Drugs Books

This is an excellent resource for those both in recovery and for those who should be (are willing to stop but who are struggling). It offers so many tools for finding the relief from addiction and clearly lays out the consequences of relapsing. A great resource.

Michael Z, Author The Wisdom of the Rooms A Year of Weekly Reflections

Put in precise wording, this book outlines exactly what the consequences would be if a person relapses into drug use. It also tells the steps to take to overcome falling back into old patterns. It is helpful not only to one who uses(or used)drugs but also to family members who have been involved with a user. I highly recommend this quick read.

Based on exhaustive research and interviews, this detailed and extensively footnoted history of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is both a fine reference work for scholars, and an eye-opening, exciting narrative for the general reader. The book itself is the highest quality, made to last for generations, and includes a section of rare photographs, and an appendix consisting of a rogue's gallery from the FBN's files. The FBN, headed by Harry J. Anslinger, was the precursor agency to today's DEA. The War on Drugs that has been waged for years now, with a price is no object mentality, is now being reconsidered by more and more people as either an ill-considered mistake, or perhaps even as a Big Government/Big Brother monkey on the public's fiscal back. The War has surely not stopped the supply of drugs, and if you have ever thought that it was never intended to, but wondered why that was so, The Strength of The Wolf, will provide some answers. There are many books about drug enforcement (or lack thereof) in the recent past, but this work is unique in that it looks at what might be called the dawn of drug enforcement.

Given how much money this country spends to fight drug dealers and to lock up drug dealers & users both, I am amazed how little I hear people question the War on Drugs.

This book provides the historical framework critical to understand this, with the War on Drugs beginning as an attempt to provide what equates to trade protection to the pharmaceutical companies (who competed with the real thing of the day, opium/heroin), and how later racism led to marijuana users being targeted as well (Black Americans in Harlem and Latinos in the SW and California), and of course the violence fueled by the cocaine/crack trade made it a national buzzword.

It is a crime that this assault on our own citizens continues today - one would think that after the dismal failure of Prohibition that we would have learned our lesson.

Hopefully this book can start raising a consciousness to question it, at the very least more public debate (without the hysteria) is long overdue.

I received the book the day before I needed it in class the next morning, perfect timing. I am very pleased with my order.
Thank you.

This book came in a very timely matter... even sooner then I was expecting it. The book was in great condition and packaged well so it did not get trashed during the shipping process. Was very happy with this purchase.

This book is easy to read and very informative and helpful about common conditions for which most of us take medication. Really does tell you things your doctor doesn't know so you can make better choices for treating illnesses.

For every dollar we spend on prescription drugs, we spend a dollar to fix a complication. Understanding how nutritional supplements affect these drugs could make them safer and more effective.
--Mehmet Oz, M.D., Professor of Surgery at Columbia University and author of bestsellers YOU: The Owner's Manual and YOU: On A Diet

As Dr. Cass makes crystal clear, what you don't know can hurt you. In this age of pharmaceutical-based medicine, this book is a must-read for patients and physicians alike.
--Julian Whitaker, M.D., Founder of the Whitaker Wellness Institute and author of the Health & Healing newsletter

Medications have been reported to kill over 200,000 Americans a year, with most physicians sadly being clueless about how to avoid this. Dr. Cass once again does an outstanding job teaching us how to reclaim our birthright of optimal health---easily and naturally!
--Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., Medical Director of the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers and author of From Fatigued to Fantastic!

This subject is so timely and the implications so powerful, that Dr. Cass's new book deserves to be read by everybody taking prescription meds, and more importantly, by their doctors.
--Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S., award-winning author of The Fat Flush Plan and Before the Change

Supplement Your Prescription breaks new ground in the previously unexplored terrain of how nutrients are depleted by prescriptive drugs and how to use them together wisely. A boon for both conventional and integrative medicine, this book eliminates the confusion and the guesswork. Both physician and patient will benefit tremendously from Dr. Cass's research, insight, and practical application.
--Gerald M. Lemole, M.D., heart surgeon, Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine Christiana Healthcare System and author of The Healing Diet


From a recognized leader in the field of integrative medicine, Supplement Your Prescription is a vital resource to help patients avoid drug-nutrient depletion, and even enhance the benefits of their drugs with synergistic nutrients. A must-read!
--Ronald L. Hoffman, M.D., Medical Director of the Hoffman Center and author of How to Talk with Your Doctor (about Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

If you are taking prescription medications, you must protect yourself, and Dr. Cass tells you how to do it.
--Stephen Sinatra M.D., F.A.C.C., Medical Director of the New England Heart & Longevity Center and co-author of Reverse Heart Disease Now

This book is a must-read for anyone who takes prescription drugs and doesn't want to suffer needless side effects.
--Marcus Laux N.D., author of Naturally Well Today newsletter

This book empowers people to take control of their health by knowing what their medications are really doing. It contains a huge amount of information, like an encyclopedia, but an easy read. A must read for everyone taking a medication!
--Dwight Lundell, M.D., heart surgeon and author of The Cure for Heart Disease.

I really liked this book because I learned about how the mind works to keep the body, mind and soul enslaved in addiction, and redmeption. The writing was so smooth and flowed so nicely it was easy to read and a joy to read. I liked this book alot and is why I've bought two more to give as gifts.

Powerful, poignant, shocking and real, William Pryor's Survival of the Coolest is an addiction memoir that not only tells a courageous and riveting story, but also attempts to penetrate to the very heart of the cause of addiction.

William's story begins with a look into his privileged, yet emotionally empty, background. With the legacy of English landed gentry on his father's side and the Darwinian-Bloomsbury heritage on his mother's side, William could not help but feel the pressure of his genes. As a great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, he was expected to live up to this god of science and to excel in whatever he did so that family appearances would be maintained. Unfortunately, young William found that parental love was linked to an excellence that he could not meet. And so, he grew up feeling empty, isolated---invisible.

Yet, William was blessed with his own extraordinary gifts of creativity, sensitivity and intelligence that cried out for a supportive environment. As a result, he was forced to look outside of the family nexus in order to seek his identity and something that could "fill the hole in my belly." And so, he plunged into the Beat Culture of the early sixties where he could mix with the artists, the poets, the musicians and the philosophers---the rebellious social/cultural visionaries who lived on the cutting-edge. Syd Barrett and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Donovan and Mick Jaggar were among those who, in one way or another, interacted within his circle. William reveled in Jazz and saw its rebellious vitality and creative immediacy as "...the refreshing opposite of the classical stiffness of home. How strange: my heroes were black Americans: Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk! The only white was Gerry Mulligan and he was a junky" (16).

Unfortunately, one of life's realities is that anything that is good must also have its dark side. And so, it was here, in this exciting new world, that William began his slide down the steep slope of addiction. He experimented with numerous consciousness-altering chemicals ranging from opium to cocaine to alcohol and much that lay in between. He became hooked in 1963 at the age of 18 and struggled through addiction hell for twelve years until, finally, at the age of 30, he was able to crawl through to the other side.

Explicit in detail, genuinely human and deeply insightful, William's description of his life of chemical dependency gives the reader a clear picture of the losses, the struggles and the humiliations that accompany an addict's life. Above all, he writes of the pain of having to spend one's entire life in constant search for the next fix just to feel "normal" again. Yet, every fix perpetuates the vicious cycle of pain and relief: "Addiction feeds on itself: you need the stuff to wipe out the pain of needing the stuff (23)."

In 1967, after four years of addiction, friends led him into the sphere of an authentic Indian mystic. Upon making the trip to India to see him, he became convinced that real spirituality, which is gained from conscious contact with something deeper within one's being, is the answer to the search for real meaning and happiness in life. He returned home convinced, but his addiction had to run its course.

Ultimately, William's story is a positive one. He acknowledges that positive things can come from negative circumstances. Nothing is ever a waste of time. William's spiritual life is the source of this positive attitude and, along with it, the insight into what he sees as the basic cause of addictive behavior.

According to William, all addictive behavior, which includes not only drugs and alcohol, but also addiction that is based upon sex, gambling, shopping, eating disorders, workaholism and so forth, originates from a fundamentally universal human condition---the need to fill the "gnawing hole in [the] belly." Addiction is the hell of desperately trying to fill the loneliness, the emptiness, the dry wilderness within the soul. This is the "original pain," the "root pain," "the great nostalgia" with which each of us is born. It is the primary precursor pain of all addictive behavior. If a child receives enough love early in life, it is easier to cope with this pain; if not, then it becomes overwhelming. Each of us, out of necessity, has become very skilled in developing our own ways of coping with it, of hiding it, and distracting our attention from it.

Why this pain, and what is this pain? It is a known truth that, whether we are conscious of it or not, everyone is actually always seeking something more in life. Perhaps this is a symptom of a longing for transcendence, of reaching beyond our selves into something that is far more essential. William writes that this pain is "the ultimate blues or bireh in Sanskrit: the pain of separation from the source, an elemental reminder of the origins of my being" (214). And so, the way that we deal with the pain can either be the cause of addiction or the means to the ultimate cure of the human condition. William says it best:

"My recovery, my going back to a state of health, has revolved around the position this pain holds in my inner life, around how I hold it, what I do with it. It cannot be made better, but it can be either grasped or shrunk from...[this pain] goes beyond, to the purpose of life. Grasp it and you're in love and living dangerously. Deny it and you're merely existing." (211-212)

Furthermore, he adds:

"I am not a negative, and both `alcoholic' and `addict' are negative. I can now mother the child my addiction gave birth to, the child of creativity. The only incurable illness I have is the great nostalgia, the longing for the yearning, and this I welcome!"(220)

Thank you, William, for opening my eyes!

Prescription drugs are very much needed, but can be very expensive. To get help in dealing with the cost, it can be very time consuming and fustrating.

This book, makes it very easy to understand programs that can help individuals achieve significant cost savings when they need precscriptions.

It is truly a god sent and can be a life saver.

This book is an excellent guide for people who want to sav money on prescription drugs. It tells you about reduced costs at web sites, about getting reduced prices or free from drug companies, and even mail-order and generic substitution. Each chapter is on a separate topic. And the appendix gives you telephone numbers and web addresses. A great book for consumers.

a powerful, highly intelligent exploration of the more uniquely fascinating aspects to the War on Drugs and its horrendous components.

The author writes from an informed, erudite perspective that drags truly insidious paranoias (generated by people - not drugs) into the light of day, before systematically decimating them.

A brilliant book - a must read.

Dr. Jenkins writes an engaging historical examination of how government agencies (Drug Enforcement Administration, police groups)have used alarming claims about designer drugs (and other drugs that have been around for years)in order to fund increasing budgets.

Through a number of case studies, in which he cites statistical information while providing an understanding of how such statistics are gathered, it becomes clear that virtually all of the designer drug panics have been far overrated in their impact. In most cases, there is a small localized following for some drug of abuse, which is then reported in an alarmist fashion as being a major threat to the entire country. Exageration is the norm to those with a vested interest in greater police funding and reduced civil liberties.

He also points out how a press which is always eager to print alarming news to engage readers, and has frequently acted as a stenographer, uncritically publishing these often false claims.

In a constructive finish to the work, the author points out how to spot exaggerated and ungrounded claims, and what to do about them.

This book should be required reading for elected government officials, and concerned citizens.

kbrilhart@mindspring.com

As indispensable as always, especially for those of us not yet ready for the PDA revolution. As this edition has a glued-end binding to accomodate more pages than the previous fold-and-staple editions, I will be currious to see how it stands up to constant use. So far, so good: it has remained stable for the past month in-and-out of this med-student's pocket.

Excellent resource for drug information in a hurry - the most useful aspect for me in my practice is the information as to whether a drug is available in a generic form yet (very handy in these days of two-tiered co-pays). There is a table of comparative efficacies of different lipid-lowering agents. The chart of comparative strength for topical steroids is handy, as is the information on what forms and what size tubes the topicals come in. There is a nice asthma section with tables of expected peak flows, colors of different inhalers (patients never remember the names), and an asthma action plan to give patients. Finally, there is a handy little dermatome drawing and reminders of which nerve root innervates which muscles and reflexes (have to refresh my memory on those every few months).

I use Lexi-Comp's Drug Information Handbook often, too - especially for CYP450 interactions and half-lives - but the Tarascon, pound-for-pound, beats it (and Lexi-Comp does not have the generic info).

I do medical transcription and find this a ready source.

I've used the pocket pharmacopoeia for many years, and it's the only book I'll buy every year when the new edition comes out. It's amazing how they can stuff so much info into a pocket-sized book. Sure, ePocrates and other handheld databases have more info, but I can usually look up a medicine in the pharmacopoeia faster than it takes to open up a Palm and type in the med name. This and the Sanford guide are the two most important quick reference guides available - I only wish the Sanford guide was as easy to read as the pharmacopoeia.

The medications are organized by specialty (e.g. cardiovascular, neurological), but all of them are indexed by both generic and brand names, so I usually turn to the index first. Dosing information, pill size, pregnancy class, and relative cost are all listed concisely. There are also tables scattered throughout the book in appropriate areas, such as topical corticosteroid potencies.

it's an excellent book with a very logical sequence to learn the field of pharmacoepidemiology, although the letter is small what makes difficult a little the reading

This book takes an enormous amount of information that has heretofore been scattered in various journal articles and other sources, and gathers it into one convenient, coherent, well-indexed place. It covers both the theoretical and the practical aspects of the complex, multidisciplinary field that is drug safety epidemiology today. A great reference to have when conducting or evaluating studies.