Topic: Policy Makers
Policy makers at all levels are being called on to do something about the opioid crisis. Lives depend on the decisions made and funding is never sufficient to do everything. There is no single solution, no matter what some may claim: there are many pathways of recovery and each entails best practices and successful actions. Understanding all the options helps prioritize next steps. To make the best decisions, you need the best data.
Despite critics, is AA effective?
In March 2020, Stanford Medicine News Center released a report addressing that question. A Stanford researcher and two collaborators conducted an extensive review of AA studies. The findings were that the AA fellowship helps more people achieve sobriety than therapy does.
Training people to become certified recovery peer advocates
LaShondra Jones went through years of mental illness and alcohol addiction, and in her late 40s she was living in a women’s shelter in Brooklyn. Finally stable and sober, she needed work — any type of work — for which her history wouldn’t count against her. Jones Googled “free training in NYC” and learned that several area community colleges offered training for people to become certified recovery peer advocates for those coping with alcohol or drug addiction. Her experience, in this case, would be a big plus.
Study finds marijuana with high THC levels linked to addiction, psychiatric illness
As the strength or potency of cannabis products has increased internationally over the years, so have rates of people being treated for cannabis addiction, say the authors of a new study. Researchers from the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the University of Bath (UK) systematically analysed the relationship between the types of cannabis people use and their addiction and mental health problems. Their work draws on 20 studies involving almost 120,000 people.
Should people with addiction disorders be forced by governments into treatment?
Governor Gavin Newsom of California has proposed a court program that would force unhoused people with severe mental illnesses and addiction disorders into treatment. The moves comes in response to a worsening humanitarian crisis of people living on the streets, but has raised concerns from disability rights and civil liberties advocates. According to the proposed plan, those who do not follow through with the treatment could be forced into conservatorships.
Black adults’ experiences with drug treatment charted in new study
Abstract
CLICK HERE to view the full study.
BOOK REVIEW: American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry
Writer Karen Hadley contributed a review this book by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz. The first half of American Cartel tells the story of how the DEA was forced to change by The Alliance, a cartel of drug manufacturers who had no intention of letting the DEA change anything about their business model. And Joe Rannazzisi stood in the way of their being able to do business exactly as they chose. So he had to go. And the only way to accomplish that goal was through changing the law in America that enabled him to do his job. So that’s exactly what they did.
Alcohol policy, treatment & research: new directions
This event included a book symposium ‘Evaluating the brain disease model of addiction’, with speakers including:
Prof Derek Heim & Dr Rebecca Monk, Recovery is Possible: Overcoming ‘Addiction’ and its Rescue Hypotheses
Dr Frank Ryan, Psychotherapeutic strategies to enhance motivation and cognitive control
Dr Tim Leighton, Brains or persons? Is it coherent to ascribe psychological powers to brains?
Dr James Morris, Before ‘rock bottom’ Does a disease model hinder public health goals for alcohol?
Dr Ed Day, discussant for the ‘evaluating the brain disease model of addiction’ symposium
World Health Organization calls for end to human rights violations in mental health care
Globally, the majority of mental health care continues to be provided in psychiatric hospitals, and human rights abuses and coercive practices remain all too common. WHO’s new “Guidance on community mental health services: promoting person-centered and rights-based approaches” further affirms that mental health care must be grounded in a human rights-based approach.