Opiate Addiction Research Paper

Opiate Addiction: Understanding Replacement Therapy An informal lecture by Scott Farnum, Administrator, Acadia Hospital in Bangor, Maine. Scott talked about how opioids have been around between three and five thousand years. The different opioids lift your mood, helps you feel motivated and pain relief. The natural opiates are more stimulating. It causes your brain to stop making the chemical that C Cells produce. When you stop using these opiates your brain doesn’t turn back on like a light switch. It can take days, weeks, months and years to regenerate brain. One of treatments that were talked about: abstinence program and that is where you say you’re never going to do drugs again. Start back over: is where they are kicked out the program and have to start back over. 90% relapse after a year. Not everyone does well in all every program. At Acadia's model drug treatment …show more content…
This was started because of the increasing deaths on the street. In lieu of jail, addicts are mandated to receive comprehensive treatment, which often reduces relapses and re-arrests. There are almost 1600 drug courts in the United States. In this film, a drug court in South Boston, MA is profiled, showing how the criminal justice system supervises long-term treatment for drug court clients. They first showed Daniel and the judge asked about his job and what he was doing then the judge said that you have to report back every two weeks to your probation officer. Joe who did show up to court but right before they called his name he told the officer that he forgot something in his car. So when he went out of the court house he kept walking and never returned. They issued a warrant for his arrest. Joe was on heroin for eight years, he took two grams a day, he shoplifted every day to pay for his