People like to speak of "paradigms" vis-à-vis Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where one scientific paradigm creeps up on and overtakes another, as it provides an unambiguously superior ...

Writing as editor of MedPage Today, the redoubtable George Lundberg* confidently (and briefly) declared: "All drugs are habit-forming, but only a subset of psychoactive drugs can produce psychological ...

When science first studied addictive behavior individuals who became addicted to a substance commonly were viewed as being morally flawed human beings lacking willpower. Today, that view has changed.

The terms “addiction” and “dependence” can seem similar, but they are different. Dependence occurs when the body physically relies on a drug. Addiction involves changes in behavior. A person with an ...

Last month, The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) made a big step toward widespread recognition of addiction as a medical issue rather than a behavioral issue or moral failing. It released ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Over the past year and a half, Scientific ...

The argument over how society should respond to addiction is usually framed in medical or political terms, but beneath it ...