Top Ten for 2010

Marijuana leads the list.

Most viewed Addiction Inbox 2010 blog posts, ranked by total pageviews:


1. Marijuana and Memory: Do certain strains make you more forgetful?

“Cannabis snobs have been known to argue endlessly about the quality of the highs produced by their favorite varietals: Northern Lights, Hawaiian Haze, White Widow, etc….”

2.  The Bong Water Case Revisited: Minnesota v. Peck.

“Astute readers will recall the Great Bong Water Decision of 2009, in which the Minnesota Supreme Court determined, 4-3, that water used in a water pipe can be considered a ‘drug mixture’….”

3. Cannabis Receptors and the “Runner’s High”--Maybe it isn't endorphins after all.

“What do long-distance running and marijuana smoking have in common? Quite possibly, more than you’d think. A growing body of research suggests that the runner’s high and the cannabis high are more similar than previously imagined….”

4. More Vanishing Cigarettes: Churchill, Bette Davis, Don Draper, and Pecos Bill.

“In my last post, I highlighted some examples of attacks on cultural history represented by cigarette censorship, to wit: a cigarette taken out of the hand of Paul McCartney, and out of the mouths of Jackson Pollock and Burt Reynolds.…”

5. Cocaine Treatment and the Stroop Test: Treatment dropouts do poorly on color/word match.

“It’s commonly used to demonstrate behavioral inhibition, but it’s also a nifty parlor game. It is called the Stroop Test, and it plays off the fact that people are far better at reading words than they are at intentionally ignoring them….”

6. Liking it Vs. Wanting it: The joylessness of drug addiction.

“Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, is not really the answer to the riddle of drug addiction. The pursuit of pleasure does not explain why so many addicts insist that they abuse drugs in a never-ending attempt to feel normal….”

7. Mephedrone, the New Drug in Town: Bull market for quasi-legal designer highs.

“Most people in the United States have never heard of it. Very few have ever tried it. But if Europe is any kind of leading indicator for synthetic drugs (and it is), then America will shortly have a chance to get acquainted with mephedrone….”

8. Sex, Drugs, and… Sex: Pharmaceuticals and sexual performance.

“The search for aphrodisiacs is an ancient, if not always venerable, human pursuit. Named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, aphrodisiacs are compounds that have the reputation, real or imagined, of increasing sexual desire, pleasure, and potency….”

9. Meth Babies—Fact or Fiction? Research team finds brain abnormalities.

“When it came to babies born to crack-addicted mothers, the media went overboard, creating a crisis in the form of an epidemic that never quite was. By contrast, when it came to babies born to alcoholic mothers, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome went unrecognized in the science and medical community until 1968….”

10. Marijuana Use Up, Up, Up: NIDA releases annual survey of teen drug use.

“Research compiled from an annual survey of 8th, 10th and 12th graders by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) shows that “marijuana use increased among eighth-graders, and daily marijuana use increased significantly among all three grades….”

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