Hello Everyone, My name is Tim Parker and I have just retired from 37 years of teaching at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta. I have two goals for this blog. The first is to introduce you to my book on what addiction is and how it changes the brain. I have spent […]
Is cannabis addictive? This is a very important question, in fact, probably the central question concerning the use of cannabis, so thanks for asking it. The answer here is based on the neuroscience literature, and also draws from the government of Canada’s website on cannabis (https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/campaigns/cannabis.html). What makes this difficult to answer is that it […]
When cannabis was legalized in Canada I and a colleague invited questions about cannabis from our students. Here are some of those questions. Is a second-hand high an actual thing? It depends on your definition of second-hand. It turns out this is more complex than you might think. It depends on the issue of people’s […]
In my last years of teaching at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta, I did something out of the ordinary at the start of the first class in a course. I teach psychology, so why would I start the course by showing pictures of rivers? After spending so many years teaching lots of […]
I never cease to be impressed by what neuroscientists are able to discover, and the range of methods and procedures that produce these discoveries. Researchers have recently reported that they have discovered the function of cells found in the skin of female mice. These cells have been known for a long time and they are […]
You might recall that in 2021 there was a horrific mass shooting in 3 massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia in which 8 people, including 6 Asian women, were killed. While I in no way want to minimize the horrific and clear racial aspect of this slaughter, I thought it might be useful to offer some […]
Click the link at the top of the page for a description, the Table of Contents, and to order a copy.
There is an entirely preventable obscenity that is happening across Canada and the USA. I am referring to the fact that 2021 saw a dramatic rise in drug overdoses due to an unsafe drug supply. For example, in 2020 and 2021, over 2500 individuals in Alberta, Canada, died as a result of using unsafe drugs. […]
In dealing with the problem of addiction, some state and provincial governments pursue the ideology that focusing on recovery is the best way to approach the problem of addicted constituents. Some governments, for example the current Conservative government (2019-2023) of the Canadian province of Alberta, persists in ignoring the benefits to addicted individuals of a […]
In a recent speech on International Overdose Awareness Day, the Alberta Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions said, “The majority of overdose deaths take place at home, often when someone is using alone.” What is interesting to me is that this statement was essentially off the cuff, and clearly the Associate Minister did not […]