High School Seniors Who Misuse Prescription Narcotics. Most Likely to Obtain Drugs from a Friend/Relative or a Personal Prescription
Nearly one in ten U.S. 12th graders reported using prescription narcotics without a doctor’s order in the past year, according to data from the 2011 Monitoring the Future survey. Users of prescription narcotics were most likely to report getting the drugs for free from friends or relatives (70%), followed by buying them from a friend or relative (40%,) and getting them from their own prescription (35%). These findings are similar to those of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which asks about the use of prescription pain relievers that were not prescribed for the user or were used only for the experience or feeling the drug causes. Reducing the available supply of prescription drugs in households (e.g., through prescription drug take-back programs) and limiting over prescribing and doctor shopping (e.g., through prescription drug monitoring programs) may help reduce the diversion of prescription pain relievers for nonmedical use.
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Teens End Up In Emergency Room After Drinking Hand Sanitizer
After six teenagers suffered alcohol poisoning from drinking hand sanitizer in California, public health officials are warning parents to look out for signs of abuse.
The teens showed up in two emergency rooms in the last few months, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some of them used salt to separate the alcohol from the hand sanitizer. This makes it a drink that is similar in potency to a shot of hard liquor, the article notes.
“All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager,” Cyrus Rangan, Director of the Toxics Epidemiology Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, told the newspaper. “There is no question that it is dangerous.” He said while there have been few cases so far, drinking hand sanitizer could become a trend. He pointed out teens can easily and inexpensively purchase it, and they can find instructions online about how to distill it.
Liquid hand sanitizer is 62 percent ethyl alcohol, and can make a 120-proof liquid. After a few drinks, a person can become so drunk that they need to be monitored in the emergency room.
This is the latest over-the-counter product teens have begun using to get a quick high. “Over the years, they have ingested all sorts of things,” said Helen Arbogast, Injury Prevention Coordinator in the Trauma Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “Cough syrup had reached a very sexy point where young people were using it….We want to be sure this doesn’t take on the same trend.”
Experts advise parents to buy foam hand sanitizer instead of the gel type, because it is more difficult to extract alcohol from it. Don’t leave it around the house, and monitor it as you would any other liquor or medicine, Arbogast recommends. She also tells parents to watch for signs of intoxication.
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Survey: Prescription Painkiller Abuse Often Starts With Free Pills From Friends, Family
A new national survey finds people who abuse prescription painkillers for the first time often get their pills for free from family or friends. Those who chronically abuse prescription painkillers are more likely to obtain the pills from doctors or dealers, USA Today reports. An analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, scheduled to be released on Wednesday, found more than two-thirds of those who said they had gotten high on painkillers for the first time in the past year received the pills from family or friends.
The survey estimates 2.4 million Americans start abusing prescription drugs annually. About one-third of new users are adolescents, according to the newspaper. Almost 6 percent of young adults ages 18 to 25, and 3 percent of teenagers, say they regularly get high on prescription drugs. Two-thirds of people who used painkillers to get high less than once a week got pills for free, or stole them from a relative or friend, the survey found. Among regular users, 28 percent said they bought the pills from a relative, friend, drug dealer or online. Twenty-six percent had prescriptions from at least one doctor.
Saturday, April 28 is National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, the article notes. The event, sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, provides an opportunity for people who have accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs to safely dispose of them.
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Animal Study Suggests Link Between Binge Eating and Other Addictive Behaviors
A study of rats suggests a link between binge eating and the development of other addictive behaviors.
The researchers, from Penn State College of Medicine, note substance abuse is common in people who engage in binge eating, PsychCentral reports. “Substance abuse and binge eating are both characterized by a loss of control over consumption,” said lead researcher Patricia Sue Grigson, PhD. “Given the common characteristics of these two types of disorders, it is not surprising that the co-occurrence of eating disorders and substance abuse disorders is high. It is unknown, however, whether loss of control in one disorder predisposes an individual to loss of control in another.”
Dr. Grigson divided the rats into four diet groups: normal chow, continuous access to optional dietary fat, one hour of access to optional dietary fat daily, and one hour of access to dietary fat three days a week. The researchers then assessed the rats’ cocaine seeking and using behavior. Rats that only had access to fat three days a week developed binge-eating behavior. This group tended to use more cocaine, tried to get the drug when it was not available and worked harder to get the drug, compared with the other rats. The rats that had continuous access to fat ate more fat than any other group, but were three times less likely to show addictive behaviors than the rats that only could eat fat three days a week.
“While the underlying mechanisms are not known, one point is clear from behavioral data: A history of bingeing on fat changed the brain, physiology, or both in a manner that made these rats more likely to seek and take a drug when tested more than a month later,” Dr. Grigson said in a news release. Her study, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, suggests that conditions that promote excessive behavior toward one substance can increase the odds of excessive behavior toward another, the article notes.
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Almost Two-Thirds of Americans Don’t Follow Doctor’s Orders on Prescription Drugs
New research indicates almost two-thirds of Americans do not follow their physician’s orders correctly when they take prescription drugs. They don’t take their medication, or use pills that were not intended for them, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The findings come from Quest Diagnostics, which analyzed about 76,000 urine samples submitted last year from physicians’ offices and the company’s patient service centers. The results were compared with doctors’ records of the medications prescribed for each patient. The study found many of the drugs patients took that were not prescribed for them were painkillers, sedatives or amphetamines. Overall, 63 percent of patients taking prescription drugs did not use them as prescribed by their doctor. Forty percent of patients misusing medication had been prescribed drugs, but were not taking any, the newspaper reports.
Quest says these results suggest some people cannot afford medication, are skipping treatments or are diverting them to the black market. The remaining 60 percent of patients who misused drugs were taking medications that were not prescribed by their physicians.
Many patients combined drugs without a doctor’s oversight, the study found. Jon R. Cohen, Quest’s Chief Medical Officer, noted this can be dangerous, because some medications can interact with each other.
________________________________________
Urban youth who have been bullied or bully others may be at increased risk of suicide according to new research
According to new research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in March 2012, concludes that urban youth who have been bullied as well as those who have bullied others are at increased risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The purpose of the study was to determine whether involvement in bullying as a perpetrator, victim, or both victim and perpetrator (victim-perpetrator) was associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts among a multiethnic urban high school population in the United States.
In 2008, a total of 1,838 youth in 9th–12th grades attending public high school in Boston, MA, completed an in-school, self-reported survey of health-related behaviors. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between bullying behaviors and self-reported suicidal ideation and suicide attempts within the 12 months preceding the survey.
Students who reported having been involved in bullying as a perpetrator, victim, or victim-perpetrator were more likely than those who had not been involved in bullying to report having seriously considered or attempted suicide within the past year. When age, race/ethnicity, and gender were controlled, students who were victim-perpetrators of bullying were at highest risk for both suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.
For more information regarding the study, click here.
Source: The Promising Practices Network, RAND Corporation
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Opioid-Overdose Antidote Being More Widely Distributed to Those Who Use Drugs
The opioid-overdose antidote naloxone is being more widely distributed to people who use drugs, according to the Associated Press. While many public health officials say it saves lives, critics argue that making the antidote easily available could make people less likely to seek treatment.
Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, safely reverses the potentially fatal side effects of an overdose of oxycodone, heroin and other opioids. It has been routinely used by emergency rooms and ambulance crews for decades, the AP notes. In the past few years, Naloxone has been distributed free to opioid users and their loved ones, in a growing number of sites around the country. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that widely distributing Naloxone, and training people in how to use it, could save many lives. It has successfully reversed more than 10,000 drug overdoses since 1996, according to the CDC report. Naloxone is not effective in treating drug overdoses that do not involve opioids. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have programs to distribute naloxone in the community. The programs train people to identify signs of an overdose and provide naloxone to people who use drugs and their loved ones.
________________________________________
Nearly one in ten U.S. 12th graders reported using prescription narcotics without a doctor’s order in the past year, according to data from the 2011 Monitoring the Future survey. Users of prescription narcotics were most likely to report getting the drugs for free from friends or relatives (70%), followed by buying them from a friend or relative (40%,) and getting them from their own prescription (35%). These findings are similar to those of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which asks about the use of prescription pain relievers that were not prescribed for the user or were used only for the experience or feeling the drug causes. Reducing the available supply of prescription drugs in households (e.g., through prescription drug take-back programs) and limiting over prescribing and doctor shopping (e.g., through prescription drug monitoring programs) may help reduce the diversion of prescription pain relievers for nonmedical use.
________________________________________
Teens End Up In Emergency Room After Drinking Hand Sanitizer
After six teenagers suffered alcohol poisoning from drinking hand sanitizer in California, public health officials are warning parents to look out for signs of abuse.
The teens showed up in two emergency rooms in the last few months, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some of them used salt to separate the alcohol from the hand sanitizer. This makes it a drink that is similar in potency to a shot of hard liquor, the article notes.
“All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager,” Cyrus Rangan, Director of the Toxics Epidemiology Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, told the newspaper. “There is no question that it is dangerous.” He said while there have been few cases so far, drinking hand sanitizer could become a trend. He pointed out teens can easily and inexpensively purchase it, and they can find instructions online about how to distill it.
Liquid hand sanitizer is 62 percent ethyl alcohol, and can make a 120-proof liquid. After a few drinks, a person can become so drunk that they need to be monitored in the emergency room.
This is the latest over-the-counter product teens have begun using to get a quick high. “Over the years, they have ingested all sorts of things,” said Helen Arbogast, Injury Prevention Coordinator in the Trauma Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “Cough syrup had reached a very sexy point where young people were using it….We want to be sure this doesn’t take on the same trend.”
Experts advise parents to buy foam hand sanitizer instead of the gel type, because it is more difficult to extract alcohol from it. Don’t leave it around the house, and monitor it as you would any other liquor or medicine, Arbogast recommends. She also tells parents to watch for signs of intoxication.
________________________________________
Survey: Prescription Painkiller Abuse Often Starts With Free Pills From Friends, Family
A new national survey finds people who abuse prescription painkillers for the first time often get their pills for free from family or friends. Those who chronically abuse prescription painkillers are more likely to obtain the pills from doctors or dealers, USA Today reports. An analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, scheduled to be released on Wednesday, found more than two-thirds of those who said they had gotten high on painkillers for the first time in the past year received the pills from family or friends.
The survey estimates 2.4 million Americans start abusing prescription drugs annually. About one-third of new users are adolescents, according to the newspaper. Almost 6 percent of young adults ages 18 to 25, and 3 percent of teenagers, say they regularly get high on prescription drugs. Two-thirds of people who used painkillers to get high less than once a week got pills for free, or stole them from a relative or friend, the survey found. Among regular users, 28 percent said they bought the pills from a relative, friend, drug dealer or online. Twenty-six percent had prescriptions from at least one doctor.
Saturday, April 28 is National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, the article notes. The event, sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, provides an opportunity for people who have accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs to safely dispose of them.
________________________________________
Animal Study Suggests Link Between Binge Eating and Other Addictive Behaviors
A study of rats suggests a link between binge eating and the development of other addictive behaviors.
The researchers, from Penn State College of Medicine, note substance abuse is common in people who engage in binge eating, PsychCentral reports. “Substance abuse and binge eating are both characterized by a loss of control over consumption,” said lead researcher Patricia Sue Grigson, PhD. “Given the common characteristics of these two types of disorders, it is not surprising that the co-occurrence of eating disorders and substance abuse disorders is high. It is unknown, however, whether loss of control in one disorder predisposes an individual to loss of control in another.”
Dr. Grigson divided the rats into four diet groups: normal chow, continuous access to optional dietary fat, one hour of access to optional dietary fat daily, and one hour of access to dietary fat three days a week. The researchers then assessed the rats’ cocaine seeking and using behavior. Rats that only had access to fat three days a week developed binge-eating behavior. This group tended to use more cocaine, tried to get the drug when it was not available and worked harder to get the drug, compared with the other rats. The rats that had continuous access to fat ate more fat than any other group, but were three times less likely to show addictive behaviors than the rats that only could eat fat three days a week.
“While the underlying mechanisms are not known, one point is clear from behavioral data: A history of bingeing on fat changed the brain, physiology, or both in a manner that made these rats more likely to seek and take a drug when tested more than a month later,” Dr. Grigson said in a news release. Her study, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, suggests that conditions that promote excessive behavior toward one substance can increase the odds of excessive behavior toward another, the article notes.
_____________________
Almost Two-Thirds of Americans Don’t Follow Doctor’s Orders on Prescription Drugs
New research indicates almost two-thirds of Americans do not follow their physician’s orders correctly when they take prescription drugs. They don’t take their medication, or use pills that were not intended for them, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The findings come from Quest Diagnostics, which analyzed about 76,000 urine samples submitted last year from physicians’ offices and the company’s patient service centers. The results were compared with doctors’ records of the medications prescribed for each patient. The study found many of the drugs patients took that were not prescribed for them were painkillers, sedatives or amphetamines. Overall, 63 percent of patients taking prescription drugs did not use them as prescribed by their doctor. Forty percent of patients misusing medication had been prescribed drugs, but were not taking any, the newspaper reports.
Quest says these results suggest some people cannot afford medication, are skipping treatments or are diverting them to the black market. The remaining 60 percent of patients who misused drugs were taking medications that were not prescribed by their physicians.
Many patients combined drugs without a doctor’s oversight, the study found. Jon R. Cohen, Quest’s Chief Medical Officer, noted this can be dangerous, because some medications can interact with each other.
________________________________________
Urban youth who have been bullied or bully others may be at increased risk of suicide according to new research
According to new research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in March 2012, concludes that urban youth who have been bullied as well as those who have bullied others are at increased risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The purpose of the study was to determine whether involvement in bullying as a perpetrator, victim, or both victim and perpetrator (victim-perpetrator) was associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts among a multiethnic urban high school population in the United States.
In 2008, a total of 1,838 youth in 9th–12th grades attending public high school in Boston, MA, completed an in-school, self-reported survey of health-related behaviors. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between bullying behaviors and self-reported suicidal ideation and suicide attempts within the 12 months preceding the survey.
Students who reported having been involved in bullying as a perpetrator, victim, or victim-perpetrator were more likely than those who had not been involved in bullying to report having seriously considered or attempted suicide within the past year. When age, race/ethnicity, and gender were controlled, students who were victim-perpetrators of bullying were at highest risk for both suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.
For more information regarding the study, click here.
Source: The Promising Practices Network, RAND Corporation
________________________________________
Opioid-Overdose Antidote Being More Widely Distributed to Those Who Use Drugs
The opioid-overdose antidote naloxone is being more widely distributed to people who use drugs, according to the Associated Press. While many public health officials say it saves lives, critics argue that making the antidote easily available could make people less likely to seek treatment.
Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, safely reverses the potentially fatal side effects of an overdose of oxycodone, heroin and other opioids. It has been routinely used by emergency rooms and ambulance crews for decades, the AP notes. In the past few years, Naloxone has been distributed free to opioid users and their loved ones, in a growing number of sites around the country. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that widely distributing Naloxone, and training people in how to use it, could save many lives. It has successfully reversed more than 10,000 drug overdoses since 1996, according to the CDC report. Naloxone is not effective in treating drug overdoses that do not involve opioids. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have programs to distribute naloxone in the community. The programs train people to identify signs of an overdose and provide naloxone to people who use drugs and their loved ones.
________________________________________
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