Australia's 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, in which more than 23,000 people ov

Like the rest of inner city America, Bridgeport, Connecticut's 130th District has for decades been ground zero in the war on drugs.

The US Congress Joint Economic Committee yesterday held a historic hearing on the economic costs of US drug policy.

A think-tank established by the Scottish parliament and tasked with looking at new approaches to drug policy has issued a report calling for radical changes in the way Scotland deals with the damag

Every day for 15 months, Vancouver heroin addict Rob Scott Vincent, 36, went into a nondescript building on the city's Downtown Eastside where a nurse would hand him a syringe loaded with pharmaceu

Faced with rising drug overdose deaths and high rates of opiate addiction, Massachusetts lawmakers this week began discussing a $5 million plan to fund two "secure treatment centers" for arrested d

The only officially-sanctioned safe injection site in North America, Vancouver's InSite will have to close its doors June 30 if the Canadian feder

The Vietnamese National Assembly is considering legislation that would make drug use an administrative violation -- not a crime.

The Idaho Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override a gubernatorial veto of a bill that would have increased funding for drug treatment and prevention programs.

Advocates for harsh marijuana laws can be counted on to infuse their rhetoric with incessant declarations that marijuana is highly addictive. Rarely, if ever, could one expose oneself to such discussion without being told something like this:

Decriminalizing marijuana – the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery – is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.
…

I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."

These words belong to the Deputy Drug Czar and they are less than a week old, thus they represent what his office currently believes to be the strongest and most important argument for marijuana prohibition: that the drug is highly addictive.

As Paul Armentano at NORML points out, however, the government's own data on marijuana dependency shows that a plurality of people entering treatment for marijuana hadn't smoked it in a month or more. Isn't that just amazing? I mean, wow. 36% of people entering treatment for pot addiction had already kicked the habit on their own. Highly-addictive my ash.

But how could this be? The answer can be found on this page, which shows that 58% of people entering marijuana treatment were referred by the criminal justice system. They didn't ask for help, rather they were found in possession of marijuana, which led a judge to issue a diagnosis of "marijuana addiction" and order them to get help for that.

When more than half the sample consists of people who were forced into treatment, it should come as no surprise that so many of them haven't actually been smoking marijuana. Some may never have been marijuana users to begin with and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More commonly, I suspect, a large number of marijuana arrestees simply quit after getting busted, either voluntarily or because their lawyers recommended it, pretrial drug screenings, etc. Since marijuana isn't actually very addictive to begin with, this is easy to do.

And yet we continue to waste limited government resources investigating, arresting, adjudicating, and treating these people for an addiction they never actually had. In sum, the Drug Czar's best evidence of marijuana addiction comes from the fact that the government categorizes people as marijuana addicts if they're found sitting near a bag of marijuana. The instant we stop calculating it that way, the evidence ceases to exist and the drug warriors' favorite and best argument against marijuana reform is, well…cashed.

Phillip S. Smith, Writer/Editor

The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee Monday approved a bill that would allow the state to detain pregnant women who use methamphetamine and hold them involuntarily in drug treatment programs.

The Bush administration's proposed Fiscal Year 2009 spending for drug treatment, prevention, and recovery includes significant funding cuts for some programs, and that has critics ranging from form

California's prison system is in crisis.

With nearly 7,500 people behind bars in Idaho -- more than half of them for drug offenses -- the Idaho legislature is finally beginning to move away from the "tough on crime" posturing and inflicti

A bill introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature would allow judges to order "drug dependent" people into involuntary drug treatment, including inpatient treatment, upon petition by that person's

For Immediate Release: February 8, 2008
Contact: Kenneth Alper, M.D.: (212) 263-8854

New Study Documents Increased Use of Ibogaine for Detoxification from Opiates such as OxyContin and Heroin

Thousands Participate in the “Vast Uncontrolled Experiment” with the Use of Ibogaine

A Naturally Occurring Compound Derived from an African Shrub, Ibogaine may be a Prototype for the Development of New Drugs to Treat Addiction.

In what has been termed “a vast uncontrolled experiment” taking place in North America and Europe in the setting of homes, hotel rooms and private clinics, increasing numbers of individuals are taking ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychoactive plant alkaloid, to treat drug addiction. A new study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology provides the first systematic ethnographic description and quantitative estimate of the extent of this remarkable medical subculture.

The new study documents that the majority of individuals in the US and Europe that have used ibogaine were severely physically dependent on opiates and took ibogaine for acute detoxification. The study reports that the use of ibogaine increased four-fold between 2001-2006, with as many as nearly 5,000 individuals having taken it. The expansion of the ibogaine subculture parallels the upsurge of opiate addiction in the US, where deaths due to opiates such as heroin and OxyContin have doubled in the first half of this decade.

According to the lead author of the study, Kenneth Alper, M.D., an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at the New York University School of Medicine, “An important finding of the study is that the most frequent purpose for which ibogaine is used is detoxification from opiates, because this suggests a significant, objective, pharmacologically mediated effect. The syndrome of acute opiate withdrawal tends to severe in its clinical expression, especially with the high levels of physical dependence that are typical of individuals who seek treatment with ibogaine. Treatment providers are generally experienced and can make valid observations of the presence or absence of opiate withdrawal signs, even in the nonmedical settings in which ibogaine is presently used. The clinical literature confirms that there is no significant placebo effect in opioid detoxification, indicating that valid observations of an effect can be made without placebo control group. The focus on opioid detoxification distinguishes ibogaine from other compounds designated as “psychedelics”, such as LSD, mescaline or psilocybin, for which there is no preclinical or clinical evidence that suggests a significant effect in acute opiate withdrawal.”

Ibogaine has been used as a psychopharmacological religious sacrament in Africa for centuries. In the US in the early 1960s, the unexpected absence of withdrawal symptoms was noted in heroin-dependent individuals who had taken ibogaine. Further case reports, as well as preclinical evidence eventually persuaded the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to support research on ibogaine, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a clinical study. NIDA ultimately ended its effort to develop ibogaine because the project exceeded its budgetary resources. However, ibogaine, although never popular as a recreational drug regardless of its legal status, has continued to be used outside of conventional medical settings.

The expansion of the subculture reflects a demand for new treatment that is sought despite legal prohibition in some cases, and the medical risks, including fatalities that are associated with the lack of clinical and pharmaceutical controls the settings in which ibogaine is used. Alper sees a prospect for innovation in ibogaine, “Researchers are increasingly focused on the development of drugs to treat addiction that extend beyond the present repertoire of pharmacological mechanisms of action. Ibogaine’s mechanism of action is unknown, which makes it potentially informative as a paradigm for studying the neurobiology of addiction and developing new treatment.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, January 22, 2008
Contact: LaWanda Johnson (202) 558-7974 x308

WASHINGTON - Community-based substance abuse treatment reduces crime rates and helps states reduce corrections costs, according to a new policy brief released today by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI).

The Substance Abuse Treatment and Public Safety brief found that the sooner substance abuse is treated, the bigger the long-term cost savings and increases in public safety. At a time when some have raised concerns about the release of people convicted of drug offenses from federal prison due to U.S. Sentencing Commission reforms, the research shows that substance abuse treatment helps individuals transition successfully from the criminal justice system to the community.

"This new report confirms that investing in drug and alcohol treatment is both socially responsible and fiscally prudent and should be a top public policy priority," said Maryland Delegate Bill Bronrott, chair of the House Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse. "The report documents the tangible results of treatment, such as cutting crime, reclaiming lives, and making healthier families and safer communities. More investments in these lifesaving and cost-effective services are needed now to expand the benefits of treatment that this report so clearly demonstrates."

The policy brief--the last in a series that examines the impact of positive social investments on public safety--found that:

Increases in admissions to substance abuse treatment are associated with reductions in crime rates. Admissions to drug treatment increased 37.4 percent and federal spending on drug treatment increased 14.6 percent from 1995 to 2005. During the same period, violent crime fell 31.5 percent. In California, where Proposition 36 diverted thousands of people from prison and jail to treatment, violent crime fell at a rate that exceeded the national average. In Maryland, where policymakers have been working to implement various approaches to diverting prison-bound people to treatment, the counties that relied on drug treatment were more likely to achieve significant crime rate reductions than those that relied on drug imprisonment.

Increased admissions to drug treatment are associated with reduced incarceration rates. States with a higher drug treatment admission rate than the national average send, on average, 100 fewer people to prison per 100,000 in the population than states that have lower than average drug treatment admissions. California, in particular, experienced decreases in incarceration rates when jurisdictions increased the number of people sent to drug treatment.

Substance abuse treatment prior to contact with the justice system yields public safety benefits early on. Research has shown that drug treatment programs improve life outcomes for individuals and decreases the likelihood that a drug-involved person will be involved in the criminal justice system.

Substance abuse treatment helps individuals transition successfully from the criminal justice system to the community. Community-based drug treatment programs reduce the chance that a person will become involved in the criminal justice system after release from prison.

Substance abuse treatment is more cost-effective than prison or other punitive measures. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy
(WSIPP) found that community-based drug treatment is extremely beneficial in terms of cost, especially compared to prison. Every dollar spent on drug treatment in the community is estimated to return $18.52 in benefits to society in terms of reduced incarceration rates and associated crime costs to taxpayers.

"If lawmakers invest in community-based substance abuse treatment--instead of prison beds--for people living with addiction, our communities will reap tremendous benefits," says JPI Executive Director Sheila Bedi. "Crime rates will decrease, families will remain intact and since treatment is less expensive than incarceration, state budget dollars can be redeployed to meet education, housing, infrastructure and other pressing needs. "

For more information on this or other research, contact LaWanda Johnson at 202-558-7974 ext. 308.

China's National People's Congress is set to pass that country's first anti-drug law to curb drug use and trafficking. Currently, drug offenses are handled under China's general criminal law.

As part of the half-trillion dollar omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress this week and expected to be signed shortly by President Bush, drug treatment and prevention funding was approve