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This compelling, honest book investigates the growing epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse among today's Generation Rx. Through gripping profiles and heartbreaking confessions, this memoir dares to uncover the reality -- the addiction, the withdrawal, and the recovery -- of this newest generation of pill poppers. Joshua Lyon was no stranger to substance abuse. By the time he was seventeen, he had already found sanctuary in pot, cocaine, Ecstasy, and mushrooms -- just to name a few. Ten years later, on assignment for Jane magazine, he found himself with a two-inch-thick bottle of Vicodin in his hands and only one decision to make: dispose of the bottle or give in to his curiosity. He chose the latter. In a matter of weeks he'd found his perfect drug. In the early half of this decade, purchasing painkillers without a doctor was as easy as going online and checking the spam filter in your inbox. The accessibility of these drugs -- paired with a false perception of their safety -- contributed to their epidemic-like spread throughout America's twenty-something youth, a group dubbed Generation Rx. Pill Head is Joshua Lyon's harrowing and bold account of this generation, and it's also a memoir about his own struggle to recover from his addiction to painkillers. The story of so many who have shared this experience--from discovery to addiction to rehabilitation -- Pill Head follows the lives of several young people much like Joshua and dares to blow open the cultural phenomena of America's newest pill-popping generation. Marrying the journalist's eye with the addict's mind, Joshua takes readers through the shocking and often painful profiles of recreational users and suffering addicts as they fight to recover. Pill Head is not only a memoir of descent, but of endurance and of determination. Ultimately, it is a story of encouragement for anyone who is wrestling to overcome addiction, and anyone who is looking for the strength to heal.

Does Ecstasy cause brain damage? Why is crack more addictive than cocaine? What questions regarding drugs are legal to ask in a job interview? When does marijuana possession carry a greater prison sentence than murder?Illegal Drugs is the first comprehensive reference to offer timely, pertinent information on every drug currently prohibited by law in the United States. It includes their histories, chemical properties and effects, medical uses and recreational abuses, and associated health problems, as well as addiction and treatment information.Additional survey chapters discuss general and historical information on illegal drug use, the effect of drugs on the brain, the war on drugs, drugs in the workplace, the economy and culture of illegal drugs, and information on thirty-three psychoactive drugs that are legal in the United States, from caffeine, alcohol and tobacco to betel nuts and kava kava.

New molecular technologies have transformed our understanding of the neurological impact of drugs of abuse and opened many new possibilities for research. In Drugs of Abuse: Neurological Reviews and Protocols, leading scientists from all over the world review these novel research areas and provide a cutting-edge collection of updated and core techniques for the neurological study of drugs of abuse. Described in step-by-step detail, these readily reproducible protocols cover a wide variety of coherent methods for gathering information on quantitative changes in protein and mRNA at both tissue and cellular levels. There are various methods for detecting single and multiple alterations in single and multiple gene expression, for analyzing the functional roles of genes and proteins, for studying the release kinetics of striatal dopamine, and for the quantitative measurement of such neurotransmitters as acetylcholine. Additional methods are provided for primary neural cell culture preparation, for an immunohistochemical method to examine cellular proliferation and differentiation, and for a culture method to grow viable neural progenitors. All contributors have considerable experience with the protocols covered, and each protocol has been thoroughly tried and successfully tested in the laboratory. Helpful notes for each method discuss tricks-of-the-trade, pitfalls to avoid, and troubleshooting. State-of-the-art and highly practical, Drugs of Abuse: Neurological Reviews and Protocols offers insightful reviews of key current topics and a core collection of readily reproducible techniques essential for any neurobiological laboratory carrying out either basic analyses or seeking novel research approaches.