Thinking About Addiction

The first trials did not demonstrate effectiveness beyond placebo. So the FDA allowed a third trial which apparently did, at least a little.

Cannabis doesn’t replace opioids the way methadone or buprenorphine do. There’s no antagonist effect as with naloxone or naltrexone.

We shouldn’t ignore the emotional factors involved in chronic pain– such as anxiety and depression.

The list of deaths from the practice is long and oddly prestigious, featuring celebs such as John Belushi and Chris Farley, among many others.

The best answer is the one we came up with to explain the selectivity of alcoholism: Differences in individual susceptibility.

So, public health advocates maintain, the McConnell plan is really just a clever ruse to reduce support for other legislation that might actually reduce smoking and vaping.

Will society benefit from greater access to this drug? Are there potential problems we haven’t anticipated?

This is in part a course correction from the trend of several decades ago, when the emphasis was on cutting expenses in the naive belief all addicts could be successfully treated on an outpatient basis.

I compare it to finding someone lying on the sidewalk, helping them up, brushing them off, and pushing them down again.