Substance Abuse/Addiction

A new study published in the journal Neuroscience finds that rats given regular doses of amphetamines during adolescence have brain and behavioral changes in adulthood....

Study of students without an ADHD diagnosis finds that stimulants (Adderall) have little impact on cognitive performance.

Instead of hope and enthusiasm for their futures, too many children now grow up believing they are inherently defective, and controlled by bad genes and biochemical imbalances. They are shackled by the idea that they have ADHD and then subdued by the drugs that inevitably go along with the diagnosis. Unless something intervenes, many of them will go on to pass their days on Earth in a drug-impaired, demoralized state.

New York State has investigated five large insurance companies for violating state and federal mental health parity laws by illegally denying to cover claims for behavioral health conditions and drug abuse treatment, according to a report by North County Public Radio (ncpr).

Parents Opposed to Pot, a group opposed to the legalization of marijuana, criticizes a recent University of Pittsburgh study which found no correlation between pot use and mental health. They contest the results and insist that since the long-term study began in 1987, “skunk” or high THC pot has been on the rise.

“In America, medication is becoming almost as much a staple of childhood as Disney and McDonald’s,” writes Sarah Boseley in the Guardian. In this piece photographer Baptiste Lignel follows six boys and girls to examine the long-term effects of these drugs.

The German news agency DW features a video report on whether cannabidiol, an active substance derived from marijuana, can help relieve the symptoms of schizophrenia.

While a great deal of the excitement about advances in psychological treatments comes from the potential for research in neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the brain, many mental health experts would like to temper this enthusiasm. A special issue of the Behavior Therapist released this month calls into question the predominant conception of mental illnesses as brain disorders.

From Scientific American: The current medical consensus is that addiction is a chronic and relapsing brain disease in which drug use becomes involuntary despite its...

On November 12th, 2015, the third anniversary of the day that I abruptly stopped taking benzodiazepines, my dear friend, J. Doe, published a two-part article here on Mad in America examining the language that is commonly used to describe benzodiazepine (benzo) iatrogenesis. I wanted a summary of these articles captured in a Youtube video so that those in the thick of benzo neurotoxicity could tune into these ideas in a way that might be more easily digestible. I hoped more benzo sufferers would begin to question how they describe (and allow others to describe) an illness that remains decades behind in understanding and recognition. I also wanted to draw attention to the content again in hopes that more medical professionals would read and understand the crucial distinctions in language surrounding this problem.

Research examines the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on experiences of chronic pain among low-income patients.

In the Boston Globe, Sarah Schweitzer tells the story of a young boy brutally abused by his parents then given to his grandparents who struggled with extreme poverty and homelessness. “Researchers now understood that trauma could alter the chemistry of developing brains and disrupt the systems that help a person handle stress, propelling a perpetual state of high alert. The consequences could be lifelong. As an adult, he’d be more likely to suffer anxiety and depression and heart disease and stroke. His ability to hold a job, manage money, and make good decisions could be compromised. And there was evidence, controversial but mounting, that he could pass on these traits to his children.”

A former pharma executive has broken ranks with the industry in a new book by reporting how multiple psychiatrists, schools, and his desperate hopes pressed him to allow higher and higher doses of antipsychotic medications. The result: his 15-year-old son's death from Seroquel.

Researchers interviewed doctors about the barriers that prevent them from being able to decrease excess medications.

A review of treatment guidelines published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics found that guidelines “shy away from stating clearly that SSRIs/SNRIs, like BDZs, are often (though...

The researchers found that, of those who were initially prescribed both antidepressants and benzodiazepines, approximately 12% went on to engage in long-term benzodiazepine use.

A recent article in the American Journal of Public Health calls for policy level interventions to reduce the use of benzodiazepines, drugs commonly prescribed...

Researchers report that dangerous side effects are not being adequately reported in the trials of ketamine for depression.

New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, relates the story of Andrew Francesco, a boy who began taking Ritalin at age five and died from complications with Seroquel when he was fifteen. His father, a former pharmaceutical industry executive, reveals the industry’s greed in his memoir “Overmedicated and Undertreated.” Now the industry is pushing for a first-amendment right to market its drugs for off-label uses.

-Dr. Lance Dodes and Dr. Joseph Nowinski debate the disease-based model of addiction and the 12-step approach in The Fix.

Here I was, 15 years old and already in a long-term treatment facility. I was, on paper: crazy! This entire time, all the adults in my life had been speaking for me. I never felt like I was any of the things they said, but I went along with it. What else could I have done? Every time I rebelled, it only confirmed to my mother what she thought of me.

"It's no secret that stimulant medications such as Adderall that are prescribed to treat symptoms of ADHD are sometimes used as 'study drugs' aimed...

A new study suggests that smoking cessation is related to depressive symptom improvement, but that depression may also make it harder to quit.

A new study examines the extent to which patterns in prescription drug misuse and substance use disorder symptoms can be predicted by education level

Twice as many teenagers with ADHD experienced severe psychosis when taking Adderall, as compared to Ritalin, according to a new study.