The world’s best business model has always been addiction. Tobacco and alcohol have been around for ages, but new temptations and spinoffs are being marketed all the time: meth, painkillers, energy drinks, you name it.

Importantly, the study also finds that the risk of violence from patients with psychoses who also have substance use disorder is no greater than those who have a substance use disorder but who do not have a psychotic illness – in other words, schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses do not appear to be responsible for any additional risk of violence above the increased risk associated with substance abuse.

Smoking marijuana over an extended period of time appears to greatly boost a young man’s risk for developing a particularly aggressive form of testicular cancer, a new study reveals. [...]

Relief from pain. In some people, prescription pain relievers also cause euphoria or feelings of well being by affecting the brain regions that mediate pleasure. This is why they are abused. Other effects include drowsiness, constipation and slowed breathing. [...]

On Sunday researchers at the University of Buffalo reported that Ritalin, used on children diagnosed with ADHD, may cause long-term changes in the brain. Many clinicians regard Ritalin as short-acting but the research with gene expression in an animal model suggests that it has the potential for causing long-lasting changes [...]

The body produces many chemicals and hormones, i.e., histamines, steroids, thyroid hormone, digitalis-like substances, adrenalin, etc, all of which work by attaching to corresponding brain receptors. The key is that these natural substances produced by the body are present in nanogram amounts [...]