Tuesday, May 31, 2005

The Appropriate Medicalization of the Management of Chemical Addiction A page that provides a link to a Quicktime webcast editorial in Medscape General Medicine by George D. Lundberg, MD - "Diabetes mellitus is a common, serious, chronic, and sometimes disabling disease managed by medications. Osteoarthritis is a common, chronic, and sometimes disabling disease managed by medications and surgery. Heroin addiction is a common, serious chronic disease managed by medication and counseling. Why does that last statement sound odd? It is called stigma. There are strange historical, geographic, and ideologic reasons that have produced bafflingly conflicting and often repressive societal attitudes and public laws in chemical addiction..." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Consumer-Run Drop-In Centers: Program Operations and Costs Article in the spring issue of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal (in Adobe Acrobat format), based on telephone interviews with 32 consumer-run drop-in centres in Michigan. As noted in CMHA-Ontario's Mental Health Notes, the single greatest challenge facing these programs was funding - "According to the authors of the study, consumer-run approaches may be moving towards a more prominent role in mental health systems. The purpose of the current study was to gather more specific information about the operation of consumer-run centres as the basis for future research so that any differences in outcomes could be related to differences in characteristics among centres. Program characteristics, resources, and funding levels differed widely among the centres."