"Weed Candy" dubbed newest street drug
Marijuana is a hot topic in Tampa. At least 18 states have legalized pot in some form, but there's always someone out there willing to take advantage, and the newest street treat is actually an old fashioned recipe - candy made out of pot.
"Well there's different forms of it. There's hard candy and taffy and gums, and it comes in all different colors and flavors," says Cristal Bermudez -Nuñez, spokesperson for Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "Weed candy", as its called on the street, has been popping up in cities like Los Angeles, New York and Philly. Foods like brownies and cakes have been made for decades, but the latest reincarnation could contain much more than just marijuana. Drug dealers can add ingredients to it to give it a kick, and THAT is where the real danger lies. "Just like when they make weed brownies and other items that contain marijuana, it all depends on the person making it, and whether they add things that could make it potentially even more dangerous," says Nuñez. The candy comes in all forms and has names that play off real candy products like Munchie Way, Green Gummies, and Soda Pot. They look real, but no one would ever know, so law enforcement is giving parents a heads up. "As a good parent, you always want to be sure what your kids are into, and make them aware that products like these are circulating," Nuñez says.
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Vital Signs: Binge Drinking Among Women and High School Girls — United States, 2011
A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
Excessive alcohol use accounted for an estimated average of 23,000 deaths and 633,000 years of potential life lost (YPLL) among women and girls in the United States each year during 2001–2005. Binge drinking accounted for more than half of those deaths and YPLL. Binge drinking also is a risk factor for many health and social problems among women and girls, including unintended and alcohol-exposed pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and breast cancer. Read the full report here.
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Commentary: Learning As We Go: Critical Assessment of Addiction Research and Practice
A recent Join Together article, entitled “Half of Addiction Counselors Say It’s OK for Some Patients to Drink Occasionally,” drew attention to the fact that some substance abuse counselors believe moderate drinking is an option for individuals with substance use disorders. As a researcher and an advocate in our field, I reacted with mixed feelings to this news. Rest of the story is available here.
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Smokers Can Lower Anxiety Levels by Quitting, Study Suggests
Smokers can lower their anxiety levels by quitting, a new study suggests. The decrease is particularly noticeable among people who used smoking to cope, instead of for pleasure. Researchers studied 491 smokers enrolled in smoking cessation clinics in England. They received nicotine patches, and attended weekly appointments. About 22 percent had been diagnosed with mental health problems before they tried quitting, mostly anxiety and mood disorders, PsychCentral reports. Participants’ anxiety levels were evaluated at the start of the study, and they were asked why they smoked. After six months, 14 percent were smoke free; 10 had a current psychiatric disorder. Those who were able to quit smoking had lower levels of anxiety, the researchers reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The decrease was most marked among those who had used smoking to cope, compared with those who smoked for pleasure. Among study participants who began to smoke again, those who smoked for pleasure reported no change in their anxiety levels. Those who took up smoking again to cope, as well as those with a diagnosed mental health disorder, reported an increase in anxiety. “The commonly held belief that smoking helps relieve stress is almost certainly wrong,” noted lead author Dr. Mairtin McDermott of King’s Institute of Psychiatry in a press release. “Smokers need to understand how their experience of smoking affects them, and that in many people, smoking actually increases levels of anxiety.”
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Study Shows Racial Disparities in Completion of Substance Abuse Treatment
Black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol and drug treatment programs are less likely to complete treatment, compared with white patients, a new study finds. The disparities are likely related to greater unemployment rates and housing instability for black and Hispanic patients, according to the researchers. The study found about half of all black and Hispanic patients who entered publicly funded alcohol treatment programs do not complete treatment, compared with 62 percent of white patients. Similar disparities were found for drug treatment programs, ScienceDaily reports. The researchers analyzed data from more than one million discharges from substance abuse treatment programs. The researchers write in Health Affairs that funding for integrated services and increased Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act could help improve minorities’ access to treatment programs. “Our findings show troubling racial disparities in the completion of alcohol and drug abuse programs, and they point specifically to socioeconomic barriers that make it difficult for minority groups to access and sustain treatment,” researcher Brendan Saloner, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, said in a news release. “For example, in both alcohol and drug treatment groups, black and Hispanic patients were more likely than white patients to be homeless. But, disparities among the groups were found to be lower in residential treatment settings, indicating that access to residential treatment could be particularly valuable for these patients.”
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Tobacco Companies Move into E-Cigarette Business
Tobacco manufacturers are moving into the manufacture and sale of electronic cigarettes, according to CNBC. The business, which brought in $400 million to $500 million in sales in 2012, is expected to at least double this year, one expert predicts. “We’re actually predicting that consumption of e-cigs could surpass consumption of traditional cigarettes in the next decade,” said Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo. Last year, tobacco giant Lorillard paid $135 million for the e-cigarette company Blu, while RJ Reynolds created its own e-cigarette brand. E-cigarettes are designed to deliver nicotine in the form of a vapor, which is inhaled by the user. They usually have a rechargeable, battery-operated heating element, a replaceable cartridge with nicotine or other chemicals and a device called an atomizer that converts the contents of the cartridge into a vapor when heated. E-cigarettes often are made to look like regular cigarettes. John Cameron, CEO of the e-cigarette company Safecig, says people who want to quit smoking often are not satisfied by using nicotine gum or patches, because they miss the act of smoking. E-cigarettes do have potential downsides, Herzog notes. She says some critics are concerned there could be potential health risks. The products are expensive, she added. One e-cigarette made by the company Njoy cost almost $9 at a California convenience store. The product claims to be the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes.
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Have We Lost the War on Drugs?
After more than four decades of a failed experiment, the human cost has become too high. It is time to consider the decriminalization of drug use and the drug market.
President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in 1971. The expectation then was that drug trafficking in the United States could be greatly reduced in a short time through federal policing—and yet the war on drugs continues to this day. The cost has been large in terms of lives, money and the well-being of many Americans, especially the poor and less educated. By most accounts, the gains from the war have been modest at best. The direct monetary cost to American taxpayers of the war on drugs includes spending on police, the court personnel used to try drug users and traffickers, and the guards and other resources spent on imprisoning and punishing those convicted of drug offenses. Total current spending is estimated at over $40 billion a year. These costs don't include many other harmful effects of the war on drugs that are difficult to quantify. For example, over the past 40 years the fraction of students who have dropped out of American high schools has remained large, at about 25%. Dropout rates are not high for middle-class white children, but they are very high for black and Hispanic children living in poor neighborhoods. Many factors explain the high dropout rates, especially bad schools and weak family support. But another important factor in inner-city neighborhoods is the temptation to drop out of school in order to profit from the drug trade. Read the rest of the article here.
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Rising painkiller addiction shows damage from drugmakers’ role in shaping medical opinion
Over much of the past decade, the official word on OxyContin was that it rarely posed problems of addiction for patients. The label on the drug, which was approved by the FDA, said the risks of addiction were “reported to be small.” Prescriptions for opioid painkillers are rising. The New England Journal of Medicine, the nation’s premier medical publication, informed readers that studies indicated that such painkillers pose “a minimal risk of addiction.” Another important journal study, which the manufacturer of OxyContin reprinted 10,000 times, indicated that in a trial of arthritis patients, only a handful showed withdrawal symptoms. Those reassuring claims, which became part of a scientific consensus, have been quietly dropped or called into question in recent years, as many in the medical profession rediscovered the destructive power of opiates. But the damage arising from those misconceptions may have been vast.The nation is confronting an ongoing epidemic of addiction to prescription painkillers — more widespread than cocaine or heroin — that has left nearly 2 million in its grip, according to federal statistics. The rest of the article is available here.
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Binge Drinking a Big Problem Among High School Girls, CDC Reports
One in five high school girls binge drink, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report finds almost 14 million women in the United States binge drink about three times a month. The binge drinking rate among high school girls is almost as high as their male peers, according to CNN. About 62 percent of high school senior girls said they engaged in binge drinking in 2011. For females, binge drinking is defined as having four or more drinks on one occasion. “It is alarming to see that binge drinking is so common among women and girls, and that women and girls are drinking so much when they do,” Robert Brewer, MD, MSPH, of the Alcohol Program at CDC, noted in a news release. “The good news is that the same scientifically proven strategies for communities and clinical settings that we know can prevent binge drinking in the overall population can also work to prevent binge drinking among women and girls.” Binge drinking was responsible for more than half of the 23,000 deaths attributed to excessive alcohol use among women and girls in 2011, the report found. Women are more susceptible to the effects of drinking, because they can be physically smaller, according to the CNN article.
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Prescription Drug Abuse Decreasing in Some States
A new government report shows prescription drug abuse decreased in 10 states from 2010 to 2011, and did not increase in any state. The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found 22 million people began the nonmedical use of pain-relieving drugs since 2002. Prescription drug abuse is just behind marijuana as the country’s most widespread drug issue, the report concludes. Iowa had the lowest rate of prescription drug abuse, at 3.6 percent, while Oregon had the highest rate, at 6.4 percent. Seven of the 10 states with the highest levels of prescription painkiller abuse were in the West—Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona, according to Medical News Today. “Addressing prescription drug misuse remains a top public health priority, as we’ve seen inconsistent progress in addressing the issue across the states,” SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde said in a news release. “Data from this report helps us better understand geographic variations in use, and should help with the development of more targeted and effective prevention and treatment programs. The key is educating the public on the serious health risks involved, and ensuring that we are providing the necessary treatment to those who need it.”
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Supreme Court Hears Case About Forced Blood Alcohol Test for Drunk Driving
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case Wednesday on the question of whether police must obtain a warrant before forcing suspected drunk drivers to submit to a blood alcohol test. State supreme courts are divided on whether these forced tests violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects again unreasonable searches and seizures, according to The Christian Science Monitor. The case centers on Tyler McNeely, who was pulled over for speeding by a Missouri highway patrolman, and was taken to a hospital. About 25 minutes after McNeely was pulled over, a technician measured his blood-alcohol content at 0.154 percent, nearly twice the legal limit. The Missouri police in the case argued they should not have to wait for approval to give a blood test, because alcohol dissipates quickly in the bloodstream. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected that argument. It ruled the blood test violated the Fourth Amendment. The court found there were no special circumstances to justify obtaining the blood test so quickly. State high courts in Iowa and Utah also have made similar rulings. The Supreme Courts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon have all ruled in favor of warrantless blood tests, the article notes. The Obama Administration and attorneys general from 32 states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that warrantless blood tests are not in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
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From Party Girl to Plugged In: My Journey Through Addiction to Recovery
As a little girl, Mom and Dad promised I could be anything I wanted — police officer, teacher, journalist — and that no matter what, my life would be a good one if I followed my heart. Hard work, dedication, honest effort and the Golden Rule were required but, according to my folks, a small price to pay for happiness. Their words, spoken in earnest to their oldest child, fell across my ears and under my radar as the years passed. Conceptually, I referenced the ideas from time to time, but my world was much too complex to be reduced to old-world, Horatio Alger charm. I did work hard. I did get the coveted college degree from the prestigious undergrad program. I did land the first job in my field two weeks before the commencement ceremony. I did return to my hometown in triumphant victory as the first of my mother’s kin to brandish the sheepskin of higher education. Read the rest of this posting here.
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FDA issues draft guidance on abuse-deterrent opioids
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a draft guidance document to assist industry in developing new formulations of opioid drugs with abuse-deterrent properties. The document “Guidance for Industry: Abuse-Deterrent Opioids – Evaluation and Labeling,” explains the FDA’s current thinking about the studies that should be conducted to demonstrate that a given formulation has abuse-deterrent properties, how those studies will be evaluated by the agency, and what labeling claims may be approved based on the results of those studies. Opioids can be abused in a number of ways. Abuse-deterrent formulations target the known or expected routes of abuse, such as crushing in order to snort or dissolving in order to inject, for the specific opioid drug substance in that formulation. The science of abuse deterrence is relatively new, and both the formulation technologies and the analytical, clinical, and statistical methods for evaluating those technologies are rapidly evolving. In working with industry, the FDA will take a flexible, adaptive approach to the evaluation and labeling of potentially abuse-deterrent products. The FDA continues to encourage the development of abuse-deterrent formulations of opioids and believes that these products have promise to help reduce prescription drug abuse. At the same time, the FDA remains committed to ensuring that patients with pain have appropriate access to opioid analgesics. This draft guidance fulfills mandates under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan. FDA is seeking public comment on the draft guidance for 60 days and encourages additional scientific and clinical research that will advance the development and assessment of abuse-deterrent technologies. Instructions on how to submit comments will be announced in an upcoming Federal Register notice. The FDA will also hold a public meeting to discuss and receive feedback on the draft guidance. In finalizing the guidance document, the agency will consider the information received from the public. For more information:
• FDA: Draft Guidance for Industry: Abuse-Deterrent Opioids – Evaluation and Labeling
• ONDCP: Prescription Drug Abuse
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Caring Community May Help Reduce Teen Alcohol Use, Study Suggests
Teens who live in a caring community may be less likely to abuse alcohol than their peers who report fewer positive experiences in their community, a new study suggests. Spending time with antisocial peers can increase the risk of alcohol abuse, researchers from Penn State report. The researchers evaluated risk factors for adolescent alcohol abuse, including antisocial attitudes and behaviors, associating with antisocial peers, and family risk, ScienceDaily reports. They also looked at positive factors such as community experiences, school experiences and family strengths. They examined results for more than 200,000 students, to determine how these factors predicted alcohol use. In the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers reported family and school protective factors had less influence than other factors, when all were considered together. “We found that when you put all of the major risk and protective factors into the same predictive model, certain risk factors, such as antisocial peer risk, tended to be more highly predictive of alcohol use than other factors like positive school experiences,” researcher Damon Jones said in a news release. The study concludes positive experiences in the community can help minimize the link between risk factors and underage drinking.
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Choosing Substance Abuse Treatment Over Prison Could Save Billions: Study
Sending substance-abusing state prisoners to community-based treatment programs instead of prisons could reduce crime and save billions of dollars, a new study concludes. The savings would result from immediate reductions in the cost of incarceration, and by subsequent reductions in the number of crimes committed by successfully treated offenders, which leads to fewer re-arrests and re-incarcerations, according to the researchers. Almost half of all state prisoners abuse drugs or are drug-dependent, but only 10 percent received medically based drug treatment while they are incarcerated, according to Newswise. Inmates who are untreated or not adequately treated are more likely to start using drugs when they are released from prison, and commit crimes at a higher rate than those who do not abuse drugs, the article notes. The researchers built a simulation model of 1.14 million state prisoners, representing the 2004 U.S. state prison population. The model estimated the benefits of substance abuse treatment over individuals’ lifetimes, and calculated the crime and criminal justice costs related to policing, trial and sentencing, and incarceration. The model tracked individuals’ substance abuse, criminal activity, employment and health care use until death or until they reached age 60, whichever came first. They estimated the costs of sending 10 percent or 40 percent of drug-abusing inmates to community-based substance abuse treatment instead of prison. In the journal Crime & Delinquency, the researchers found that if just 10 percent of eligible offenders were treated in community-based programs instead of going to prison, the criminal justice system would save $4.8 billion, compared with current practices. If 40 percent of eligible offenders received treatment, the savings would total $12.9 billion.
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FDA to Consider Tighter Regulations for Hydrocodone
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon consider whether prescription painkillers containing hydrocodone should be more tightly regulated, as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has urged, USA Today reports. A committee of the FDA will meet January 24 and 25 to consider the DEA’s request. The committee will assess the DEA’s evidence, hear comments from the public, and then vote on its recommendation to the FDA commissioner and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the newspaper. Emergency room visits related to hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin and other painkillers, have soared since 2000. Vicodin, which also contains acetaminophen, is subject to fewer regulations than pure hydrocodone. For almost a decade, the DEA has called for stricter regulation of Vicodin, in order to reduce abuse of the drug, the article notes. The DEA wants to change the way drugs that combine hydrocodone with other products are classified, to require patients to have more interaction with doctors in order to obtain prescriptions for them. The FDA and DEA have repeatedly passed information back and forth about hydrocodone, without making any final decisions about the drug. The DEA classifies drugs on a five-stage scale, which takes into account the potential for addiction. Currently, hydrocodone is considered by the DEA to be a Schedule II controlled substance, the second-highest level. Hydrocodone combinations, such as Vicodin, are Schedule III, and therefore have fewer restrictions on sales. Schedule II drugs must be locked up at pharmacies. Physicians can only prescribe one bottle at a time and patients must have an original prescription in order to obtain the medication. Schedule III drugs can be refilled up to six times without visiting a doctor, who can phone or fax in a prescription to the pharmacy.
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Update on Emergency Department Visits Involving Energy Drinks: A Continuing Public Health Concern
Energy drinks are flavored beverages containing high amounts of caffeine and typically other additives, such as vitamins, taurine, herbal supplements, creatine, sugars, and guarana, a plant product containing concentrated caffeine. These drinks are sold in cans and bottles and are readily available in grocery stores, vending machines, convenience stores, and bars and other venues where alcohol is sold. These beverages provide high doses of caffeine that stimulate the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. The total amount of caffeine in a can or bottle of an energy drink varies from about 80 to more than 500 milligrams (mg), compared with about 100 mg in a 5-ounce cup of coffee or 50 mg in a 12-ounce cola.1 Research suggests that certain additives may compound the stimulant effects of caffeine. Some types of energy drinks may also contain alcohol, producing a hazardous combination; however, this report focuses only on the dangerous effects of energy drinks that do not have alcohol. You can download the Dawn Report at http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN126/sr126-energy-drinks-use.pdf.
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One in 25 U.S. teens has attempted suicide: study
About one in 25 U.S. teens has attempted suicide, and one in eight has thought about it, according to a national study based on interviews with thousands of teens. Researchers, whose findings appeared in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, said those numbers are similar to the prevalence of lifetime suicidal thinking and attempts reported by adults, suggesting that the teenage years are an especially vulnerable time. Read the rest of the story here!
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Using Texting to Improve Teen Health
A new study leverages teens’ relationships with cell phones and text messages as a method to enhance health literacy and improve health behaviors. According to the Nielsen consumer research group, U.S. teens receive an average of 3,417 text messages per month or a whopping 114 texts per day. Teens also have notoriously have poor diets, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that high school students’ consumption of fruit and vegetables is, on average, 1.2 times per day (much lower than the recommended 5 a day). More on this story is here.
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Prescription painkillers trail only marijuana in abuse rates, report shows
Some 22 million Americans have misused prescription painkillers since 2002, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). "Any time you have 2 percent of the population using medications like this there is a lot to do, but we are doing a lot with a combination of putting tighter controls on who can get these drugs and public education," said Peter Delany, director of SAMHSA's Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. Also, programs such as the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which allows doctors to track patients who may be getting painkillers from several sources, has helped get a handle on the problem, he added. Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-prescription-painkillers-trail-marijuana-abuse.html#jCp
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An often-ignored recovery issue: child support
While non-custodial fathers are often court-mandated to pay child support, back unpaid child support has remained a little-discussed issue in substance abuse treatment. Because the credentials of many men in recovery qualify them mostly for low-prestige, seasonal or menial low-paying jobs in our service economy, these men may find it difficult to secure a socially affirming job or to earn a livable wage. As a result, it is not unusual for some men to fall behind on their child support payments or to deliberately forego over-the-table employment in the name of self-preservation to avoid having their wages garnished. Read the rest of the story here.
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For some opioid patients, medication with minimal support works well
A new study published in the American Journal of Medicine offers a clear indication that not all opioid-dependent patients require the same approach to treatment, with one subset of patients clearly benefiting from medication-assisted therapy with rather modest physician support. What is important to note in interpreting the results of this study in a primary care setting is that it does not conclude that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is not useful as an adjunct to medication treatment—only that for the particular subgroup of medication-using patients that made up this study sample, adding CBT to physician support did not improve drug-using outcomes. Rest of the article is available here.
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MIT Student Invents LED Ice Cubes to Track Alcohol Intake
An MIT grad student is turning a bad party night into a product with potential. It was fall semester last year when 23-year-old Dhairya Dand decided to hit up a party at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Several hours later, he found himself in the hospital. He'd had an alcohol-induced blackout. From the hospital room, Dand went back to MIT's Media Lab, where he's a researcher, and spent the next three weeks inventing Cheers - alcohol-aware ice cubes that glow and groove to ambient music. More important, the ice cubes change colors if you've had a few too many. When he presented the idea to his friends, they weren't so cool on the idea. "They joked around when I told them I was going to make these ice cubes in reflection to what I went through at the party," said Dand. "That's normal. With every new thing there is resistance." In an online video, Dand demonstrates how the cubes change as they respond to the amount of alcohol a person consumes. An accelerometer keeps track of how often the glass is raised to someone's lips; a timer helps estimate how intoxicated the person is. The LED inside each cube will light up in green, yellow or red. Green signals a first drink; yellow is a warning that your alcohol level is getting high. Red is a warning to stop drinking - you've probably had too much. Dand housed the electronics in waterproof cubes. "Being an inventor, the feeling when you see your invention working for the first time is comparable to that of a mother seeing her newborn baby," said Dand. "It's elation of the highest order, you're numb enough to not feel anything, then it slowly sinks in." The cubes can even send a text message to friends if the person drinking needs help. "The cubes talk to your phone to make the call. They communicate over IR [infrared] with a custom removable IR receiver fitted on the smartphone's audio jack, " said Dand. Since he came out with his invention, Dand said, "Everyone wants a dozen now!" And since he only spent $50 plus his own time creating it, Dand may have an idea that's budget-friendly for grad students. This isn't Dand's first invention. He's also built educational toys for children and is currently working on "super shoes" (he didn't say what they do). As for patenting his "Cheers" invention, Dand said he believes patents are "20th century jargon." "I believe in open-source. My inventions are open to be hacked, developed and played around," said Dand. "True innovation are like ideas with wings, once they take birth in a mind, nothing, not even the inventor, can stop them."
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New Tools Identify Substance Use Treatment Needs in Criminal Justice System
People in prisons and jails are four times more likely to have a substance use disorder than the general public, yet services for this population are sorely lacking, according to experts at George Mason University. They have developed several screening tools designed to improve substance use treatment in the criminal justice system. Read the rest of this article here.
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Baseball to Conduct In-Season Blood Testing for Human Growth Hormone
Major League Baseball and its players union announced they have reached an agreement to conduct in-season blood testing of players for human growth hormone. Players also will be tested for synthetic testosterone, which is increasingly popular because it washes out of the body fairly quickly after being used. The announcement comes soon after members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted against inducting Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into the Baseball Hall of Fame, because of their links to steroids, The New York Times reports. Major League Baseball was the first major sport in the United States to agree to human growth hormone testing. It reached an agreement with its union in November 2011 to test for the substance, but only in spring training and the off-season. The new agreement expands the testing into the baseball season. Human growth hormone can help players build muscle mass, and to recover quickly from extended physical activity. It cannot be used legally without a prescription.
Marijuana is a hot topic in Tampa. At least 18 states have legalized pot in some form, but there's always someone out there willing to take advantage, and the newest street treat is actually an old fashioned recipe - candy made out of pot.
"Well there's different forms of it. There's hard candy and taffy and gums, and it comes in all different colors and flavors," says Cristal Bermudez -Nuñez, spokesperson for Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "Weed candy", as its called on the street, has been popping up in cities like Los Angeles, New York and Philly. Foods like brownies and cakes have been made for decades, but the latest reincarnation could contain much more than just marijuana. Drug dealers can add ingredients to it to give it a kick, and THAT is where the real danger lies. "Just like when they make weed brownies and other items that contain marijuana, it all depends on the person making it, and whether they add things that could make it potentially even more dangerous," says Nuñez. The candy comes in all forms and has names that play off real candy products like Munchie Way, Green Gummies, and Soda Pot. They look real, but no one would ever know, so law enforcement is giving parents a heads up. "As a good parent, you always want to be sure what your kids are into, and make them aware that products like these are circulating," Nuñez says.
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Vital Signs: Binge Drinking Among Women and High School Girls — United States, 2011
A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
Excessive alcohol use accounted for an estimated average of 23,000 deaths and 633,000 years of potential life lost (YPLL) among women and girls in the United States each year during 2001–2005. Binge drinking accounted for more than half of those deaths and YPLL. Binge drinking also is a risk factor for many health and social problems among women and girls, including unintended and alcohol-exposed pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and breast cancer. Read the full report here.
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Commentary: Learning As We Go: Critical Assessment of Addiction Research and Practice
A recent Join Together article, entitled “Half of Addiction Counselors Say It’s OK for Some Patients to Drink Occasionally,” drew attention to the fact that some substance abuse counselors believe moderate drinking is an option for individuals with substance use disorders. As a researcher and an advocate in our field, I reacted with mixed feelings to this news. Rest of the story is available here.
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Smokers Can Lower Anxiety Levels by Quitting, Study Suggests
Smokers can lower their anxiety levels by quitting, a new study suggests. The decrease is particularly noticeable among people who used smoking to cope, instead of for pleasure. Researchers studied 491 smokers enrolled in smoking cessation clinics in England. They received nicotine patches, and attended weekly appointments. About 22 percent had been diagnosed with mental health problems before they tried quitting, mostly anxiety and mood disorders, PsychCentral reports. Participants’ anxiety levels were evaluated at the start of the study, and they were asked why they smoked. After six months, 14 percent were smoke free; 10 had a current psychiatric disorder. Those who were able to quit smoking had lower levels of anxiety, the researchers reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The decrease was most marked among those who had used smoking to cope, compared with those who smoked for pleasure. Among study participants who began to smoke again, those who smoked for pleasure reported no change in their anxiety levels. Those who took up smoking again to cope, as well as those with a diagnosed mental health disorder, reported an increase in anxiety. “The commonly held belief that smoking helps relieve stress is almost certainly wrong,” noted lead author Dr. Mairtin McDermott of King’s Institute of Psychiatry in a press release. “Smokers need to understand how their experience of smoking affects them, and that in many people, smoking actually increases levels of anxiety.”
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Study Shows Racial Disparities in Completion of Substance Abuse Treatment
Black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol and drug treatment programs are less likely to complete treatment, compared with white patients, a new study finds. The disparities are likely related to greater unemployment rates and housing instability for black and Hispanic patients, according to the researchers. The study found about half of all black and Hispanic patients who entered publicly funded alcohol treatment programs do not complete treatment, compared with 62 percent of white patients. Similar disparities were found for drug treatment programs, ScienceDaily reports. The researchers analyzed data from more than one million discharges from substance abuse treatment programs. The researchers write in Health Affairs that funding for integrated services and increased Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act could help improve minorities’ access to treatment programs. “Our findings show troubling racial disparities in the completion of alcohol and drug abuse programs, and they point specifically to socioeconomic barriers that make it difficult for minority groups to access and sustain treatment,” researcher Brendan Saloner, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, said in a news release. “For example, in both alcohol and drug treatment groups, black and Hispanic patients were more likely than white patients to be homeless. But, disparities among the groups were found to be lower in residential treatment settings, indicating that access to residential treatment could be particularly valuable for these patients.”
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Tobacco Companies Move into E-Cigarette Business
Tobacco manufacturers are moving into the manufacture and sale of electronic cigarettes, according to CNBC. The business, which brought in $400 million to $500 million in sales in 2012, is expected to at least double this year, one expert predicts. “We’re actually predicting that consumption of e-cigs could surpass consumption of traditional cigarettes in the next decade,” said Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo. Last year, tobacco giant Lorillard paid $135 million for the e-cigarette company Blu, while RJ Reynolds created its own e-cigarette brand. E-cigarettes are designed to deliver nicotine in the form of a vapor, which is inhaled by the user. They usually have a rechargeable, battery-operated heating element, a replaceable cartridge with nicotine or other chemicals and a device called an atomizer that converts the contents of the cartridge into a vapor when heated. E-cigarettes often are made to look like regular cigarettes. John Cameron, CEO of the e-cigarette company Safecig, says people who want to quit smoking often are not satisfied by using nicotine gum or patches, because they miss the act of smoking. E-cigarettes do have potential downsides, Herzog notes. She says some critics are concerned there could be potential health risks. The products are expensive, she added. One e-cigarette made by the company Njoy cost almost $9 at a California convenience store. The product claims to be the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes.
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Have We Lost the War on Drugs?
After more than four decades of a failed experiment, the human cost has become too high. It is time to consider the decriminalization of drug use and the drug market.
President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in 1971. The expectation then was that drug trafficking in the United States could be greatly reduced in a short time through federal policing—and yet the war on drugs continues to this day. The cost has been large in terms of lives, money and the well-being of many Americans, especially the poor and less educated. By most accounts, the gains from the war have been modest at best. The direct monetary cost to American taxpayers of the war on drugs includes spending on police, the court personnel used to try drug users and traffickers, and the guards and other resources spent on imprisoning and punishing those convicted of drug offenses. Total current spending is estimated at over $40 billion a year. These costs don't include many other harmful effects of the war on drugs that are difficult to quantify. For example, over the past 40 years the fraction of students who have dropped out of American high schools has remained large, at about 25%. Dropout rates are not high for middle-class white children, but they are very high for black and Hispanic children living in poor neighborhoods. Many factors explain the high dropout rates, especially bad schools and weak family support. But another important factor in inner-city neighborhoods is the temptation to drop out of school in order to profit from the drug trade. Read the rest of the article here.
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Rising painkiller addiction shows damage from drugmakers’ role in shaping medical opinion
Over much of the past decade, the official word on OxyContin was that it rarely posed problems of addiction for patients. The label on the drug, which was approved by the FDA, said the risks of addiction were “reported to be small.” Prescriptions for opioid painkillers are rising. The New England Journal of Medicine, the nation’s premier medical publication, informed readers that studies indicated that such painkillers pose “a minimal risk of addiction.” Another important journal study, which the manufacturer of OxyContin reprinted 10,000 times, indicated that in a trial of arthritis patients, only a handful showed withdrawal symptoms. Those reassuring claims, which became part of a scientific consensus, have been quietly dropped or called into question in recent years, as many in the medical profession rediscovered the destructive power of opiates. But the damage arising from those misconceptions may have been vast.The nation is confronting an ongoing epidemic of addiction to prescription painkillers — more widespread than cocaine or heroin — that has left nearly 2 million in its grip, according to federal statistics. The rest of the article is available here.
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Binge Drinking a Big Problem Among High School Girls, CDC Reports
One in five high school girls binge drink, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report finds almost 14 million women in the United States binge drink about three times a month. The binge drinking rate among high school girls is almost as high as their male peers, according to CNN. About 62 percent of high school senior girls said they engaged in binge drinking in 2011. For females, binge drinking is defined as having four or more drinks on one occasion. “It is alarming to see that binge drinking is so common among women and girls, and that women and girls are drinking so much when they do,” Robert Brewer, MD, MSPH, of the Alcohol Program at CDC, noted in a news release. “The good news is that the same scientifically proven strategies for communities and clinical settings that we know can prevent binge drinking in the overall population can also work to prevent binge drinking among women and girls.” Binge drinking was responsible for more than half of the 23,000 deaths attributed to excessive alcohol use among women and girls in 2011, the report found. Women are more susceptible to the effects of drinking, because they can be physically smaller, according to the CNN article.
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Prescription Drug Abuse Decreasing in Some States
A new government report shows prescription drug abuse decreased in 10 states from 2010 to 2011, and did not increase in any state. The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found 22 million people began the nonmedical use of pain-relieving drugs since 2002. Prescription drug abuse is just behind marijuana as the country’s most widespread drug issue, the report concludes. Iowa had the lowest rate of prescription drug abuse, at 3.6 percent, while Oregon had the highest rate, at 6.4 percent. Seven of the 10 states with the highest levels of prescription painkiller abuse were in the West—Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona, according to Medical News Today. “Addressing prescription drug misuse remains a top public health priority, as we’ve seen inconsistent progress in addressing the issue across the states,” SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde said in a news release. “Data from this report helps us better understand geographic variations in use, and should help with the development of more targeted and effective prevention and treatment programs. The key is educating the public on the serious health risks involved, and ensuring that we are providing the necessary treatment to those who need it.”
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Supreme Court Hears Case About Forced Blood Alcohol Test for Drunk Driving
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case Wednesday on the question of whether police must obtain a warrant before forcing suspected drunk drivers to submit to a blood alcohol test. State supreme courts are divided on whether these forced tests violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects again unreasonable searches and seizures, according to The Christian Science Monitor. The case centers on Tyler McNeely, who was pulled over for speeding by a Missouri highway patrolman, and was taken to a hospital. About 25 minutes after McNeely was pulled over, a technician measured his blood-alcohol content at 0.154 percent, nearly twice the legal limit. The Missouri police in the case argued they should not have to wait for approval to give a blood test, because alcohol dissipates quickly in the bloodstream. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected that argument. It ruled the blood test violated the Fourth Amendment. The court found there were no special circumstances to justify obtaining the blood test so quickly. State high courts in Iowa and Utah also have made similar rulings. The Supreme Courts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon have all ruled in favor of warrantless blood tests, the article notes. The Obama Administration and attorneys general from 32 states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that warrantless blood tests are not in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
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From Party Girl to Plugged In: My Journey Through Addiction to Recovery
As a little girl, Mom and Dad promised I could be anything I wanted — police officer, teacher, journalist — and that no matter what, my life would be a good one if I followed my heart. Hard work, dedication, honest effort and the Golden Rule were required but, according to my folks, a small price to pay for happiness. Their words, spoken in earnest to their oldest child, fell across my ears and under my radar as the years passed. Conceptually, I referenced the ideas from time to time, but my world was much too complex to be reduced to old-world, Horatio Alger charm. I did work hard. I did get the coveted college degree from the prestigious undergrad program. I did land the first job in my field two weeks before the commencement ceremony. I did return to my hometown in triumphant victory as the first of my mother’s kin to brandish the sheepskin of higher education. Read the rest of this posting here.
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FDA issues draft guidance on abuse-deterrent opioids
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a draft guidance document to assist industry in developing new formulations of opioid drugs with abuse-deterrent properties. The document “Guidance for Industry: Abuse-Deterrent Opioids – Evaluation and Labeling,” explains the FDA’s current thinking about the studies that should be conducted to demonstrate that a given formulation has abuse-deterrent properties, how those studies will be evaluated by the agency, and what labeling claims may be approved based on the results of those studies. Opioids can be abused in a number of ways. Abuse-deterrent formulations target the known or expected routes of abuse, such as crushing in order to snort or dissolving in order to inject, for the specific opioid drug substance in that formulation. The science of abuse deterrence is relatively new, and both the formulation technologies and the analytical, clinical, and statistical methods for evaluating those technologies are rapidly evolving. In working with industry, the FDA will take a flexible, adaptive approach to the evaluation and labeling of potentially abuse-deterrent products. The FDA continues to encourage the development of abuse-deterrent formulations of opioids and believes that these products have promise to help reduce prescription drug abuse. At the same time, the FDA remains committed to ensuring that patients with pain have appropriate access to opioid analgesics. This draft guidance fulfills mandates under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan. FDA is seeking public comment on the draft guidance for 60 days and encourages additional scientific and clinical research that will advance the development and assessment of abuse-deterrent technologies. Instructions on how to submit comments will be announced in an upcoming Federal Register notice. The FDA will also hold a public meeting to discuss and receive feedback on the draft guidance. In finalizing the guidance document, the agency will consider the information received from the public. For more information:
• FDA: Draft Guidance for Industry: Abuse-Deterrent Opioids – Evaluation and Labeling
• ONDCP: Prescription Drug Abuse
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Caring Community May Help Reduce Teen Alcohol Use, Study Suggests
Teens who live in a caring community may be less likely to abuse alcohol than their peers who report fewer positive experiences in their community, a new study suggests. Spending time with antisocial peers can increase the risk of alcohol abuse, researchers from Penn State report. The researchers evaluated risk factors for adolescent alcohol abuse, including antisocial attitudes and behaviors, associating with antisocial peers, and family risk, ScienceDaily reports. They also looked at positive factors such as community experiences, school experiences and family strengths. They examined results for more than 200,000 students, to determine how these factors predicted alcohol use. In the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers reported family and school protective factors had less influence than other factors, when all were considered together. “We found that when you put all of the major risk and protective factors into the same predictive model, certain risk factors, such as antisocial peer risk, tended to be more highly predictive of alcohol use than other factors like positive school experiences,” researcher Damon Jones said in a news release. The study concludes positive experiences in the community can help minimize the link between risk factors and underage drinking.
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Choosing Substance Abuse Treatment Over Prison Could Save Billions: Study
Sending substance-abusing state prisoners to community-based treatment programs instead of prisons could reduce crime and save billions of dollars, a new study concludes. The savings would result from immediate reductions in the cost of incarceration, and by subsequent reductions in the number of crimes committed by successfully treated offenders, which leads to fewer re-arrests and re-incarcerations, according to the researchers. Almost half of all state prisoners abuse drugs or are drug-dependent, but only 10 percent received medically based drug treatment while they are incarcerated, according to Newswise. Inmates who are untreated or not adequately treated are more likely to start using drugs when they are released from prison, and commit crimes at a higher rate than those who do not abuse drugs, the article notes. The researchers built a simulation model of 1.14 million state prisoners, representing the 2004 U.S. state prison population. The model estimated the benefits of substance abuse treatment over individuals’ lifetimes, and calculated the crime and criminal justice costs related to policing, trial and sentencing, and incarceration. The model tracked individuals’ substance abuse, criminal activity, employment and health care use until death or until they reached age 60, whichever came first. They estimated the costs of sending 10 percent or 40 percent of drug-abusing inmates to community-based substance abuse treatment instead of prison. In the journal Crime & Delinquency, the researchers found that if just 10 percent of eligible offenders were treated in community-based programs instead of going to prison, the criminal justice system would save $4.8 billion, compared with current practices. If 40 percent of eligible offenders received treatment, the savings would total $12.9 billion.
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FDA to Consider Tighter Regulations for Hydrocodone
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon consider whether prescription painkillers containing hydrocodone should be more tightly regulated, as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has urged, USA Today reports. A committee of the FDA will meet January 24 and 25 to consider the DEA’s request. The committee will assess the DEA’s evidence, hear comments from the public, and then vote on its recommendation to the FDA commissioner and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the newspaper. Emergency room visits related to hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin and other painkillers, have soared since 2000. Vicodin, which also contains acetaminophen, is subject to fewer regulations than pure hydrocodone. For almost a decade, the DEA has called for stricter regulation of Vicodin, in order to reduce abuse of the drug, the article notes. The DEA wants to change the way drugs that combine hydrocodone with other products are classified, to require patients to have more interaction with doctors in order to obtain prescriptions for them. The FDA and DEA have repeatedly passed information back and forth about hydrocodone, without making any final decisions about the drug. The DEA classifies drugs on a five-stage scale, which takes into account the potential for addiction. Currently, hydrocodone is considered by the DEA to be a Schedule II controlled substance, the second-highest level. Hydrocodone combinations, such as Vicodin, are Schedule III, and therefore have fewer restrictions on sales. Schedule II drugs must be locked up at pharmacies. Physicians can only prescribe one bottle at a time and patients must have an original prescription in order to obtain the medication. Schedule III drugs can be refilled up to six times without visiting a doctor, who can phone or fax in a prescription to the pharmacy.
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Update on Emergency Department Visits Involving Energy Drinks: A Continuing Public Health Concern
Energy drinks are flavored beverages containing high amounts of caffeine and typically other additives, such as vitamins, taurine, herbal supplements, creatine, sugars, and guarana, a plant product containing concentrated caffeine. These drinks are sold in cans and bottles and are readily available in grocery stores, vending machines, convenience stores, and bars and other venues where alcohol is sold. These beverages provide high doses of caffeine that stimulate the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. The total amount of caffeine in a can or bottle of an energy drink varies from about 80 to more than 500 milligrams (mg), compared with about 100 mg in a 5-ounce cup of coffee or 50 mg in a 12-ounce cola.1 Research suggests that certain additives may compound the stimulant effects of caffeine. Some types of energy drinks may also contain alcohol, producing a hazardous combination; however, this report focuses only on the dangerous effects of energy drinks that do not have alcohol. You can download the Dawn Report at http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN126/sr126-energy-drinks-use.pdf.
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One in 25 U.S. teens has attempted suicide: study
About one in 25 U.S. teens has attempted suicide, and one in eight has thought about it, according to a national study based on interviews with thousands of teens. Researchers, whose findings appeared in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, said those numbers are similar to the prevalence of lifetime suicidal thinking and attempts reported by adults, suggesting that the teenage years are an especially vulnerable time. Read the rest of the story here!
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Using Texting to Improve Teen Health
A new study leverages teens’ relationships with cell phones and text messages as a method to enhance health literacy and improve health behaviors. According to the Nielsen consumer research group, U.S. teens receive an average of 3,417 text messages per month or a whopping 114 texts per day. Teens also have notoriously have poor diets, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that high school students’ consumption of fruit and vegetables is, on average, 1.2 times per day (much lower than the recommended 5 a day). More on this story is here.
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Prescription painkillers trail only marijuana in abuse rates, report shows
Some 22 million Americans have misused prescription painkillers since 2002, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). "Any time you have 2 percent of the population using medications like this there is a lot to do, but we are doing a lot with a combination of putting tighter controls on who can get these drugs and public education," said Peter Delany, director of SAMHSA's Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. Also, programs such as the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which allows doctors to track patients who may be getting painkillers from several sources, has helped get a handle on the problem, he added. Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-prescription-painkillers-trail-marijuana-abuse.html#jCp
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An often-ignored recovery issue: child support
While non-custodial fathers are often court-mandated to pay child support, back unpaid child support has remained a little-discussed issue in substance abuse treatment. Because the credentials of many men in recovery qualify them mostly for low-prestige, seasonal or menial low-paying jobs in our service economy, these men may find it difficult to secure a socially affirming job or to earn a livable wage. As a result, it is not unusual for some men to fall behind on their child support payments or to deliberately forego over-the-table employment in the name of self-preservation to avoid having their wages garnished. Read the rest of the story here.
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For some opioid patients, medication with minimal support works well
A new study published in the American Journal of Medicine offers a clear indication that not all opioid-dependent patients require the same approach to treatment, with one subset of patients clearly benefiting from medication-assisted therapy with rather modest physician support. What is important to note in interpreting the results of this study in a primary care setting is that it does not conclude that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is not useful as an adjunct to medication treatment—only that for the particular subgroup of medication-using patients that made up this study sample, adding CBT to physician support did not improve drug-using outcomes. Rest of the article is available here.
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MIT Student Invents LED Ice Cubes to Track Alcohol Intake
An MIT grad student is turning a bad party night into a product with potential. It was fall semester last year when 23-year-old Dhairya Dand decided to hit up a party at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Several hours later, he found himself in the hospital. He'd had an alcohol-induced blackout. From the hospital room, Dand went back to MIT's Media Lab, where he's a researcher, and spent the next three weeks inventing Cheers - alcohol-aware ice cubes that glow and groove to ambient music. More important, the ice cubes change colors if you've had a few too many. When he presented the idea to his friends, they weren't so cool on the idea. "They joked around when I told them I was going to make these ice cubes in reflection to what I went through at the party," said Dand. "That's normal. With every new thing there is resistance." In an online video, Dand demonstrates how the cubes change as they respond to the amount of alcohol a person consumes. An accelerometer keeps track of how often the glass is raised to someone's lips; a timer helps estimate how intoxicated the person is. The LED inside each cube will light up in green, yellow or red. Green signals a first drink; yellow is a warning that your alcohol level is getting high. Red is a warning to stop drinking - you've probably had too much. Dand housed the electronics in waterproof cubes. "Being an inventor, the feeling when you see your invention working for the first time is comparable to that of a mother seeing her newborn baby," said Dand. "It's elation of the highest order, you're numb enough to not feel anything, then it slowly sinks in." The cubes can even send a text message to friends if the person drinking needs help. "The cubes talk to your phone to make the call. They communicate over IR [infrared] with a custom removable IR receiver fitted on the smartphone's audio jack, " said Dand. Since he came out with his invention, Dand said, "Everyone wants a dozen now!" And since he only spent $50 plus his own time creating it, Dand may have an idea that's budget-friendly for grad students. This isn't Dand's first invention. He's also built educational toys for children and is currently working on "super shoes" (he didn't say what they do). As for patenting his "Cheers" invention, Dand said he believes patents are "20th century jargon." "I believe in open-source. My inventions are open to be hacked, developed and played around," said Dand. "True innovation are like ideas with wings, once they take birth in a mind, nothing, not even the inventor, can stop them."
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New Tools Identify Substance Use Treatment Needs in Criminal Justice System
People in prisons and jails are four times more likely to have a substance use disorder than the general public, yet services for this population are sorely lacking, according to experts at George Mason University. They have developed several screening tools designed to improve substance use treatment in the criminal justice system. Read the rest of this article here.
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Baseball to Conduct In-Season Blood Testing for Human Growth Hormone
Major League Baseball and its players union announced they have reached an agreement to conduct in-season blood testing of players for human growth hormone. Players also will be tested for synthetic testosterone, which is increasingly popular because it washes out of the body fairly quickly after being used. The announcement comes soon after members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted against inducting Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into the Baseball Hall of Fame, because of their links to steroids, The New York Times reports. Major League Baseball was the first major sport in the United States to agree to human growth hormone testing. It reached an agreement with its union in November 2011 to test for the substance, but only in spring training and the off-season. The new agreement expands the testing into the baseball season. Human growth hormone can help players build muscle mass, and to recover quickly from extended physical activity. It cannot be used legally without a prescription.
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