The Wiz's Weighty Proposals

Of course, I'm not expecting Rashad to endorse my four-point plan for a leaner, meaner America. "Many people have suggested these findings are reasons to go back on lots of things," she said. "That is simply not something we can conclude."

Needle Love

Heroin addiction is tough to overcome, and researcher Davina Moss thinks she knows one reason why: Some addicts seem to mourn their "lost" relationship and move through the classic stages of grief as they kick their habit.

"I was extremely surprised to hear the addicts describe their love for the needle," said Moss, a newly minted PhD in counselor education at the University of Buffalo who conducted in-depth interviews with a dozen addicts in a detox facility. They told her about their feeling of "oneness" with the needle, even how they would caress it.

Some junkies characterized their relationship with their syringes as a "love affair," said Moss, who has worked with heroin addicts for 13 years.

In one interview, she recounted, whenever the user "described his 'works' [drug paraphernalia], the look on his face was like he was talking about a loved one."

Her research suggests that recovering addicts don't just miss the drug -- they actually grieve the loss of the "heroin lifestyle," partly because they're hooked on the challenge and thrill of obtaining and using the drug.

Several told her "how they missed feeling the needle in theirarm" -- a confession that came out when she asked them why they were always first in line to have required blood samples drawn at the detox facility.

"Heroin addicts develop a strong bond among themselves -- much like you find within a family or cult," Moss asserted. "They have their own slang, they watch out for each other and share information on where to get the drug."

Moss said that the more she talked with these dozen addicts and other users, the more she realized that the process of quitting heroin followed the classic stages of grief, including denial, anger, depression and, finally, acceptance that they're not going back to their formerly destructive ways. It's an insight, she said, that counselors can use in their work.

"Counselors should look at this person as they would someone who is grieving over a lost spouse or child," said Moss, whose work has attracted national attention. "Let them talk freely about the relationship they have had with heroin, so they can move on."

Keep It Civil

Don't you love it when politicians fight?

So do I. But we shouldn't, say political scientist Diana C. Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania and communications professor Byron Reeves of Stanford University. They found that watching impolite exchanges between opposing candidates makes people more mistrustful of the political system, politicians and political institutions.

In three experiments involving more than 200 test subjects, the researchers showed mock programs in which a moderator discussed politics with two actors posing as political candidates.

In two versions, the two candidates strongly disagreed with each other, but in a polite way. In the third, they debated those same issues but went out of their way to be insulting and uncivil to each other.

In subsequent interviews, the test subjects who saw the uncivil debate were significantly more likely to say they didn't trust politicians, Congress or our system of government, Mutz and Reeves reported earlier this year in the American Political Science Review.

God knows what they would have found if they had forced their test subjects to watch "The McLaughlin Group," "Hardball" or any of those other howl-and-screech political shows.

morinr@washpost.com