Science Daily — Frequent exposure to environmental tobacco smoke among 13-year-olds is associated with an increased risk of future blood vessel hardening and greater risks of other heart disease factors, according to new research published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association. Read Article
Science Daily — Young adults who have used cannabis or marijuana for a longer period of time appear more likely to have hallucinations or delusions or to meet criteria for psychosis, according to a report posted online that will appear in the May print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Read Article
PhysOrg.com – The longer people use cannabis or marijuana, the more likely they are to experience hallucinations or delusions or to suffer psychosis, according to a study released Saturday. The study found that people who first used cannabis when they were aged 15 or younger were twice as likely to develop a “non-affective psychosis” — which can include schizophrenia — than those who had never used the drug. Read article
BBC – The head of Russia’s federal drug control agency has accused Nato of not doing enough to curb the production of heroin in Afghanistan. Victor Ivanov said at least 30,000 people died in Russia every year from heroin, 90% of it from Afghanistan. Read article
PhysOrg.com – When compared to the nicotine vapor delivery system used in the Nicotrol/Nicorette inhaler, the new technology proved more effective at delivering nicotine to the blood stream. As a result, it provides immediate relief of withdrawal symptoms, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers. Users also reported the new nicotine delivery method was more tolerable than the current inhaler because it caused less throat irritation. Read article
Universities should consider introducing random tests to combat the rising use of legal “smart drugs” being taken by students, a neuroscientist warned. Brainpower-enhancing substances such as Ritalin and modafinil, which can be bought online, heighten the mind’s alertness. An increasing number of students are taking them before exams to help them focus, according to research from the US. Read article
The Times – Teenage girls are eating a worse diet than they did ten years ago and putting their long-term health at risk, a national nutrition survey suggests. Girls of secondary school age are not only living on junk food such as crisps, cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks, but they are also smoking and drinking more than boys. Read Article
News.com – BRITISH authorities today warned drug users that heroin in London was highly likely to be contaminated with anthrax, after a first confirmed case there and following nine deaths in Scotland. “While public health investigations are ongoing, it must be assumed that all heroin in London carries the risk of anthrax contamination,” said Dr. Brian McCloskey, who is director of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in London. Read Article
Ed. – Questions to ponder: Can the heroin be contaminated with Anthrax via a simple route ie unclean preparation? Who has access to anthrax to deliberately put it into the heroin? Where do the drugs come from?
National Geographic News – How’s this for a sweet surprise? A team of researchers in Washington State has found traces of cooking spices and flavorings in the waters of Puget Sound. University of Washington associate professor Richard Keil heads the Sound Citizen program, which investigates how what we do on land affects our waters. Keil and his team have tracked “pulses” of food ingredients that enter the sound during certain holidays. Read Article
Ed. – To quote a quip (almost a skit) from Tom Lehrer: “Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it, depends on what you put into it.”
The Independent – After 40 years of defeat and failure, America’s “war on drugs” is being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal. US agents are being pulled from South America; Washington is putting its narcotics policy under review, and a newly confident region is no longer prepared to swallow its fatal Prohibition error. Indeed, after the expenditure of billions of dollars and the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people, a suitable epitaph for America’s longest “war” may well be the plan, in Bolivia, for every family to be given the right to grow coca in its own backyard. Read article
BBC – There is a worrying lack of safety data on electronic cigarettes, despite their growing popularity with the public, two leading Greek researchers have warned. In the British Medical Journal, they say that without more evidence it is impossible to know if such products actually do more harm than good. Some studies have raised safety fears, but retailers argue e-cigarettes are a healthy alternative to the real thing. Users can inhale nicotine without tar, tobacco or carbon monoxide. Read Article
Washington Post – A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration may not block the importation of “electronic cigarettes,” battery-powered versions of conventional smokes. The FDA has confiscated imports of the devices since at least 2008, and two suppliers, Smoking Everywhere and Sottera, sued to halt the agency’s action. In ruling for the companies, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon determined that electronic cigarettes are tobacco products and are not subject to such restrictions. Read article
Huffington Post – One could be forgiven for thinking that the neoconservatives who nudge us towards war with Iran are under the effect of the magic mushroom. Obsessed with Iran, their trips take on the shape of a ‘mushroom cloud’. Christopher Hitchens is one such example. Writing for The Australian, one of Rupert Murdoch’s papers, Hitchens’ Mullahs indubitably fancy a mushroom betrays a sly mind that lacks lucidity. Read article
Washington Post – Scientists may have created a vaccine against cocaine addiction: a series of shots that changes the body’s chemistry so that the drug can’t enter the brain and provide a high. The vaccine, called TA-CD, shows promise but could also be dangerous; some of the addicts participating in a study of the vaccine started doing massive amounts of cocaine in hopes of overcoming its effects, according to Thomas R. Kosten, the lead researcher on the study, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in October. Read Article
Salem News – News out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India reports massive corruption at the highest levels of government, corruption that could only be financed with drug money. In Afghanistan, the president’s brother is known to be one of the biggest drug runners in the world. In Pakistan, President Zardani is found with 60 million in a Swiss Bank and his Interior Minister is suspected of ties to American groups involved in paramilitary operations, totally illegal that could involve nothing but drugs, there is no other possibility. Read article
Washington Post – A few months ago I received a book called “The Two Martini Diet” (Authorhouse, 2008), in which Jerry Sorlucco documents his success at losing more than 100 pounds without forgoing his daily cocktails. He doesn’t break new diet-book ground: Sorlucco follows well-established practices such as controlling portion sizes, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, and managing his calorie intake and expenditure to accommodate those drinks. I’ve kept the book on my desk because I’m intrigued by the interplay between healthful eating and alcohol consumption. Is it really possible, I’ve wondered, to incorporate alcoholic beverages into a healthful diet and lifestyle, or are those of us who hope it is possible just fooling ourselves? Read Article
Swisster – Parents can be tempted to succumb to a 12-year-old’s request to give them a glass of champagne over the Christmas holiday. However an American addiction specialist living in Western Switzerland says this is not advisable. Psychotherapist Erik Mansager tells Swisster it is not up to adults to teach their kids to drink liquor and that they should also lead by example, by drinking sensibly. Unsupervised teenage binge parties are also rife in the English-speaking community in the Geneva area, leading to drunkenness and unsafe sex, he says. Read Article
The Guardian – Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result. This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. Read Article
The Local – Experts are warning of a dangerous trend among German youth after a 14-year-old Brandenburg boy died experimenting with a “self-strangulation game,” daily Berliner Morgenpost reported on Thursday. The asphyxiation is meant to create a “high without drugs” and internet instructions on the practice are increasingly popular in the US and other European countries where several accidents have occurred. But the death of the 14-year-old from Havelland has raised awareness in Germany. Read Article
ScienceDaily — Asthmatic smokers may be able to reverse some of the damage to their lungs that exacerbates asthmatic symptoms just by putting down their cigarettes, according to research out of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Read Article
Ed. – I’m really NOT surprised that halting the inhalation of foreign bodies into your lungs, would reudce an inflammatory response and have other benefits. The exact biological process behind it is interesting though.
The Daily Mail – Round-the-clock drinking and cut-price alcohol are to blame for an ‘appalling’ rise in cancers, experts warned today. Cases of cancer of the mouth have gone up by half in the past decade, with a 43 per cent rise in liver tumours. There have also been big rises in breast and colorectal cancer. Many experts are blaming alcohol consumption, which has doubled in the UK since the 1950s and has been fuelled by Labour’s decision to relax licensing laws. Read article
The Independent – Attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan are at record levels and threaten to derail efforts to rebuild the war-torn country, while an unholy alliance of Taliban drug dealers and corrupt government officials has made a mockery of coalition forces’ attempts to stem the export of heroin. The findings, from new reports looking at the current situation in Afghanistan, highlight key areas in which, contrary to the assurances of Western military leaders, the war is being lost. Read Article
Press TV – Iran’s national police chief says that 90 percent of Afghanistan’s opium poppies are produced in provinces that are under British control. “90 percent of the opium poppies are produced in Afghanistan’s southern provinces, which are under British control, and the Afghan government has not that much control over the areas,” said Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, who is also the head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters. Read Article
The Australian – THE serious consequences of long-term cannabis use in indigenous communities are beginning to show, with an alarming surge in the rate of chronic mental health conditions among those who started smoking the drug at an early age. James Cook University researcher Alan Clough, who has been looking at the issue of indigenous drug use for the past five years, found cannabis use in remote communities was now as high as 70 per cent of people, with almost 90 per cent of users claiming to be addicted. Read Article
The Independent – Hamid Karzai began his new presidency yesterday with a pledge to reach out to opponents and tackle the corrosive corruption which has deeply tainted his government and led to widespread international condemnation. But he appeared to rule out sacking ministers and officials accused of corruption and did not say how he would tackle the systemic malpractice and criminality which has undermined governance during his tenure. Mr Karzai, making his victory speech, was flanked by his two running mates, Marshal Muhammed Qasim, accused of drug trafficking by American officials, and Karim Khalili, who was accused in a recent human rights report of war crimes. Read Article
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.