Currently and in recent years, there is a continued debate over the personal use of marijuana in North America and around the world. The debate remains adversarial and is receiving a large amount of public attention in various media. It is commonplace for former supporters of the existing drug control policies to publicly announce their changes of opinion. In British Columbia, several former Attorneys General joined a growing number of activists looking for decriminalization and legalization (Mulgrew, 2012). In early 2012, the former US District Attorney, John McKay, who prosecuted Marc Emery, a Canadian, for selling marijuana seeds to American residents, has publicly denounced prohibition policies (CBC News, 2012). At the same time, the focus of the marijuana debate continues to be dominated by arguments about how prohibition does nothing more than put money into the pockets of organized crime, punish otherwise law abiding citizens, violate people’s right to put whatever they want into their bodies, and throw good tax dollars after bad on a failed war on drugs (Harris, 2012). Decriminalization or legalization of marijuana, the advocates commonly argue, is really the only sensible solution.
Novel approaches to the treatment of stimulant abuse and dependence are needed. Clinical data examining the use of exercise as a treatment for the abuse of nicotine, alcohol, and other substances suggest that exercise may be a beneficial treatment for stimulant abuse. In addition, exercise has been associated with improvements in many other health-related areas that may be adversely affected by stimulant use or its treatment, such as sleep disturbance, cognitive function, mood, weight, quality of life, and anhedonia. Neurobiological evidence provides plausible mechanisms by which exercise could positively affect treatment outcomes in stimulant abuse. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network (CTN) CTN-0037 Stimulant Reduction Intervention using Dosed Exercise (STRIDE) study is a multisite randomized clinical trial that compares exercise to health education as potential treatments for stimulant abuse or dependence. If effective, exercise may provide an additional approach to the treatment of stimulant use disorders.
