This remarkable book enables those with little or no background in science or health care to understand the complex issues surrounding drug use. In jargon-free language, it discusses the differences in the psychological and physical effects of various drugs and how particular substances affect certain people in different ways. Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, and the Road to Recovery: Life on the Edge provides current, reliable, and unbiased information on methods for dealing with dependency upon alcohol and central nervous system depressants, hallucinogens, heroin, nicotine, marijuana, caffeine, amphetamines, designer drugs such as Ecstasy, and steroids. Originally published in 1992 as The Facts About Drug Use, this updated edition contains new information about the effects of alcohol and recreational, mood-altering drugs on the body, the reasons individuals give for initiating drug use, and the treatment options available to those who become dependent on drug use as a way of life. To view an excerpt online, find the book in our QuickSearch catalog at www.HaworthPress.com.

Symposium presentations address: molecular biological tools in exploring behavior; drugs of abuse and the immune system; marijuana use; motivational aspects of drug abuse; excitatory amino acids in stimulant abuse and AIDS dementia; agonist efficacy, drug dependence, and medications development; drugs of abuse and gender differences; presynaptic and postsynaptic neurochemical alterations in human psychostimulant abusers; antibody and protein based therapies for drug abuse; behavioral and pharmacological interventions for pregnant substance abusers; and mechanisms of abused drugs: concordance between lab. animal and human studies.

With the emergence of the biological sciences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some explanations of congenital malformations with a basis in scientific fact were formulated. It was not, however, until the thalidomide tragedy in 1961 that the necessity for further study of the effects of environmental factors on congenital malformations was recognized. By the early 1970s concentrated efforts had begun to be directed toward evaluating the effects on the unborn child of mood-altering drugs taken during pregnancy. Over the past decade, research and treatment programs have led to the recognition of a full range of psychoactive drugs that affect the developing fetus either somatically or behaviorally. Programs for the treatment of the pregnant drug addict have been developed which concentrate not only on the pharmacologic therapy of the woman but also on the social and psychologic characteristics that place her and her unborn child at risk. This book is an attempt to bring together clinicians and researchers who have been active in developing programs for the recognition and management of the chemically dependent pregnant woman and her newborn. The contributions of the multiple disciplines which the authors represent emphasize the need for a multifactorial approach to the problems of drug use and abuse during pregnancy. It is hoped that through this type of approach a better future for substance-exposed infants, innocent bystanders in the process of addiction, can be assured. Ira J. Chasnoff vii Contributing Authors I. J. CHASNOFF, MD W.