Substance Abuse/Addiction

Benzodiazepine prescription practices may be in response to an epidemic of distress, rather than being used to treat specific mental health diagnoses.

An international group of researchers, including several with financial ties to manufacturers of antidepressants, explore possible explanations for why long-term users of antidepressants become chronically depressed.

From The Washington Post: In Massachusetts, which has one of the highest rates of opioid deaths nationally, addiction-related civil commitments have doubled in the past...

About 17% of college students take stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall, primarily because they believe the drugs will help them improve their academic performance.

Primary care clinicians and mental health providers face a particular set of challenges when treating individuals with chronic pain. These problems are compounded by...

Adolescent risk taking is explored contextually, beyond models of brain imbalances and adverse consequences.

Researchers investigate trends in opioid use, prescriptions, misuse, and access reported by adolescents and young adults.

From Psych Central: According to a new study, teens who are dependent on marijuana and alcohol are less likely to marry, go to college, or work...

A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior found that addictions to mobile devices are linked to anxiety and depression in college students....

US news coverage has primarily framed the opioid drug abuse epidemic as a criminal justice issue rather than a public health problem, according to new research published ahead of print in the Journal of Psychiatric Services. The media’s framing of the epidemic may increase stigma against those who develop a dependency on prescription drugs and distract political attention from public-health oriented solutions, such as increased access to substance abuse recovery treatments.

In this piece for BBC, Melissa Hogenboom reports on the way that people who have been convicted of crimes and diagnosed with mental illness are...

Experiencing moderate to severe pain, or having at least moderate life interference from pain, doubles risk for anxiety or depression.

“In 2014, 10,574 people died of heroin overdose while 15,778 died from an overdose of psychiatric medications, nearly 50% more,” writes addiction specialist Kenneth...

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

A new three-part series from Parents Opposed to Pot explores the link between marijuana and suicide. Part 1: Marijuana and Suicide, a Growing Risk for Our...

From BBC: The abuse of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax is becoming widespread among children and adolescents as young as 11 years old. "To gain an idea of the...

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.

On Tuesday, NPR told the story of DeAngelo Cortijo. DeAngelo became a foster kid at age 3 after his mother attempted suicide. He was “diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders, attachment disorder, intermittent explosive disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder,” and was prescribed “a combination of antipsychotics, antidepressants and stimulants, and was told that taking them was his only hope of being normal.” Through equine therapy, DeAngelo was eventually able to get off all of his medication. Now, California is hoping to pass reforms that would prevent foster kids, like DeAngelo, from being “prescribed antipsychotic drugs at double to quadruple the rate of that not in foster care.”

Neuroscientist and psychologist Marc Lewis, author of “The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not A Disease,” suggests in the Guardian that treating addiction as...

This week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) released a summary of new research on the effects of early childhood on substance abuse and...

Researchers believe that they have gained a clearer understanding of how cocaine, amphetamines and related psychostimulant drugs "disrupt the normal functioning of the dopamine transporter in the brain."

ITV features and article and video today about the widespread problem of addiction and withdrawal from benzodiazepine drugs used to treat anxiety, including Ativan, Librium, Diazepam and Temazepam. Mother of three Sandra Minshull shares her story and discusses how Ativan “robbed her of her life.”

ProPublica explains why a university mental health center contacted the estranged parents of a student over eighteen without her consent, and why another student’s personal counseling records were used against her in a sexual-assault investigation.

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...

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...