Greetings.
This week’s blog contains information accumulated
through Thursday October 3rd. Since I will be out of the office
through October 15th, the next blog will publish on Friday, October 18th.
Thank you!
In Culture Shift,
Evangelical College Lifts Alcohol Ban
Last Saturday, Michael McDuffee had his first beer since 1994. It was a cold beer, refreshing. It was a long time coming. “I had been a man convinced that three drinks can quench our thirst: milk, lemonade and a cold beer,” said Mr. McDuffee, who practiced his drinking as a Marine. “And for 20 years I was drinking milk and lemonade.” Mr. McDuffee is not an alcoholic newly fallen from the wagon, but rather an evangelical Christian professor at Moody Bible Institute, which includes a seminary, an undergraduate college, and radio and publishing arms, with its main campus in Chicago. When he joined the faculty, in 1994, he agreed to abide by its requirement that faculty members, staff and students not drink alcohol, smoke, or have extramarital sex.
Last Saturday, Michael McDuffee had his first beer since 1994. It was a cold beer, refreshing. It was a long time coming. “I had been a man convinced that three drinks can quench our thirst: milk, lemonade and a cold beer,” said Mr. McDuffee, who practiced his drinking as a Marine. “And for 20 years I was drinking milk and lemonade.” Mr. McDuffee is not an alcoholic newly fallen from the wagon, but rather an evangelical Christian professor at Moody Bible Institute, which includes a seminary, an undergraduate college, and radio and publishing arms, with its main campus in Chicago. When he joined the faculty, in 1994, he agreed to abide by its requirement that faculty members, staff and students not drink alcohol, smoke, or have extramarital sex.
Experts Say Mental Health
Parity Law Falls Short of Goal
Five years after the Mental Health Parity and Addiction
Equity Act of 2008 was signed by President George W. Bush, experts say the law
has not created parity for mental health coverage. The New York Times reports
the law requires larger employer-based insurance plans to cover psychiatric
illnesses and substance use disorders in the same way they do illnesses such as
cancer and multiple sclerosis. The rules guiding mental health coverage remain
unclear, according to mental health patient advocates. Both they and health
insurance companies say part of the blame lies with the federal government,
which has not yet written the Parity Act’s final regulations for insurance
companies. The Obama Administration has said it will draft rules by the end of
this year. There is often a dearth of accepted medical evidence on the best way
to treat many mental illnesses, the article notes. “It’s very different from
the approach to a bypass procedure or a hip replacement,” Karen Ignagni, CEO of
America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade association representing the nation’s
health insurers, told the newspaper. While simple treatments such as prescriptions
for depression medication or short-term therapy are often covered by health
insurers, they are more reluctant to cover more extended, complicated
treatments such as months of residential care or frequent meetings with
therapists. The Parity Act applies to employer-sponsored health plans with 50
or more employees, and Medicaid managed care plans. Under the law, plans are
not mandated to offer addiction and mental health benefits, but if they offer
such benefits, they must do so in a non-discriminatory manner. That means a
plan must have the same co-pays, deductibles and annual and lifetime caps on
medical/surgical benefits and mental health/addiction benefits covered by the
plan. Health plans cannot medically manage mental health/addiction benefits
more stringently than they manage medical benefits.
The Science of Choice in
Addiction
Research has shown that beating addiction is ultimately
about regarding addicts as people who can rationally choose. Click
here to read more.
Kids around world now
recognize cigarette brand logos
The marketing of tobacco and cigarette brands has
successfully reached young kids in low- and middle-income countries, just as it
effectively reached kids in the USA. In a notable 1991 study, researchers found
that 91% of 6-year-olds surveyed were able to correctly match Old Joe, the
Camel cigarettes cartoon character logo, with a picture of a cigarette — nearly
equal to the number of kids who correctly matched Mickey Mouse with the Disney
Channel logo. Twenty-two years later, a new study finds that cigarette
manufacturers' efforts to reach young children internationally in low- and
middle-income countries is nearly as effective, and consequently as worrisome. Rest
of this stgory is here.
Efforts to Control Global
Illegal Drug Market are Failing
Efforts to control the global illegal drug market through
law enforcement are failing, a new study concludes. The price of marijuana,
heroin and cocaine is dropping, while the drugs’ purity has increased, a team
of U.S. and Canadian researchers found. In the journal BMJ Open, the
researchers note the supply of major illegal drugs has increased during the
past two decades. They studied seven sets of government drug surveillance data
to evaluate the drug supply in the United States, Europe and Australia, and
drug production in regions including Southeast Asia, Latin America and
Afghanistan. The average prices of heroin, marijuana and cocaine dropped by at
least 80 percent in the United States between 1990 and 2007. During the same
period, the average purity of heroin increased 60 percent, while the purity of
cocaine increased by 11 percent and the purity of marijuana rose 161 percent,
CNN reports. Marijuana seizures by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
increased by 465 percent between 1990 and 2010, while heroin seizures rose 29
percent, and cocaine seizures fell by 49 percent. “These findings add to the
growing body of evidence that the war on drugs has failed,” said Dr. Evan Wood,
Scientific Chair of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy at the
University of British Columbia in Canada, who was involved in the study. “We
should look to implement policies that place community health and safety at the
forefront of our efforts, and consider drug use a public health rather than a
criminal justice issue.”
Psychotropic Drug
Prescriptions for Young Children Have Leveled Off
The number of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs written
for very young children appears to have leveled off, according to a new study.
These drugs are prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), mood disorders, anxiety and other mental health conditions. Researchers
studied data from a national sample of more than 43,000 children ages 2 to 5.
They found prescriptions for psychotropic drugs in these children peaked
between 2002 and 2005, and leveled off from 2006 to 2009, Time.com reports.
Warnings about the potential risks of these drugs in children likely played a
role in the change in medication use, the article notes. The Food and Drug
Administration started adding its strictest black box warning, about potential
health risks, to antidepressant medications in the mid-2000s. Changes to
guidelines about diagnosing mood and behavior disorders in children also may
have played a role. “Our findings underscore the need to ensure that doctors of
very young children who are diagnosing ADHD, the most common diagnosis, and
prescribing stimulants, the most common kind of psychotropic medications, are
using the most up-to-date and stringent diagnostic criteria and clinical practice
guidelines,” the authors wrote in Pediatrics. According to American Academy of
Pediatrics guidelines, children ages 4 and 5 with ADHD should first be treated
with behavioral interventions, such as group or individual parent training in
behavior management techniques, before drugs are prescribed. “Given the
continued use of psychotropic medications in very young children and concerns
regarding their effects on the developing brain, future studies on the
long-term effects of psychotropic medication use in this age group are
essential,” lead researcher Tanya Froehlich, MD, a pediatrician at Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital, said in a news release.
Newest Molly Users:
Middle-Aged Professionals, Says DEA Agent
The newest users of Molly are middle-aged professionals,
according to a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. David Dongilli of
the Philadelphia Division of the DEA told NBC10 Philadelphia that this group is
experimenting with the drug, also known as MDMA. “They’ve sort of bought into
this marketing plan by the criminal organizations that this is pure MDMA. It’s
as if it has some sort of organic value and, unfortunately, it’s anything but
organic and pure,” he said. Drug dealers are mixing Molly with other
substances, Dongilli said. “What you have are people ingesting rat poison,
methamphetamine mixed with cocaine, acids and any other chemical that they can
get together in pill form or some sort of crystallized [form], and sadly people
are ingesting this and dying from it,” he said. Molly has gained attention
recently, after several deaths at electronic dance music festivals were
attributed to the drug.
Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, Director of the Division of Medical
Toxicology in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Emergency
Department, says it is difficult to track how extensively Molly is being used,
because it usually does not come up on a toxicology screen. Molly, a more pure
form of Ecstasy, comes in a powder. It has been available for decades, but has
become more popular recently with college students. Mentions of the drug by
music stars including Madonna, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West have increased its
appeal. Molly’s health risks can include involuntary teeth clenching, a loss of
inhibitions, transfixion on sights and sounds, nausea, blurred vision and
chills and/or sweating. More serious risks of the drug can include increased
heart rate and blood pressure and seizures.
Student Drinking in
Spotlight as Dartmouth Starts Year with New President
Dartmouth College is starting the school year with a new
president, as the Ivy League school faces troublesome questions about binge
drinking and other issues, The New York Times reports. The Princeton Review’s
guide to colleges lists Dartmouth as #16 in the “lots of beer” category.
Fraternity parties and “beer pong” have long been linked with the school, the
article notes. About two-thirds of undergraduates at the college, located in Hanover,
New Hampshire, join a fraternity or sorority—almost double the rate of any
other Ivy League school. The former Dartmouth President, Jim Yong Kim, founded
the National College Health Improvement Program, a group of colleges working
together to reduce binge drinking. Under his presidency, Dartmouth designated
students who remain sober at parties and help people who are drunk, counseling
them to go to the health center for alcohol-related reasons. The new president,
Philip J. Hanlon, who came from the University of Michigan, said the school has
seen positive results from these efforts. There was a drop in the number of
times ambulances were called for students with high blood-alcohol levels, from
80 in 2010-11, to 31 last year. Last June, the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity
pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of serving alcohol to under-age people. The
fraternity agreed to pay a fine, perform community service, and submit to
court-imposed restrictions on its parties and use of alcohol. In an interview,
Hanlon told the newspaper there is no evidence that drinking is worse at
Dartmouth than at similar schools. “We know Dartmouth is not perfect,” he said.
“We want to make it better.”
The Military’s
Prescription Drug Addiction
Overmedication is an epidemic in our armed forces—and claims
lives far from the battlefield.
The pattern is relentless: young veteran, barely 30,
over-medicated, and not only uncertain but grim about his future. He may still
be married, but is likely divorced, possibly estranged from his children. His
family frets over his physical and mental health, while taking careful note of
his ups and his downs. Then one day, he dies. The veteran may have taken his
own life deliberately. In an increasing number of cases, however, he may have
simply gone to sleep and never woken up following a fatal reaction to one of
the drugs or cocktails of pills he was prescribed by military doctors. As our
nation has come to rely more heavily on pharmaceutical drugs to manage chronic
pain and psychological health, the U.S. military has followed suit, doling out
drugs on the battlefield and now back on the home front in a vast network of
veterans (VA) hospitals and clinics. But as the rates of sudden death and
suicide have spiked over the past decade, it’s become clearer to mental health
and military advocates that this heavy reliance on prescription drugs may be
partly to blame. Continue
reading here.
FBI Shuts Down Silk Road
Online Drug Marketplace
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has shut down Silk
Road, an online marketplace that sold illegal drugs including heroin, cocaine,
opioid pills, Ecstasy and LSD. They arrested the operator in San Francisco on
narcotics and money-laundering charges, according to The New York Times. Silk
Road could only be accessed by using encryption software called Tor, which
shields computers’ IP addresses, allowing people to make purchases anonymously.
Silk Road facilitated more than $30 million in sales annually. It had been
online since February 2011. The website also sold other illegal items, such as
forged documents and untaxed cigarettes. The site did not use credit cards,
instead relying on “Bitcoins,” an untraceable digital currency that is
available through online currency exchange services. The website told sellers
to make shipments using vacuum-sealed bags so that drug-sniffing dogs would not
detect the packages. The man who created Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, 29, is
accused in a criminal complaint of asking a man to kill a Silk Road vendor who
had threatened to reveal the identities of people who used the site, the
article notes. He is also accused of asking an undercover FBI agent to kill a
former employee whom he feared would become a government witness. Ulbricht had
been living in Austin, Texas with his parents until last fall, when he moved to
San Francisco. Investigators found his personal e-mail account was linked with
early efforts to promote the website.
Colleges Debate Usefulness
of Drug Testing
Administrators at some colleges are debating the usefulness
of drug testing, according to USA Today. Last month, a federal judge ruled a
Missouri technical college’s mandatory drug testing policy is unconstitutional
when it is applied to most students. Linn State Technical College instituted
the policy following the recommendation of community businesses likely to hire
the school’s students. The policy stated that if a student’s drug test was
positive, he or she would meet with a counselor, and could participate in an
online substance abuse program. The student would then be required to take a
second scheduled test and a third random test. If both subsequent tests were
negative, the student could continue to be enrolled at the school and all test
results would be destroyed at the end of the semester. “Many schools continue
to frame substance use by college students as an enforcement problem and therefore
turn to policies such as drug testing as the solution,” said Susan Foster, Vice
President and Director of Policy Research and Analysis at the National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. “The problem with this
approach is that substance use and addiction are public health and medical
issues. Enforcement strategies alone are unlikely to solve health problems.”
Colleges across the country are concerned about the increasing popularity of
the drug Molly, the article notes. “There has always been fashion to drugs of
the day … Chasing the problem one drug at a time is a costly game of
whack-a-mole where use of one drug is addressed only to see the problem pop up
in a different form,” Foster noted. A recent national survey of high school
students found random drug testing in schools does not reduce students’
substance use. The study found students who attend schools where they feel
treated with respect are less likely to start smoking cigarettes or marijuana.
Opinion - Legalized pot would mean more addiction
"The war on drugs has failed" is a mantra often
heard in policy and media circles these days. But not only is the phrase
outdated (the 1980s called -- they want their slogan back), it is far too
simplistic to describe both current drug policy and its outcomes. The latest
incarnation of this ill-advised saying can be found in a report arguing that
since cannabis and heroin prices have fallen while their purity has increased,
efforts to curb drug use and its supply are doomed to failure. This leads some
to highlight the possibility of alternatives in the form of "regulation"
(e.g., legalization) of drugs. But a closer look at the data -- and the
implications for a policy change to legalization -- should give us pause if we
care about the dire consequences drug addiction has on society. To continue
reading, click
here.
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