More High School Students Using ADHD Drugs to Get Better Grades
A growing
number of high school students are using attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD) drugs, such as Adderall and Ritalin, to help them get better
grades, The New York Times reports. Teens get them from friends,
buy them from student dealers, or pretend to have ADHD in order to get
prescriptions.
Gary
Boggs, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told the
newspaper it is a nationwide problem.
Prescription
stimulant drugs being abused by teens also include Vyvanse and Focalin. The DEA
considers these drugs Class II controlled substances, along with cocaine and
morphine, because of their high potential for addiction. Many teenagers do not
understand that giving a friend a prescription stimulant pill is legally
considered the same as selling it, and can result in a felony prosecution, the
article notes.
These
medications can calm people with ADHD, but they can provide energy and focus
for people without the disorder. Abusing these drugs can lead to mood swings
and depression, heart irregularities and extreme exhaustion or even psychosis
during withdrawal, according to medical experts. There is little evidence about
the long-term effects of young people abusing these stimulants.
According
to drug counselors, some teenagers move from abusing stimulants to painkillers
and sleeping pills.
Paul L.
Hokemeyer, a family therapist at Caron Treatment Centers in Manhattan, told the
newspaper, “Children have prefrontal cortexes that are not fully developed, and
we’re changing the chemistry of the brain. That’s what these drugs do. It’s one
thing if you have a real deficiency — the medicine is really important to those
people — but not if your deficiency is not getting into Brown.”
Kerlikowske: Addiction is a Disease, Not a Moral Failure
Addiction
is a disease, not a moral failure, according to Gil Kerlikowske, Director of
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He is scheduled to
speak about addiction and drug control policy Monday at the Betty Ford Center
in California. He will call for more alternatives to current drug policy,
including early intervention through health care, better access to treatment,
more support during recovery, and effective public education, The Desert Sun reports. “Recovery is this long-term,
lifelong process, with its own set of challenges and its own needs — and yet we
fail to highlight that process,” he told the newspaper in an interview.
In 2010,
23 million people aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or
alcohol use problem, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Of these, 2.6 million received treatment at a specialty facility. Kerlikowske
also will call for a review of laws that can add to the challenges of recovery,
such as barriers that prevent many minor drug offenders from obtaining housing
and federal student aid. His goal is to curb the growing number of prison
inmates, many of whom are coping with drug abuse, while reducing the $50
billion cost of incarcerating them. Kerlikowske will be joined by U.S. House
Representative Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs, who has been raising awareness about
prescription drug abuse. Bono Mack, who co-chairs the Congressional
Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse, has introduced legislation that would revise Food and Drug
Administration drug classifications to ensure that drugs containing
controlled-release oxycodone hydrochloride would be prescribed only for severe
pain.
Teens With Mental Health Disorders More Likely to Become Long-Term Opioid Users
A new
study concludes teenagers and young adults with mental health disorders are
more likely to be prescribed opioids for chronic pain, and more likely to
become long-term opioid users, compared with their peers who don’t have a
mental health disorder. Teens and young adults with mental health disorders are
2.4 times more likely to become long-term users of opioids, HealthDay
reports. The researchers defined long-term use as using the drugs for more
than 90 days within a six-month period, with no gap in usage of more than 30
days.
The study
included data from more than 62,000 teens and young adults up to age 24.
Long-term use of opioids was more common among males, older youth and those
living in poorer communities, with more white residents, the researchers report
in the Journal of Adolescent Health. They were treated for back pain,
neck pain, headache, and arthritis/joint pain.
“There are
a number of reasons adolescents and young adults with mental health issues are
more likely to become long-term users of opioids,” study author Dr. Laura
Richardson, of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of
Washington, said in a news release. “Depression and anxiety might increase pain
symptoms and lead to longer treatment, and physicians may see depressed
patients as being more distressed and may be willing to treat pain symptoms
over a longer period of time.”
Perils of Early
Substance Abuse
Animal study suggests
young females’ use of marijuana heightens chances their offspring will abuse
drugs
Mothers
who use marijuana as teens—long before having children—may put their future children at a higher risk of drug abuse, new research suggests. Researchers in the Neuroscience and
Reproductive Biology section at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
conducted a study to determine the transgenerational effects of cannabinoid
exposure in adolescent female rats. For three days, adolescent rats were
administered the cannabinoid receptor agonist WIN-55, 212-2, a drug that has
similar effects in the brain as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. After
this brief exposure, they remained untreated until being mated in adulthood.
The male
offspring of the female rats were then measured against a control group for a
preference between chambers that were paired with either saline or morphine.
The rats with mothers who had adolescent exposure to WIN-55,212-2 were
significantly more likely to opt for the morphine-paired chamber than those
with mothers who abstained. The results suggest that these animals had an
increased preference for opiate drugs.
The study
was published in the Journal
of Psychopharmocology and funded by the National Institutes of
Health.
“Our main
interest lies in determining whether substances commonly used during
adolescence can induce behavioral and neurochemical changes that may then
influence the development of future generations,” said Research Assistant
Professor John J. Byrnes, the study’s lead author, “We acknowledge that we are
using rodent models, which may not fully translate to the human condition. Nevertheless, the results suggest that maternal
drug use, even prior to pregnancy, can impact future offspring.” Byrnes added
that much research is needed before a definitive connection is made between
adolescent drug use and possible effects on future children. The study builds
on earlier findings by the Tufts group, most notably a study published last
year in Behavioral Brain
Research by Assistant Professor Elizabeth Byrnes that morphine use
as adolescent rats induces changes similar to those observed in the present
study.
Other
investigators in the field have previously reported that cannabinoid exposure
during pregnancy (in both rats and humans) can affect offspring development,
including impairment of cognitive function, and increased risk of depression and anxiety.
Study Links Prescription Drug Abuse and Depression, Suicidal Thoughts in College Students
A new
study finds college students who use prescription drugs for non-medical
purposes are at increased risk of depression and thoughts of suicide. The
researchers analyzed the answers of 26,600 college students who participated in
a national research survey by the American College Health Association. They
were asked about their non-medical prescription drug use, including
painkillers, antidepressants, sedatives and stimulants, as well as their mental
health symptoms in the past year.
About 13
percent of students reported non-medical prescription drug use, Science Daily
reports. Those who reported feeling sad, hopeless, depressed or considered
suicide were significantly more likely to report non-medical use of any
prescription drug. The link between these feelings and prescription drug abuse
was more pronounced in females, the researchers report in Addictive Behaviors.
The researchers conclude that students may be inappropriately self-medicating
psychological distress with prescription medications.
“Because
prescription drugs are tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
prescribed by a doctor, most people perceive them as ‘safe’ and don’t see the
harm in sharing with friends or family if they have a few extra pills left
over,” researcher Amanda Divin of Western Illinois University said in a news
release.
“Unfortunately, all drugs potentially have dangerous side effects. As
our study demonstrates, use of prescription drugs — particularly painkillers
like Vicodin and OxyContin — is related to depressive symptoms and suicidal
thoughts and behaviors in college students. This is why use of such drugs need
to be monitored by a doctor and why mental health outreach on college campuses
is particularly important.”
Psychogenic
Drug's Success Prompts Calls for Use as an Antidepressant
In a report recently
posted in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry, there appears to be mounting
evidence that the dissociative anesthetic ketamine has profound abilities in
mitigating the effects of depression, especially in patients who struggle with
the debilitating diagnosis of bipolar disorder. For these patients, modern
pharmacotherapy has been hit-and-miss in the worldwide effort to simmer the
wildly fluctuating symptoms of mania and depression. Effective treatments for
bipolar disorder are desperately needed.
Ketamine is a drug that
is used in specialized medical and veterinary procedures. In humans, the drug
is used in pain management for patients who have developed severe tolerance to
opioids. The drug is quite effective in that roll. For pediatric patients,
ketamine is used as an analgesic and anesthetic; the drug is quite safe for
utilization with children and adolescents. The drug is an n-methyl-D-aspartate
(NMDA) antagonist, which means that it exerts its effects by blocking the
actions of NMDA. It is becoming abundantly clear in modern research that the
NMDA receptor complex is intimately involved in modulating antidepressant and
anti-suicidal effects in affected patients. The drug's success in this roll
opens an entirely new avenue of study for research scientists. The NMDA
receptor system is still an unknown factor in the influencing of mood and mood
stability. The research reported here begs for new efforts at nailing down the
cause and effects of NMDA activity in depression.
As a recreational drug,
ketamine is often abused. In America, it has pockets of devoted fans. The drug
is chemically related to the insidious dissociative anesthetic PCP. It is also
a chemical relative to the over-the-counter drug dextromethorphan. Each of
these drugs exerts unique effects on the central nervous system, effects that
include a detachment of peripheral nervous system messages from communication
with the brain. The resultant experience is one of sedation and detachment from
surroundings. The next effect is one of a user sitting passively, quietly, and
uncommunicative with surroundings. Ketamine users call this experience as
having descended into the "k-hole."
In the study cited in
the Journal of Biological Psychiatry, a project headed by the National
Institute of Health treated bipolar, depressed patients with a single dose of
ketamine. A control group of depressed patients received placebo. In both
groups, the patients were carefully monitored and evaluated. Patients kept notes
and scores of their experiences. The results were startling. The
ketamine-receiving patients reported near immediate improvement in their
depression. The improvement in depression symptoms extended for over three
days. In addition, ketamine apparently reduced the number and severity of
suicidal thoughts in the patients who received the treatment. This particular
effect was most startling. Up to this point, no pharmaceutical product has
exhibited combined effects as an anti-depressant and as a means of reducing
suicidality. Overall, 79% of the patients treated with ketamine improved. No
one reported improvement following ingestion of placebo. These effects are
staggering.
Ketamine seems to have
potential that extends well beyond the emergency room and operating theater. It
may be that ketamine and other NMDA receptor antagonists are the opening act in
the development of an entirely new class of drugs designed to alleviate the
crushing symptoms of bipolar disorder and severe depression.
Name
That Drug: A Heavyweight Drug That Toils in the Shadows
This month's mystery
drug is a prescription medication; it is a controlled substance. It is unique
to its chemical genre in that it is available as an oral, subcutaneous,
intramuscular, rectal, and sublingual medication. Although the drug has a
moderate potential as a drug of abuse, it has never caught on with the larger
substance-abusing world. However, it has been a drug that healthcare workers
have become entangled with. Like many drugs of its ilk, it was first
"developed" in Germany in 1908. It was not synthesized. (To regular
readers of this column, this is an important clue). In Europe, the drug was
instantly popular in the form of an elixir. As an elixir, this month's drug
starred as a reliable and long-acting cough suppressant. And as an antitussive,
the drug gained the attention of the American pharmaceutical industry. Europe
and America were still struggling to control the spread of cough-borne
diseases, such as tuberculosis and whooping cough; this month's drug had
instantly found its niche. In America, its first utilization was as a cough
suppressant. In the modern era, the drug is predominately used as an analgesic,
a drug used to treat moderate to moderately severe pain.
This drug is most
commonly found in the form of a tablet or capsule. It is ordinarily compounded
with adjunct drugs, drugs of lesser potency and little addictive potential. It
is manufactured in instant release and time-released formats. The drug is an
analgesic. And as an analgesic, it has the potential to create dependency.
Considered to be 150% as powerful as codeine, this drug exerts effects for 4-6
hours following ingestion. When utilized for pain management, the drug can
be found in some countries as a controlled release drug. In that sense the drug
is quite similar to Oxycontin (oxycodone) and Opana (oxymorphone). But unlike
those two powerful sustained release drugs, this month's drug has not spawned
legions of devoted recreational abusers. In the U.S., this drug is routinely
partnered with acetaminophen and aspirin. In other countries it can be found
loaded with caffeine, antihistamines, and decongestants. In some places, it can
even be found loaded with vitamins. In the U.S., the most commonly encountered
commercial product is a drug called Synalgos-DC.
This drug is a chemical
descendant from the opium poppy. It bears great structural resemblance to
codeine. In fact, one could argue colloquially that this month's drug is a
"codeine molecule on steroids." And in that sense, this month's drug
will precipitate signs and symptoms that can be said to be classically
"narcotic-like." Traditional effects of sedation, muscle relaxation,
papillary constriction, and slow and raspy speech will emerge. But of interest
to recreational drug users is that this month's drug can cause
"ecstasy-like" effects. In fact, many users cite the drug's ability
to stimulate feelings of empathy and happiness as being most alluring. Unlike
other drugs in its class, this month's drug can provoke mixed feelings of
euphoria, relaxation, and stimulation. Some recreational users of the drug have
even claimed that the drug has heightened their abilities of interpersonal
communication. Recreational users cite improved skills of persuasion and
debate. These claims are unusual for drugs of its class.
But for this drug and
all others of the class, there are some very insidious side effects. For
starters there is constipation. The constipation side effect can be turned to
an advantage when applied as a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. Like
Loperamide (Imodium etc.), this month's drug can serve as an effective therapy
in treating diarrhea. But unlike Loperamide, the drug will cause central
effects that include drowsiness and problems with coordination. People taking
this drug will have difficulty in operating machinery and engaging in complex
physical tasks. If combined with alcohol, use of this drug will result in
significant additive effects that can exacerbate balance and speech. Short-term
memory is blunted as well. Tolerance and dependency develop quickly. When that
happens, a sudden stoppage in administration will result in rather severe
withdrawals.
Because of its
euphoria-producing effects, this month drug is believed by some to be a sort of
secret. Recreational users of it know that they have a "sleeper." But
despite the drug's unique appeal, abuse of it has never risen to a point where
public safety authorities have been threatened by it. For those adherents who
exclusively abuse this prescription drug, the development of tolerance is a
quick and certain. Especially when the drug is ingested in amounts that are
much greater than the recommended therapeutic dose. To date, there are no
reports of users smoking or snorting this drug. Perhaps the fact that the drug
is usually compounded with other non-controlled substances has snuffed out any
effort to use the drug in a parenteral form. To snort or inject the drug, a
user risks some serious physiological consequences. Especially for those who
try to intravenously inject this drug, the result can include life-threatening
shock.
This month's drug is
obviously an opiate and controlled substance (Schedule II). The intrepid
chemist has been known to convert this drug into dihydromorphine. This is a
difficult task and one that is not commonly heard of in the recreational drug
user world. Additionally, this month's drug was once ventured as a substitute
for methadone in cases where opiate substitution therapy was conjured. The
arrival of buprenorphine on the scene has put a stop to that idea. The month's
drug is a codeine product and in reality can be called a "codeine molecule
on steroids."
Click here for this month's mystery drug.
NJ Parents
Finally Understanding Drug Abuse Problem, Survey Finds
A new study
finds Jersey parents now see their own home as an access point for both
prescription and over-the-counter drugs by children.
Angelo Valenti,
the Executive Director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey says for
many years parents were completely clueless about this, but a just-released
survey finds “Four in ten parents have taken inventory of the prescriptions and
over the counter medicine within the past 2 months, and about 20 percent are
disposing of their unused, unwanted and expired medicine – and these are steps
that we’ve been encouraging parents to take over the last several years.”
He points out
that, “Under 10 percent are locking the medicine cabinets, but I think if we
look at that number and we look at what that number would have been 5 or 10
years ago, I think the number would have been close to zero percent…so this is
an ongoing process…Something that has really come on to the scene over the last
several years, with the knowledge that the medicine cabinet has become a major
source for access by young people of prescription medications that they’re
abusing…I think that this is a learning process and we are seeing progress
every day with this message.”
Valenti adds the
Partnership has recently developed the AMCCRX drop app.
“On that app,”
he says, “you can find locations where there are permanent collection sites
throughout the state where you can dispose of your medicine 365 days of the
year…A few years ago these sites were not available, so you can see there are
steps being taken, there are partnerships being formed between law enforcement
and the prevention community in order to address this epidemic that we are
facing.”
He also says the
Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey has several programs that are available
to community groups are free of charge.
New Studies Shed Much-Needed Light on Alcohol-Induced Memory Blackouts
National
survey studies suggest that roughly one in four college students who drink will
experience a blackout in a given year, making blackouts a surprisingly common
outcome of excessive drinking.
Blackouts
are periods of amnesia, caused by excessive consumption of alcohol, during
which a person actively engages in behaviors but the brain is unable to create
memories for what transpires. This leaves holes in a person’s memory that can
range from spotty recall for the events of the previous night (known as
fragmentary blackouts) to the utter absence of memory for large portions of an
evening (known as en bloc blackouts). Blackouts are very different from passing
out, when a person falls asleep or is rendered unconscious from drinking too
much. During blackouts, people can participate in events ranging from the
mundane, like eating food, to the emotionally charged, like fights or
intercourse, with little or no recall. According to Dr. Aaron White, Program
Director for Underage and College Drinking Prevention Research at the National
Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), “It can be quite difficult
for an outside observer to tell if someone is in a blackout. The person could
seem aware and articulate, but without any memory being recorded.”
Dr. White
found in a study he conducted in 2002 that half of the 800 college students surveyed
experienced at least one alcohol-induced blackout, 40 percent experienced one
in the previous year and nine percent reported a blackout in previous two
weeks. In a 2009 study of 4,500 students about to enter their freshman year of
college, Dr. White found 12 percent of males and females who drank in the
previous two weeks experienced a blackout during that time.
In the
first few months of 2012, three new studies were published about blackouts
among college students. According to Dr. White, “We know that alcohol is
capable of causing episodes of amnesia, but what takes place during those
episodes, the consequences that follow and why some people are more susceptible
to them than others are still unclear. That is why these recent studies are so
important.” Dr. Marlon Mundt and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin
School of Medicine and Public Health recently published two papers on
blackouts. In the first study, they observed that college students who black
out are more likely to experience alcohol-related injuries than those who do
not. Those reporting a history of six or more blackouts at the beginning of the
study were more than 2.5 times more likely to be injured in an alcohol-related
event over the next two years. The second study estimated that emergency
department costs due to injuries sustained during blackouts could total
$500,000 or more per year on large campuses.
A study by
Dr. Reagan Weatherill at the University of California, San Diego, and
colleagues from the University of Texas, Austin, provides important insight
into why some people are more likely to experience blackouts than others.
Compared to subjects without a history of blackouts, those with a history of
blackouts exhibited a significant decline in activity in the frontal lobe of
the brain, measured using fMRI, during the completion of a memory task while
intoxicated. The findings suggest that some people are more likely to
experience alcohol-induced blackouts than others due to the way alcohol affects
brain activity in areas involved in attention and memory. Dr. White adds that
studies of twins have pointed to a genetic vulnerability to blackouts–if one
twin tends to black out, so does the other one.
The way
college students drink increases the odds of blackouts, says Dr. White.
“Alcohol is more likely to cause a blackout when it gets into your body, and
therefore your brain, fast. It catches the memory circuits off guard and shuts
them down. Doing shots or chugging beer, and doing it on an empty stomach, gets
the alcohol into your bloodstream quickly.” He also notes that females are at
particular risk for blackouts. They tend to weigh less than males and have less
water in their bodies for the alcohol to get diluted into, which leads to
higher levels of alcohol in the brain, he explains. They also have less of an
enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase in the gut that breaks down a small
percentage of alcohol before it even gets into body. Females also are more
likely to skip meals to save calories when they drink, so there is less food in
the stomach to help absorb the alcohol. They are also more likely to drink
beverages with higher alcohol concentrations, like wine and mixed drinks rather
than beer.
In order
to avoid blackouts, Dr. White advises drinkers not only to limit the total amount
they consume, but to pace themselves, add in non-alcoholic beverages and eat
food while they’re drinking. For more about safe drinking limits he refers
readers to the NIAAA website, Rethinking Drinking.
Senate Report: Prescription Drug Abuse One of Biggest Drug Policy Threats Facing US
A new
Senate report highlights the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,
calling into question the conventional wisdom that drug cartels in Latin
America should be the major focus of US drug policy, The Christian Science
Monitor reports.
According
to the report from the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, the
Office of National Drug Control Policy views prescription drug abuse as the
nation’s fastest growing drug problem. The report states that overdose deaths
from prescription painkillers now outnumber deaths involving heroin and cocaine
combined, accounting for 20,044 of 36,450 overdose deaths in the US in 2008.
The number of people seeking treatment for addiction to legal opiates increased
400 percent between 2004 and 2008. Prescription drug abuse is also leading to
increased violent robberies of pharmacies, making it a security issue as well
as a health issue. Use of marijuana and cocaine appears stable. The findings in
the report indicate that Latin American drug cartels are less important than
they once were in fueling drug abuse in the United States, the newspaper notes.
They are not major suppliers of prescription drugs; a government survey found
70 percent of people abusing prescription drugs got their pills from a relative
or friend.
“The
epidemic raises the tricky question of just how many resources the US should
continue putting into international drug enforcement in Latin America, when
it’s clear that the more pressing challenges facing the country lie within its
own borders and its domestic laws regarding pharmaceutical drugs,” the article
states.
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