The Opiate Cure tells the stories of painful people whose mental illness were relieved when they were given opiates for their chronic pain. This improbable outcome has occurred in those with bipolar depression and mania, attention deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and narcolepsy. These several diseases are now linked together, constituting the bipolar spectrum. Linked also to bipolar spectrum is chronic pain in its many forms, including migraine. This book will clearly demonstrate that bipolar spectrum is uniquely responsive to opiate therapy. The Opiate Cure offers new insights and, more importantly, hope for those with acute and/or chronic pain.

Methadone is still the most widely used medication for the treatment of opioid dependence, and the authors provide an extensive section on methadone treatment. Three chapters cover the pharmacology and clinical use of buprenorphine as well as the latest research on Naltrexone, Clonidine, and Lofexidine. The volume also includes chapters on pain and prescription opioids as well as medication-free treatment and medically supervised alternatives to opioid substitute treatments, including withdrawal.

"Contrary to general belief, there is no federal law against growing P. somniferum."—Martha Stewart Living

"Regarded as 'God's own medicine,' preparations of opium were as common in the Victorian medicine cabinet as aspirin is in ours. As late as 1915, pamphlets issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture were still mentioning opium poppies as a good cash crop for northern farmers. Well into this century, Russian, Greek, and Arab immigrants in America have used poppy-head tea as a mild sedative and a remedy for headaches, muscle pain, cough, and diarrhea. During the Civil War, gardeners in the South were encouraged to plant opium for the war effort, in order to ensure a supply of painkillers for the Confederate Army. What Hogshire has done is to excavate this vernacular knowledge and then publish it to the world—in how-to form, with recipes."— Michael Pollan