Addiction
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Marijuana use and treatment outcome among opioid-dependent patients.
Information concerning the association between marijuana use and opioid dependence and its treatment is needed to determine effective clinical guidelines for addressing marijuana use among opioid abusers. ⋯ Pending a more comprehensive understanding of the function and consequences of marijuana use on psychosocial functioning, it appears that progress in treatment for opioid dependence can be made without mandating that patients abstain from marijuana use.
-
A search and survey of specialty periodicals in the addiction field identified 35 English-language scientific journals that publish unsolicited research manuscripts. Among these, the typical addiction journal publishes a variety of types of articles in one of many different citation and referencing formats, releases four issues per year to about 1000 subscribers, annually receives more than 100 manuscripts for scientific review, and accepts 53 of them to be published without payment of an author fee. ⋯ Addiction journals vary widely in acceptance rates, ranging from 26% to 95%, and averaging 53%. For better or worse, these journals offer ample opportunity for the reporting of scientific data in the addiction field.
-
Biography Historical Article
Sir Austin Bradford Hill: medical statistics and the quantitative approach to prevention of disease.
Sir Austin Bradford Hill (1897-1991), son of a prominent medical physiologist, was destined for the study of medicine when World War I intervened. He chase to enlist as a pilot in the Royal Navy Air Service. Having contracted tuberculosis on his way to the Dardanelles, Hill was 'sent home to die'. ⋯ He is particularly remembered for the way he made medical statistics an essential part of modern epidemiology, a new phase in an epidemiology concerned with chronic as well as with infectious diseases. At the same time, he introduced randomization where therapies-beginning with streptomycin in tuberculosis-could be evaluated in large-scale clinical trials. Perhaps his best known achievement is his design of the smoking and lung cancer trials, carried out with Richard Doll who later extended-and still extends-the trials which so convincingly have linked addiction to tobacco to patients' later problems with cancers and with coronary heart disease.
-
Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) is a compound found in mammalian brain which meets many criteria of a neurotransmitter. GHB has been investigated as a tool for inducing absence (petit mal) seizures, for use as an anesthetic, and for treatment of narcolepsy, alcohol dependence and opiate dependence. Since 1990 GHB has been abused in the United States for euphoric, sedative and anabolic effects. ⋯ GHB has the potential to cause a significant incidence of abuse and adverse effects. Prolonged use of high doses may lead to a withdrawal syndrome, which resolves without sequelae. Educational efforts should address the narrow therapeutic index, possible physical dependence and dangers of combining GHB with other drugs of abuse.