At the end of April, Congress held hearings to introduce legislation that could be the beginning of the end for the unregulated "troubled teen" industry and its use of tactics that Government Accountability Office investigators have labeled "torture." My article on the hearings and on an attorney who has been...

Rep. George Miller (D-CA) will introduce legislation tomorrow, aimed at reining in the billion dollar "troubled teen" industry, which, according to the New York Times, detained about 100,000 children and adolescents as of 2005-- a number which had quadrupled in 10 years.

Right now, many states...

When prosecutors want to convict a doctor of "drug dealing," they often sow suspicions by alerting the media. But in a Kansas case, they appear to be fighting dirty by trying to prevent the other side from speaking out.

The pattern can be seen most famously in coverage...

When I wrote recently about the Judge Rotenberg Center -- the facility for autistic kids and other children with "behavior problems" that uses electric shock to gain compliance -- I asked rhetorically what it might take to shut it down. If the latest incident doesn't do it, I simply...

For a reason which they refuse to disclose, eBay decided recently to suspend my account.

I don't know why -- maybe it's their idea of a lengthy April Fool's joke. It's definitely a catch-22 -- and one of those little things that eat your time and incite rage for...

The Wire's David Simon has posted a fascinating and exasperated cri de coeur -- calling the media and critics to task for failing to note a key point he tried to make in the show's final season. While the Mayor was failing to fix the troubled schools, cops were...

But think of the children! This fear-inducing, often brain-numbing perspective has been used to foist all kinds of "common sense" policies on Americans that sound good from the mouths of politicians and activists -- but result in more harm than they prevent.

Take this story from the New...

Salon has just published a virtually data-free article which blames Heath Ledger's overdose death on patients' misunderstanding of pharmacology, busy doctors and pharmacists, and drug company advertising. But the research on similar cases suggests that it's writer and doctor Larry Zaroff who is misinformed-- both in describing the problem...

Hillary's position on eliminating the disparity in sentencing between crack offenders and sellers of powder cocaine is more complex than I described in yesterday's post: while she opposes freeing people already in prison under laws that unfairly give overly harsh sentences for crack cocaine in contrast to the powder form...

While Bill Clinton is apologizing for not having done more to reduce the disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine that is in part responsible for putting one in nine young black men in prison, his wife opposes even the most modest attempt to fix the problem.

Hillary...

A new meta-analysis of research on modern antidepressants -- some of it unpublished by the drug companies -- suggests that the drugs have little advantage over placebos.

Why then do so many people consider drugs like Prozac to be miracle drugs for depression -- many putting up with serious...

It should go without saying that people shouldn't use opioids (codeine, heroin, oxycodone, Vicodin, etc.) recreationally -- but if you have a loved one who doesn't follow that sensible advice, here's information that may can keep them alive until they realize exactly why that advice is so good. There are...

Before I provide information on what precisely to do should someone you love overdose, I want to address a few things I've been reading in comments about Heath Ledger's death, from fans and loved ones.

Addiction is a great source of shame to many people-- we don't like it when...

The toxicology results are in on Heath Ledger's death -- and sadly, they reveal the most common scenario in overdose fatalities. At least six different drugs were found in his system, including oxycodone and benzodiazepines.

This is, as I covered in my last post, a combination of opioids and...

Although "just say no" is certainly the safest position to take on recreational drug use, the vast majority of humans ignore this advice. Some use alcohol, nicotine or caffeine; others take prescription medicines in ways other than as prescribed; others use illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Add that...

A newspaper exposes the damage from buprenorphine. But did it end up hurting addicts and misleading readers by misrepresenting the case for addiction medication and harm reduction?

As The Wire brings a fictional version of the Baltimore Sun to life, the real paper recently "exposed" abuse of the new...

Even though there is no evidence beyond anecdote that its methods work, even though there are clear cases of harm, even though it is now clear that its employees will just follow orders no matter how bizarre, Massachusetts has cleared the Judge Rotenberg Center to use electric...

What does it take to shut down an abusive school? Perhaps the fact that it has just replicated an experiment notorious both for being ethically problematic and showing how easy it is to get normal people to "just follow orders" to hurt others?

Picture this scenario, as described by the...

The AP is reporting on controversy in California over the way treatment for addicted doctors is handled by the state medical board.

California recently scrapped its system for anonymously treating addicted doctors without informing patients of their physicians' condition -- following outrage over botched surgery by an addicted plastic...

In a 15,000 word story for Rolling Stone -- which Slate has called the "smartest drug story of the year" -- Ben Wallace-Wells provides a devastatingly compelling history of "How America Lost the War on Drugs." It is well worth reading and deserves wide dissemination.

However, it falls...