How should we talk about marijuana with our patients? Psychiatrists are often called upon to describe the adverse effects of smoking marijuana and asked about legitimate medical benefits. Here's an overview of ways to answer those questions.

There is a wide array of treatment options for patients with various levels of addiction issues, but of those rehab is one of the most well-known. Dr. Willenbring makes the argument that inpatient rehab is not an effective method to combat addiction.

An intervention has become the starting place for an addict's journey to rehab. We all have a notion of family and friends gathering around a patient and sharing their feelinings. Mr. Gallant is a professional interventionist, who has planned and executed interventions for 28 years. This interview shares his expertise in the area and provides his sense of how interventions fit into the addiction treatment process.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

You may or may not consider smoking cessation to be part of your job description. But tobacco use disorder is a psychiatric syndrome, per DSM-5.

Dr. Eissenberg discusses e-cigarettes, including an overview of the product, ways they are used and misused, and how they fit into the landscape of smoking cessation methods.

Quitting smoking requires a lot of motivation—something our patients don’t always have. Since money is a great motivator, various programs that pay patients to quit have been tried over the years. But how well does this technique work?

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

The technology of drug testing has progressed significantly over the years. This is both good and bad for doctors. There are more options, but perhaps too many. There are many types of tests and they vary in terms of the drug detection time frames.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and other psychedelic drugs have been associated with psychosis in some studies, and most psychiatrists would dissuade their patients from using such drugs. But a new population study casts some doubt on this received wisdom.