Treating Drug Problems:
Treating Drug Problems:

Author: Committee for the Substance Abuse Coverage Study

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780309043960

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Treating Drug Problems, Volume 2 presents a wealth of incisive and accessible information on the issue of drug abuse and treatment in America. Several papers lay bare the relationship between drug treatment and other aspects of drug policy, including a powerful overview of twentieth century narcotics use in America and a unique account of how the federal government has built and managed the drug treatment system from the 1960s to the present. Two papers focus on the criminal justice system. The remaining papers focus on Employer policies and practices toward illegal drugs. Patterns and cycles of cocaine use in subcultures and the popular culture. Drug treatment from a marketing, supply-and-demand perspective, including an analysis of policy options. Treating Drug Problems, Volume 2 provides important information to policy makers and administrators, drug treatment specialists, and researchers.

How to Develop and Implement a National Drug Policy
How to Develop and Implement a National Drug Policy

Author: World Health Organization

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13: 9789241545471

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A drug policy is a crucial ingredient in every country's national health strategy as it provides a strategic framework to identify goals and commitments. This publication discusses the key components of such a policy. Issues covered include: the selection of essential drugs, affordability; finance and supply; regulation and quality assurance; rational use; research; human resources; monitoring and evaluation.

Drugs and Drug Policy
Drugs and Drug Policy

Author: Mark A.R. Kleiman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-07-13

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0199831386

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While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Making Medicines Affordable
Making Medicines Affordable

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0309468086

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Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic
Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-09-28

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0309459575

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Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

Against Excess
Against Excess

Author: Mark A. Kleiman

Publisher:

Published: 1993-07-06

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13:

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Drug-taking and drug control are alike; both are often done to excess. Against Excess shows how we can limit the damage done by drugs and the damage done by drug policies.

Facing Addiction in America
Facing Addiction in America

Author: Office of the Surgeon General

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9781974580620

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All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs
Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2010-10-23

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 0309159342

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Despite efforts to reduce drug consumption in the United States over the past 35 years, drugs are just as cheap and available as they have ever been. Cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines continue to cause great harm in the country, particularly in minority communities in the major cities. Marijuana use remains a part of adolescent development for about half of the country's young people, although there is controversy about the extent of its harm. Given the persistence of drug demand in the face of lengthy and expensive efforts to control the markets, the National Institute of Justice asked the National Research Council to undertake a study of current research on the demand for drugs in order to help better focus national efforts to reduce that demand. This study complements the 2003 book, Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs by giving more attention to the sources of demand and assessing the potential of demand-side interventions to make a substantial difference to the nation's drug problems. Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs therefore focuses tightly on demand models in the field of economics and evaluates the data needs for advancing this relatively undeveloped area of investigation.

The Politics of Essential Drugs
The Politics of Essential Drugs

Author: Zafrullah Chowdhury

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9781856493628

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Dr Zafrulla Chowdhury is widely regarded as the father of Bangladesh's national drug policy, which pioneered a way through the maze of modern, Western manufactured drugs and developed a more affordable health strategy based, in part, on the local manufacture of a relatively small number of essential generic drugs. When the World Health Organization adopted the same approach, the Bangladesh experiment became influential in shaping other countris' health policies.