Sunday, February 7, 2010

Addiction: "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts"

(MG9, 2/3/10) Democracy Now! talks with Dr. Gabor Maté about his latest book, the title of which is based on Buddhist cosmology and pretas. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction proposes more effective ways of treating addiction. He discusses the biological and socioeconomic roots of drug, sex, and other addictions.

Dr. Maté is staff physician at the Portland Hotel Society, which runs a residence/harm-reduction facility and North America's only supervised Safe-Injection Site in Vancouver, Canada. The city is home to one of the world's densest populations of drug abusers. Dr. Maté is the bestselling author of four books.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts explores the futility of the "war on drugs." To stop drug abuse, first one must understand the social-psychological, biological, and political origins of addiction. Dr. Maté also discusses his work on Attention Deficit Disorder and the mind-body connection.

"Nothing records the effects of a sad life so graphically as the human body." -- Naguib Mahfouz

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