Some think labelling it a disease is a helpful way to think about addiction; others think this makes the addict helpless in their fight against addiction. Two academics debate both sides of the coin.
Suboxone is often prescribed as a treatment for those addicted to opioids, but only doctors with a certain waiver may prescribe it.
Brian Sydner/Reuters
What exactly is addiction? What role, if any, does choice play? And if addiction involves choice, how can we call it a “brain disease,” with its implications of involuntariness?
It’s not just power-hungry pot farms: the connection between drugs and oil and gas industry runs deep.
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It’s not just energy-hungry pot farms: the ties between energy and drugs run deep. Can we develop a national drug policy drawing on the lessons of the domestic oil and gas boom?
Concerns have been raised about the potential to abuse and become addicted to pharmaceutical opiates.
December Dollinger/Flickr
We don’t know enough about the people who use painkillers non-medically to make the judgement that there is a natural transition from legal to illicit drug use.
Hoping to avoid the pitfalls and tropes of drug genre photography, documentary photographer Aaron Goodman spent a year following three addicts enrolled in a heroin-assisted treatment program.
Online gambling, shopping, social media and more are driving us to claim addiction to the internet.
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With use of drugs such as ice on the rise, drug consumption rooms are now being set up in Europe to provide supervised inhalation.
A man injects himself with heroin using a needle obtained from the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, the nation’s largest needle-exchange program, in Seattle, Washington.
David Ryder/Reuters
Why have the demographics of heroin use changed so much? For that, we can look to dramatic increase in prescriptions for opioid painkillers, such as Oxycontin or Vicodin.
Iran burns drugs in an annual ritual – but levels of use remain high.
Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Teen drug abuse is a real problem with 46% of high school students hooked on some addictive substance. Recovery high schools are offering a new model of treatment.
Safe injection facilities (SIFs) offer clean syringes, bandages and antiseptics to drug users. SIFs reduce overdose deaths and limit the spread of disease.
Andy Clark/Reuters
Paul Hayes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
You would be forgiven for thinking that Russell Brand, that radical left-winger and advocate of revolution, and Iain Duncan Smith, Conservative secretary of state for work and pensions, didn’t have anything…