addiction

Opium smoker in Laos

A short film detailing the opium career of a Laotian addict, from its tragically motivated inception to her equally sad desperation at being trapped within her addiction.

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Drug use, smoking and alcohol: What is happening in France?
A recent survey on drug use, alcohol and smoking run in March of 2011 by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction revealed very interesting results regarding the addictions of French young people. The French Observatory interviewed 32.000 17 year olds, asking them about their levels of drug use, including levels of alcohol and smoke. The most important results of the survey were the following:
- Alcohol, cigarette and cannabis were by far the substances mostly preferred by the 17 year olds in 2011.

Alcoholism in Russia

What are often the first things that come to mind when Russia is mentioned in conversation? Freezing cold temperatures? Communism? Putin? All of these are probably true, yet probably the first thing to pop into a person’s head when imagining Russia is vodka.

Science of Addiction

The understanding of addiction is continuously developing and has been completely rethought by the medical community as having implementations as a medical disease rather then psychological. Major contributors to this paradigm shift stem from research through high-resonance imaging that showed drug addiction causes physical changes to the brain. Heredity links and neurological chemical balances have also been correlated with higher chance of addiction. Understanding addiction’s science contributes to the treatment of it beyond the medical world, to the social and political world.

A history of Iranian drug policy

According to the Iranian press agency in 2009 there was in Iran nearly 1,200,000 drug users. However this statistic does not take into account occasional users.

For many this information is amazing from a country known as a theocratic regime based on Islamic values.

The long standing roots of drug culture in Iran go so far back that drug use could not possibly be seen as imported western culture. But the drug use finds its sources far in the past so it is not an Import from western culture.

Addicted to Technology

Facebook doesn’t let you go without a struggle. Before you actually leave, a page bombards you with randomly selected photos of your ‘friends’ accompanied by messages declaring that these friends will miss your cyber presence. You are also asked if you are absolutely, totally committed to your decision to quit and to provide a reason for your departure. No doubt many cave before making the final leap for freedom, but I went all the way – only to find that you cannot really leave Facebook.

All that's needed is a motivating chance

One morning I awakened and realized I was an addict. I don't remember how I got there or what brought me to that place in my life, I just knew I didn't like it and I wanted out.

Rat Park heroin experiment

This video is an animation of an experiment conducted in the late 1970s by Canadian Psychologist Bruce Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University. The experiment aimed to show the effect environment has on drug use and to discard the hypotheses that the drug itself was the sole cause of addiction. Alexander built a rat colony (Rat Park), which was 200 times the size of a normal laboratory cage, which housed between 16 - 20 rats of both sexes.

Heroin's double side

I remember very well when my father found out that I smoked and told my mother that nothing will prevent me from getting into drugs because I had already discovered the most dreadful vice. Perhaps my father was right because when a couple of years later searching in my pockets one night, he found a packet of Rizla he claimed that I was on my way to perdition and that nothing absolutely nothing will stop me from becoming a heroin addict.

Addict's rise to fame in Greece's latest video viral

Andreas, an unemployed addict from the city of Pyrgos in the Peloponnese has rapidly risen to fame in the past few months after an interview with a TV channel was broadcast locally and then uploaded on YouTube.

Delivered with an unmistakeable addict's swagger the dialogue between Andreas and the reporter goes as follows: