CSDAP Staff – CSDAP | Drug Addiction Policy, Studies & Research

About CSDAP Staff

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far CSDAP Staff has created 144 blog entries.

Does ASAM oppose “drug-free” and “abstinence-based” paths to recovery?

Does ASAM oppose “drug-free” and “abstinence-based” paths to recovery?

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-27T16:38:39-04:00June 29th, 2022|Communities, Pathways to Recovery, Policy Makers, Service Providers|

The posts answered a message from a practitioner who said "I work as the Medical Director at an "abstinent based" facility. I am Board Certified in Psych and ASAM certified... I am struggling to accept the abstinence based treatment philosophy." In responding to this message, ASAM said (among other statements) that, "Patients appropriately taking a physician prescribed medication are abstinent from their substance of misuse."

The Harms of Constructing Addiction as a Chronic, Relapsing Brain Disease

The Harms of Constructing Addiction as a Chronic, Relapsing Brain Disease

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-23T17:42:40-04:00June 24th, 2022|Medical Model, Policy Makers, Research, Studies and Reports|

As an international network of historians and social scientists who study approaches to the management of drugs across time and place, we have noticed the effort to redefine addiction as a chronic, relapsing brain disease (CRBD). The CRBD model is promoted as a route to destigmatize addiction and to empower individuals to access treatment that works within that model’s terms.1 CRBD usefully recognizes that brain-based neural adaptations place individual brains in chronic states of readiness to relapse. But brains are housed inside of people. Substance use is biological, social, and political; our concepts and approaches to complex questions surrounding substance use must be, too.2,3 By overlooking the sociopolitical dynamics and inequalities bound up with substance use, the CRBD model can paradoxically further marginalize people who use drugs by positing them as neurobiologically incapable of agency or choice. We are concerned that the CRBD model paints drug users as individuals whose exclusion from social, economic, and political participation is justified by their biological flaws and damaged brains.

A Review of Buprenorphine Diversion and Misuse Internationally

A Review of Buprenorphine Diversion and Misuse Internationally

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-16T14:53:14-04:00June 22nd, 2022|Pharma, Research, Studies and Reports, Suboxone (Buprenorphine)|

Abstract

Outpatient opioid addiction treatment with sublingual buprenorphine pharmacotherapy (OBOT) has rapidly expanded in the United States and abroad, and, with this increase in medication availability, there have been increasing concerns about its diversion, misuse and related harms. This narrative review defines the behaviors of diversion and misuse, examines how the pharmacology of buprenorphine alone and in combination with naloxone influence its abuse liability, and describes the epidemiological data on buprenorphine diversion and intravenous misuse, risk factors for its intravenous misuse and the unintended consequences of misuse and diversion.

“As an ex-heroin addict, I know getting off opioids is near impossible.”

“As an ex-heroin addict, I know getting off opioids is near impossible.”

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-16T14:34:28-04:00June 17th, 2022|Real Stories|

I am a married, middle-aged woman, a taxpaying homeowner. As privilege goes, I have it. Because I’m White, I get treated better in medical settings such as hospitals and rehabs. I have health insurance. I have access to credit. My spouse could not be more supportive. But every day for a couple of years I left my house with a river view and drove downtown in South Yonkers to meet my dealer. I know a letter carrier who once worked that neighborhood. He told me there was a time when you could buy an Uzi on his route. I knew the first time I bought heroin at age 48 that doing so probably meant the end of my life. But compared to withdrawal, that was fine by me.

Former NIMH Director Makes a Case for Abolishing Psychiatry

Former NIMH Director Makes a Case for Abolishing Psychiatry

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-11T17:00:43-04:00June 15th, 2022|News, Policy Makers|

A new book by Dr. Thomas P. Insel, who for 13 years ran the United States’ foremost mental health research institution, begins with a sort of confession. During his tenure as the “nation’s psychiatrist,” he helped allocate $20 billion in federal funds and sharply shifted the focus of the National Institute of Mental Health away from behavioral research and toward neuroscience and genetics. Dr. Insel, 70, who left N.I.M.H. in 2015, calls the advances in neuroscience of the last 20 years “spectacular” — but in the very first pages of his new book, he says that, for the most part, they haven’t yet benefited patients.

Study of buprenorphine diversion cautions against its misuse

Study of buprenorphine diversion cautions against its misuse

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-07T22:26:22-04:00June 10th, 2022|Medical Model, Pharma, Research, Studies and Reports, Suboxone (Buprenorphine), Uncategorized|

Buprenorphine is approved in many countries for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD), but problems with diversion and abuse exist. There is a need to understand how and why patients use diverted buprenorphine, and whether barriers to access contribute to illicit use.

58% reported a history of diverted buprenorphine use, with 37% never receiving a prescription. Approximately one-half (52%) reported using buprenorphine to get high or alter mood, but few (4%) indicated that it was their drug of choice.

British Columbia to decriminalize small amounts of cocaine, heroin, meth and ecstasy

British Columbia to decriminalize small amounts of cocaine, heroin, meth and ecstasy

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-20T13:57:50-04:00June 7th, 2022|Communities, Legislation, Regulation & Litigation, News, Policy Makers|

TORONTO — The possession of small amounts of several illicit drugs, including cocaine and opioids such as fentanyl or heroin, will be temporarily decriminalized in British Columbia, the federal government said Tuesday, in what it cast as a “bold” step to “turn the tide” in the province’s overdose crisis.

Does NIDA’s new strategy ignore non-drug pathways to recovery?

Does NIDA’s new strategy ignore non-drug pathways to recovery?

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-02T13:47:10-04:00June 5th, 2022|News, Suboxone (Buprenorphine), Treatment Drugs (non-Suboxone)|

The Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network published online a transcript of a talk given by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), at the Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit held in Atlanta in April 2022. In the interview, she discusses recent updates on the opioid epidemic and highlights how NIDA is working to shift its focus to actively address the changing landscape of the epidemic. One part of her message was the importance of prevention, stating, "if we do not address the issue of preventing drug use very early, adolescents who are the ones that are starting to experiment, we will always be catching up, new drug for the other."

White House 2022 drug strategy includes recovery support services

White House 2022 drug strategy includes recovery support services

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-20T13:59:55-04:00June 2nd, 2022|News, Pathways to Recovery, Policy Makers, Service Providers|

President Joe Biden sent his Administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy to Congress at a time when drug overdoses have reached a record high. The Strategy delivers on the call to action in President Biden’s Unity Agenda through a whole-of-government approach to beat the overdose epidemic. It proposes targeted actions to expand access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services while reducing the supply of drugs like fentanyl.

Scientists Say Your “Mind” Isn’t Confined to Your Brain, or Even Your Body

Scientists Say Your “Mind” Isn’t Confined to Your Brain, or Even Your Body

By CSDAP Staff|2022-06-20T16:36:43-04:00May 27th, 2022|Medical Model, Research, Studies and Reports|

What is a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. The mind is the seat of consciousness, the essence of your being. Without a mind, you cannot be considered meaningfully alive. So what exactly, and where precisely, is it? This new understanding has potentially broad implications for the field of addiction and treatment.