Talk:Drug addiction

Drug addiction should be kept as a page separate from addiction

• Drug addiction is a huge topic worthy of its own article.
  • There are 945,000 google hits for the term "drug addiction."
  • There are 35 articles which link directly to drug addiction, and 3 redirects, with 38 additional pages linking through those redirects, for a total of 73 articles linking to this page.
  • The article is several screens long and is much more than just a stub.
  • There is a lot of room for improvement and additions to this article, which is far from dead in the water.
  • The rule of thumb for combining pages is for pages which have remained less than 1K for several months (see Wikipedia:Page size). This page is currently over 5K.
    • Even without the useful list of drugs, the page is still nearly 4K.
    • Surely if this were a candidate for combining with other pages addiction would be the proper page to combine it with, but it is not.
• Any issues of redundancy with addiction which are specific to drug addiction can be resolved by removing that redudancy from addiction.
  • The remaining redundancies are minor.
• Drug addiction is addiction. A dalmatian is a dog. Just because something is a subset of something else doesn't mean we shouldn't have an article on that subset.

Please add any counterpoints to a separate section. This list is subject to modification.

Drug addiction is addiction

• There are five million Google hits for "addiction"
• A redirect page never stopped anyone from getting where they wanted to go
• The article would be much shorter if it didn't have over forty drugs listed, each on its own line, essentially duplicating what is on the external links. Most of the 35 links to this article are from those pages.
• Of course there is room for improvement in this article. There is room in any article.
• If the rule of thumb is that small pages be combined, then logic dictates that specific pages be grouped into more general ones. One does not place an article on dogs into a page on Dalmations in order to promote efficient use of space.
  • You're ducking the issue and you know it. Discussion of size refers to point three, as if 'screens' were any legitimate measure of article length.
• Same - any issue of redundency in articles on 'dogs' and 'Dalmations' can be resolved by removing the redundency from 'dogs'? You think?
• "The article does not substantially duplicate material in prohibition." This is a good thing, considering that drug addiction and prohibition have a whole lot of not much in common.
• "The war on drugs section has been reduced to a single sentence." Acceptable. Given that this is an article on addiction, not on regulation or treatment or any other issue not directly related to use, this ought to be added as a "see also," but I can live with it.
• "Drug addiction is addiction. A dalmation is a dog. Just because something is a subset of something else doesn't mean we shouldn't have an article on that subset. " Agreed. I'm happy with the article as it stands now, and have no problem with removing the request to redirect.

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This article is generally good, but the first section blurs the very important distinction between physical dependence and psychological addiction. While the phenomenon of physical dependence can aggravate psychological addiction when it occurs, they are still distinct phenomena. Several psychologically addictive drugs, such as cocaine, induce little if any physical dependence; conversely, the physical dependence that invariably occurs in the use of opioids to treat chronic pain does *NOT* imply psychological addiction (which is relatively rare under those circumstances, Rush Limbaugh's self-serving excuses notwithstanding).

I think it's fair to say that this is now the consensus opinion of both pain and addiction specialists.

User:Karn

Generalizations

Under "The basis for addiction" and "The chemicals responsible" sections it says "Addictive substances, through various means and to different degrees, cause the synapses of this system to flood with excessive amounts of dopamine, creating a brief rush of euphoria more commonly called a "high". " and "The CREB protein, a transcription factor activated by cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) immediately after a high, triggers genes that produce proteins such as dynorphin, which cuts off dopamine release and temporarily inhibits the reward circuit. In chronic drug users, a sustained activation of CREB leaves the user feeling depressed and dissatisfied, and unable to find pleasure in previously enjoyable activities, often leading to a return to the drug for an additional "fix". It also leads to a short term tolerance of the substance, necessitating that a greater amount be taken in order to reach the same high.". These are assuming that all addictions to addictive substances is mediated by dopamine and this is just not correct. There are many factors and not just the dopamine reward system that make people keep taking addictive substances, sometimes having nothing at all to do with dopamine. While this is obviously a main factor it should be mentioned that there are other factors, different receptors in the brain, that cause this behavior. One example of addictive drugs that aren't mediated by dopamine are dissociatives such as ketamine, nitrous. dextromethorphan and pcp. Also I would like to suggest that the list of addictive substances be fixed, it says analgesics but also puts various popular opiates which are analgesics. Also the list is just very incomplete, if you are going to list individual substances there are thousands of addictive ones (think analogs), perhaps it should be like: opioids, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, monoamine compound such as tryptamines(addiction potential debated) and phenthylamines(or more specific such as phenethylamime stimulants, psychadelics, empathogens, antidepressants) (although phenethylamines and tryptamines may be the objects of addiction in a few idiosyncratic cases, they are not at all addictive to most people) etc. It also could be listed by the receptors that mediate its effect: Opioidergics, serotoninergics, dopaminergics, gabaergeics, adrenalergics etc. Also another thing that should be included somewhere is the fact that food acts like a drug to the bodies neurochemistry and is addictive as well.