Drug & Alcohol Facts | Background Briefings | National Strategies
Background Information: Background Briefings
This page provides links to "Background briefings" on drug and alcohol issues written by Professor David Clark of Wired and published (by CJWellings) in Drink & Drugs News.
In context
Takes the definition of a psychoactive drug right back through history, and reveals how politics, economics & the media play their part in shaping attitudes.
The history of the opiates, from use in Summarian and Assyrian civilisations through to the present day.
- Historical Perspectives: Opium, morphine and opiates (part 1)
- Historical Perspectives: Opium, morphine and opiates (part 2)
- Historical Perspectives: Opium, morphine and opiates (part 3)
Tracing the history of cocaine, linking the Incas, Freud, Thomas Edison, Sherlock Holmes and Coca Cola.
British youth culture and the role of drugs and alcohol among adolescents during the 1990s.
- The normalisation of recreational drug use: Part 1
- The normalisation of recreational drug use: Part 2
Exploring the regulation and control of drugs by looking at philosopher Douglas Husak's views on the justice of US drug laws.
- Should recreational drug use be criminalised? (part 1)
- Should recreational drug use be criminalised? (part 2)
Describing factors that have influenced the development of laws regulating recreational drug use, in particular influential happenings in America.
Effects of Drug & Alcohol Use
Reflections on the harms and risk factors related to drugs, alcohol and solvents.
In addition to its biochemical actions, a drug’s effects are dependent on personality, expectancies & emotional state, and the physical & social setting.
Looks at the choices that influence a relationship with drugs and alcohol –and how these choices change as dependency takes hold.
How drugs of misuse influence chemical and electrical events in the brain, and how these changes may relate to effects on behaviour.
Factors that can influence indirectly the way that psychoactive drugs impact on the brain and influence behaviour.
Describes craving and urges for drugs and alcohol, and briefly outlines some of the underlying theories.
The experience of taking amphetamine, including the subjective pleasurable experiences of initial use and the effects of long-term use.
Exploring the dynamic world of heavy cocaine use as revealed in a provocative, high-quality study by Dan Waldorf and colleagues.
- The drug experience: Cocaine, part 1
- The drug experience: Cocaine, part 2
- The drug experience: Cocaine, part 3
The experiences of heroin users who have their lives seriously affected by their drug use, focusing on heroin withdrawal.
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 1)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 2)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 3)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 4)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 5)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 6)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 7)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 8)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 9)
- The drug experience: Heroin (part 10)
Research and guidance on the causes and prevention of heroin overdose.
Dependence and Change
How the processes of operant and classical conditioning, as well as positive and negative reinforcement, are involved in problematic substance use and addiction.
- Conditioning models of addiction: Part 1
- Conditioning models of addiction: Part 2
- Conditioning models of addiction: Part 3
The relevance of social learning and coping models to our understanding of substance use and misuse.
This model is central to the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the 12-step Minnesota Model.
Acute and chronic disorders and how they are managed in today's medical world.
- Addiction as a chronic disorder: Part 1
- Addiction as a chronic disorder: Part 2
- Addiction as a chronic disorder: Part 3
A description of a major influential model in the field, the Transtheoretical Model of Change.
- Stages and processes of change: Part 1
- Stages and processes of change: Part 2
- Stages and processes of change: Part 3
Articles on the process of recovery and ways of assisting it.
- Helping people towards recovery
- Recovery and communities of recovery: Part 1
- Recovery and communities of recovery: Part 2
- Recovery and communities of recovery: Part 3
- Recovery and communities of recovery: Part 4
- Along the route to recovery
A look at an imaginary, but all too real, heroin-using career.
- A journey into and out of heroin addiction: Part 1
- A journey into and out of heroin addiction: Part 2
- A journey into and out of heroin addiction: Part 3
- A journey into and out of heroin addiction: Part 4
Treatment
Series of briefings on what treatment would look like if it were based on the current research evidence.
- What the science shows, and what we should do about it (part 1)
- What the science shows, and what we should do about it (part 2)
- What the science shows, and what we should do about it (part 3)
- What the science shows, and what we should do about it (part 4)
- What the science shows, and what we should do about it (part 5)
Reflections on a variety of aspects related to treatment of substance use problems.
- Treatment of substance use problems: Reflections (part 1)
- Treatment of substance use problems: Reflections (part 2)