Category Archives: Addiction

Weed Doesn’t Deserve its “Chill” Reputation

Recent news stories of homicide prove that marijuana does not deserve its reputation as the “chill” drug.  Otherwise, why would people do such stupid things and even kill others after smoking weed and then not remember why?  Are blackouts from weed similar to alcohol-fueled blackouts?

In Illinois on August 14, a father apprehended his son for smoking weed at breakfast, claiming he should not go to work at a coffee shop while stoned.   The son, Isaac Thurston, got out the kitchen knife and killed his father, Perron Thurston, 50.  “I don’t know why I did it,” he said according to bond proffer of the Cook County prosecutors.  Isaac Thurston had never been arrested before, and his uncle posted bond for him. Continue reading Weed Doesn’t Deserve its “Chill” Reputation

Does California Sober work?  We say NO

“I really believe in the ‘Cali sober’ method. It’s helped me. I actually just hit five years clean.” Aaron Carter made that declaration on Adam Grandmaison’s “No Jumper” podcast — just days before he died on November 5, 2022.  As he fingered a joint, he continued, “This, I don’t consider a drug. I consider this a gift from God.” 

What is Cali sober and does it work?    

In California, where the drug culture has been strong since the 1960s, many young people go into harm reduction therapy for the treatment of addiction, instead of abstinence.   California sober, or Cali sober, goes along with this trend. We see little evidence that this approach works.  Continue reading Does California Sober work?  We say NO

Raising Lazarus Describes Continuing Overdose Crisis

Beth Macy’s Raising Lazarus is the latest book on the overdose crisis.  Unfortunately, this insightful journalist who wrote Dopesick, made into a series on Hulu, is a harm reductionist who doesn’t put too much stock in primary drug prevention.    

Drug policy should have three prongs: Prevention, Recovery and Harm Reduction.

Instead of tirelessly stating “Let’s stop stigmatizing addiction,” why can’t we say, “Let’s celebrate recovery”?  

We need to incentivize recovery.  

The drug epidemic has been running for more than 20 years now, and today the primary driver is fentanyl, an opioid sold on the black market. An estimated 107,000 died of overdose last year.  Why is it only getting worse? Perhaps it’s because we’re addressing the problem with harm reduction only and not spending much money on drug prevention. In the case of fentanyl, youths are going right from marijuana use to buying pills that are laced with fentanyl and dying immediately.  In pot legalization states out west, it currently is happening to those as young as 13 and 14.

Macy’s view of marijuana is a blindspot

Macy scorns Nancy Reagan and her “cabal of marijuana-hating moms” on p. 77.  But does she realize that the parents movement of 1979-1992 brought down drugs use from 39% of all teens to 14%?   The parent movement, which included black activists, was an exceptional achievement.  We could do the same now, if only  harm reduction were not the primary leg of drug policy. Continue reading Raising Lazarus Describes Continuing Overdose Crisis

IASIC, International doctors’ group formed to educate on marijuana

A doctors’ group is taking on cannabis education.  On May 20, 2021, the International Academy on the Science and Impact of Cannabis (IASIC) officially launched with a press conference held in San Diego and live streamed across the country.  

President of the newly-launched group IASIC, Dr. Eric Voth, is no stranger to addiction and drug policy work.  In his forty years involved in the fields of Internal Medicine, Pain Medicine and Addiction Medicine, he confidently asserts, “…We’ve seen marijuana become a serious public health problem…Today, as a direct result of rigorous efforts to legalize and normalize marijauna, it is responsible for a host of medical problems.”

IASIC has been founded to fill the serious void Continue reading IASIC, International doctors’ group formed to educate on marijuana