Chronic pain and substance use disorders frequently co-occur. The pharmacological treatment of pain is complicated in individuals with substance use disorders because of the potential for abuse and diversion of many prescription pain medications. One potential approach is to use a combination of cognitive-behavioral and acceptance-based strategies…

The EU Action Plan on Drugs (2005-2008) calls for member states of the European Union to provide information on five key epidemiological indicators. These are: general population surveys, prevalence and patterns of problem drug use, drug related infectious diseases, drug related deaths and mortality of drug users, and demand for drug treatment.…

The TCU Short Forms contain a revised and expanded set of assessments for planning and managing addiction treatment services. They are formatted as brief (one-page) forms to measure client needs and functioning, including drug use severity and history (TCUDS II), criminal thinking and cognitive orientation (CTSForm), motivation and readiness for…

In order to examine risk factors for attempting suicide in heroin dependent patients, a group of 527 abstinent opiate dependent patients had a psychiatric interview and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients who had or had never attempted suicide were compared on putative suicide risk factors. It was found that 207 of the 527…

Marijuana is the number one illicit drug of abuse worldwide and a major public health problem, especially in the younger population. The objective of this article is to update and review the state of the science and treatments available for marijuana dependence based on a pre-meeting workshop that was presented at ISAM 2006. At the workshop,…

We compared two strategies of prize-based contingency management (CM) in methadone-maintained outpatients. Urine was tested thrice weekly for 5 weeks pre-CM, 12 weeks CM, and 8 weeks post-CM. Participants were randomly assigned to a cocaine contingency (four prize draws for each cocaine-negative urine, N = 29) or an opiate-cocaine contingency (one…

This paper critically examines methadone treatment from the perspective of adult and community education and questions the absence of rehabilitation. It identifies biomedicine and the methodology of evidence based medicine as the discourses that determine our understanding of addiction and treatment. It is especially critical of psychiatry for the…

While the epidemiologic trends concerning alprazolam (Xanax[R]) are unknown, the use of benzodiazepines, in general, has increased in popularity among youth within recent years. To shed light on the drug problem, the current pilot study used a qualitative approach to investigate relevant beliefs, norms, and perceived addiction associated with…

This paper was developed as a result of a 1999 conference on substance abuse and learning disabilities. An introductory chapter urges early identification of learning disabilities and appropriate treatment for both problems when they co-exist. The second chapter discusses the differences between learning disabilities and behavioral disorders, the…