
1st broad epidemiological study of drug abuse patterns in young adult offenders - anigbrowl
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303032
======
dpc59
It's anecdotal, but all of the ex-cons I've met in Canada ended up getting
stuck in a vicious circle of drug abuse after getting disappointed about their
legal job prospects (around minimum wage), going back to dealing drugs a few
months after probation is done and being unable to handle having an almost
infinite supply of said drugs. After a couple of years of hardcore drug use
there's no way someone would even hire them, so they're stuck on welfare and
crime with nothing to do but getting high.

~~~
swift
It's tragic and cruel how a felony conviction can destroy someone's life over
a nonviolent drug offense. Growing up, I knew some people who got felony
convictions for possession of marijuana. Now recreational cannabis is legal in
a number of states, and it's upsetting to think that the trajectory of their
lives could have been totally different if they had been born a decade later.

~~~
glangdale
It seems like a 'blanket pardon' for anyone who has no other offenses beyond
dealing something that is now legal could go a little way towards helping fix
this. It also seems that reforms of sentencing where the maximum penalty was
grossly disproportionate (think crack vs cocaine) could have retroactive
implementation as well (downgrading spurious felonies to misdemeanors).

Not saying you can give people back the trajectory of their lives, of course,
but it might help at the margins.

------
md224
Drug abuse is such a fascinating and frustrating thing. I think in 500 years
they're gonna look back at how we handled this and shake their heads at the
inhumanity of it all.

Here's something interesting I learned the other day: if you give stimulants
to kids with ADHD, they're actually _less_ likely to have substance abuse
problems later on.

Source: [http://csam-
asam.org/sites/default/files/pdf/misc/DeAntonio_...](http://csam-
asam.org/sites/default/files/pdf/misc/DeAntonio_-_ADHD.pdf)

So here's my wacky theory: maybe a lot of people who have a "substance use
disorder" or "addictive personality" just have undiagnosed ADHD and would live
much better lives if they took consistent doses of amphetamine on a regular
basis.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Its not that wacky a theory. A large number of people use narcotics as self
medication, perhaps without knowing it, for conditions other than ADHD.
Bipolar individuals do as well

~~~
epmaybe
As far as I'm aware, no bipolar patient should be on narcotics. Standard of
care is mood stabilizer plus atypical antipsychotic.

~~~
tcj_phx
Investigative journalist Robert Whitaker wrote a book about how the
medications commonly used in the psychiatric 'standard of care' actually seem
to make the patients worse.

Some psychiatrists wrote a response that can be summarized as, "shut up we
know what we're doing."

Whitaker responded to his critics with a blog post titled _The Evidence-Based
Mind of Psychiatry on Display_ \- [https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/05/the-
evidence-based-mind...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/05/the-evidence-
based-mind-of-psychiatry-on-display/)

Your comment here seemed to indicate that you're in the medical field, and
indeed your comments from 3 months ago indicate that you're a medical student.

Psychiatry needs help. None of the psychiatrists who've been treating my
girlfriend are able to tell the difference between substance-
associated/withdrawal psychosis, and iatrogenic psychosis, so they keep her on
the drugs that actively prevent her from recovering.

She was originally turned into a drug addict with depo provera, which is known
to make women suicidal. This was about 10 years before I met her.

Medicine is deeply infected with ideas which have actually been falsified by
physiologists, but which persist because they're seductively simplistic.

edit: _Inconvenient Truths About Antipsychotics: A Response to Goff et al_ was
published yesterday - [https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/inconvenient-
truths-abo...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/inconvenient-truths-about-
antipsychotics-a-response-to-goff-et-al/)

------
brooklyntribe
tl;dr

Whites have far more drug issues than blacks, up to 30X, we incarcerate blacks
vastly more then whites.

America is as racist as hell. And water is wet.

But we all know that. The data is there. Now what?

------
cup
>Drug-use disorders were most prevalent among non-Hispanic Whites, followed by
Hispanics, then African Americans.

I wonder if thats represented in jail demographics.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Perhaps this also correlates with those most likely to be diagnosed with a
drug use disorder.

~~~
cup
Unlikely considering the data came from correctional facilities.

