Women and Substance Abuse : Gender Transparency

An exploration of the options available for aiding minority women in some of the world's centres for drug abuse.

In Women and Substance Abuse: Gender Transparency you’ll see what can be done to aid women in some of the world’s hardest hit substance abuse hubs, including Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New Haven, Connecticut. Filled with timely research and practical solutions, this volume shows you what you can do to aid the tremendous and immediate need for specialized interventions in the lives of women.

Women and Substance Abuse considers many of the variables in the lives of women who abuse drugs--race, choice of drug, HIV risk, and drug treatment history--and gives you line-by-line proof of the need for custom-tailored harm reduction strategies for addicted women who are and who aren’t engaged in drug treatment therapy. In addition, you’ll see why frequent cocaine use, current physical and sexual abuse, and concerns relating to children can alter the success of therapies and treatments. Overall, this unique volume will broaden your understanding of the subject by covering:

• gender differences in risk for gonorrhea infection
• risk factors for women who trade sex for drugs and money
• the role of physicians and prenatal care providers of substance abusing women
• how drug treatment programs can be more multifacted to include planning, prenatal care, and parenting skills
• prison-based therapeutic communities
• long-term residential treatment for women with children, pregnant women, and women without children
  
  For every unique woman with a drug problem, there is a unique treatment. Women and Substance Abuse turns away from the lost cause of blanket treatments and takes you into the world’s slums and inner-city ghettoes, where the faces of addiction are as diverse as the women who bear its debilitating burdens. You’ll see women’s drug addiction for what it is--a montage of suffering and pain that only individual and specialized care can cure.