Addiction Treatment

Britishers researchers are calling on the government to roll out heroin maintenance programs for chronic addicts who don't respond to other treatments. They've just released a new clinical study that makes their case.

In a bid to save money and be smarter on crime, Colorado has enacted a package of bills that, among other things, will reduce some drug use and possession sentences, allow greater judicial flexibility in sentencing, and keep some technical parole violators from being sent back to prison. But the package also increases some drug sales and manufacturing sentences.

Harm reductionists and drug reformers in Scotland have their work cut out for them, according to an annual national survey released this week. Support for marijuana legalization has declined dramatically, and attitudes toward heroin users are harsh, leading to declining public support for harm reduction.

Over the weekend, Newsweek published a leaked draft of the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy. No one is sure why it was leaked, or by whom. A pair of leading observers of federal drug policy dissect it for us.

The drug czar was in the hot seat at a Wednesday congressional hearing, and activists and academics got a chance to weigh in on the flaws of US drug policy as well.

Being a thoughtful, compassionate, and curious physician dealing with hard-core addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside makes Dr. Gabor Maté especially well-placed to write an important book about addiction. He has done so. You should read it.

Ibogaine is touted by a growing number of proponents as an addiction cure. The African herb still hasn't gotten mainstream respect, but that may be about to change, if the 2010 Ibogaine Conference is any indication.

This week, Denmark became the latest European country to embrace heroin maintenance for hard-users. A clinic opened Monday in Copenhagen.

President Obama has vowed to slash discretionary federal spending, but it isn't going be done on the back of the drug war. Federal drug control spending is up 3.5% in his Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Mostly it's the same old, same old drug war, but there are some interesting surprises.

A Missouri Senate committee with more moralistic wrath toward the poor than common sense has passed a bill that would require welfare applicants and recipients to be drug tested under "reasonable suspicion" and thrown off the rolls for three years if they test positive -- even though the legislature's own analysts say the bill would cost far more than it would save.