News & Views
Denver Health provides first-of-its-kind military training
Since joining the U.S. Army Reserve seven years ago, I have had a lot of time to study the military training needs for Army Mental Health Specialists. I am grateful to my employer, Denver Health, and to my colleagues there -- especially Dr. Scott Simpson, director of...
The marijuana, psychosis connection
More research, this time from King’s College in London, reinforces the strong association between marijuana use and psychosis. We provide an extensive list of research citations to aid the growing number of parents who contact us.
Thurstone named Denver ‘Top Doc’ in 2018
I'm humbled by the praise of my physician peers, who named me a Denver "Top Doc" for the eighth consecutive year in in 5280 magazine. To those of you who thought of me and took the time to cast this vote of confidence in my work, thank you so much. I count on many of...
Perspective from a Colorado pain medicine doctor
I frequently hear from people around the world who have interesting perspectives about healthcare and are good at sharing what they're seeing and thinking from the trenches. Dr. Kenneth Finn has practiced pain medicine in Colorado Springs, Colo., for nearly 25 years....
Is marijuana the answer to the opioid epidemic?
What we know for sure is that the United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans each year. In 2016, 42,000 Americans died from heroin or opiate overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....
Record-breaking level of 12th graders say they’re more likely to use legal marijuana
Marijuana use is up in the last year among American middle-school and high-school students, and legalizing the drug likely would mean many more underage marijuana users, according to Monitoring the Future, one of the United States' largest studies of students' drug...
Introducing ImpACT for adolescents: A training manual for mental health professionals
I am pleased to share this treatment manual, impACT: Motivational Interviewing/Acceptance Commitment Training for Adolescents with Substance Use and Co-occurring Problems. It is yours, free for the download. Though this is a guide for therapists, impACT could help a...
Public agencies need to do more to communicate marijuana product recalls
Marijuana product recalls in Colorado are not consistently, widely or even transparently communicated to the public online -- and that concerns a growing number of healthcare providers. Among them is Dr. Ken Finn, a Colorado Springs physician whose group practice,...
Data don’t support claims U.S. has clogged jails with marijuana users
When discussing marijuana and THC, we often hear people express support for the drug's legalization because they believe doing so would unclog American jails and prisons. That pervasive belief is just not supported by local, state and federal public records -- as The...
Addressing Gov. John Hickenlooper’s claims that youth marijuana use is down
One year ago, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper claimed on national television that since the state sanctioned recreational marijuana use, there was no increase in teenage use of the drug and black-market sales had shrunk. His claims have been repeated thousands of...
Read the book
Clearing the Haze is a guide designed to help parents determine whether their child may have a substance problem and, if so, how to begin to address it. This book includes the voices and insight of experts in substance abuse counseling, young people in recovery, and parents who have lived the nightmare of adolescent addiction.