Word: treatments
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When methadone was first introduced 24 years ago, it was hailed as a magic bullet aimed at the heart of heroin addiction. A neat, clean medical solution to a social problem. It has proved to be something less than that. Methadone is a treatment, not a cure, for addiction, and an imperfect one at that. But for some 100,000 of the country's half-million heroin addicts, it offers an alternative to shooting up as well as the possibility of a productive life...
...most promising of several drugs to combat addiction that are being tested is buprenorphine, a pain reliever that in early trials has shown clear advantages over methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction. Under development by a team at Yale University, the drug, like methadone, induces a generalized feeling of contentment rather than heroin's precipitate rush and euphoria. It is at least as effective as methadone in easing physical withdrawal and reducing cravings, and it is significantly more potent in blocking heroin's high if the addict tries to shoot up again. Unlike methadone, buprenorphine is relatively nonaddictive...
...neurological conditions are also showing some promise. Flupenthixol, currently prescribed overseas for schizophrenia, seems to soften the "crash," a unique combination of depression and craving that follows one cocaine binge and typically leads to another round. In preliminary trials on a group of ten Bahamian crack addicts seeking treatment, researchers from Yale found that even low doses kept users off cocaine for the two-month duration of the trial. Another drug, carbamazepine, long taken to prevent seizures, has proved to be moderately effective against cocaine craving. In tests this year, six of 13 people taking the drug stopped using cocaine...
Finally, Larew's assumption that Israeli democracy is eroding has no support. If he wants to say that the treatment of West Bank Palestinians is "undemocratic," then I think he would get little argument from any side; the West Bank is under military occupation--a consequence of Jordan's unsuccessful surprise attack during the Six Day War--and as a result does not even pretend to live under the same rules as the Israeli democracy. Many right-wing Israelis would indeed like to rectify this situation by annexing the territories and including the Palestinians in the state, a solution...
NIMBY means "Not In My Back Yard." Into this folder went articles about neighborhood groups that didn't want sewage treatment plants constructed near their beautiful houses, or families who objected to proposals for homeless shelters next door...