culture and illness

[Liza Featherstone]

I don't know about that, I just read that a 1996 U.S. govt study found that 
treatment (real treatment, residential, counseling, sometimes vocational 
training) cut hard-core cocaine use by about 50% -- the thing is usually a person 
has to go in and relapse and go back in several times, treatment gets bad press 
because it doesn't fit into US Drug War demonology  and it's not as sexy as 
Mexican smuggling or crackhouse raids-- interesting piece about all this in 
Columbia Journalism Review 11/98 by Mike Massing who no doubt talks about 
all this in his new book

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Alec Ramsdell wrote:
> 
> >My criticism of addiction treatment is that it is too quick to accept
> >the medical model of addiction, before other possible disabling
> >conditions.
> 
> Most addiction treatments have pretty dismal records, don't they? The
> rabidly anti-drug Mitch Rosenthal of Phoenix House has refused to let
> anyone study their success rate, which leads one to assume it's very low.
> AA also has a high recidivism rate, no (not to mention all that "higher
> power" crap)? Does anything work?
> 
> Doug