of the previous 17 months, as an anesthesia resident at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Cambron had given hundreds of injections.

- Going Under by Jason Zengerle of The New Republic [print version] is heartbreaking article about the high rates of drug addiction among anesthesiologists. It tells the story of Brent Cambron and his spiral into addiction. His live was also sensitively chronicled in The Boston Globe by Keith O'Brien in Something, anything to stop the pain [print version]. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Jan 9, 2009 - 96 comments

French Doctor Finds Cure for Alcoholism in a Pill, Causing a Stir. Having himself suffered from dipsomania, Dr. Olivier Ameisen, claims in his book, Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass), that the muscle relaxant bacloflen suppressed his craving for alcohol, curing his alcoholism. A top cardiologist in France, and doctor to a former French PM, Ameisen has called for clinical trials to verify his bold claim, while causing some in the field to accuse him of irresponsibility for suggesting alcoholism can be cured by a pill, although other pills are in the works.
posted by Azaadistani on Dec 6, 2008 - 54 comments

Do you have a yearning to be online? Do you suffer from difficulty concentrating or sleeping, irritation, or mental or physical distress? According to doctors in China, you might have an internet addiction. [more inside]
posted by DiscourseMarker on Nov 10, 2008 - 25 comments

"I'll argue for the sake of arguing that we as human beings have a finite supply of attention for ambient awareness of things around the world.... And the fact that I know just a little bit too much about popular television due to twitter has to be responsible for some other deficit in my life..." Twitter zero: One man's experiment in staying connected to the public-soundbite world without becoming overwhelmed by it.
posted by ardgedee on Oct 8, 2008 - 10 comments

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."
posted by homunculus on Aug 12, 2008 - 25 comments

Getting Off The Mat - After losing 15 years of his life to drug addiction and prison, Richard Jensen was reborn as a 36-year-old college wrestler.
posted by thisisdrew on Aug 4, 2008 - 15 comments

The Coffee Junkie’s Guide to Caffeine Addiction. Caffeine's a hell of a drug. In fact, it's the world's most popular psychoactive drug. And more and more of us are getting hooked on the stuff. [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat on Jul 22, 2008 - 144 comments

Josh Hamilton was destined to be an all-star baseball player, selected by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the #1 draft pick in the 1999 MLB draft. By 2002, though, he was a bust, beset by injuries, spending his days downing an entire bottle of Crown Royal and snorting cocaine. [more inside]
posted by dw on Jul 6, 2008 - 39 comments

According to a new report, children in Sweden are becoming increasingly concerned by their parents' internet habits. "This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what's important to me. And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing. I'm not doing so well." Dr Jerald Block from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is pushing for internet addiction (and its three subtypes: excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations and e-mail/text messaging) to be included as a common disorder in the next update of the DSM (DSM-V). "The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer... It's much more acceptable for kids to talk about game use, whereas adults keep it a secret. Rather than having sex, or arguing with their wife or husband, or feeding their children, these adults are playing games..."
posted by chuckdarwin on Jun 26, 2008 - 66 comments

The Drug Addiction Paradox "The plants should never have developed toxins that reward animals for eating them, and humans should never have developed a reward mechanism for toxic plants"... De-evolution or Idiotic Design? [more inside]
posted by wendell on Apr 17, 2008 - 65 comments

"By their drugs shall ye know them." I always thought that nootropics would change the face of the academy, but it turns out scholars are getting high on Adderall. Is that so bad? Well, it's an addictive amphetamine, and it's supposedly cheating when students to take advantage of chemical assistance. Plus, boredom is good for you. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea on Mar 12, 2008 - 76 comments

Arelia Margarita Taveras “made a name for herself representing the families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City's borough of Queens in November 2001, killing 265 people.^#+ Her practice had 400 clients and earned her $500,000 a year.” She claims that she sought to relieve the pressures of her work by gambling in Atlantic City and Las Vegas over the past few years. She lost $1 million and was disbarred as a result of stealing money from clients [PDF] in order to support her gambling addiction. Taveras also lost her own home and that of her parents (who mortgaged it to support her debt). Taveras owes the IRS $58,000. In response she has filed a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, “claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.”
posted by ericb on Mar 9, 2008 - 94 comments

I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I didn't have headaches Wilco's Jeff Tweedy discusses his lifelong battle with migraines, panic attacks, depression, drug addiction, and the influences of all on his music.
posted by timsteil on Mar 8, 2008 - 15 comments

When the working poor turn to addictive drugs to manage pain so they can keep working, that's "moral weakness, not a public health problem.":

Every morning before sunup, Trapp drives 120 miles.... "This methadone makes you feel like a human being again," Trapp says. With disability rates as high as 37 percent in coal-mining areas such as Buchanan County, the region has many people with long-term pain management needs. As is the case with lots of aging miners, Trapp's addiction to pills began in a doctor's office, not a back-alley drug deal.... The clinic's counseling staff members say that many patients need to be on some sort of drug to cope with severe, long-term pain and that methadone has made them functional. And for those who lack insurance or access to more personalized care, it is often the only affordable option.

[more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Jan 15, 2008 - 44 comments

Cocaine vaccine in the works [more inside]
posted by selfmedicating on Jan 5, 2008 - 44 comments

Sad, head-down legendary jazz piano. (Single-link YouTube) More Bill and the Wiki. [Previously] Hopefully more of a reminder than a double.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Oct 25, 2007 - 37 comments

Alexyss Tylor was right! Semen is a powerful drug. (Fairly SFW, text-only link.)
posted by Brittanie on Jul 18, 2007 - 58 comments

Recognizing Pain Management as a Fundamental Human Right. These pieces from the journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society argue that under-treated chronic pain is becoming a public health crisis which must be addressed. But a warning to pain doctors in the U.S. who prescribe opioids in doses that seem high to narcotics agents and prosecutors: “Be afraid.” [Via Hit & Run and TalkLeft.]
posted by homunculus on Jul 8, 2007 - 69 comments

Unusual ways of getting high: deliberately being bitten on the tongue by a cobra; injecting spider venom.
posted by nickyskye on May 11, 2007 - 36 comments

"Troy is only 8, but he knows the words to Yanguna, an Arnhem Land song celebrating kava. He sings in tune with Saltwater Band's anthem to the drug as the car bumps along the dirt track. Kava came to Arnhem Land 20 years ago as a ray of hope. Aboriginal community leaders believed the calming drink from the Pacific could be a peaceful alternative to alcohol, then raging through Aboriginal communities like a cyclone. But kava became just another abused substance.”
posted by jason's_planet on May 1, 2007 - 43 comments

Europeans love to bash American chocolate - especially Hershey's - almost as much as the like to bash, erm, America in general (apparently, it tastes like doggie treats). Recently, Big Chocolate have asked the FDA if they can stop using real cocoa butter in the chocolate-making process, which can only make it taste even worse. I often wonder how many so-called chocoholics know that most of the chocolate they eat was probably picked by slave labour in West Africa. Child slaves, even. Meh, they probably don't care: research indicates that chocolate is 'four times better than kissing'. Never trust a junkie.
posted by chuckdarwin on Apr 23, 2007 - 128 comments

XXXChurch.com At 8 o'clock on a recent Saturday morning, more than 250 men gathered at New Life Christian Church in Morton, Illinois, for a breakfast of porn and pancakes.
posted by theemperorhasnoclotheson on Apr 5, 2007 - 57 comments

China is taking steps to curb Internet addiction. This isn't the first time they have moved to regulate use. Are you addicted?
posted by Gnostic Novelist on Mar 12, 2007 - 26 comments

In 1971 Delancey Street began with four residents, a thousand dollar loan, and a dream to develop a new model to turn around the lives of substance abusers, former felons, and others who have hit bottom by empowering the people with the problems to become their own solution. With no professionals, no government funding, and at no charge to the clients, Delancey Street Foundation has rehabilitated and provided job skills to thousands of former drug addicts and criminals. They have a successful moving company, a well loved (although not necessarily critically acclaimed) restaurant, a thriving Christmas tree business, and a partnership with the local state university. Founded in the heady radical days of the early 70s, they've had a few bumps along the way, (cofounder John Maher died of a drug overdose) but they are one of the most well respected models for rehabilitation in the world. In recent news, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has been spending a lot of time there.
posted by serazin on Feb 25, 2007 - 24 comments

Chile Pepper's Lonely Endorphins Club Cinema: I, II, III

Can all this be explained by Dr. Paul Rozin's Benign Masochism / Constrained Risk theory? I, for one, am not buying it, but any way you slice it, hot cock sauce is here to stay.
posted by NaturalScinema on Feb 23, 2007 - 35 comments

Ryan Larkin [1943-2007]
posted by docgonzo on Feb 17, 2007 - 32 comments

Pr0n at Work = Addiction? Spawning from such cases as a recent lawsuit with IBM over employee termination due to online sex chatting at work, recent debate over whether Internet abuse is a legitimate addiction, akin to alcoholism, is heating up. Attorneys say recognition by a court—whether in this or some future litigation—that Internet abuse is an uncontrollable addiction, and not just a bad habit, could redefine the condition as a psychological impairment worthy of protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Businesses would be required to allow medical leave and provide counseling. The condition could even make it into the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's DSM, making it a full-blown neurosis. It wouldn't be a complete surprise, with a recent Stanford study showing that 14% of people state it would be "hard to stay away" from the net for a few days in a row.
posted by PreacherTom on Dec 14, 2006 - 49 comments

For most musicians, it's difficult to pinpoint a particular event that forever sullied their image and destroyed their popularity. For 80's rocker Billy Squier, however, the reason is clear. [YouTube]
posted by starkeffect on Aug 11, 2006 - 79 comments

Prolific Canadian Is King of Wikipedia Simon Pulsifer, posting as SimonP, is reported to be "the world's most prolific author on...Wikipedia,with 78,000 entries edited and 2,000 to 3,000 new articles to his name." Although highly regarded by his fellow Wikipedians, Pulsifer describes his 3- to 4-hour-a-day efforts as "an addiction".
posted by NYCinephile on Aug 6, 2006 - 28 comments

"Not today, sir, probably not tomorrow": Alternatively titled "Me and My Shadow, Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX"; the long, touching, interesting, hilarious, disturbing story of how 'Jay' kicked his drug habit, written by 'Silent Bob', aka Kevin Smith.
posted by docgonzo on Jul 20, 2006 - 101 comments

New research finds that the human brain registers the avoidance of an anticipated punishment in pretty much the same way as it registers a reward. (See this link for a less technical discussion of the research.) Do these findings suggest that the use of punishment as a deterrent to undesirable behavior in effect actually motivates the undesirable behavior (as opposed to the use of negative reinforcement, or in other words, the withholding of reward)? Do punishment-oriented models of socialization/behaviorial conditioning actually encourage cheating, by in effect selecting for better cheaters?
posted by saulgoodman on Jul 12, 2006 - 28 comments

The Australian cigarette health warnings have pretty much filtered down to every retail packet that's bought now. They're pretty gruesome and some smoking acquaintances cover them up with stickers. I thought I'd have a look around and see what other countries warnings were like. None of them were pulling any punches except for Uruguay.
posted by tellurian on May 17, 2006 - 118 comments

Remember life before the internet? How did anyone cope?
posted by Effigy2000 on Mar 30, 2006 - 107 comments

75 hard-core alcoholics to be offered apartments. Seventy-five alcoholics... are about to get an invitation to move into a new apartment building all their own on the edge of downtown Seattle. At tax payer's expense. What's different about this homeless shelter? The residents will be allowed to drink alcohol, provided they do it in their rooms. [.PDF]

"As much as we want it to work, the idea of asking a hard-core population of chronic alcoholics, for example, to put down the bottle before they get a set of apartment keys is unrealistic and impractical." Predictably, the project was not without opposition. [bugme]
posted by OpinioNate on Dec 19, 2005 - 85 comments

The Neopets Addiction: Neopets.com has a staggering 25 million members worldwide... Four out of five Neopians are under age 18, and two out of five are under 13... Neopets calls its model "immersive advertising... an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement."... Kalle Lasn, editor in chief of the advertising watchdog magazine Adbusters says, "It's the most insidious mind-fuck ever."
posted by MetaMonkey on Dec 7, 2005 - 54 comments

I want some m#%$fu#%in chocolate milk! [google video - course language] If he played with his mother, he'd never talk to her like that. Maybe the kid is addicted, maybe he's just a spoil sport.
posted by bigmusic on Nov 20, 2005 - 104 comments

We believe that a power greater than Sid Meier can restore us to sanity. Yeah, World of Warcraft may currently be ruining your life, but I'd bet good money that over the long haul Civilization and other games by Sid Meier have ruined more lives than that upstart. Don't give in! NO MORE TURNS!
posted by WolfDaddy on Oct 26, 2005 - 78 comments