Category Archives: Reviews

The Mental Health Care Dilemma; Is it Really Bad Therapy?   

Good information comes from the recent books covering the issues around mental health care that concern many families.  Patrick Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Mental Health Courage, written with Stephen Fried, traces the lives and mental health care journeys of 10 people and two families, who took charge of the illnesses.  With today’s fight to take the stigma out of seeking “mental health” treatment, this book is very important. 

Kennedy’s nonprofit fights for insurance companies to cover mental health care and addiction.  Meanwhile, we still don’t have enough beds for mental health and addiction treatment in most states! 

Like many of the books on substance use and abuse, these stories feature multiple difficult episodes, denials and deflections. Continue reading The Mental Health Care Dilemma; Is it Really Bad Therapy?   

Finding A Higher Love: Heather Shares Her Son’s Story

A Higher Love, by Heather Bacchus, is the latest of a number of books by parents who write the story of losing a child because of cannabis.  Despite her intense grief and the unexpected loss of her son, Randy Michael Bacchus III, Heather provides a model for finding hope and love as she shares the story of her loss. The book’s subtitle is  “A Journey through Addiction, Cannabis-Induced Psychosis, Suicide and Redemption.”

Randy was born in November of 1999 and died in July of 2021.  He started using marijuana at age 15. As Heather recounts her story, the reader is tempted to look for clues.  What were the reasons to worry?  Although the parents, Randy and Heather, discovered their son’s pot use and did not shrug it off, they didn’t know how dangerously different today’s marijuana is.  Nor did they understand all the new forms of high-potency marijuana, including dabs and vapes. Continue reading Finding A Higher Love: Heather Shares Her Son’s Story

New book provides platform to warn other parents

We’re sick and tired of being ridiculed, ostracized and shamed by those who deny the way marijuana can ruin lives!  At last, many parents put their platform in print! When your child has a drug problem — and that drug is marijuana — they may not know it. But there is no limit to the entire family’s suffering. 

For Laura Stack, the outcome was the worst, the death of her son Johnny. Laura told that story in her book, The Dangerous Truth About Today’s Marijuana.  She also gave valuable insights into the science behind the harms of cannabis

Johnny’s Ambassador Publishing recently released its second book, The Impact of THC on Our Children: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare. In the new book, twenty-four other parents or families tell their story of the THC nightmare. Amazon.com sells the book in paperback, hardcover, Kindle and audible formats. The stories reveal the dangers of THC use and addiction on teens and young adults. The outcomes include severe mental illness, psychosis and suicide. Continue reading New book provides platform to warn other parents

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