Prophylactic Naloxone

In response to the spate of ODs due to fentanyl-laced heroin, some needle exchange programs are distributing naloxone (Narcan) to addicts in case of an overdose. Naloxone is typically used in ERs and ambulances to revive people showing signs of an overdose.

The White House Office of Drug Control Policy is opposed to the initiative.

If, like me, you get confused about the difference between naloxone and naltrexone, which is used to treat heroin addiction and alcoholism, here's a good explanation.

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Advertising Doesn't Work

Or so they claim, when their backs are against the wall.

I've been waiting for this to happen, and predictably it has. Two academics, one of whom is a renowned marketing guru and the other an addictions specialist, have challenged a study that showed a causal relationship between advertising and underage drinking. One of the academics in fact, claims that the study's own data demonstrate that the more alcohol advertising underage drinkers see, the less they drink.

One of these days, I'll dig deeper into the funding and methodology of all of the studies that purportedly fail to prove that advertising increases consumption — at least in regards to alcohol and youth — but in the meantime I guess I'll have to depend on my common sense, unscientific as that sounds. And common sense tells me that kids who are inundated by advertising and promotions that show people having a blast while getting blasted is going to make them want to do the same.

Tea Party

On August 2, Smirnoff's ad agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, posted a too-clever-by-five-proof parody of a rap video on You Tube, the Internet video-sharing service. As of this writing, it has been seen by upwards of a half-million viewers. Technorati.com shows that 1,180 bloggers have written about the spot, a send-up of preppie New Englanders who like to "partay" with the alcopop. It comes in lemon, peach and strawberry "flavas" — not the stuff that mumsies and fatha generally order at the country club. A voiceover at the end of spot directs viewers to teapartay.com and reminds them, of course, to "drink responsibly."

A Boston radio station is offering a $2,500 prize and a weekend getaway to Nantucket to the creators of a the best spoof of the spoof — clearly an extension of the Smirnoff's viral campaign.

Never heard of YouTube? Ask your teenager. Never heard of Raw Tea? Ask your teenager.

Teen Athletes

I came across an article today that reminded me of a question my 17-year-old son put to us when he came home one night. To paraphrase, he wanted to know if marijuana had the same detrimental impact on kids — particularly regarding athletic ability — that alcohol does. I got the impression that he wanted to pass the information along to someone who was smoking and claimed that there was no downside to his game. Along with this link (scroll to the last story in the right column), I just sent him an email:

Tom Thompson

Tom Thompson, who grew up in our town during the Sixties and participated a while back in our Discussions, has added a provocative essay on his website titled "Cathexis."

To "cathect," he explains, "means to invest our libidinal energy (creative life force and emotional energy), consciously or unconsciously, into giving meaning and significance to particular ideas, events, objects, or people."

At various times in his life, Tom has attached particular significance to many of the things that most of us do, from fancy cars to enticing gurus. In the end, though, it took an awful lot of energy to "prop up" his believe in any of these entities or philosophies. Cathexis dissipated. And as it did, I/me disappeared. Good things happened. But when I/me disappears, existential despair takes its place.

Tom writes: "Cathecting is not good or bad. It is what the “I” does to give significance, purpose and meaning to its life. Cathecting does seem to cause apparent problems among the apparent “me’s” that actually believe in what they have cathected and then kill, burn, torture, blow up or disparage those “me’s” that have cathected something else out into the vastness. The greatest cathected value is in the separate “me” itself, without which the meaningful world cannot be projected. We love our illusions. We are our illusions. We resist being disillusioned."

Tom explains it all much more eloquently in his essay and, in the process, has some interesting insights into LD and dyslexia, a topic that pops up from time to time on Elephant (type learning disability in Search.)

Medical Schmedical

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that ads like these in the LA Weekly really don't advance the cause of medical marijuana for those who need it.

Disease Ads "Controversial"

Because I do believe that advertising works (see last blog entry), I'm ecstatic to see that the Partnership for a Drug Free America is going to roll out a campaign that it tested in Houston and Cincinnati last year. The ads carry the message that addiction is a disease. Unfortunately, they are not available to view on the Partnership's site. Nor is the rest of its portfolio. I wonder why that is? I don't know of any ad agency's site that doesn't display its best work.

A Houston Chronicle reporter, in the time-honored rote of "getting the other side of the story," speed dialed Dr. Stanton Peele, a psychologist who can always be counted on to counter the medical model of addiction. Peele believes that addiction is "a general pattern of behavior that nearly everyone experiences in varying degrees at one time or another."

He also talked to the Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann. Every time I try to like Nadelmann for advancing the idea that nonviolent drug offenders should not be rotting away in prison, he opens his mouth and says something that convinces me that his sole agenda is to make the world safe for drug users, not to help abusers.

This time Nadelmann makes it sound like the future of the Republic depends not only on the ability of people to enjoy the drug of their choice without fear of intervention of any sort but also without fear that someone might suggest that they have an illness should said drug, as is the case with nearly ten percent of our population (when you add in those addicted to prescription drugs), take over their lives.

Here's what Nadelmann told the Houston Chronicle:

The fact is, I don't think that most people really believe that addiction is a disease, despite all of the scientific evidence to the contrary, so the story has every right to take a the angle that the ads will be "controversial." Good. As long as they get people thinking.

What I would like to see, though, is some fresh data from the other side to support their arguments. It seems to me that those who do not believe the evidence that addiction is a disease would take us back to a time when tub thumpers proclaimed that it was a moral failing.

Stories Live; Web Chat Thursday

The Silent Treatment: Addiction in America series went life on the web today, and all of the stories are now available free to newspaper editors — and to you — around the world.

If your local newspaper isn't running at least part of the series, why not call or email the editor and direct him or her to the McClatchy-Tribune Information Services website, where lots of informative content can be downloaded for absolutely no charge.

My three pieces, which make up less than twenty percent of the series and are a small part of the overall initiative, are:

From bottom to top: One family’s generational struggle with addiction

Pain, secrecy of addiction shapes ‘wounded healers’

Books, films and DVDs offer inspiration for — and staying — sober

Tomorrow from 2:20 -3:30 p.m. EDT, I'll be fielding questions live at this address.