Troubled sleep is a commonly cited consequence of adolescent drug use, but it has rarely been studied as a cause. Nor have there been any studies of the extent to which sleep behavior can spread in social networks from person to person to person. Here we map the social networks of 8,349 adolescents in order to study how sleep behavior spreads, how drug use behavior spreads, and how a friend’s sleep behavior influences one’s own drug use. We find clusters of poor sleep behavior and drug use that extend up to four degrees of separation (to one’s friends’ friends’ friends’ friends) in the social network. Prospective regression models show that being central in the network negatively influences future sleep outcomes, but not vice versa. Moreover, if a friend sleeps ≤7 hours, it increases the likelihood a person sleeps ≤7 hours by 11%. If a friend uses marijuana, it increases the likelihood of marijuana use by 110%. Finally, the likelihood that an individual uses drugs increases by 19% when a friend sleeps ≤7 hours, and a mediation analysis shows that 20% of this effect results from the spread of sleep behavior from one person to another. This is the first study to suggest that the spread of one behavior in social networks influences the spread of another. The results indicate that interventions should focus on healthy sleep to prevent drug use and targeting specific individuals may improve outcomes across the entire social network.
Source: Mednick SC, Christakis NA, Fowler JH (2010) The Spread of Sleep Loss Influences Drug Use in Adolescent Social Networks. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9775. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009775

Research Summary
Frequent, long-term use of the club drug ketamine appears to cause significant impairment in short-term and visual memory, according to researchers from University College London.
Reuters reported Nov. 20 that researchers tracked 150 users of ketamine, a.k.a. “Special K,” for more than a year. They found that while occasional users of ketamine seemed to suffer few ill effects, frequent users of the anaesthetic drug experienced problems with memory and concentration as well as a decline in psychological well-being. Short-term and visual memory problems worsened over time, study author Celia J. A. Morgan and colleagues found.
“Despite the dramatic increase in ketamine use over the past decade, young people who use this drug are still largely unaware of its damaging health properties and its potential for dependency,” the study said. “Health education campaigns should target ketamine users to ensure that people are informed of the negative consequences of heavy ketamine use.”
Source: www.jointogether.org Nov.2009 The findings were published in the journal Addiction.

A TENFOLD increase in hospital treatment for cannabis poisoning or dependence among people in their 30s and 40s suggests the habit has run out of control for a hard core of long-term users.
Australian research shows that while cannabis consumption overall decreased during the past decade, the rate of hospital treatment rose. Treatment rates are highest among people in their 20s, but the steepest increase has been among older people, with those in their 30s only slightly less likely to seek help than younger people by 2007, the study shows.
Seven years earlier, people in their 30s were being treated at only half the rate of their younger counterparts, according to the findings of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of NSW. Their faster rise in cannabis-related health problems coincided with greater frequency of daily use.
“These people started their use early and have [in some cases] then gone on to develop problems,” the study leader, Amanda Roxburgh, said. “They might not necessarily think that they have a problem with their use until it kicks into crisis mode.” People in their 20s were about 50 per cent more likely to have used cannabis during a one-year period compared with those in their 30s. But of those who did so, nearly 20 per cent of the older age group had developed a daily habit, against about 15 per cent of the younger adults.
Ms Roxburgh, whose results are published in the journal Addiction, said the rise in problematic use might reflect increased cannabis potency, though there was no formal evidence the drug had become stronger. Its falling price suggested it was being produced more efficiently – perhaps through indoor hydroponic cultivation – and this might have made it more accessible.
Jan Copeland, who heads the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, said older people were more likely to consider cannabis safe. “These people come from age groups where cannabis is a benign herb and natural,” she said. “But when you are doing something every day you don’t realise the difficulties when you try to stop”.
Cannabis use among people aged 14 to 19 more than halved between 1996 and 2005, but the study also found pockets of harmful use in that group. Nearly two-thirds of young daily cannabis users reported difficulties controlling their use.
Members of this group were also more likely to report smoking 10 or more cones or joints a day, and if they were treated in hospital for their cannabis use were more likely to be treated for psychosis than older users.
Professor Copeland said young people now understood cannabis could be dangerous, and fewer were experimenting, but dedicated treatment programs were still needed for young people with a serious habit.
Will Temple, chief executive officer of the Watershed drug and alcohol recovery and education centre in Wollongong, said his centre had gone from treating almost no cannabis users to in the past six months treating 30 per cent of clients for cannabis use.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald 29th March 2010

Scientists at Melbourne’s Howard Florey Institute have discovered a system in the brain that stops an alcoholic’s craving for alcohol, as well as prevent relapse once they have recovered from alcohol addiction.
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The ‘Orexin’ system is a group of cells in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. These cells produce Orexin, which was originally implicated in the regulation of feeding, but it soon became apparent that Orexin was also involved in the ‘high’ felt after drinking alcohol or taking illicit drugs.

In studies conducted with rats, Dr Andrew Lawrence and his Florey colleagues used a drug that blocked Orexin’s euphoric effects in the brain and the results were remarkable.
“In one experiment, rats that had alcohol freely available to them stopped drinking it after receiving the Orexin blocker.” Dr Lawrence said. “In another experiment, rats that had gone through a detox program and were then given the Orexin blocking drug, did not relapse into alcohol addiction when they were reintroduced to an environment in which they had been conditioned to associate with alcohol use.

“Orexin reinforces the euphoria felt when drinking alcohol, so if a drug can be developed to block the Orexin system in humans, we should be able to stop an alcoholic’s craving for alcohol, as well as preventing relapse once the alcoholic has recovered,” he said.
Dr Lawrence said that this research could also lead to treatments for eating disorders, such chronic over-eating, which leads to obesity. “Our research shows that alcohol addiction and eating disorders set off common triggers in the brain, so further investigations may uncover drug targets in the Orexin system to treat both conditions,” Dr Lawrence said.

The Florey scientists are now conducting multiple experiments to discover the precise circumstances that activate the Orexin system. “To explore this discovery further we are now investigating how different experimental paradigms and environmental situations impact on the Orexin system, which will hopefully pinpoint therapeutic drug targets,” Dr Lawrence said.
“Before a therapeutic Orexin-blocking drug can be developed, we need to ensure that it will be safe to use in the long-term and that issues surrounding a person’s compliance in taking the drug are considered,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation, alcohol is one of the most widely used and abused substances in the world and causes as much, if not more death and disability as measles, malaria, tobacco, or illegal drugs.
Dr Lawrence and his colleagues were the first in the world to demonstrate the Orexin system’s involvement in alcohol addiction and their research paper was recently published in the prestigious British Journal of Pharmacology. Dr Lawrence’s paper was downloaded 658 times by researchers from around the world in the first three months of its publication, making it the most downloaded research paper in that issue and supporting the research’s importance.
The Howard Florey Institute is Australia’s leading brain research centre. Its scientists undertake clinical and applied research that can be developed into treatments to combat brain disorders, and new medical practices. Their discoveries will improve the lives of those directly, and indirectly, affected by brain and mind disorders in Australia, and around the world. The Florey’s research areas cover a variety of brain and mind disorders including Parkinson’s disease, stroke, motor neuron disease, addiction, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, autism and dementia.

Source: ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2010 Howard Florey Institute (2006, December 13).
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Children whose mothers abused methamphetamine (meth) during pregnancy show brain abnormalities that may be more severe than that of children exposed to alcohol prenatally, according to a study in the March 17 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. While researchers have long known that drug abuse during pregnancy can alter fetal brain development, this finding shows the potential impact of meth. Identifying vulnerable brain structures may help predict particular learning and behavioral problems in meth-exposed children.
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“We know that alcohol exposure is toxic to the developing fetus and can result in lifelong brain, cognitive, and behavioral problems,” said Elizabeth Sowell, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the research team. “In this study, we show that the effects of prenatal meth exposure, or the combination of meth and alcohol exposure, may actually be worse. Our findings stress the importance of drug abuse treatment for pregnant women,” Sowell said. A structure called the caudate nucleus, which is important for learning and memory, motor control, and motivation, was one of the regions more reduced by meth than alcohol exposure.
Of the more than 16 million Americans over the age of 12 who have used meth, about 19,000 are pregnant women, according to data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. About half of women who say they used meth during pregnancy also used alcohol, so isolating the effects of meth on the developing brain is difficult.
Sowell’s team evaluated the specific effects of prenatal meth-exposure by comparing brain scans of 61 children: 21 with prenatal meth and alcohol exposure, 13 with heavy alcohol exposure only, and 27 unexposed. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that the sizes and shapes of certain brain structures varied depending on prenatal drug exposure.
Previous studies have shown that certain brain structures are smaller in alcohol-exposed children. In this study, the authors found these brain regions in meth-exposed children were similar to the alcohol-exposed children, and in some areas were smaller still. Some brain regions were larger than normal. An abnormal volume increase was noted in meth-exposed children in a region called the cingulate cortex, which is associated with control and conflict resolution.
The researchers were also able to predict a child’s past exposure to drugs based on brain images and IQ information. Detailed data about vulnerable brain structures may eventually be used to diagnose children with cognitive or behavioral problems but without well-documented histories of drug exposure. Christian Beaulieu, PhD, of the University of Alberta in Canada, who was unaffiliated with the study, said this finding will help researchers understand which brain areas are most sensitive to injury during development.
“Ultimately, the goal would be to come up with strategies to first, minimize brain damage in the womb, and second, to improve the child’s cognitive performance,” Beaulieu said.
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Source: Society for Neuroscience, March 17 2010

1. Executive Summary
Policymakers and other stakeholders can use cost-benefit analysis as an informative tool for decision making for substance abuse prevention. This report reveals the importance of supporting effective prevention programs as part of a comprehensive substance abuse prevention strategy. The following patterns of use, their attendant costs, and the potential cost savings are analyzed:
• Extent of substance abuse among youth;
• Costs of substance abuse to the Nation and to States;
• Cost savings that could be gained if effective prevention policies, programs, and services were implemented nationwide;
• Programs and policies that are most cost beneficial.

1.1. Costs of Substance Abuse
Studies have shown the annual cost of substance abuse to the Nation to be $510.8 billion in 1999 (Harwood, 2000). More specifically,
• Alcohol abuse cost the Nation $191.6 billion;
• Tobacco use cost the Nation $167.8 billion;
• Drug abuse cost the Nation $151.4 billion.

Substance abuse clearly is among the most costly health problems in the United States. Among national estimates of the costs of illness for 33 diseases and conditions, alcohol ranked second, tobacco ranked sixth, and drug disorders ranked seventh (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2000). This report shows that programs designed to prevent substance abuse can reduce these costs.

1.2. Savings From Effective School-Based Substance Abuse Prevention
If effective prevention programs were implemented nationwide, substance abuse initiation would decline for 1.5 million youth and be delayed for 2 years on average. It has been well established that a delay in onset reduces subsequent problems later in life (Grant & Dawson, 1997; Lynskey et al., 2003). In 2003, an estimated:

• 5.6 percent fewer youth ages 13–15 would have engaged in drinking;
• 10.2 percent fewer youth would have used marijuana;
• 30.2 percent fewer youth would have used cocaine;
• 8.0 percent fewer youth would have smoked regularly.

The average effective school-based program in 2002 costs $220 per pupil including materials and teacher training, and these programs could save an estimated $18 per $1 invested if implemented nationwide. Nationwide, full implementation of school-based effective programming in 2002 would have had the following fiscal impact

• Saved State and local governments $1.3 billion, including $1.05 billion in educational costs within 2 years;

• Reduced social costs of substance-abuse-related medical care, other resources, and lost productivity over a lifetime by an estimated $33.7 billion;
• Preserved the quality of life over a lifetime valued at $65 billion.

Although 80 percent of American youth reported participation in school-based prevention in 2005 (SAMHSA, 2004), only 20 percent were exposed to effective prevention programs (Flewelling et al., 2005). Given this level of participation, it is possible that some expected benefits already exist for these students, and the estimates in this paper are adjusted for these probable benefits.
These cost-benefit estimates show that effective school-based programs could save $18 for every $1 spent on these programs.

In a program targeting families with low income, intensive home visitation coupled with preschool enrichment reduced infant/toddler abuse (Aos et al., 1999; Karoly et al., 1998). As these toddlers reach adolescence and adulthood, visitation programs also can reduce a range of problems including substance abuse and violence.

Among indicated programs (targeted to individuals who have detectable symptoms), cost estimates that primarily focused on substance abuse were not available. However, estimates indicating good returns on the investment were available for several violence prevention interventions that address the roots of multi-risk behavior. Moral reconation therapy for adult and youth offenders, and multi-systemic therapy and functional family therapy for youth offenders returned more than $30 per dollar invested.

1.3. Conclusion
The cost of substance abuse could be offset by a nationwide implementation of effective prevention policies and programs. SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework should include a planning step that considers cost-benefit ratios. Communities should consider a comprehensive prevention strategy based on their unique needs and characteristics and use cost-benefit ratios to help guide their decisions. Model programs should include data on costs and estimated cost-benefit ratios to help guide prevention planning.

Source:
Substance Abuse Prevention Dollars and Cents: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP)

Young men who report an unstable pattern of alcohol consumption including binge drinking have an elevated risk for experiencing hypomania, study results show. Notably, the effect was independent of total alcohol consumption and the presence of clinical alcohol use disorders.
“This fits with the idea that instability in different biological and behavioral systems is a core feature of risk for hypomania and finally risk for bipolar disorders,” say study authors Thomas Meyer (Newcastle University, UK) and Larissa Wolkenstein (University of Tübingen, Germany) in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.
Recent studies have suggested that vulnerability to hypomania is related to instability in certain psychologic processes. For example, individuals at risk for hypomania do not generally sleep less than others, but report a much more unstable sleeping pattern. Similarly fluctuations in self-esteem are much more characteristic of vulnerability to hypomania than are consistently low or high levels of self-esteem.
In the current study, the researchers assessed whether alcohol use might show a similar relationship to hypomania. They recruited 120 male students who completed the Hypomanic Personality Scale and were independently interviewed with the FORM 90 to assess alcohol consumption. The latter comprised an interview about a typical weekly drinking pattern and a calendar to assess drinking behavior over the last 90 days, noting special days with unusual drinking behavior.
The researchers found that intra-individual fluctuations in alcohol consumption predicted hypomania after accounting for clinical diagnoses of abuse or dependency. In addition, vulnerability for hypomania was significantly associated with mean standard ethanol content per drinking day.
Discussing their findings, the researchers note a recent theory that bipolar disorder is related to a hypersensitivity to reward-related cues, which is due to a dysregulation of the behavioral activation system.
“To extend this work further, it would be reasonable to look more closely at the motivational and affective processes associated with drinking alcohol and bipolar disorder and how mood and drinking are related,” Meyer and Wolkenstein comment.
Source: MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) 19 March 2010

Parents who try to teach responsible drinking by letting their teenagers have alcohol at home may be well intentioned, but they may also be wrong, according to a new study in the latest issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

In a study of 428 Dutch families, researchers found that the more teenagers were allowed to drink at home, the more they drank outside of home as well. What’s more, teens who drank under their parents’ watch or on their own had an elevated risk of developing alcohol-related problems. Drinking problems included trouble with school work, missed school days and getting into fights with other people, among other issues.

The findings, say the researchers, put into question the advice of some experts who recommend that parents drink with their teenage children to teach them how to drink responsibly — with the aim of limiting their drinking outside of the home.

That advice is common in the Netherlands, where the study was conducted, but it is based more on experts’ reasoning than on scientific evidence, according to Dr. Haske van der Vorst, the lead researcher on the study.

“The idea is generally based on common sense,” says van der Vorst, of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. “For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior — here, modest drinking — then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child’s drinking by drinking with the child.”

But the current findings suggest that is not the case.

Based on this and earlier studies, van der Vorst says, “I would advise parents to prohibit their child from drinking, in any setting or on any occasion.”

The study included 428 families with two children between the ages of 13 and 15. Parents and teens completed questionnaires on drinking habits at the outset and again one and two years later.

The researchers found that, in general, the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere; the reverse was also true, with out-of-home drinking leading to more drinking at home. In addition, teens who drank more often, whether in or out of the home, tended to score higher on a measure of problem drinking two years later.

The findings, according to van der Vorst, suggest that teen drinking begets more drinking — and, in some cases, alcohol problems — regardless of where and with whom they drink.

“If parents want to reduce the risk that their child will become a heavy drinker or problem drinker in adolescence,” she says, “they should try to postpone the age at which their child starts drinking.”

Available at: http://www.jsad.com/jsad/link/71/105

Source: H. van der Vorst Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 71 (1), 105-114. Jan 2010

Monitoring the Future survey shows that while marijuana continues to be the most commonly used illicit drug among teens in the USA, current use of marijuana has dropped by 25 also dropped by seven percent among all three grades combined. Teen use of amphetamines, particularly methamphetamine, dropped significantly in five years and year-over-year, between 2005 and 2006, with less than one percent of teens having used it in the past 30 days.

The survey also noted reductions in the following drug categories between 2001 and 2006, including:

** Marijuana use is down in all categories for all grades combined. Lifetime, past year, and past 30 day use decreased 18 percent, 20 percent, and 25 percent (from 35% to 29%; 26% to 22%; and 17% to 13%, respectively).

** Use of cigarettes is down since 2001 in all four use categories (lifetime, past month, daily, and more than one-half pack per day) in all three grades.

** Youth use of alcohol was also down across the board – in all five use categories (lifetime, past year, past month, daily, and more than five drinks in a row in the last two weeks) and in all three grades over five years.

** Lifetime use of steroids for teens declined among all three grades, with past year and past month use also down among 8th and 10th graders.

Source: Source: nyac@TheAntiDrug.com Dec 2006

A recent study by investigators at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development may help explain the long-term behavioral and neurological problems associated with prenatal exposure to cocaine. In a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, Gregg Stanwood, Ph.D., and Pat Levitt, Ph.D., report that prenatal cocaine exposure in rabbits causes a long lasting displacement of dopamine receptors in certain brain cells, which alters their ability to function normally.
Though this effect has not yet been assessed in cocaine-exposed children, the findings give researchers a place to start looking.
“The hysteria surrounding the ‘crack baby’ was sort of overblown,” said Stanwood, research assistant professor of Pharmacology and lead author on the study.
Incredibly high levels of cocaine — usually coupled with the abuse of other drugs — can lead to premature labor, preterm birth and low birth weight, Stanwood said.
“But in women who have abused relatively low recreational doses of cocaine, it is actually very hard to distinguish those children at birth from children born to anyone else,” he said. “However, as those children age, they do develop deficits in their cognitive and emotional development.”
These children often exhibit attention and arousal problems, similar to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the standard treatments for ADHD — Ritalin and other stimulants — are not always effective in these children.
Studying the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on the developing brain is difficult in human populations because cocaine abusers often abuse other drugs. Animal models can help determine how prenatal cocaine exposure might influence brain development to cause these subtle cognitive impairments.
“We thought that it was important to set up an animal model that recapitulates a key feature of human abuse — that being intravenous exposure to low doses of cocaine,” Stanwood said.
A few years ago, Stanwood and Levitt, professor of Pharmacology and director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, established such a model in rabbits. They found that exposure to low levels of intravenous cocaine during a very short window of time during gestation — equivalent to the late first trimester and early second trimester in humans — caused specific alterations in brain circuits that use the neurotransmitter dopamine. Additionally, these cocaine-exposed offspring showed attention problems as well as insensitivity to stimulants like amphetamine, suggesting that cocaine exposure had altered the development of the dopamine pathways in the brain.
“In collaboration with Dr. Eitan Friedman of the City University of New York, we had previously shown a decrease in signaling of a particular receptor protein, the dopamine D1 receptor,” Stanwood said. “We know that this receptor is involved in regulating the formation of cortical circuitry. It’s also involved in the behavioral effects of amphetamines and cocaine.”
“The current study was an attempt to look at the mechanism of this decrease in D1 receptor signaling,” he said.
Stanwood examined the levels of D1 receptor in brain cells taken from “teenage” rabbits that were exposed to cocaine during that short, sensitive prenatal period.
He found that cocaine exposure did not alter the total amount of D1 receptor produced in the brain. However, there was a dramatic alteration in the location of the protein within the cell.
“It’s not where it should be,” he said. D1 receptors are normally found at the cell surface, but neurons from the cocaine-exposed animals showed the receptor was predominantly sequestered inside the cells.
“The fascinating thing is that this effect appears permanent,” said Stanwood. This implies that cocaine exposure during a brief, sensitive period of neural development can lead to long-lasting effects at the cellular level.
This change also altered the growth of neuronal processes, suggesting that the altered D1 receptor trafficking may underlie the changes in neuronal architecture and behavior that Stanwood and others have previously observed.
What remains to be determined, he cautioned, is whether D1 receptor localization is affected in humans exposed to cocaine prenatally.
If found in humans, “it gives us a new way to think about helping those children as they continue to mature.” Because cocaine exposure seems to alter the distribution of the D1 receptor, Stanwood suggests that researchers might find a way to “steer” the receptor into the correct cellular location. That could provide new avenues for treating the attention problems in cocaine-exposed children, as well as in children with stimulant-resistant ADHD.
“Neither we nor anyone else has yet identified whether this mechanism occurs in the human population,” Stanwood said, “so that is a critical next step.”
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Source ScienceDaily.com 13th January 2007

Half of all crime suspects arrested by police admit to recently smoking cannabis, astonishing UK Government research reveals. For younger offenders, the figures are even more stark. Some 57% say they have smoked the drug – which Labour controversially downgraded – in the past month. It proves for the first time a firm link between cannabis and serious offending. It is used by more suspects than any other drug – including heroin and crack cocaine. “We have long said that drugs fuel all sorts of crime. This is because they both undermine a person’s sense of responsibility but also because takers and addicts need money to feed their habit,” said Shadow Home Secretary David Davis.

Source: Daily Mail, January 5, 2007.

The Journal of Pediatrics has published a new study which brings to light another troubling consequence of smoking marijuana, particularly during pregnancy.
“Barros and her team looked at 561 infants born to adolescent mothers. Twenty-six of them had been exposed to marijuana, as revealed by tests on the mother’s hair and the infant’s stool. Just one of the mothers had reported smoking pot while pregnant.
Trained examiners, who did not know a child’s marijuana exposure status, tested the neurobehavioral responses of all infants. On average, marijuana-exposed infants scored differently on measures of arousal, regulation and excitability compared to the non-exposed infants…
..Infants exposed to marijuana in the womb show subtle behavioral changes in their first days of life, researchers from Brazil report.
These newborns were more irritable than non-exposed infants, less responsive, and more difficult to calm, Dr. Marina Carvalho de Moraes Barros and colleagues from the Federal University of Sao Paulo and colleagues report. They also cried more, startled more easily, and were more jittery. Such changes, Barros and her team say, have the potential to interfere with mother-child bonding.
Here’s the key point: “It is necessary to counter the misconception that marijuana is a ‘benign drug’ and to educate women regarding the risks and possible consequences related to its use during pregnancy,” Barros and colleagues conclude.”

Source: Journal of Pediatrics Vol.149 Issue 6 Dec. 2006

A LEADING medic at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary today warned of the growing toll of Scots’ drinking habits as new figures showed liver disease deaths at the hospital have doubled in seven years.
The hospital, which is a referral centre for acute cases from across the whole of Scotland, had 67 fatalities from cirrhosis of the liver in 2005. A further 17 people died from the disease at the Western General Hospital in 2005 which, along with 2003, is the highest level for eight years.
Professor Peter Hayes today said there had been an “exponential rise” in cases among middle-aged men, in particular, in recent years which was showing no signs of slowing.
“The main problem is alcohol,” he said. “On the Continent, the problem seemed to peak in the 1970s and 1980s and cases have been falling since. They’re doing something very right, we’re doing something very wrong. I suspect it’s down to culture and the amount we consume.”
Prof Hayes, of the department of hepatology at the ERI, said more than half the cases were due to long-term alcohol abuse, typically people who have drunk a bottle of spirits a day for 20 years.
However, obese people and drug users who contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles in the 1970s and 1980s also account for a large proportion.
Prof Hayes warned that these health problems – although not as high as in some areas such as Paisley, near Glasgow – are growing in Edinburgh and Lothian.
“Deaths from liver disease in the UK, and Scotland in particular – and among middle-aged men in particular – are rising exponentially. Figures published in 2006 showed deaths in Scotland just massively increased, almost rising in a straight line.
“This is a national problem but one we are also seeing in Edinburgh and the Lothians.
“The problem is worse in Paisley, for example, but I’m sure it’s going up in Edinburgh, probably at the same rate just starting at a lower level.”
Some people are showing the signs of long-term alcohol abuse after just a few years of drinking, and there are also more female patients, but the most common sufferers continue to be men in their 50s and 60s.
Prof Hayes said: “We do see people in their 20s, they always catch your eye because they are so young, but the majority are older, and we still get more men than women.
“Alcohol is undoubtedly the most important reason for the rise. Hepatitis C is increasing – it takes a long time to cause sclerosis – but we are seeing a lot of people now who may have experimented with drugs, even just for a short time, 20 or 30 years ago.
“The third factor is obesity and diabetes. People are getting obese younger but living longer because of efforts to stop them dying from heart disease. This is putting pressure on their liver.”
Across Scotland 976 people died from liver disease in 2005, along with the same figure in 2003, the highest in eight years.
The figures, obtained by SNP MSP Christine Grahame, also showed that in 2005, 41,250 people were discharged from Scottish hospitals with an explicit diagnosis of an alcohol-related condition, 5441 in the Lothians.
She said the best way of turning the corner was by targeting the next generation of drinkers.
“We have to go back into schools with a determined education message,” she said.
“We think we’re immortal when we are young. When we do find young people with extreme difficulty with drinking we have to find residential places for them straight away.”

Source: Scotsman.com 27th Jan 2007

Abstract

Aims
The present study represents the first large-scale test of the capacity to predict illicit drug treatment outcomes of an instrument [Stages of Change and Treatment Eagerness Scale (SOCRATES)] purporting to measure processes underlying stages of change. The main hypothesis was that ‘taking steps’ should be predictive of less frequent use of illicit opiates (heroin and non-prescribed methadone) at follow-up.

Design
The sample comprised 1075 people seeking treatment for drug abuse problems in 54 treatment agencies in England. The study uses a longitudinal, prospective cohort design. Structured interviews were conducted at treatment intake and at 1-year follow-up. Data were collected about illicit drug use (frequency of use of heroin, non-prescribed methadone, cocaine and amphetamines, and non-prescribed benzodiazepines) and other problems.

Findings
Results failed to support the hypothesis that taking steps should be associated with less frequent use of illicit opiates at follow-up. No statistically significant associations of any kind were found between readiness for change measures and use of opiates or stimulants at follow-up. A negative association was found between taking steps and benzodiazepine misuse. Readiness for change measures were correlated with heroin use and psychiatric symptom scores at treatment intake.
Conclusions
Readiness for change measures were not associated with illicit drug use outcomes. Of the 12 hypothesized relationships between readiness for change measures and outcomes, our results show only one ‘hit’ and 11 ‘misses’.

Source: Addiction Volume 102 Issue 2 Page null – February 2007 Addiction 102 (2)

SMOKERS who suffer damage to a particular part of their brains appear to be able to quit their nicotine habit easily – a discovery that might open new avenues of addiction research.
A study of smokers who had suffered brain damage of various kinds after a stroke showed that those with injuries to a part of the brain called the insula were in many cases able to quit smoking quickly and easily – saying they had lost the urge to smoke altogether.
The insula receives information from the body and translates it into subjective feelings such as hunger, pain and craving, including craving for drugs.
However, the insula has not attracted much attention in studies on drug addiction, according to the research in the latest edition of the journal Science.
Deliberately damaging people’s insulas is not considered a realistic treatment option, because the risks are too great and the insula also has a role in many essential functions, such as the desire to eat.
But in the long term, the authors said, drugs might be developed to target the insula.
Other techniques for affecting the insula might in future also include electrical stimulation, already used in patients with depression. However, current techniques cannot penetrate the brain deeply enough to reach the insula.
The study was inspired by the experience of a man who had smoked 40 cigarettes a day before his insula was damaged in a stroke. He quit smoking immediately after, telling researchers his body “forgot the urge to smoke”.
Additional reporting: The Times

Source: news.com.au January 27th 2007

Fact sheet September 2006

Overall Mortality
• Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.1 Cigarette smoking causes an estimated 438,000 deaths, or about 1 of every 5 deaths, each year.2,3 This estimate includes approximately 38,000 deaths from secondhand smoke exposure.2

• Cigarette smoking kills an estimated 259,500 men and 178,000 women in the United States each year.2

• More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.2,4

• On average, adults who smoke cigarettes die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.5

• Based on current cigarette smoking patterns, an estimated 25 million Americans who are alive today will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses, including 5 million people younger than 18.6
Mortality from Specific Diseases
• Lung cancer (124,000), heart disease (108,000), and the chronic lung diseases of emphysema, bronchitis, and chronic airways obstruction (90,000) are responsible for the largest number of smoking-related deaths.2

• The risk of dying from lung cancer is more than 22 times higher among men who smoke cigarettes and about 12 times higher among women who smoke cigarettes compared with never smokers.7

• Since 1950, lung cancer deaths among women have increased by more than 600%.1 Since 1987, lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women.1

• Cigarette smoking results in a two- to three-fold increased risk of dying from coronary heart disease.7

• Cigarette smoking is associated with a ten-fold increased risk of dying from chronic obstructive lung disease.6 About 90% of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung diseases are attributable to cigarette smoking.1,7

• Pipe smoking and cigar smoking increase the risk of dying from cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, and oral cavity.8 Smokeless tobacco use increases the risk for developing oral cancer.8,9
References
1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health; 2001. Available at: http://http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/sgr_forwomen/index.htm. Accessed December 2006.

2. CDC. Annual Smoking–Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Productivity Losses — United States, 1997–2001. MMWR 2005: 54(25) 625-628. Available at http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5425a1.htm. Accessed: September 2006.

3. CDC. Health United States, 2005 With Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans. ( PDF–119KB) Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2006. Accessed September 2006.

4. McGinnis J, Foege WH. Actual causes of death in United States. Journal of American Medical Association 1993;270:2207–2212.

5. CDC. Annual smoking-attributable mortality, years of potential life lost, and economic costs—United States, 1995–1999. MMWR 2002; 51(14):300–303. Accessed September 2006.

6. CDC. Perspectives in disease prevention and health promotion, smoking-attributable mortality and years of potential life lost—United States, 1984. MMWR 1997;46:444–451. Available at: http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047690.htm. Accessed February 2004.

7. Novotny TE, Giovino GA. Tobacco use. In: Brownson RC, Remington PL, Davis JR (eds). Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Control. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association; 1998;117–148.

8. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking—25 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 1989. DHHS Pub. No. (CDC) 89–8411. Available at: http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/NN/B/B/X/S/. Accessed September 2006.

9. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Using Smokeless Tobacco: A Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, 1986. Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. NIH Pub. No. 86–2874. Accessed September 2006.
Note: More recent information may be available at the CDC’S Office on Smoking and Health Web site: http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/tobacco.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Office on Smoking and Health. tobaccoinfo@cdc.gov Sept.2006

Research Summary
New research finds that smoking three or four marijuana cigarettes a week for six years could harm lung function and destroy antioxidants that protect cells against heart disease and cancer, Reuters reported Dec. 5.
“Smoking cannabis on a regular basis actually depletes your lung of protective antioxidant substances and this may have chronic long-term implications for young individuals,” said Dr Sarah Nuttall of the University of Birmingham in England.
The study involved a group of 20 people ages 19 to 30 who were either nonsmokers, cigarette smokers, and/or marijuana users. Researchers took blood samples, conducted lung function measurements, and tested for antioxidant markers.
“We found that smokers, compared to nonsmokers, had impaired lung function,” Nuttall said.
Nuttall said that when compared to nonsmokers, marijuana smokers had substantially lower levels of a protective antioxidant and nitric oxide, which is linked to lung function.
“These findings are important in young individuals in which the use of cannabis is increasing and may have serious long-term implications for what is currently regarded as a relatively harmless recreational habit,” she said.
The study’s findings were presented at a meeting of the held recently in London, England.

Source: British Thoracic Society Dec.2003

Research Summary
A study by the British Lung Foundation determined that smoking marijuana is more harmful to the lungs than smoking cigarettes, the BBC reported Nov. 11.
According to the study, smoking three marijuana cigarettes a day can cause the same damage as 20 cigarettes. And those who smoke both marijuana and cigarettes are further increasing their risk of lung damage.
Dr. Mark Britton, chairman of the foundation, said that tar from cannabis cigarettes contains 50 percent more carcinogens than tobacco. Since marijuana smokers tend to inhale up to four times more deeply than tobacco users, more poisonous carbon monoxide and tar enter the lungs, he added.
“These statistics will come as a surprise to many people, especially those who choose to smoke cannabis rather than tobacco in the belief it is safer for them,” said Britton. “It is vital that people are fully aware of the dangers so they can make an educated decision and know the damage they may be causing.”
As a result of the study’s findings, the group is urging the British government to implement a public-health education campaign on the health risks of marijuana smoking.

Source: Link from Join Together February 2007

Maoris have the world’s highest lung-cancer rate, and heavy marijuana use could be a culprit, the New Zealand Herald reported Oct. 10.
About one in five New Zealanders are regular users of marijuana. Researcher Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute in Wellington, New Zealand, is working on a study that compares cancer rates between marijuana smokers, tobacco smokers, and nonusers. He recently released a research review concluding that marijuana smoking is more cancerous than tobacco smoking.
Beasley performed the research review for a Wellington coroner who has called for a tougher approach than harm reduction to marijuana use in New Zealand.

Source: New Zealand Herald Oct.l7 2005

Research Summary

Researchers from Stanford University found that a *12-step oriented treatment program that included attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings boosted two-year sobriety rates by 30 percent compared to cognitive-behavioral (CB) programs, the BBC reported Jan. 29.
Twelve-step oriented programs also cost 30 percent less than CB-based treatment for addiction, the researchers said.
Lead study author Keith Humphreys said the spiritual dimension of AA may explain why recovering alcoholics in such programs are better able to resist the temptation to return to drinking.
The study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
*Editor’s Note, Jan. 31, 2007:
As originally published on January 30, the title of the summary read: “AA Boosts Sobriety by 30 Percent, Study Says.” We have changed the title and summary to clarify that the researchers studied 12-step oriented treatment programs — not only AA meetings.

Source: Humphreys, K., Moos, R.H. (2007) Encouraging Posttreatment Self-Help Group Involvement to Reduce Demand for Continuing Care Services: Two-Year Clinical and Utilization Outcomes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 31(1): 64–68; doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2006.00273.x.

Research Summary

Background

Despite the high prevalence of cannabis use in schizophrenia, few studies have examined the potential relationship between cannabis exposure and brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia.
Aims To investigate prefrontal grey and white matter regions in patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia with an additional diagnosis of cannabis use or dependence (n=20) compared with similar patients with no cannabis use (n=31) and healthy volunteers (n=56).
Method Volumes of the superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus and orbital frontal lobe were outlined manually from contiguous magnetic resonance images and automatically segmented into grey and white matter.
Results Patients who used cannabis had less anterior cingulate grey matter compared with both patients who did not use cannabis and healthy volunteers.
Conclusions A defect in the anterior cingulate is associated with a history of cannabis use among patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia and could have a role in poor decision-making and in choosing more risky outcomes.
Philip R. Szeszko, PhD, Delbert G. Robinson, MD and Serge Sevy, MD et al
Correspondence: Dr Philip R. Szeszko, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Psychiatry Research, 75–59 263rd Street, Glen Oaks, NY11004, USA. Tel: +1 718 470 8489; fax: +1 718 343 1659; email: szeszko@lij.edu

Source: The British Journal of Psychiatry (2007) 190: 230-236. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.106.024521
© 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

James M. Howard,
Independent Biologist

It is my hypothesis that schizophrenia results from reduced fetal brain growth and development due to low maternal DHEA. This is exposed later in life by hormones that interfere with DHEA availability, that is, cortisol and testosterone, along with the natural decline of DHEA that begins around age twenty. Therefore, schizophrenia often occurs following a stressful event (cortisol) in the late teens or early twenties (testosterone and loss of DHEA) or later in life as DHEA reaches very low levels. Schizophrenia is characterized by low DHEA. Individuals with normal DHEA along with reduced fetal DHEA may not develop schizophrenia.
I suggest that the psychoactive chemicals of cannabis exert their effects by binding to androgen receptors. It has been found that THC and CBN inhibit binding of dihydrotestosterone to the androgen receptor (Endocrinology 1980; 107: 848-50). This binding to receptors in the advanced forebrain would reduce executive function and increase lower brain function by redistributing DHEA. That is, blocking access to upper brain receptors would increase lower brain function and increase lower brain functions such as appetite, etc.
DHEA binds to the androgen receptor. Cannabis use would reduce DHEA binding to the androgen receptor. It is this blocking of DHEA at its upper level receptors and subsequent redistribution of availability for lower brain activity that I think produces the effects of cannabis.
It is known that DHEA directly affects the anterior cingulate cortex (Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2006; 188: 541-51). Interference of DHEA binding in the anterior cingulate cortex of individuals with reduced growth and development in this area may reduce both function and maintenance of this area with the result being the symptoms of schizophrenia.

BY LORI WHITTEN, NIDA Notes Staff Writer

NIDA-supported researchers Dr. Cheryl Kirstein and Ms. Kirstie Stansfield at the University of South Florida have found that higher scores on tests of impulsivity and some behavioral responses to novelty correlate with a heightened biological response to cocaine in adolescent, but not adult, rats. The findings accord well with scientists’ widely shared view that developmental differences in brain systems that use the neurotransmitter dopamine underlie age differences in susceptibility to drug abuse.
Dr. Kirstein and Ms. Stansfield conducted a series of behavioral assays to rate rats’ relative responsiveness to novelty, then compared these results with measures of dopamine release in the reward pathway after an injection of cocaine. First, they put adolescent rats (34 days old, which is roughly equivalent to adolescence in people) and fully mature rats (59 days old, equivalent to human young adulthood) through four behavioral protocols. The tests measured activity in a new environment (how much the rat moved around when put into a new cage); impulsivity (how quickly it approached a new object placed into its cage); exploratory drive in response to a new object (how many times it approached the object in a given period of time); and attraction to new objects (what percentage of a given time interval was spent close to the object).
The researchers then injected the animals with saline and then, 2 hours later, with cocaine 20 mg/kg. Every 10 minutes, starting immediately after the saline injection and continuing until 2 hours after administering the cocaine, they measured the concentrations of the neurotransmitter dopamine and its major metabolite in the rats’ nucleus accumbens (NAc). The measurements were made using the technique of in vivo microdialysis. By the time of the last measurement, the drug had cleared the animal’s system.
ON MOST TESTS, AGE MATTERS
In their analysis, the researchers compared cocaine-induced dopamine release in animals that had responded above the mean level on each test (high responders, HR) to those who had scored below the mean (low responders, LR). The results revealed that among both the adult and adolescent rats, those that exhibited greater activity in a new environment also demonstrated enhanced dopamine release following a cocaine injection. This was the only test, however, in which age did not influence cocaine-induced dopamine release. The other behavioral assays revealed interactions between age and the response to novelty on cocaine-induced dopamine release in the NAc:
• Impulsivity—Adolescent rats with above-the-mean impulsivity scores released more dopamine in response to cocaine than their age mates who were LR. Mature rats exhibited no clear relationship between impulsivity and cocaine-induced dopamine response.
• Exploration of a new object—Adolescent rats with above-the-mean scores on this measure released more dopamine in response to cocaine than their age mates who were LR. Adult rats showed the opposite pattern: Animals with above-the-mean scores showed attenuated cocaine-induced dopamine release compared with age mates who were LR.
• Attraction to a new object—Adolescent rats exhibited no clear relationship between reactivity on this assay and cocaine-induced dopamine release. Mature rats with above-the-mean scores released less dopamine in response to cocaine compared with their age mates who were LR.
Dr. Kirstein’s finding that for all the animals, greater activity in a new environment corresponded with increased sensitivity to stimulants is consistent with earlier research. Her team’s mixed findings on the impulsivity and other novelty response tests indicates, she says, that those behaviors arise from different physiological mechanisms than does locomotor activity. “My colleagues and I think locomotor activity may reflect primarily dopamine activity in a brain circuit involved with generating and controlling movement. Novelty may instead differentially stimulate mesolimbic dopamine—a pathway implicated in attention as well as reward and motivation,” says Dr. Kirstein.
In Vivo Microdialysis
The investigators used In Vivo microdialysis to measure dopamine each animal released from its nucleus accumbens (NAc) in response to cocaine. They implanted a probe into the shell area of the NAc. The probe is a fine tube, about the size of a sewing needle, connected to a mini-pump that continuously perfuses it with artificial cerebrospinal fluid. The membrane tip of the probe captures dopamine and its metabolites. The samples collected by the needle are then analyzed using techniques, such as chromatography, that are able to isolate dopamine and its metabolites from other molecules.
INHIBITION DEVELOPS LATER
The findings on the three tests where age affected the relationship between behavior and cocaine-induced dopamine release may reflect maturation of the brain’s reward circuit. When rats are adolescents, dopamine-producing and releasing cells in this circuit may be particularly sensitive both to novelty and to pharmacological stimulation. As part of normal neurological development, areas of the brain that dampen the activity of this circuit come “online” later, explaining the age-related differences observed in Dr. Kirstein’s study. “The mesolimbic pathway and the cortical areas that inhibit it to regulate dopamine release are not yet fully matured in the adolescent, and this may explain why the adolescent brain responds to drugs differently than the adult brain,” says Dr. Kirstein.
“The results of Dr. Kirstein’s study, along with other animal research on the interaction of drugs and developmental stage, indicate that the adolescent brain is more responsive to drugs than the adult brain—both neurochemically and behaviorally,” says Dr. Nancy Pilotte of NIDA’s Division of Basic Neuroscience and Behavioral Research. Studies that identify the physiological and behavioral processes underlying age-related susceptibility to addiction complement epidemiological work on the individual and social factors contributing to adolescent vulnerability to substance abuse.

SOURCE NIDA Notes Vol. 21, No. 2 (February 2007)
Stansfield, K.H., and Kirstein, C.L. Neurochemical effects of cocaine in adolescence compared to adulthood. Developmental Brain Research 159(2):119-125, 2005.

<span style=”font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”> Abstract: The use of Cannabis sativa preparations, such as hashish and marijuana, is wide-spread among young people, including pregnant women. Despite this concern, the consequences of cannabis exposure on the brain during periods of active brain development, such as the prenatal phase and adolescence, is not well known. Several epidemiological studies support the cannabis gateway hypothesis, where early cannabis use is suggested to increase the risk of initiating use of other illicit drugs, e.g., amphetamine or heroin. However, the nature of such direct links are unclear. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to test experimentally the cannabis gateway hypothesis, i.e., to determine whether cannabis exposure during periods of active brain development alters reward-related behavior and neurobiology for psychostimulant and opioid drugs by the use of animal models.
In the first study, we examined the effects of early adolescent exposure (postnatal day; PND; 28-32, one injection per day) with the synthetic cannabinoid CB1 receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 and the main psychoactive substance in C. sativa, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on amphetamine-induced motor behavior and dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens during adolescence. No alterations were evident in the cannabinoid exposed rats, results which did not support the cannabis gateway hypothesis in relation to subsequent psychostimulant abuse.
Next, we investigated the effects of adolescent exposure on subsequent opioid reward-related behavior and the neurobiology of opioid and cannabinoid systems during adulthood. We studied THC exposure across the full adolescent period (PND 28-49), and administered the drug once every third day in order to better mimic the pattern of intermittent use seen in teenagers. The results revealed discrete opioid-related alterations within brain regions highly implicated in reward and hedonic processing (e.g., increased proenkephalin gene expression in the nucleus accumbens and increased mu opioid receptors in the ventral tegmental area). This was coupled to increased heroin intake in a self-administration paradigm and increased morphine conditioned place preference, indicating altered sensitivity to the reinforcing properties of opioids.
Furthermore, in evaluating the adolescent ontogeny of the opioid and cannabinoid systems within limbic-related brain areas, we found that active endocannabinoid- and opioid- related neurodevelopment takes place to a very high extent during this period. Most pronounced were the alterations in endocannabinoid levels in cognitive brain areas, even though alterations were also apparent in reward-related regions.
Finally, we investigated the effects of prenatal cannabis exposure (gestational day 5- PND 2) on subsequent opioid reward-related behavior and neurobiology of the opioid and cannabinoid systems in adulthood. Similar to adolescent cannabis exposure, prenatal exposure induced discrete opioid-related alterations within brain regions highly implicated in reward and hedonic processing. Moreover, elevated heroin-seeking observed during extinction and after food deprivation was evident in the THC exposed rats, suggesting an increased motivation for drug use under conditions of stress.
Taken together, this thesis presents neurobiological support for the cannabis gateway hypothesis in terms of adult opiate, but not amphetamine, abuse, with underlying long-term disturbances of discrete opioid-related systems within limbic brain regions.

<em>Source: Ellgren, Maria Karolinksa Institute Sweden ISBN: 978-91-7357-064-0  Feb.2007
</em>
<span style=”font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>

HIV rates much higher among daily needle exchange users than those who do not use the exchange program, according to latest study
HIV incidence was 75 percent higher among daily users of Vancouver’s needle exchange program (NEP) than among drug abusers that did not use the program, according to a new study published in the latest edition of the American Journal of Medicine. Vancouver, Canada boasts the largest NEP in the Western Hemisphere.

Source: The American Journal of Medicine Volume 120, Issue 2, Pages 172-179 (

Combined data from SAMHSA’s 2002 to 2005 National Surveys on Drug Use & Health found an annual average of 1.1 million (4.5%) youths aged 12 to 17 used an inhalant in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. About 2.6% of all youth who had not used inhalants before were new users (that is, had used an inhalant for the first time in the past year. The annual average of new users was 600,000 youth (289,000 males and 311,000 females).
The types of inhalants most frequently mentioned as having been used in the past year by new users were: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (30.5%), gasoline or lighter fluid (25.3%), nitrous oxide or “whippets” (23.9%), and spray paints (23.5%).
Among new inhalants users, females were more likely than males to have used: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (34.9% vs. 25.8%); spray paints (26.1% vs. 20.8%); aerosol sprays other than spray paints (23.0% vs. 16.4%); correction fluid, degreaser, or cleaning fluid (23.4% vs. 13.6%); and amy nitrite, “poppers,” locker room odorizers, or “rush” (18.2% vs. 11.6%).
New male inhalant users were more likely than females to have used nitrous oxide or “whippets” (29.0% vs.19.3%). Between 2002 and 2005, use of nitrous oxide or whippets declined among new inhalant users (from 31.6% to 21.3% in 2005). In contrast, use of aerosol sprays other than spray paints doubled from 12.6% of new inhalant using youth in 2002 to 25.4% of new inhalant using youth in 2005.

Source: The NSDUH Report: Patterns and Trends in Inhalant Use by Adolescent Males and Females, 2002-2005

Compared to drugs such as heroin and cocaine, many people consider marijuana a relatively benign substance. But two studies in this issue demonstrate disturbing similarities between marijuana’s effects on the brain and those produced by highly addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin. One study, described on page 2050, indicates that marijuana withdrawal activates the same stress system in the brain triggered by withdrawal of opiates and alcohol, while the other, reported on page 2048, indicates that marijuana activates the same reward pathway as heroin.

Source : Science 27 June 1997: Vol. 276. no. 5321, pp. 1967 – 1968

Recurrent drinking is common among patients with alcohol dependence who have received treatment. This study assessed whether certain types of relapses are more likely to recur, are more severe, or are more amenable to a particular psychosocial therapy.
Researchers examined data from 592 of 952 outpatients with alcohol dependence who had been randomized in a larger trial to receive motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or twelve-step facilitation therapy. These 592 subjects had experienced a relapse (i.e., drinking after being abstinent for at least 14 days) and completed the relapse-onset section of the Relapse Questionnaire, which assesses patient-perceived influences that contribute to relapse.
• Relapses were divided into 3 types: negative affect/family influences, craving/cued, and social pressure. When relapses recurred, they were often (about half the time) the same type as the initial relapse. Social pressure relapses were most likely to repeat (58% of the time). Negative affect relapses were the most severe (i.e., associated with a greater number of drinks consumed per day).
• The 3 therapies affected the overall risk of relapse similarly. However, motivational enhancement therapy offered less protection than the other therapies against social pressure relapse.
Comments:
This study provides a typology that can help clinicians efficiently assess relapse risk among patients with alcohol dependence. Clinicians who understand their patients’ prior types of relapses have the opportunity to provide individualized relapse prevention counseling or referral.
Peter Friedmann, MD, MPH

Source:Zywiak WH, Stout RL, Longabaugh R, et al. Relapse-onset factors in Project MATCH: the Relapse Questionnaire. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2006;31(4):341–345.

A researcher at the University of Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) has found a change in the brain that occurs after drug use and that may contribute to drug addiction.
The finding, reported in the January issue of Biological Psychiatry, demonstrates that repeated exposure to different types of drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, nicotine, amphetamine and alcohol, lead to a persistent or long-term reduction in the electrical activity of dopamine neurons in the brain.
Dopamine neurons are the origin of the reward pathway responsible for the “feel good” experience that is such a strong component of drug use and abuse.
“A persistent reduction in dopamine neuron electrical activity after repeated exposure to different types of drugs appears to be the result of excessive excitation of dopamine neurons,” according to Roh-Yu Shen (photo), a neuroscientist and the lead investigator on the study. “This represents a new and potentially critical neural mechanism for addiction and provides a working model that suggests how the reward pathway function is altered and how these changes can be responsible for triggering intense craving and compulsive drug-seeking.”

Source. January 2007 issue of Biological Psychiatry

Brief skills training is effective to curb college drinking
A study in Swedish colleges, where over-use of alcohol is widespread, showed that a Brief Skills Training Program was effective in reducing alcohol consumption over a two-year period.

Students were randomly assigned to a brief skills training program (BSTP) with interactive lectures and discussions, a twelve-step–influenced (TSI) program with didactic lectures by therapists trained in the 12-step approach, and a control group. More than three quarters of the students were rated “high risk” on an alcohol consumption score.

At follow-up two years later, the high-risk students who had received the BSTP program showed significantly better outcomes than high-risk students who had undergone TSI. The TSI students did no better than the control group.

Source:The study results are in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental

The brains of alcoholics can show measurable improvement in volume, chemical activity, and functionality after as little as seven weeks of abstinence, a new study published in the journal Brain today reveals.

Researchers from Germany, the UK, Switzerland and Italy collaborated on a study of ten men and five women alcoholics who had achieved an average of 38 days abstinence at the time of the study. Alcoholics who used psychoactive medications or who smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day after they stopped drinking were excluded from the data. Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and proton MR spectroscopy, laboratory tests for levels of brain chemicals that measure nerve integrity and repair, and performance tests for attention and concentration.

Brain volume increased an average of two percent, researchers found, and there were major increases in the substances that measured nerve health and regrowth. There were also improvements in performance. However, in one subject, who had the longest history of alcoholism in the study (more than 25 years), the evidence of brain recovery was not visible within the relatively short time span of the study.

The leader of the research, Dr Andreas Bartsch from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, said:
“The core message from this study is that, for alcoholics, abstinence pays off and enables the brain to regain some substance and to perform better. However, our research also provides evidence that the longer you drink excessively, the more you risk losing this capacity for regeneration. Therefore, alcoholics must not put off the time when they decide to seek help and stop drinking; the sooner they do it, the better.”

Source. Journal ‘Brain’ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2006

Strategies teenagers use to minimise alcohol-related harm
• Aims: To examine strategies of harm minimization employed by teenage drinkers.
• Findings: The teenagers participating in the present study were more concerned about social than health risks. The informants monitored their own level of intoxication, but in order to reduce alcohol consumption they depended upon support from their peers. The informants preferred drinking in the company of well-known and trusted peers, and during drinking episodes they supervised and intervened in each others’ drinking to the extent that they deemed it necessary and possible. In regulating the social context of drinking they relied on their personal experiences more than on formalized knowledge about alcohol and harm, which they had learned from prevention campaigns and educational programmes.
• Conclusions: The study found that teenagers may help each other to minimize alcohol-related harm, and teenage peer groups should thus be considered a resource for health promotion.
Morten Hulvej Jørgensen, Tine Curtis, Pia Haudrup Christensen, Morten Grønbæk (2007) Harm minimization among teenage drinkers: findings from an ethnographic study on teenage alcohol use in a rural Danish community

Source: Addiction 102 (4), 554–559

Viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens could reduce the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients
• The aim of this prospective randomized controlled study was to determine whether viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens (DT) reduces the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients.
• Findings: The patients with videotape experience had a significantly lower relapse rate after the first month (0% versus 20%), 2 months (13.33% versus 46.67%) and 3 months (26.67% versus 53.33%). Patients with videotape experience had less severe relapses and consumed fewer units of alcohol than controls.
• Conclusions: Videotape exposure in delirium tremens is an original therapeutic method which seems to be effective in reducing relapse risk in patients with alcohol dependence.
Adriana Mihai, Cristian Damsa, Michael Allen, Bertrand Baleydier, Coralie Lazignac, Andreas Heinz (2007) Viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens could reduce the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients

Source: Addiction 102 (2), 226–231.

Summary

DURHAM, N.C. — Within the mind of every smoker trying to quit rages a battle between the higher-order functions of the brain wanting to break the habit and the lower-order functions screaming for another cigarette, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center. More often than not, that cigarette gets lit.
Brain scans of smokers studied by the researchers revealed three specific regions deep within the brain that appear to control dependence on nicotine and craving for cigarettes. These regions play important roles in some of the key motivations for smoking: to calm down when stressed, to achieve pleasure and to help concentration.
“If you can’t calm down, can’t derive pleasure and can’t control yourself or concentrate, then it will be extremely difficult for you to break the habit,” said lead study investigator Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. “These brain regions may explain why most people try to quit several times before they are successful.”
Understanding how the brain responds to cigarette cravings can help doctors change nicotine cessation treatments to address all three of these components of withdrawal, Rose said. Drugs or therapies that target these regions may help smokers stave off the cravings that often spoil their attempts to quit.
The team’s findings are now online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. The research was funded by Phillip Morris USA.
Approximately one in five Americans smokes. Even though 70 percent of smokers report that they would like to quit, only 5 percent do so successfully.
In this study, the researchers manipulated the levels of nicotine dependence and cigarette craving among 15 smokers and then scanned their brains using positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to see which areas of the brain were most active.
Three specific regions of the brain demonstrated changes in activity when the smokers craved cigarettes versus when they did not.
One region that lights up, called the thalamus, is considered to be the key relay point for sensory information flowing into the brain. Some of the symptoms of withdrawal among people trying to quit stem from the inability to focus thoughts and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and could thus be explained by changes in this region, according to the researchers. The researchers found that changes in this region were most dramatic among those who said they smoked to calm down when under stress.
Another region that lights up is a part of the pleasure system of the brain. Changes in this region, called the striatum, were most notable in people who smoked to satisfy craving and for pleasurable relaxation, the researchers said.
A third region that lights up, called the anterior cingulate cortex, is vital to cognitive functions such as conflict, self regulation, decision making and emotion. People whose brain scans showed the most differences in this region also reported that they smoked to manage their weight.
“This knowledge gives us new clues about brain mechanisms underlying addiction to cigarettes and could allow us design better methods to help smokers quit,” Rose said.
Rose and his colleagues are now planning to perform brain scans on smokers undergoing nicotine replacement therapy, such as the nicotine patch, to determine how these treatments affect the same regions of the brain.
Other researchers participating in the study were Frederique M. Behm, Alfred N. Salley, James E. Bates, R. Edward Coleman, Thomas C. Hawk and Timothy G. Turkington.

Source: www.dukemednews March 2007

* Popular and clinical lore support the strong connection between smoking and alcohol consumption.

* Adolescent smokers appear to have a greater vulnerability to developing alcohol-use disorders.

* Results indicate that smoking “primes” the brain for subsequent addiction to alcohol and possibly other drugs.

Both academic studies and casual observation support the view that smokers tend to drink, and drinkers tend to smoke. New research using nationally representative data from the U.S. finds that smokers – particularly adolescent smokers – clearly have a greater vulnerability to alcohol-use disorders (AUDs) than do non-smokers.

Results are published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

“Smoking and alcohol – separately, or together – account for more than 20 percent of deaths in the United States,” said Richard A. Grucza, an epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study. “Cigarettes and alcohol are also known to be ‘gateway’ drugs, that is, the overwhelming majority of illegal drug users begin their use with one or both of these legal drugs.”

“We have known about the link between cigarette smoking and alcohol use for a while, but we have not really asked the question, as the authors here asked, whether use of one could increase the vulnerability of becoming addicted to the other,” said Kevin W Chen, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

“Ours was the first,” added Grucza, “to examine quantity of drinking in relationship to smoking and AUDs. Our central questions were: Can this association be explained by the fact that smokers are heavier drinkers, or is there something else going on? In other words, do smokers appear to be more sensitive to the effects of alcohol?” The short answer appears to be yes.

Researchers examined data from an aggregate of 2002 through 2004 U.S. National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Randomly selected, household-dwelling adolescents and young adults (n=74,836) were selected from the non-institutionalized and civilian American population and queried about their drinking and smoking practices.

Results indicate that smokers – particularly adolescent smokers -have a greater vulnerability to AUDs than do non-smokers.

“In general, smokers were at more than a 50 percent higher risk, although the differences were larger in younger adolescents and among light drinkers,” said Grucza. “For example, among 15- to 17-year-olds who drank fewer than eight drinks in the month before the survey, more than 20 percent reported an AUD, compared with about five percent among the non-smoking group with the same level of drinking. We conclude that, although smokers do drink higher rates of alcohol, this alone does not explain their higher vulnerability to AUDs.”

Grucza said that these findings go beyond the popular view that bad behaviors like smoking and drinking to excess simply tend to “go together,” especially during adolescence. “It seems that smoking makes the adolescent brain more vulnerable to other addictions,” he said. “Addictive drugs all act on a part of the brain that is described as the ‘central reward circuitry.’” Once this system is exposed to one drug, the brain may become more sensitive to the effects of other drugs, as demonstrated by a number of rodent studies.

“Studies like this will set up an alert – for those who consider adolescent smoking tolerable – to rethink the issue, or perceive the problem differently,” noted Chen. “Although we do not know the exact causal relation between the two, the damage to our health is so severe that we need to create a more objective image to reject both smoking and drinking among adolescents.”

“Ours is the first study to – establish a correlation between adolescent smoking and AUDs that cannot be explained by heavier drinking,” said Grucza. “Now we, and hopefully others, need to investigate whether or not smoking actually causes adolescents to be more susceptible to AUDs. Our results are in line with an emerging literature that shows adolescence may be a unique window of vulnerability for addictions development. If it is proven that nicotine directly impacts vulnerability to alcoholism and other addictions, then that is a new, strong message to add to the health-education arsenal. However, even if this correlation is completely non-causal, these results can help to identify kids who are at risk for AUDs.”

Source:Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. (ACER) Article Date: 30 Nov 2006 – 13:00 PDT

Research in Archives of Dermatology observed the effect by looking at the upper part of the inner arm in smokers and non-smokers.

Previous studies have focused on the face, where skin can also be damaged by exposure to the sun.

But the University of Michigan, Ann Arbour, team say this study shows smoking alone makes the skin age, which may help persuade some to quit.

The researchers photographed 82 people’s upper inner right arms.

Participants were aged 22 to 91. Such a wide age range was used in order to record the natural state of old and young skin.
There is strong evidence suggesting cigarette smoke has a negative effect on the appearance of skin
Indy Rihal, British Skin Foundation

Half of those studied had a history of smoking and had smoked, on average, for 24 years.

The number of packs of cigarettes they smoked ranged from a quarter of a packet to four packs per day.

The team created a nine-point scale to measure damage to skin which is not exposed to the light.

In those aged over 65, there was almost a two-point difference between smokers and non-smokers.

In the over-45s, the difference was around a point.

Writing in Archives of Dermatology, the researchers led by Dr Yolanda Helfrich, said: “We found that the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day, total years of smoking and pack-years of smoking [an average of packs per day over the number of years of smoking] were correlated with the degree of skin aging.

“After controlling for age and other variables, we found that only packs of cigarettes smoked per day was a major predictor of the degree of photo-protected skin ageing.”

Evidence ‘mounting up’

Dr Helfrich said: “Previous studies have shown that smokers have a greater degree of skin ageing, but those have looked at facial skin.

“There are some sceptics who said the sun was having some of the effect.

“We have demonstrated that there was a significant degree of damage just from smoking.”

She added: “The evidence is certainly mounting up that smoking is not good for you. This just adds to all of that.”

She said more research was needed to show exactly how smoking damaged the skin.

Indy Rihal, of the British Skin Foundation, said: “In addition to UV light from the sun and sun beds, cigarette smoke is a main environmental factor that causes changes in the skin often associated with ‘looking old’ such as coarse wrinkling and a sallow, leathery texture.

“There is strong evidence suggesting cigarette smoke has a negative effect on the appearance of skin.

“Smoking enhances an enzyme in the skin, matrix metalloproteinase-1, resulting in increased collagen breakdown and diminished collagen production. The overall effect causes wrinkling and inelasticity.

“In addition the constriction of tiny blood vessels in the skin caused by smoking reduces the oxygen supply to the skin negatively affecting skin health and appearance in general.”

Amanda Sandford, of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said: “This study provides further evidence of the detrimental effects that smoking can have on the skin.

“No amount of anti-ageing cream will remove the wrinkles caused by cigarettes so the best way for smokers to avoid the wrinkled prune look is to stop smoking.”

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/6466041.stm

Published: 2007/03/21 00:03:21 GMT

© BBC MMVII

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: March 21, 2007
Teenage use of alcohol and drugs dropped significantly in New York City in 2005 compared with past years, and is lower than the national rate, but it remains disturbingly high, city officials said yesterday, citing the results of a recently released survey.

The city’s biennial survey found that in 2005, fewer students at the city’s public high schools were drinking or smoking marijuana than at any time since the surveys began in 1997. Use of most harder drugs was roughly unchanged.

But 1.8 percent of students surveyed in 2005 said they had tried heroin at least once, triple the number in 2001.

Lorna Thorpe, a deputy city health commissioner, said that it was not clear why there had been an overall drop in drug and alcohol use, but that it might be connected to a decline in teenage smoking. People who smoke are more likely to use other substances as well.

She said officials were equally unsure of the cause of the rise in heroin use, but that it coincided with a rise in emergency room visits and Emergency Medical Services calls involving heroin.

“That has raised a flag for us, and we’re watching it,” she said. She added that while the data are usually compiled slowly, over more than a year, officials will pay particular attention to the heroin figures as they conduct the 2007 survey.

The change could be tied to the fact that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan greatly curtailed the trade in opium, the raw material for heroin. But the drug became more readily available and cheaper after the regime was overthrown in late 2001.

In 2005, 14 percent of the teenagers surveyed said they had engaged in binge drinking — five or more drinks in the space of a few hours — in the previous month, down from 18 percent in 2001. And 35 percent said they had consumed some alcohol in the last month, down from 41 percent.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city health commissioner, said those numbers, though an improvement, were still worrisome, because using alcohol and other drugs raises the chance of risky behavior like unprotected sex.

White students were far more likely than their black, Hispanic or Asian classmates to engage in binge drinking or to use hard drugs, and a little more likely to smoke marijuana. Staten Island had much higher rates of binge drinking and drug use than the other boroughs.

Marijuana use fell more sharply than use of any other substance: 12 percent of students said they had smoked it in the previous month, down from 18 percent in 2001.

The portion of students who reported using cocaine (1.8 percent) and methamphetamine (2.5 percent) in the previous month was about the same as in earlier surveys.

The city’s survey, conducted jointly by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is patterned on a national survey done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

National surveys include students at both public and private schools, while the city’s cover only public schools, which include about 80 percent of the city’s high school population. Because use of alcohol and some drugs are more prevalent among white and affluent students, the city’s surveys may understate the overall rate.

But city officials say they are confident that inclusion of private school students would still show lower rates of drug and alcohol abuse in the city than nationwide. In particular, the most recent national surveys show binge drinking almost twice as common nationally as in the city, and methamphetamine use two to three times as common.

The city’s survey is conducted by choosing a sampling of high schools that is representative of all high schools, and then a representative sampling of classrooms within those high schools. In the selected classrooms, all students take the survey on paper, anonymously.

In all, 8,000 students took the survey in 2003 and 2005, with only 1,500 students taking the survey in earlier years.

Next Article in New York Region (15 of 28) »

Summary

27 Mar 2007

Death, injury and illness caused by substance use are among the top ten contributors to global disease burden measured in disability-adjusted life-years – what was once seen by many in developing countries as the disease of industrialised nations is now a worldwide trend. Alcohol alone contributed to 27% of all deaths involving 15-”29-year-olds in economically developed countries in 2002, and illicit drugs a further 4%.

John Toumbourou (Deakin University, Australia), Tim Stockwell (University of Victoria, Canada), and colleagues review approaches and strategies to prevent substance abuse in young people and state that rates of tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, and illicit drug use can be substantially reduced through the concerted application of a combination of regulatory, early-intervention, and harm-reduction approaches.

However, the authors note that the current state of knowledge about the extent of adolescent substance use, and what works in reducing problems, is restricted to knowledge from a few high-income countries. Furthermore, investigations to test the efficacy of interventions are scarce, and many interventions have yet to be evaluated in real-world settings.

In an accompanying Comment, Isidore Obot looks at substance-use interventions in developing countries and notes: “Although developing countries have something to learn from the experiences of industrialised countries, success in preventing substance use and reducing related harms will come not in the application of one strategy or group of strategies, but by addressing the issue within the context of developmental planning. These are countries faced with the reality of poverty; where drug policy is often limited to law enforcement, prevention is sporadic. . .resources are limited, and drugs and alcohol problems compete with what policymakers might regard as more immediate problems of survival”.

Source: Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com 27 March 2007

Summary

Heavy drinking and smoking as teenagers may damage the ability to remember future tasks, according to new research.
The findings are drawn from two studies exploring teenagers’ capacity for prospective memory – the ability to remember something you had intended to do in the future, such as returning a phone call or paying a bill on time.
In one study, 108 students aged 16 to 19 years old were asked to report the number of times that prospective memory had failed them recently. Teenagers who were “excessive” alcohol users were significantly less likely to remember future tasks, the researchers found.
A second study found that teenage smokers reported more memory lapses in general than non-smokers, and also reported fewer items in a prospective memory test.
The findings are being presented today at the British Psychology Society’s annual conference at the University of York.
The society said that although evidence exists suggesting alcohol abuse has a detrimental effect on memory for past events, little was known before now about its impact on prospective memory.
Thomas Heffernan of the University of Northumbria, who led the research, said: “The teenage years are important for structural and functional development of the brain.
“If our findings are confirmed, they suggest that heavy drinking and smoking in the teenage years may impede this important development. This may lead to greater problems with memory later in life.”

Source:Thursday March 22, 2007 SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Cannabis smoking may cause 5 per cent of lung cancer cases in people up to middle age, according to a New Zealand study which challenges international thinking on the drug.  Around 15 per cent of New Zealand adults under 46 use cannabis, drug-use surveys have found.
 
Researcher Dr Sarah Aldington, of the Medical Research Institute in Wellington, presented the new case-control study to the Thoracic Society conference in Auckland yesterday.
 
Cannabis users may have thought they were safe from lung cancer after a Californian study of more than 1600 people last year found no link between the disease and smoking the drug.  Dr Aldington said the evidence on cannabis and the risk of lung cancer was limited and conflicting. Her study found the risk rose more than five-fold among the third of users smoking the most cannabis.
 
“In conclusion there is a relationship between cannabis smoking and lung cancer in this study,” she said. “Approximately 5 per cent of lung cancer cases in those aged 55 and under may be attributable to cannabis…”   This equates to about 15 new cases a year – in 2002, 306 people aged 18-55 were diagnosed with lung cancer in New Zealand.  The study questioned about 60 people with lung cancer from eight health districts between Waikato and Canterbury and more than 200 “controls” – people randomly selected from electoral rolls in the same areas.
 
They were asked about risk factors, including cannabis and tobacco use.   The researchers calculated that the risk of developing lung cancer increased by about 8 per cent a year for people whose cumulative exposure equated to smoking one joint a day. This was about the same as the increase for someone with a one-pack-a-day tobacco habit.   The younger someone started smoking cannabis, the higher their risk of lung cancer.
 
“Long-term cannabis use increases the risk of lung cancer in young adults, particularly in those who start smoking cannabis at a young age,” the researchers conclude.
 
Dr Aldington said cannabis was the most commonly used recreational drug in the world, used by 161 million people, and its use was increasing in many countries. She said cannabis contained 50 per cent more cancer-causing chemicals than tobacco.  The study has found what the University of California researchers had expected to find but didn’t.   A researcher from that study, Dr Donald Tashkin, said in the Washington Post his group had thought cannabis smokers’ deeper inhalation and tendency to hold smoke in their lungs for longer than tobacco users would contribute to an increased cancer risk.
 
He said earlier work had shown cannabis contained cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco. But cannabis also contained the chemical THC, which might kill ageing cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.
 
Middlemore Hospital clinical director of medicine Associate Professor Jeff Garrett, a leader of the Thoracic Society, said the Aldington study was “a good pilot study. It’s early work, it’s interesting, but there needs to be more work done.”

Source:  New Zealand Herald
Tuesday March 27, 2007

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Summary

Mobilized residents work with police, shopkeepers, bar owners to prevent alcohol-related problems in lower-income communities

When residents are actively involved in their neighborhoods, they can clean up the crime and violence. That’s according to a new study that found a significant decrease in assaults, car crashes and other alcohol-related crime with community participation. Calls to police and emergency medical services also dropped with this intervention program that addresses alcohol sales and service.

Researchers at the PIRE Prevention Research Center implemented and tested the program called the Sacramento Neighborhood Alcohol Prevention Project or SNAPP in an effort to reduce access to alcohol and the problems related in two low-income, predominantly ethnic minority neighborhoods. The intervention focused on individuals between the ages 15 and 29, an age group with high rates of alcohol-involved problems. Sacramento-based La Familia Counseling Center Inc. assisted in the project.

This article, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, highlights the results that show that changing the way alcohol is sold and served can reduce alcohol-related problems – even in high-crime neighborhoods. Researchers selected two economically and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Sacramento that had high rates of crime and alcohol-related problems.

“These are neighborhoods that are most vulnerable to alcohol-related problems. Even these rather tough neighborhoods can take control of their own environments and reduce the negative effects of alcohol,” said study author, Andrew Treno, PhD.

The project includes five components: mobilization to support the project, community awareness, alcohol server training, underage drinking law enforcement and intoxicated patrons law enforcement. Along with members of community based organizations, the project researchers handed out informational pamphlets and held community meetings to raise awareness about alcohol-related problems. They organized neighborhood committees to mobilize residents. They also provided training at bars and stores selling alcohol to prevent selling alcohol to intoxicated patrons and to minors. Project members worked with local police to increase enforcement efforts of selling alcohol to minors and intoxicated persons. The researchers used these interrelated strategies to change the neighborhood environment with regard to the way alcohol is sold and served.

“Although we developed the overall study design, the communities provided valuable guidance into ways to reach the intervention goals and constituent groups,” Treno said. “For example, strategies for scheduling police stings were worked out based on the needs of the project’s and available police resources. At committee meetings, community members agreed to address alcohol-related issues along with law enforcement and other local authorities. They all worked together for the betterment of their neighborhoods.”

Previous research has shown that if localities change their alcohol environment by more strictly controlling where and how and to whom alcohol is served and sold, alcohol-related problems such as drunken driving can be reduced. The study was intended to show that this type of change in the alcohol environment could work even in difficult settings. Reductions in calls for emergency medical services and police reports of assaults were found in the neighborhoods that participated in the program. Similar reductions were found for illegal sales to minors.

Following the implementation of these strategies, there was a significant reduction in the number of assaults reported by police and a reduction in calls for emergency medical services resulting from assaults and motor vehicle crashes. There was also a significant reduction in sales of alcohol to people who appeared to be minors. No significant changes were found in service of alcohol to patrons who appeared to be intoxicated. Researchers compared these outcomes to the situation prior to the program and to comparison neighborhoods in Sacramento that did not receive the program.

Source: www.pire.org March 2007

Research Summary
A pair of new studies find that smokers take many more sick days annually than nonsmokers and perform worse when they are on the job, Bloomberg News reported March 29.
A Swedish study by Petter Lundborg and colleagues from Free University of Amsterdam found that smokers took an average of 34 sick days per year, compared to 20 per year for people who never smoked and 25 per year among former smokers.
Sweden has one of the highest rates of sickness absence in the industrialized world; in the U.S., the average worker takes off nine days annually for illness. “The results suggest that policies that reduce and/or prevent smoking may also reduce the number of days of sick leave,” wrote Lundborg.
In a study of women in the U.S. Navy, San Diego State University researcher Terry Conway and colleagues found that smokers were more likely to be discharged for medical reasons, bad behavior, misconduct, drug misuse and personality disorders. Smokers also were more apt to resign from the Navy before serving their full terms, and were paid less.
However, noted Conway, “Cigarette smoking might simply be a marker for other underlying factors such as nonconformity and high risk-taking, that contribute to poorer performance.”
The research was published in the journal Tobacco Control.

Source: Bloomberg News March 29 2007

April 5, 2007

A new study finds that teaching teens ‘competence skills’ — such as good self-management and positive psychological characteristics — can effectively reduce adolescent alcohol and other drug use.
Health News Digest reported April 4 that the study from Weill Cornell Medical College researchers found competence skills can protect teens from social risk factors for substance abuse, including having friends who use alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs.
Researchers who studied a group of 1,500 (mostly Hispanic) adolescents from New York City over a period of three years found that those with high refusal-assertiveness marks and sound decision-making skills were less likely to smoke or use multiple substances, even when they had friends or siblings who did.
“The take-home message from these findings is that competence skills matter in our understanding of substance use,” says study author Jennifer A. Epstein of the Division of Prevention and Health Behavior at Weill Cornell. “They can combat powerful social influences from friends and siblings to use multiple substances, including cigarettes. Moreover, this research provides important support for drug-abuse prevention programs that include the teaching of competence skills, including refusal skills and decision-making skills.”
“Students need to be encouraged to develop competence skills to resist drugs, since social and other risk factors can never be entirely eliminated,” added Gilbert Botvin, senior author of the report and developer of the Life Skills Training prevention program.
The study was published in the issue of the journal

Source: journal: Addictive Behaviors. April 2007

Research Summary

Smoking among young adults has plummeted since California implemented a groundbreaking tobacco-control plan 12 years ago, according to new research from the University of California at San Diego.

The California Tobacco Control Program, established in 1989, has been credited with reducing smoking among all adult smokers, but the decline among young adults has been especially striking, researchers said. Notably, cessation rates among young Californians were higher than among young adults in New York and New Jersey, which have similarly high tobacco prices but lack comprehensive stop-smoking campaigns, as well as compared to young adults in tobacco-growing states (TGS).

“We were surprised to find that, since the advent of the California campaign, young people have increased their rate of quitting by 50 percent, far more than their older counterparts,” said study author Karen Messer, Ph.D. “It used to be that smokers over age 50 were the ones quitting because they understood the health consequences of smoking …
“These young adults have grown up in a tobacco-controlled climate, where smoking isn’t the norm and isn’t socially supported. We may be seeing the first generation who believe it’s not cool to smoke, which could pay huge dividends in their future health.”

Another UCLA study focused on tobacco consumption trends. “We found that there is a national trend of declining cigarette consumption for all age groups, but the most significant by far was observed in California smokers over age 35,” noted researcher Wael K. Al-Delaimy, M.D., Ph.D.
“The data suggest that — compared with states with no tobacco control initiatives (TGS) or states with an increased cigarette price as the principal tobacco control measure (NY/NJ) – California’s comprehensive tobacco control program is more effective in decreasing cigarette consumption for those over age 35.”

Source: journal Tobacco Control April 2007

A Temple University psychologist argues that society would be better off using strict laws to prevent risky behaviors by adolescents rather than education programs, saying that teens’ brains are too immature to avoid risk-taking, USA Today reported April 5.
“We need to rethink our whole approach to preventing teen risk,” said researcher Laurence Steinberg, who drew his conclusions after reviewing a decade’s worth of research on the adolescent brain. “Adolescents are at an age where they do not have full capacity to control themselves. As adults, we need to do some of the controlling.”
Steinberg said society would be best served by raising the driving age, increasing cigarette prices, and enforcing underage-drinking laws than investing in prevention programs. “I don’t believe the problem behind teen risky behavior is a lack of knowledge,” he said. “The programs do a good job in teaching kids the facts. Education alone doesn’t work. It doesn’t seem to affect their behavior.”
“Kids will sign drug pledges. They really mean that, but when they get in a park on a Friday night with their friends, that pledge is nowhere to be found in their brain structure,” agreed psychologist Michael Bradley. “They’re missing the neurologic brakes that adults have.”
Isabel Sawhill, co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said the findings are “good research for policymakers to consider, but we shouldn’t infer from this research that all our past efforts have been ineffective. I’m not in favor of just doing education, but I’m also not in favor of not doing it, either. We need to do some of both.”

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science. April 2007

By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug, government drug experts on Wednesday.

Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said.

They cited data from the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Potency Project showing the average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the products rose from 7 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2006.

The level had risen steadily from 3.5 percent in 1988.

National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow fears the problem is not being taken seriously because many adults remember the marijuana of their youth as harmless.

“It’s really not the same type of marijuana,” Volkow said in a telephone interview. “This could explain why there has been an increase in the number of medical emergencies involving marijuana.”

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, marijuana was involved in 242,200 visits to hospital emergency rooms in 2005. This means that the patient mentioned using marijuana and does not mean the drug directly caused the accident or condition being treated, SAMHSA says.

The number is up from 215,000 visits in 2004.

The pharmacy department at Mississippi has compiled data on 59,369 samples of cannabis, 1,225 hashish samples, and 443 hash oil samples confiscated since 1975. “The highest concentration of (THC) found in a cannabis (marijuana) sample is 33.12 percent from Oregon State Police,” the report reads.
Hashish and hash oil concentrations are far higher, as they consist of processed plant product.

“Researchers and treatment experts have argued for some time that today’s more powerful marijuana has more harmful effects on users. This report underscores that we are no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s — this is Pot 2.0,” John Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement.

Volkow said demand has driven growers to cultivate the stronger stuff. “It is the market,” she said. “Like in the market you favor the best tomatoes. When people buy marijuana, they don’t want a weak cigarette.”

Volkow’s institute has been studying the effects of cannabis, whose active ingredients are very similar to important brain chemicals called endogenous cannabinoids. “It clearly is addictive,” she said.

If children and adolescents use marijuana, it could affect their still-developing brains, she said.

The report said more than 60 percent of teens receiving treatment for drug abuse or dependence report marijuana as their primary drug of abuse.

“Although the overall number of young people using marijuana has declined in recent years, there is still reason for great concern, particularly since roughly 60 percent of first-time marijuana users are under 18 years old,” Volkow said.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health 4.1 million Americans, or 1.7 percent of the population, report they use marijuana.

Source: Reuters Health. 26th April 2007

Abstract:
The use of Cannabis sativa preparations, such as hashish and marijuana, is wide-spread among young people, including pregnant women. Despite this concern, the consequences of cannabis exposure on the brain during periods of active brain development, such as the prenatal phase and adolescence, is not well known. Several epidemiological studies support the cannabis gateway hypothesis, where early cannabis use is suggested to increase the risk of initiating use of other illicit drugs, e.g., amphetamine or heroin. However, the nature of such direct links are unclear. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to test experimentally the cannabis gateway hypothesis, i.e., to determine whether cannabis exposure during periods of active brain development alters reward-related behavior and neurobiology for psychostimulant and opioid drugs by the use of animal models.
In the first study, we examined the effects of early adolescent exposure (postnatal day; PND; 28-32, one injection per day) with the synthetic cannabinoid CB1 receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 and the main psychoactive substance in C. sativa, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on amphetamine-induced motor behavior and dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens during adolescence. No alterations were evident in the cannabinoid exposed rats, results which did not support the cannabis gateway hypothesis in relation to subsequent psychostimulant abuse.
Next, we investigated the effects of adolescent exposure on subsequent opioid reward-related behavior and the neurobiology of opioid and cannabinoid systems during adulthood. We studied THC exposure across the full adolescent period (PND 28-49), and administered the drug once every third day in order to better mimic the pattern of intermittent use seen in teenagers. The results revealed discrete opioid-related alterations within brain regions highly implicated in reward and hedonic processing (e.g., increased proenkephalin gene expression in the nucleus accumbens and increased mu opioid receptors in the ventral tegmental area). This was coupled to increased heroin intake in a self-administration paradigm and increased morphine conditioned place preference, indicating altered sensitivity to the reinforcing properties of opioids.
Furthermore, in evaluating the adolescent ontogeny of the opioid and cannabinoid systems within limbic-related brain areas, we found that active endocannabinoid- and opioid- related neurodevelopment takes place to a very high extent during this period. Most pronounced were the alterations in endocannabinoid levels in cognitive brain areas, even though alterations were also apparent in reward-related regions.
Finally, we investigated the effects of prenatal cannabis exposure (gestational day 5- PND 2) on subsequent opioid reward-related behavior and neurobiology of the opioid and cannabinoid systems in adulthood. Similar to adolescent cannabis exposure, prenatal exposure induced discrete opioid-related alterations within brain regions highly implicated in reward and hedonic processing. Moreover, elevated heroin-seeking observed during extinction and after food deprivation was evident in the THC exposed rats, suggesting an increased motivation for drug use under conditions of stress.
Taken together, this thesis presents neurobiological support for the cannabis gateway hypothesis in terms of adult opiate, but not amphetamine, abuse, with underlying long-term disturbances of discrete opioid-related systems within limbic brain regions.
ISBN: 978-91-7357-064-0

Source: Karolinska Institute online 9th Feb.2007

Abstract: Spano MS, Ellgren M, Wang X, Hurd YL.

Karolinska Institute, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychiatry Section, S-17176 Stockholm, Sweden.

BACKGROUND: Prenatal cannabis exposure is a growing concern with little known about the long-term consequences on behavior and neural systems relevant for reward and emotional processing.
METHODS: We used an animal model to study the effects of prenatal exposure to Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on heroin self-administration behavior and opioid neural systems in adult males (postnatal day 62). Rats were exposed to THC (.15 mg/kg) or vehicle from gestational day 5 to postnatal day 2. RESULTS: Both pretreatment groups showed similar heroin intake, but THC-exposed rats exhibited shorter latency to the first active lever press, responded more for low heroin doses, and had higher heroin-seeking during mild stress and drug extinction. THC exposure reduced preproenkephalin (PENK) mRNA expression in the nucleus accumbens during early development, but was elevated in adulthood; no adult striatal changes on preprodynorphin mRNA or PENK in caudate-putamen. PENK mRNA was also increased in the central and medial amygdala in adult THC-exposed animals. THC animals had reduced heroin-induced locomotor activity and nucleus accumbens mu opioid receptor coupling.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates enduring effects of prenatal THC exposure into adulthood that is evident on heroin-seeking behavior during extinction and allostatic changes in mesocorticolimbic PENK systems relevant to drug motivation/reward and stress response.

Source: : Biol Psychiatry. 2007 Feb 15;61(4):554-63. Epub 2006 Jul 28.

The number of people admitted to hospital in England with alcoholic liver disease has more than doubled in just 13 years, figures show.
Between 1989 and 2003 admissions for the disease increased by 116% in men and 108% in women.
The figures, from London’s St George’s Hospital and the Office for National Statistics, were presented at a British Society of Gastroenterology meeting.
They underline just how much of a drain alcohol abuse is on NHS resources.

The figures show that there was a rise in admissions in people of all ages – including young adults.
In the year 2002/03, the admission rate for alcoholic liver disease was 42.4 per 100,000 men, and 27.6 per 100,000 women.
Many health campaigners have voiced concern that changes to licensing laws, allowing more pubs and clubs to stay open for longer, could lead to increases in alcohol-related illness and public disorder in the UK.
Lead researcher Dr Mark Fullard said that with hospitals already struggling to cope with demand, the rising number of cases of alcoholic liver damage was a potentially huge problem.
“The research findings highlight an important problem in public education and health planning and how we are going to manage alcohol related problems in this country.
“If it doubles again, it is going to have tremendous implications for the future burden of care in hospitals.”

The actual number of women admitted with alcoholic liver problems is about half that of men – but the rate of increase in cases is similar.
The diseases included in the study range from mild alcoholic hepatitis – mild inflammation of the liver – through to very severe cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Dr Fullard said: “If you are young and have alcoholic liver disease and carry on drinking, then you will get severe alcoholic liver disease.”
Dr Elwyn Elias, of the British Society of Gastroenterology, said: “It is very important that we are flagging this up at a time when the consumption of alcohol in this country is continuing to increase.
“I think we are unmasking an iceberg effect where we are storing up enormous problems for the NHS in the future.”

Source: BBC News Reported in Daily Dose 15th March 2005

Scientists have shown how cannabis may trigger psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.
A King’s College London team gave healthy volunteers the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
They then recorded reduced activity in an area of the brain which keeps inappropriate thoughts at bay. THC levels are thought to have doubled in street cannabis in recent years – at the expense of other ingredients which may have a beneficial effect.

A separate study has shown that one of these ingredients – cannabidiol (CBD) – has the potential to dampen down psychotic symptoms, and could form the basis of new treatments. The research will be discussed at a conference on the impact of cannabis use to be held at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College this week.
Dependency
Although figures are not kept, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 people in the UK may be dependent on cannabis. Increasing numbers of people are seeking help for cannabis problems at specialist clinics. In 2005, only heroin users accounted for a greater proportion of patients. Experts are concerned that street cannabis is becoming increasingly potent. It is thought that average THC content has risen from 6% to 12% in recent years.
The Institute of Psychiatry study gave THC, CBD or placebo capsules to adult male volunteers who had not abused cannabis. They then carried out brain scans, and a battery of tests, and found that those who took THC showed reduced activity in an area of the brain called the inferior frontal cortex, which keeps inappropriate thoughts and behaviour, such as swearing and paranoia in check.
The effects were short-lived, but some people appeared more vulnerable than others.
In a second study, a team from Yale University administered THC intravenously. Even at relatively low doses, they found 50% of healthy volunteers began to show symptoms of psychosis. Volunteers who already had a history of psychotic symptoms appeared to be particularly vulnerable.
Side effects
A third study, by the University of Cologne, compared the effect of CBD and a commonly used anti-psychotic medicine, Amisulpride, on 42 patients with a history of schizophrenia.
After four weeks both groups showed a reduction in psychotic symptoms, but the CBD group were less prone to side effects, such as muscle stiffness and weight gain.

The researchers warned that THC and CBD compete with each other biochemically, so a rise in THC levels would blunt any positive impact of CBD. Professor Robin Murray, a consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry, said the research provided the strongest evidence that cannabis had a significant impact on the brain.
He said proving a long-term effect was extremely difficult, as it was not ethical or feasible to stimulate long-term psychosis in volunteers.
However, he said: “If something has an active effect in inducing the symptoms of psychosis after one dose, then it would not be at all surprising if repeated use induced the chronic condition.”
Professor Murray also warned that the high potency cannabis now widely available was likely to pose a much bigger risk to health than the significantly weaker formulations of previous years. “It is similar to comparing the effect of drinking a glass of wine at the weekend with drinking a bottle of vodka every day.”
Marjorie Wallace, of the mental health charity Sane, called the research a “significant contribution” to the understanding of the dangers of cannabis.
“Sane has been saying for years that there is a link between psychosis and the drug, particularly in its more potent forms.
“We strongly urge the government to heed the growing evidence and take urgent action to warn young people that some of them are risking lifelong mental illness – that they are playing Russian roulette with their minds.”

Source: BBC NEWS: 2007/04/30

A steady rise in long-term heavy drinking has led to a doubling of alcohol-related deaths among men over the past decade, according to official figures.
The study of “preventable mortality” found that the rate of alcohol-related deaths had risen sharply among women too, with two thirds more dying of diseases such as cirrhosis over the period.
The rise in alcohol-related deaths is in stark contrast to sharp falls in the rest of the top five “preventable causes of mortality”.
Lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases are both down by a third, while suicide is down by 14 per cent. The data were released in the Office for National Statistics’ quarterly survey of the nation’s health.
Alcohol Concern said that the biggest increase in alcohol-related deaths was among those aged 35 to 54, a generation of people who started drinking heavily in their youth and carried on into middle age.

Source: From The Times Online May 25, 2007

A drug which reduces the desire for marijuana and blocks its effect on the brain has been successfully tested in rats. Scientists say the findings may translate into better therapies for cannabis addiction in humans.
Rodents given a compound derived from a plant in the buttercup family lose their hankering for a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the active compound in marijuana. The treatment also blocked a reward response in the animals’ brains when they did receive synthetic THC.
In the first part of the experiment, Steven Goldberg at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Maryland, US, and his colleagues placed rats in a cage with a lever the animals could push. Each time the rats leaned on the lever, they received a dose of the synthetic THC through a small tube running into their body.
Over a period of three weeks the rats learned to enjoy the effects of synthetic THC and frequently self-administered the drug. By comparison, rats that received saline solution did not press the lever often.
Goldberg’s team then injected the rats with a compound derived from the seeds of the Delphinium brownii plant, which is in the buttercup family. The compound, known as methyllycaconitine (MLA), had a dramatic effect on the animals’ behaviour.

Blocking dopamine
On the day that they received MLA they pushed the lever for synthetic THC 70% less than before. The drug did not seem to otherwise change the rats’ movement and coordination, and had no other apparent side effects.
The scientists also took a close look at the effects of MLA on the rats’ brains. They used a technique called microdialysis to take tiny fluid samples from a reward-signalling area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens, which sits near the base of the head.
When rats receive synthetic THC, levels of the reward chemical dopamine normally shoot up in the nucleus accumbens – but MLA blocked the release of dopamine in this brain region.
“The increases in dopamine are virtually non-existent because of MLA,” says Goldberg. He adds that MLA did not lower dopamine levels below normal amounts. This is important, says Goldberg, because it suggests that a similar therapy for humans would not interfere with normal reward signalling in the brain.
He notes that the drug Rimonobant, which makes monkeys less likely to self-administer THC, has been linked to depression in humans.
The exact mechanism by which MLA works remains a mystery. Scientists know that MLA binds to specific cell receptors in the brain called alpha-7 nicotinic receptors. They speculate that cannabis indirectly triggers these receptors, but cannot do so when the receptors are blocked by MLA.

Human potential
There is a genuine need for medications to help cannabis addicts overcome their drug problem, according to Goldberg: “About 10% of the people who experiment with it go on to heavy use and have trouble voluntarily giving it up. I think there is a proportion of the population who need ways to make them stop.”
Drug-makers have recently made medications such as Chantix available to help people quit tobacco smoking. But researchers say that these drugs affect different nicotinic receptors than those triggered by THC.
And while some people have pushed Rimonobant as a possible remedy for addiction, Goldberg says that more options – such as one based on MLA – must be explored: “Each patient is different and what works in one might not work in another.”

Source: Journal of Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0027-07.2007)

Research Summary

A study of U.S. Marine Corps recruits conducted in San Diego adds further weight to previous findings that early-age drinking increases the risk of problem drinking later, MedPage Today reported Dec. 5.
The study looked at 41,482 male recruits and found that those who had begun drinking at age 13 or earlier were 5.5 times more likely to be engaging in risky drinking. Other factors associated with risky drinking included engaging in smoking, coming from a rural or small-town community, enduring childhood sexual or emotional abuse, and experiencing alcohol abuse or mental illness in the household.
Researchers led by Margaret Ryan, M.D., M.P.H., of the Naval Health Research Center, used three alcohol consumption questions on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Tests (AUDIT-C) to measure risky drinking. A total of 14.8% of the recruits were categorized as risky drinkers; 45.1% were non-risky drinkers and 40.2% were non-drinkers.
Some factors that were inversely associated with risky drinking in the study included being married and attending religious services at least weekly.
The researchers concluded that the study results reinforce the need for public health efforts to prevent tobacco use and child abuse. An important question to be answered is whether reducing youth smoking would also reduce risky drinking, they said.

Source: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Dec. 2006

May 23, 2007
Research Summary

A compound known as methyllycaconitine (MLA) appears to block craving for and the effects of a synthetic version of THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana, New Scientist reported May 22.
Animal tests revealed that MLA, derived from Delphinium brownii, a plant in the buttercup family, cut craving for THC and blocked the brain’s reward response for the drug. Rats that received injections of MTA pushed a lever for doses of THC 70 percent fewer times than on days where they did not receive MLA.
Studies of the rats’ brains also showed that THC did not increase dopamine levels when MLA was present. “The increases in dopamine are virtually nonexistent because of MLA,” said lead researcher Steven Goldberg of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who said the findings could have implications for addiction treatment for humans.

Source: The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

A prescription-only pill with a high success rate in helping people to quit smoking is to become available on the NHS after a decision yesterday by the government’s drugs watchdog.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence gave draft approval for the health service to provide varenicline, which is manufactured by Pfizer under the brand name Champix. Trials showed the twice-daily pill provided relief from cravings and withdrawal symptoms experienced by smokers in the weeks after quitting.

The manufacturers said it also reduced the satisfaction smokers would get from cigarettes in the event of a relapse.
During the trials, 44% of smokers had quit by the end of a 12-week course. This compared with a 30% success rate for the anti-smoking drug Zyban and 18% for smokers who were given a placebo.
The recommended 12-week course of treatment costs about £163.80.
Giving draft approval allows NHS trusts or professional bodies to register objections before a decision in July. NHS trusts would then have three months to make funding available. A spokeswoman for Nice said: “Having looked at all the evidence, our independent committee has concluded that varenicline appears to be a good way to help people who want to quit smoking.”
Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London, said: “This guidance gives smokers who are serious about stopping another choice from a good range of clinically proven treatments. Smokers who combine treatments with the right support…could significantly increase their odds of successfully quitting for life.”

Source Thursday May 31, 2007 The Guardian

According to experimental scientists a common antipsychotic drug used in emergency rooms to treat methamphetamine overdose can damage nerve cells in an area of the brain known to regulate movement.
Investigators from the Boston University School of Medicine used a rat model to determine that only the combination of the medication, haloperidol, and methamphetamine causes the destructive effects, not either one alone.
Senior author Bryan Yamamoto, PhD, and his team suspect the damage results from the exaggerated stimulation of cells by the amino acid glutamate, which proves toxic to cells producing the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
Their results are published in the May 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
“This work in laboratory animals raises immediate concerns that a standard treatment for methamphetamine overdose in humans might worsen drug abuse-related brain injuries,” says William Carlezon, PhD, at Harvard’s McLean Hospital, who was not affiliated with the study.
“A crucial next step is to determine how atypical antipsychotic medications would affect methamphetamine toxicity in the same model.”
The rats in the experiment were injected with either methamphetamine or a saline solution over a period of eight hours. When the rats were given haloperidol before and nearly halfway through the eight-hour period, Yamamoto and his colleagues noted more than a fivefold rise in base levels of glutamate in the substantia nigra, a part of the brain known to play a role in movement disorders such as Huntington’s disease.
After examining the long-term effects of the combination, they found that glutamate concentrations in the substantia nigra were twice as high in methamphetamine-treated rats as in saline-treated ones two days after injections.
Yamamoto and his colleagues were able to link this rise in glutamate to the death of GABA-containing cells in one part of the substantia nigra. This may predispose some people who have been treated for a methamphetamine overdose to seizures and the development of movement disorders, they say, although the study did not measure movement specifically.
In addition to future studies of other antipsychotic medications, says Yamamoto, “we hope to examine if the loss of cells results in abnormal involuntary movements resembling Tourette’s syndrome and Huntington’s disease.”

Source: Society for Neuroscience May 30th 2007

Thursday 1 June 2006

UK adults and adolescents are among the top binge-drinkers in Europe, according to the first-ever comprehensive EU-wide report on alcohol released this Thursday.
The report, funded by the European Commission and written by the UK-based Institute of Alcohol Studies, shows that:
• The UK are one of the top bingeing nations in western Europe, binge-drinking 28 times per year on average – about once every 13 days.
• UK adolescents are also the third-worst binge-drinkers in the EU, with more than a quarter 15-16 olds binge-drinking 3-or-more times in the last month.
Yet the main message of the report – commissioned to provide the evidence base for the EU’s alcohol strategy due later this year – is the scale of alcohol-related harm across the EU:
• Alcohol is public health enemy #3, behind only tobacco and high blood pressure, and ahead of obesity, lack of exercise or illicit drugs.
• Many people suffer due to someone else’s’ drinking – including 5-9 million children living in families damaged by alcohol and the 10,000 ‘innocent’ deaths that occur to bystanders or passengers from drink-drivers.
• Alcohol is also estimated to cost Europe €125 billion – equivalent to over €650 for every household each year.
The report concludes with a series of 52 recommendations in areas ranging as widely from taxation to education to research, setting out the areas that the scientific evidence suggests the Commission should act on in its forthcoming strategy.
- Professor Christine Godfrey, Professor of Health Economics at the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York, said:
“This is the best estimate yet conducted showing the scale of the social costs of alcohol in Europe. But more importantly, the report shows that cost-effective polices are available, and that predictions of catastrophic job losses for implementing effective policies are much overstated.”
- Dr Anderson, lead author of the report and international public health expert, said:
“What really makes the need for action so urgent is that we know ‘what works’ in reducing this toll. What we now need is just to get on with it.”

Source: Institute of Alcohol Studies June 2006

By Jane Kirby, PA Health Correspondent
Published: 25 June 2007

The dance drug ecstasy significantly affects both long and short-term memory, according to analysis published today.

Researchers found verbal, not visual, memory was most affected by the drug, which sells in British clubs for as little as a few pounds per tablet.

Studies have previously noted ecstasy affects memory but the new research examined 26 studies involving 600 users.

Experts from the University of Hertfordshire found the number of tablets taken over a lifetime had little effect on the results.

The average number of tablets taken by people in the study was 327, with a range of 16 to 902.

Professor Keith Laws and Joy Kokkalis, from the University’s School of Psychology, led the study, which will be published in the journal Human
Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental.

They found ecstasy had a medium to large effect on impairing short and long-term memory.

In more than three-quarters of ecstasy users, long and short-term verbal memory was below the average of those who had not used the drug.

Dr Laws said: “To summarise, this meta-analysis confirms that ecstasy users show significantly impaired short-term and long-term memory when compared with non-ecstasy users.

“The ecstasy users also displayed significantly worse verbal than visual memory.

“Indeed, their visual memory was relatively normal and seems to be affected more by concurrent cannabis use.”

Ecstasy is a class A drug used by an estimated 500,000 people in the UK.

Studies have shown long-term or heavy ecstasy use can damage neurons in the brain and cause depression, anxiety and difficulty sleeping.

One study published last year by researchers in Amsterdam found even short-term light use could damage blood flow to the brain.

Source:http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2705536.eceJune 2007

Young men are three times more likely to die from alcohol-related injuries than females. To make matters worse, new research released today shows that they do not respond to school-based drug education as well as their female counterparts.
Delivery of a new school-based program has resulted in lower alcohol consumption, less binge drinking and less alcohol-related harms – but only in females.
CLIMATE Schools: Alcohol Module was developed and trialled by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of NSW. Researcher, Ms Laura Vogl, found that the findings were consistent with the results of many other school-based drug prevention programs.
“Males are a much harder group to reach,” Ms Vogl said. “It is common knowledge that alcohol use generally increases from the early to late teenage years. This program was effective in subduing this growth. Twelve months after the program was delivered it was clear that the CLIMATE program had subdued the growth of alcohol use and harm for females.”
After one year, students who did not get the CLIMATE program reported:
o Twice the increase in average weekly alcohol consumption compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program.
o A fives times greater increase in the frequency of binge drinking compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program.
o Twice the increase in the maximum number of drinks consumed during these binging occasions, and
o A five times greater increase in the number of alcohol-related harms experienced in the previous 12 months compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program

CLIMATE Schools: Alcohol Module was developed by NDARC in collaboration with the Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression and secondary school teachers. This program was trialled with over 1,500 Year 8 students in Catholic and Independent schools. This innovative program uses a computerised cartoon-based teenage drama to teach young people skills to minimise alcohol consumption and reduce the risk of harm.
The program was successful in teaching all young people, both males and females, the knowledge to minimise alcohol-related harm. It was also effective in moderating students’

beliefs regarding the positive benefits of alcohol. Students were far less likely to glamorise the effects of alcohol after they had completed the CLIMATE program.
However, when it came to behaviour change, it was only female students who changed their behaviour.
For the boys, the CLIMATE program was no more effective in changing alcohol use behaviour than the standard alcohol prevention education currently being delivered in the control schools.
Ms Vogl said that there could be a number of reasons to explain this result.
”The Australian Alcohol Guidelines were used in the program and these state that males can drink more alcohol than females to stay at low risk,” explained Ms Vogl. ”Currently, many young females drink similar amounts to their male counterparts. Pointing out to young women that they cannot actually drink as much alcohol for the same level of risk, may have been a shock for many and made them rethink their behaviour.“
Drinking and the experience of alcohol-related harm is often seen as a badge of honour or sign of manhood and could be a contributing factor to the gender differences.
“If a male student is involved in a fight, he may be viewed as a hero. Likewise, if a male has unplanned sex whilst under the influence of alcohol, he may be viewed as a stud. By contrast, if a female accidentally falls pregnant while under the influence of alcohol, she may be viewed as promiscuous. If she vomits in a public place as a result of drinking, the consequences can be dire.”
Traditionally, male socialisation and friendships also revolve more closely around alcohol than that of females. For alcohol prevention interventions to be effective with male students a broader range of alcohol related beliefs may need to be targeted.
Research has suggested that it may be necessary to focus on the negative sexual effects of alcohol, such as erectile dysfunction, to achieve success. The only obstacle to this is that it may be considered inappropriate to teach this in Year 7 and 8 of high school, when alcohol prevention education needs to be implemented.
“Alcohol-related harm is a major concern during adolescence, especially for males. Effective alcohol prevention programs do exist and in many cases are the ones implemented in schools. However, greater time needs to be given for more intensive interventions with the hope of more effectively changing the behaviour of young males.”
ends

Source: NDARC. Univ. of New South Wales. Australia February 25 2007

Analysis of a national sample of individuals with alcohol dependence (alcoholism) revealed five distinct subtypes of the disease. This finding should help dispel the myth that alcoholism is easily categorized and that an individual can be classified as a ‘typical alcoholic’.
Scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) report their finding in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
“Our findings should help dispel the popular notion of the ‘typical alcoholic,’” notes first author Howard B. Moss, M.D., NIAAA Associate Director for Clinical and Translational Research.
“We find that young adults comprise the largest group of alcoholics in this country, and nearly 20 percent of alcoholics are highly functional and well-educated with good incomes.
“More than half of the alcoholics in the United States have no multigenerational family history of the disease, suggesting that their form of alcoholism was unlikely to have genetic causes.”
“Clinicians have long recognized diverse manifestations of alcoholism,” adds NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D, “and researchers have tried to understand why some alcoholics improve with specific medications and psychotherapies while others do not. The classification system described in this study will have broad application in both clinical and research settings.”
Previous efforts to identify alcoholism subtypes focused primarily on individuals who were hospitalized or otherwise receiving treatment for their alcoholism.
However, recent reports from NIAAA’s National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a nationally representative epidemiological study of alcohol, drug, and mental disorders in the United States, suggest that only about one-fourth of individuals with alcoholism have ever received treatment.
Thus, a substantial proportion of people with alcoholism were not represented in the samples previously used to define subtypes of this disease.
In the current study, Dr. Moss and colleagues applied advanced statistical methods to data from the NESARC. Their analyses focused on the 1,484 NESARC survey respondents who met diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence, and included individuals in treatment as well as those not seeking treatment.
The researchers identified unique subtypes of alcoholism based on respondents’ family history of alcoholism, age of onset of regular drinking and alcohol problems, symptom patterns of alcohol dependence and abuse, and the presence of additional substance abuse and mental disorders:
Young Adult subtype: 31.5 percent of U.S. alcoholics. Young adult drinkers, with relatively low rates of co-occurring substance abuse and other mental disorders, a low rate of family alcoholism, and who rarely seek any kind of help for their drinking.
Young Antisocial subtype: 21 percent of U.S. alcoholics. Tend to be in their mid-twenties, had early onset of regular drinking, and alcohol problems. More than half come from families with alcoholism, and about half have a psychiatric diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Many have major depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety problems. More than 75 percent smoked cigarettes and marijuana, and many also had cocaine and opiate addictions. More than one-third of these alcoholics seek help for their drinking.
Functional subtype: 19.5 percent of U.S. alcoholics. Typically middle-aged, well-educated, with stable jobs and families. About one-third have a multigenerational family history of alcoholism, about one-quarter had major depressive illness sometime in their lives, and nearly 50 percent were smokers.
Intermediate Familial subtype: 19 percent of U.S. alcoholics. Middle-aged, with about 50 percent from families with multigenerational alcoholism. Almost half have had clinical depression, and 20 percent have had bipolar disorder. Most of these individuals smoked cigarettes, and nearly one in five had problems with cocaine and marijuana use. Only 25 percent ever sought treatment for their problem drinking.
Chronic Severe subtype: 9 percent of U.S. alcoholics. Comprised mostly of middle-aged individuals who had early onset of drinking and alcohol problems, with high rates of Antisocial Personality Disorder and criminality. Almost 80 percent come from families with multigenerational alcoholism. They have the highest rates of other psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders as well as high rates of smoking, and marijuana, cocaine, and opiate dependence. Two-thirds of these alcoholics seek help for their drinking problems, making them the most prevalent type of alcoholic in treatment.
The authors also report that co-occurring psychiatric and other substance abuse problems are associated with severity of alcoholism and entering into treatment. Attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs is the most common form of help-seeking for drinking problems, but help-seeking remains relatively rare.

Source: National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism June 2007

Nicotine reaches the brain as quickly as 10 seconds after inhalation, triggering feelings of pleasure, increasing heart rate and raising blood pressure.
But alongside the nicotine, smokers breathe in a deadly cocktail of chemicals including arsenic, formaldehyde and polonium.
“Cigarette smoke contains at least 69 different cancer-causing chemicals and thousands of other poisons which can increase the risk of several different types of cancer,” said Ed Yong of Cancer Research.
“Nicotine itself doesn’t cause cancer, it just keeps the smokers hooked,” he added.
Tobacco is so addictive that doctors writing in the Lancet medical journal this year said it should be classified as an illegal drug, on a par with amphetamines and barbiturates.
The government says 70 per cent of smokers want to give up but are held back by the power nicotine has over them.
Only one in five who try quitting manage to abstain for a year, while just three per cent succeed in breaking the habit by willpower alone, according to statistics compiled by health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
One in six smokers say they light up within five minutes of waking up, with half having their first cigarette inside the first 30 minutes of the day.
The government says 106,000 people die a year in Britain from smoking-related illnesses.
From July 1 smoking is banned in enclosed public spaces across all of the United Kingdom when England introduces its own prohibition to match those already in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
But while this may help many adults give up, there are some groups who will need much greater assistance, says ASH.
Around a quarter of all adults smoke but among the most disadvantaged, such as single parents on benefit, the rates are as high as 70 per cent.
“It’s a response to stress,” said ASH director Deborah Arnott. “If your life is very stressful then smoking seems to help in some way.”
She said such disadvantaged groups should be prescribed nicotine patches for longer periods than the usual maximum of 12 weeks to help them quit.
“It’s the nicotine they are addicted to, but it’s the smoke that’s killing them,” she said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown cut the value added tax on nicotine replacement products to five per cent in his last budget as chancellor of the exchequer.
The tax break will last for a year but ASH says the price reduction should be made permanent to help the most addicted and disadvantaged.

Source: www.smh.com.au June 30, 2007

The report, published online in the International Journal of Cancer, found that people who drink 15 grams of alcohol a day – equivalent to about two units – have about a 10 per cent increased risk of bowel cancer.
Those who drank more than 30 grams of alcohol – equivalent to three to four units which is less than a couple of pints of strong lager – increased their bowel cancer risk by around 25 per cent.

Source: Internatinal Journal of Cancer July 2007

For years, scientists described the human brain as a machine with parts, each part dedicated to controlling different activities. If a part was injured, the function it controlled would be lost permanently. But as Norman Doidge shows in his new book, The Brain That Changes Itself, (Viking) new neurological evidence has emerged showing that the brain can be trained to rewire itself after an injury, such as a stroke or ear or eye damage. Through interviews with neuroscientists and neuron-rehabilitation patients, Doidge also finds that the brain is capable of improving learning disabilities and intellectual and even moral performance through techniques such as repetition of learning and implementation of regular habits. The more we know about these processes, the more doctors can help patients to find other ways perform lost functions.

Doidge is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher on the research faculty at Columbia University’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry.

Source: Hudson Institute August 2007

For years, scientists have known that some people are biologically more susceptible to drug addiction than others, but they have only been able to speculate why.
In the August 15, 2007 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Chicago report on a study that may help answer this question.
They discovered that rats most likely to self-administer addictive drugs had a particular receptor in the brain that is more responsive than the same receptor in rats least likely to self-administer addictive drugs.
This receptor, known as the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), increases excitability within in the brain’s reward centers. In the animals that were more likely to take addictive drugs, the effects of these receptors were much stronger, leading to more profound excitation of the cells and pathways associated with reward.
Stress, and the associated increases in stress hormones, will promote drug-taking behavior regardless of whether an animal is more or less susceptible, say the researchers. They showed that stress also increases the responses of nAChRs within the brain’s reward areas.
“We tested the exploratory behavior of rats in an unfamiliar cage. Rats that explore a new environment for a prolonged period of time were more interested in addictive drugs,” says Daniel McGehee, PhD, associate professor and lead researcher on this study. ” Those rats also had stronger nAChR responses, meaning their brains responded differently to the drugs. We measured receptor activity in the brain’s reward centers that are known to be activated by addictive drugs.”
“This study provides valuable insight into the mechanism of addiction,” says McGehee. “It raises the possibility that nicotinic receptors may be important targets for the treatment of multiple addictions, not just nicotine. Unfortunately, blocking these receptors may also interfere with healthy behaviors that depend upon the same brain circuitry. Precisely where these findings will lead drug treatment strategies is unclear, but this work provides insight into the role of nicotinic receptors in the vulnerability to multiple classes of addictive drugs.”

Source: University of Chicago Medical Center. Published on Eureka Alert August 2007

Smoking marijuana in early pregnancy can cause infertility. A study at Vanderbilt University found that marijuana influences a signal that helps embryos pass safely from the ovary to the lining of the uterus.
Investigators found that when mice were given tetrahydrocannabinol, the major active component of marijuana, the embryos failed. They speculated that the chemical caused a fatty acid deficiency triggering a breakdown in the signaling system and making the embryo miss the crucial window for implantation in the uterus.
“We have shown before if you tinker with the normal timing of implantation in the uterus, it can create adverse ripple effects throughout the course of pregnancy leading to compromised pregnancy outcome,” said Dr. Sudhansu Dey of Vanderbilt University. Now the scientists are learning what happens on the molecular level that influences implantion.
“The take-home message would be, if you have fertility problems and you are smoking either marijuana or tobacco cigarettes, stop,” said Herbert Schuel, professor emeritus of anatomy and cell biology in the School of Medicine at the University of New York at Buffalo. “The same kinds of effects are produced by nicotine and tobacco smokers.”

Source NewsMax.com Sept.2006

Drug users who can’t kick the habit can blame a dysfunctional brain for their addiction, according to new research.
A study by the University of Melbourne has found long-term drug users have more difficulty controlling impulses because their frontal cortex is impaired.

The two-year study found opiate users needed to use more of their brains to resist impulses in a test of self control than those who were clean. The findings shed new light on why drug addicts find it so hard to quit, despite the health consequences.
“Drugs can capture and hijack some parts of the brain,” said Dr Murat Yucel, a lead researcher in the study. In this study we found the frontal cortex, an area that is essential for exercising control over thoughts and behaviours, was working inefficiently. These findings may help explain why it takes addicted individuals enormous effort to exercise control over their drug taking behaviour in the face of adverse consequences and why they are vulnerable to relapse back into uncontrolled, compulsive patterns of use.”
The study – published in the journal, Molecular Psychiatry, last month – also found drug users’ brain cells in the frontal region were less healthy than normal. The research shows drug taking is not a matter of choice for long-term users, who have a reduced biological capacity to stop, Dr Yucel says.
Researchers will next examine whether reduced brain function is a consequence of addiction or a contributing factor that makes some people more vulnerable to drug abuse. Co-researcher Dan Lubman said the study would likely lead to the development of new strategies for the treatment of addiction.
“These findings tell us that we need to provide a combination of pharmaceutical and psychological treatments that will help bolster the efficiency of the frontal cortex and hence the individual’s ability to stop their urge to use drugs,” he said.

Source: www.yahoo7News.com Aug. 2007

To get an idea of how pervasive drug testing has become, consider Florida Drug Screening Inc.’s long list of clients.
The Palm Bay-based company provides drug-testing for 380 businesses and organizations in Brevard County, and for about 8,000 nationwide.
“We have seen a strong increase of businesses wanting to implement a (drug-testing) program,” said Florida Drug Screening President Joe Reilly, who founded the company in 1993.
Drug-testing programs generally started in government, and began spreading to the private sector in the late-1980s. They started to take hold on a widespread basis in the early-1990s, Reilly said.
Today, drug-testing is being done by businesses of all sizes — from large corporations to mom-and-pop operations, he said.
Pip Printing in Palm Bay has only several employees, but the shop has a drug-testing program through Florida Drug Screening.
“We think it’s a good thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do,” said Beverley Wiggins, who owns the shop with her husband, Leslie. “We’re against drugs.”
The couple require job applicants to take a drug test, and they also have random drug tests — for both employees and themselves.
“If we’re asking the staff to do something, we should also do it ourselves to set an example,” Wiggins said.
Since the couple bought the printing shop last year, no one has tested positive for drug use, she added.
Overall, Florida Drug Screening’s Reilly said, his clients’ drug tests for applicants and employees come back positive about 4.8 percent of the time.
Most of the testing done by the firm is for job applicants, and the majority of employers do not test employees after they are hired, he said.
The growth of Florida Drug Screening’s business isn’t surprising, considering some of the latest data on drugs in the workplace.
About one in 12 American workers — 8.2 percent — has engaged in illicit drug use in the past month, according to a newly released survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The survey of 128,000 adult workers from 2002 to 2004 also found:
• The highest rates of employee drug use, by industry, were among restaurant workers, with 17.4 percent reported using in the past month; and construction workers, with 15.1 percent reporting using in the past month.
• Four percent of teachers and social-service workers reported using drugs in the past month.
• The 8.2 percent overall rate of employee drug use was higher than previous surveys, which found overall rates of 7.6 percent in 1994 and 7.7 percent in 1997.
In addition, the survey found that 48.8 percent of full-time workers reported that their employer conducts drug testing, most often prior to being hired; and 30 percent reported that their employer conducts random drug testing of current employees.
Many observers “believe these statistics actually underestimate the magnitude of illicit drug use and alcohol abuse problems in the workplace, because substance abusers are likely to be harder to reach,” said Mark de Bernardo, executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace.
Also, employees are “less likely to self-report their substance abuse, particularly of illegal drugs,” de Bernardo said.
Some organizations feel not enough is being done to address the issue.
A recent survey by the Hazelden Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps people overcome addictions, found that substance abuse and addiction are recognized by human-resource professionals as among the most serious problems in the workplace.
The survey of 1,356 human-resource professionals nationwide also found that employers’ policies and practices are not fully addressing the problem.
Although many companies offer employee-assistance programs, many do not openly and proactively deal with employee substance-abuse issues, according to the Hazelden Foundation.
“Addiction is this country’s No. 1 public-health problem,” said Jill Wiedemann-West, senior vice president of clinical and recovery services at the Hazelden Foundation.
“We know that treating drug and alcohol addiction results in more people finding their path to recovery,” Wiedemann-West said. “It results in more resilient families, more productive workplaces, and healthier and safer communities.”
Among the barriers to helping employees with substance abuse problems, the Hazelden survey found:
• Fifty-four percent of human-resource professionals believe that getting employees to acknowledge or talk about the issue is their toughest challenge.
• Forty-nine percent of human-resource professionals cited at least one of four personal hurdles to helping employees: lack of experience in identifying substance abuse and addiction; lack of information about treatment options; personal discomfort in approaching employees about the issue; and not having enough time to deal with the issue.
Florida Drug Screening’s standard “five-panel” test looks for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine (“speed”), opiates (such as heroin, morphine, opium) and PCP (“angel dust”).
The firm also has an expanded “10-panel” test that also looks for five other categories of drugs: barbiturates (“downers”), methamphetamine (“meth,” “crystal meth”), benzodiazapines (tranquilizers), methadone (commonly used for treating narcotics addiction) and propoxyphene (“painkillers”).
Reilly said some local companies that have drug testing also have confidential employee-assistance programs to provide workers with counseling and other services to help them.
But, often, the programs are underused.
“Companies have these programs, but they don’t promote them enough,” he said.

Source: www.floridatoday.com, Aug 19th 2007

Alcohol related hospital admissions double in last ten years according to latest official figures
The latest compendium of figures issued today (26 June) by the independent provider of official health and social care statistics, the Information Centre (The IC) show how hospital admissions specifically related to alcohol consumption have more than doubled in the last ten years.
In 2005/06, there were 187,640 NHS hospital admissions among adults aged 16 and over with either a primary or secondary diagnosis specifically related to alcohol. This has increased from 89,280 in 1995/96.
In its alcohol statistics bulletin, the most comprehensive and up to date compendium of facts and figures about alcohol consumption in England, The IC also found that:
• Among children under 16 there were 5,280 NHS Hospital admissions in 2005/06 with either a primary or secondary diagnosis specifically related to alcohol. This represents an overall increase of just over a third from 3,870 in 1995/96.
• In 2005, 6,570 people died from causes directly linked to alcohol consumption, of these just under two thirds (4,160) died from alcoholic liver disease. Two thirds (67 per cent) of those dying from alcoholic liver disease were men.
• In England in 2005, 73 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women reported drinking an alcoholic drink on at least one day in the week prior to interview. Thirteen per cent of men and 8 per cent of women reported drinking on every day in the previous week.
• Thirty-four per cent of men and 20 per cent of women had drunk more than the recommended number of units on at least one day in the week prior to interview. Eighteen per cent of men and 8 per cent of women had drunk more than twice the recommended daily intake.
• Older people were more likely to drink regularly – 28 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women aged 45-64 drank on five or more days in the week prior to interview compared to 10 per cent of men and 5 per cent of women aged 16-24. Younger people were more likely to drink heavily, with 42 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women aged 16-24 drinking above the daily recommendations compared to 16 per cent of men and 4 per cent of women aged 65 and over.
• Among men, 24 per cent reported drinking on average more than 21 units in a week. For women, 13 per cent reported drinking more than 14 units in an average week.
The bulletin also looked at awareness of the Government’s alcohol warnings and found that whilst 69 per cent of people reported that they had heard of the government guidelines on alcohol consumption, of these people, more than a third said that they did not know what the recommendations were. Thirty two per cent of adults however had seen units of alcohol displayed on labels of alcoholic drinks, compared to 23 per cent in 2000.
In England in 2005, 45 per cent of pregnant women did not drink at all during pregnancy, while 39 per cent reported drinking on average less than 1 unit a week and only 8 per cent drank 1 to 2 units Alcohol is more affordable than ever according to the figures.
In 2006, alcohol was 65 per cent more affordable than it was in 1980. Household expenditure on alcohol has increased steadily since 1980 as has total household expenditure; however expenditure on alcohol as a proportion of total household expenditure has decreased steadily over the same period standing at 5.2 per cent in 2006 compared to 7.5 per cent in 1980. In 2004, the Government estimated that alcohol misuse costs the health service between £1.4 and £1.7 billion per year.
Commenting on the figures, Professor Denise Lievesley, Chief Executive of The Information Centre, says:
“These figures show some worrying trends about the effects on society of consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. The doubling of alcohol related hospital admissions and increases in serious illness and death caused by alcohol gives cause for concern. We hope Government and other policy makers will use these figures to inform the development and implementation of policies to help reduce the harm that excessive alcohol consumption can cause.”

Source:: pubs/alcoholeng07 June 2007

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine the rate of cannabis use among participants in the Cognitive Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) Program, a longitudinal program for individuals who are “at risk” for developing a psychotic disorder. Cannabis abuse was assessed in 48 individuals identified as at risk for psychosis based on subsyndromal psychotic symptoms and/or family history. At 1 year follow-up, 6 of the 48 (12.5%) at risk subjects had made the transition to psychosis. Of the 32 subjects who had no use or minimal cannabis use, one subject (3.1%) converted to psychosis. Of the 16 subjects who met criteria for cannabis abuse/dependence, five (31.3%) converted to psychosis. The results show a significant association between cannabis abuse and conversion to psychosis in this sample. Nicotine use was also found to be significantly associated with later conversion. The significant associations between cannabis and nicotine abuse and conversion to psychosis in individuals at risk for schizophrenia suggest that early identification and intervention programs should screen for and provide education about the deleterious effects of these substances.
Winston De La Haye, M.D., M.P.H. Lecturer and Consultant Psychiatrist Dept. of Community Health & Psychiatry, University of the West Indies, Mona, JAMAICA

Source: Source: Psychiatry Research 2007; 151: 151-154