A British “legal drugs” manufacturer based in Belgium has told Sky News the UK is about to be flooded with a deadly new drug called naphyrone.
Dave Llewellyn, who admits supplying large quantities of mephedrone to customers in the UK, said the new chemical is so dangerous he was refusing to sell it on his website – although it would not be against the law.
“This stuff is absolutely evil – it’s going to cause all sorts of psychological problems,” he told Sky News. “It will cause long-term brain damage from the very first hit and eventually it’s going to end up with bodies.”
Naphyrone is already being marketed as a mephedrone replacement, but according to Mr Llewellyn it is far more toxic than many illegal drugs like cocaine and ecstasy.
The substance is sold online under the name NRG-1 and costs as little as 25 pence a hit.  We know a little about its chemistry. We know it’s a variant of other substances both legal and illegal that can cause psychological and physical harm.   Dr Ken Checinski, from charity Addaction
The fact it is so cheap means, according to Mr Llewellyn, that it is likely to become hugely popular with youngsters.  “I think it really could be Europe’s crystal meth. I can see an epidemic where people are getting into it without realising what they’re getting into and then having to go back for more.”
For the moment naphyrone is not widely available in the UK, but its presence is a concern for many established scientists.  Medical director of the charity Addaction Dr Ken Checinski has warned those considering taking the designer drug to think again.
“We know a little about its chemistry. We know it’s a variant of other substances both legal and illegal that can cause psychological and physical harm,” he said.   The Government is currently trying to outlaw mephedrone – but naphyrone is likely to escape the ban for the moment.
Dave Llewellyn says naphyrone ‘could be Europe’s crystal meth’  Mephedrone has been linked to the deaths of a number of people across Europe.  Mr Llewellyn says the UK’s lucrative legal drugs market, which is worth hundreds of millions of pounds every year, is being targeted by dealers based in the Far East.
“The Chinese have been getting this ready for the last six months to take over the moment mephedrone is banned.
“It has been ready but why have two things banned at the same time – they want to keep their factories churning over these chemicals.”
Naphyrone will present legislators with another headache.   It is also likely to reignite the debate about how best to deal with the wave of new legal synthetic drugs which continue to hit the market, despite the ban of previous substances.
Source:  http://news.sky.com  1st April 2010

Crime, drugs and alcohol abuse cost taxpayers in just three regions £1.5billion a year, according to official reports.
Councils in Birmingham, Luton and Leicestershire have calculated the price of social breakdown in terms of police and court time, health services, welfare benefits and support for families.   In one area, the cost of binge-drinking on hospitals and the criminal justice system was put at £713million a year, while addicts used up another £500m in public sector resources.
The figures have been uncovered by the Conservatives in pilot projects commissioned by the Government but not published centrally.
Caroline Spelman, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: “It is no surprise that Labour ministers have tried to bury this bad news.   “Across the country, local taxpayers are footing the bill for Labour’s broken society. The costs of social breakdown, alcohol abuse, poor schooling and drug addiction are just not confined to deprived areas – we all pay for it in our council tax bills and pay packets.
“There is no excuse for the secrecy of Labour ministers – they must come clean and publish all these reports in full.”
The 13 pilot studies were commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government a year ago in a £5m project known as Total Place. The idea was that public sector organisations in any given area could save money and improve services by improving co-operation and reducing duplication.
Earlier this month Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, told MPs that it was up to local authorities whether they wanted to publish their reports or not, and he declined to put copies of each study in the Commons library.   But the Tories have found the results of three Total Place studies, covering Birmingham; Luton and Central Bedfordshire; and Leicestershire.
The Birmingham report found that gang-related murders and attempted murders are costing the city’s taxpayers at least £1.5m a year in police, court and prison costs.  It puts the cost of the activities of “10 major dynastic gang families” at £187.5m over the past 40 years. Birmingham’s two main gangs, the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys, are each said to include three generations of five families. Their rivalry led to the fatal shooting of two teenage girls, Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, at a New Year party in 2003.
In Luton and Central Bedfordshire, a hard core of 250 criminals is blamed for a quarter of all offences, costing taxpayers up to £112m a year.
The Birmingham report puts the cost of alcohol misuse – including public disorder, workplace sickness and health services – at £713m a year. Drug misuse is said to cost £500m in terms of treatment, mental health care, benefits payments and police time.
Leicestershire estimated that drinking costs the NHS, police, workplaces and social services £120m a year.
Source:  Telegraph.co.uk  24th March 2010

THE number of children being treated for booze problems nearly DOUBLED in three years, The Sun can reveal.
A staggering 8,799 under-18s – including some of PRIMARY school age – were treated for misusing alcohol in the 12 months to April last year.
This was a shocking 80.1 per cent rise on the year to April 2006, when just 4,886 received help.
And figures released to The Sun under the Freedom of Information Act show 67 kids aged just 11 or younger were treated for alcohol problems in 2008-09. More than half of those referred or treated during the year were either 16 or 17.
The regions with the biggest child booze problems were the North West, where 1,760 kids received help, and the South East, where 1,148 were treated.
Another 872 kids from London received help for alcohol problems.
The sharp rise has come since the introduction of 24-hour drinking in November 2005. The figures, released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, show another 7,248 under-18s referred to them with drug problems also had trouble with drink.
Earlier this month, The Sun reported that three kids under 10 are being treated in hospital for drug abuse every day.
Source  www.thesun.co.uk  22nd March 2010

Comment:
Amid all the talk about what to do about this particular nasty drug-no one in politics or the media is addressing the fundamental question. How did the UK get to have this terrible drug using culture? Did influential legalisation and liberalisation drug lobbyists adversely affect the drug use culture? Was “media advocacy” a big factor? Where some pro liberalisation/legalisation Members of Parliament (in all political parties) guilty of proselytising without working out the inevitable consequences? Are those members of the “great & (supposedly ) good” , (even some members of the Police & Judiciary), who advocated drug legalisation/liberalisation, also guilty parties? It has been said nations get the drug problem they deserve. We certainly deserve ours. It is surely time for some honesty a rethink and some more competent political leadership.
David Raynes  National Drug Prevention Alliance
*****************************************************
Desperate father pleads for action as legal party drug destroys his teenage son An accountant has made a dramatic nationwide plea for help to stop his son killing himself with the new party drug known as Miaow Miaow.

Stephen Welch, rang BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in desperation because he did not know how to stop his son Daniel’s addiction to mephedrone and his appeals for specialist support had been rejected.
The 58-year-old spelt out the reality of life with a teenager who is destroying his health with a legal substance.

And he revealed that the drug can be bought freely over the phone on an 0800 number “like a Chinese takeaway” and delivered in 15 minutes at a cost of less than £1 a hit.  He also revealed that many of his son’s friends in the affluent, medieval market town of Saffron Walden, were also dependent on mephedrone and experiencing physical and mental problems as a result.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Welch, a self-employed accountant, described how last week, Daniel collapsed in front of him after a heavy weekend taking the killer drug.  “He had heart pains, his blood pressure was all over the place, his body went numb,” said Mr Welch. “Then he went into a bout of intense depression and suicidal tendencies. We were very, very scared.  “We thought that maybe we were going to loose him. It was a terrifying situation.”

The close-knit Welch family is desperate for help but have been told by mental health experts that their son’s drug taking is a “lifestyle choice” which they can do little about.  “The said they were not able to offer us any assistance, apart from saying, if necessary, take him to accident and emergency,” said Mr Welch, 58. “There has been an offer of acupuncture sessions but no mention of rehabilitation or even counselling.”

Evidence is growing of a mephedrone epidemic among young people across the social range. A survey published yesterday revealed that more than one in 13 students who attend Cambridge University have tried the drug.

Last week, it was linked to the deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in Scunthorpe. Police have also confirmed that a partygoer’s death from a heart attack in February was caused by mephedrone poisoning.   Despite escalating fears, the Government has taken no action to ban the drug. The substance is actively marketed on dozens of websites as plant food, with the companies and individuals who sell it making millions of pounds unhindered by the authorities.

“It is like ordering a Chinese takeaway but it comes quicker and is cheaper,” said Mr Welch. “The teenagers ring the 0800 number and it is delivered in little packets that say ‘plant food, not for human consumption’.  “Four grams costs £35 and is enough to give two hits to 20 people, that is under £1 a hit. Four grams of cocaine costs about £200.

“All of his friends are taking it, including some who wouldn’t have touched any drugs before but take this one because it is legal.  “They are all having the same problems. They are all, within a very short space of time, becoming dependant on it.”

Before discovering the drug, Daniel had completed his GCSEs at a private Quaker school and was studying a vocational course at a college near Norwich.  But the effects of his habit have left the teenager muddled, depressed and unable to work. While he has tried other drugs and has used cannabis regularly, the high he experienced with mephedrone was in a different league.  Mr Welch, whose three other children have never had drugs issues, said the availability of the drug made it so much harder to protect Daniel and break his dependency.

“It needs to be banned, if only to make it more difficult to get hold of,” he said. “I’m not naive enough to think it will not still be there.  It will go underground but it will become more expensive and it will put some children off taking it if it is illegal.  “It is no good the Government saying ‘we need to wait for this committee or that report’. People are dying from this substance.

“We have had a terrifying experience with our own son. People are making a fortune out of supplying this stuff and it is causing absolute havoc with our children.”  Meanwhile, until the Government acts, the Welch family try to cope with the day-to-day consequences of Daniel’s addiction.

“My wife is affected the most as she is at home most. It is emotionally just draining,” said Mr Welch. “We are absolutely distraught by this.
“The possibilities are too horrendous to think about – those two poor boys in Scunthorpe who died. My son said ‘I looked at their pictures and they looked like normal kids’. I said to him ‘Daniel, you look like a normal kid’.

“He has been very frightened by what has happened this week. We can only support him and hope that he is coming around to realising what a lethal substance this is.” Daniel said that the public and Government officials did not realise how bad the situation had become with mephedrone.  “I want to get across the massive effect it has had on my life and on the lives of people similar to me,” said the teenager.
“Something needs to happen. People are doing the drug who would never think of doing illegal drugs. It is affecting normal people.  “It is so readily available, a phone call away. And it is so cheap that someone always has it. You can swap a cigarette for a line. And that makes it hard to break away from it.

“I’ve got a lot of big decisions to make now about who I see and who I don’t. The problem is these are normal friends, people at university.
“But if I carry on in the way I have been I could be dead in three months. I’m losing weight, I’m not the person I was.”
Source:  www.telegraph.co.uk/health  21st March 2010

More than 5,000 school girls in England under the age of 16 needed hospital treatment last year as a result of alcohol abuse, new figures show.
The number, which includes girls as young as 10, has risen by 21 per cent in the last five years, according to statistics released by Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo.
The scale of Britain’s binge-drinking culture among young women was also highlighted.
In 2007/08, just over 13,000 teenagers and young women between 17 and 21 were admitted to hospital for problems caused by alcohol, up almost 50 per cent from 2003/04.   A similarly dramatic increase was seen among older women – those aged 26 or over – with almost 300,000 needing hospital treatment compared to just 196,625 five years earlier.
The figures, which emerged in response to a parliamentary question by Labour MP for Northampton North Sally Keeble, include treatment for conditions ranging from upset stomach to mental or behavioural problems triggered by too much drinking. The new figures follow a report that showed British youths are among the worst in Europe for binge drinking.
A poll by the University of the West of England showed more than half of 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls admitted regularly drinking to excess.  Only youngsters in Denmark and the Isle of Man confessed to drinking more.
Last October, Sally Keeble launched a private members bill calling for a minimum price on alcohol to deter heavy drinking, an idea which has since won the support of England’s Chief Medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson.
Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said the figures show alcohol misuse is ‘one of the most serious public health issues facing the UK’ and called for tough measures on the sale of cheap drink.  He added: ‘Sadly, these figures confirm more and more young women are developing long-term health problems by regularly drinking over the recommended limits  so it’s not only binge drinking that we should be worried out.’ ends
Source: www.Telegraph.co.uk  4th April 2009

Contrary to what is often claimed by supporters of the tolerant Dutch drugs policy, cannabis usage by young people in the Netherlands is not lower but actually higher than average in Europe, it emerges from the European School Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) over the year 2007.

On usage of cannabis, the Netherlands scores above the European average. Over one-quarter (28 percent) of the youngsters aged 15 and 16 surveyed said they have used cannabis sometime in their life, compared with an average of 19 percent in Europe. Current cannabis usage (at least once in the month prior to the survey) is more than double the European average in the Netherlands (15 versus 7 percent).

The Netherlands has risen in the ranking order of 35 European countries from number 12 in 2003 to number 5 on recent cannabis usage. This is due on the one hand to a 2 percentage point increase from 2003 (13 percent) and on the other, to a reduction in a number of countries that scored worse than the Netherlands in 2003, including France (from 22 to 15 percent) and England(from 20 to 11 percent).

The Dutch youngsters, possibly due to the liberal climate, widely believe that cannabis is innocent. The proportion of schoolchildren that think regular cannabis usage involves big risks is the lowest in the Netherlands (50 percent) of all countries surveyed. It is highest in Finland, at 80 percent.

Nearly half (49 percent) of the Dutch schoolchildren say it is (quite) easy to get cannabis. This puts the Netherlands third after the Czech Republic (66 percent) and the UK (51 percent). The infamous Dutch cannabis bars (‘coffee shops’) are not allowed to admit any minors.

The proportion of Dutch schoolchildren that say they have experience with drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines, LSD, ‘magic mushrooms’ and cocaine and heroin is 7 percent, exactly the same as the European average. Use of tobacco among Dutch youngsters is also average. The Netherlands does score badly on alcohol consumption.

In the month prior to the survey, nearly one-quarter of the Dutch 15 and 16 year old drunk alcohol more than 10 times, compared with a European average of 10 percent. Only schoolchildren in Austria drink more often. Dutch youngsters also drink slightly more alcohol per occasion than the European average, but countries like Denmark, the UK and Norway have considerably higher scores here.

The risks of alcohol usage are rated low by Dutch schoolchildren. Only 18 percent expect negative effects from their own use of alcohol, such as damage to health or problems with the police, compared with the European average of 32 percent. This gives the Netherlands the lowest score here along with Germany.

This is the fourth time the four-yearly ESPAD study has been carried out. The data collection in the Netherlands was financed by the health ministry and carried out by the Trimbos institute in collaboration with the University of Utrecht.
Source:  NIS News Bulletin <http://www.nisnews.nl 4th April 2009

In a report published in October 2008, the National Audit Office examined the NHS response to the rising levels of alcohol-related disease. Hospital admissions for the three main alcohol specific conditions (alcohol-related liver disease, mental health disorders linked to alcohol, and acute intoxication) have doubled in the last 11 years. There were also twice as many deaths from alcohol related causes in the UK in 2006 as there were 15 years before, increasing from 4,100 to 8,800.
Last week the National Treatment Agency published the staggering figure of nearly 25,000 young people under 18 getting treatment for their drugs and alcohol problems
Drugscope suggest that the numbers of young people using drugs and alcohol are falling and portrays this as ‘good news’.  National school age statistics on drugs use, still show that a staggering 25% of the UK’s school age children (11 – 15) have tried drugs – figures that are way higher than the European average – and that 10% of them are using drugs regularly.The last comparable survey figures for European school children under 15 also showed UK to have 13% of our under 13s having tried cannabis against a European average of 4%. It is also the case that, while the trend for schoolchildren’s drug use remained stable across Europe between 1999 and 2005, in the UK it doubled. Although UK school childrens’ drug of choice, cannabis, appears to have now stabilised, their cocaine consumption has been rising – unheard of elsewhere in Europe.
But it is also likely that levels of teenage cannabis use are higher than the published statistics state, as the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recently acknowledged. In their view the British Crime Survey is likely for a range of reasons to underestimate it. Even so, these estimates show that some 12% of 16 -19 year olds are regular users and that 20% of them have used it in the last year.
A percentage point decline in cannabis use in official statistics is small comfort for parents or for schools. Hospital admissions show that this small gain has been wiped out by the rising strength of cannabis and by the fact that children are moving earlier to Class A drugs. In fact with the UK cannabis market dominated by high THC skunk, which, according to a former head of the Dutch Police Narcotics Division, should now count as a ‘hard drug’, what we are witnessing is an ever earlier and disturbing shift to hard drug use. To dismiss such concerns as distorted perceptions is really not on. As any ‘in touch’ parent of a teenager in central London knows, regular cannabis using kids are moving to cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy by the time they are 16 or 17. Many teenagers appear to be immune to drug dangers despite the endless compulsory personal health and social education classes that they are subjected to at school. Nor has the government’s mixed message about drugs helped – namely their explicit policy statements about the non harmful nature of ‘recreational’ and casual drug use; no more helpful is their confused ‘informed choice’ approach to drugs education.
The appalling truth, as far as adults are concerned, is that we seem to have surrendered to a sense of ‘inevitability’ about children’s drug use.
While drugs services and drugs advisors have no more urgent need than to highlight “the problems faced by young people when they reach 18 and are no longer eligible for specialist services” and “to ease their transition to adult services”, the outlook is dire indeed.
The NTA’s tables reveal that 1600 teenagers are receiving treatment for heroin, cocaine and crack addiction and that 29% – some 6000 in all of those in treatment – are now receiving ‘harm reduction’ interventions – usually understood to be a euphemism for prescribing an opiate substitute like Subutex or methadone. As Professor Neil McKeganey, a leading expert in drugs misuse has said: ‘The idea of starting someone under 18 on a methadone prescription with an implicit expectation that they may be on that drug for the next ten or more years is appalling. We need services to think beyond the chemical inducement into therapy.’
The desperate fact though, is that there is still only one small dedicated residential rehabilitation centre with statutory funding for no more than 12 children/ teenagers at a time in the country. Last year Mike Trace, Chief Executive of RAPT – the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust – spoke of the urgent need for residential treatment for young, under 18, addicts. Young addicts, he said, were unlikely to get better within the environment in which they had grown up and that had fed their problems. Any parent of a young addict knows just how truly he spoke.
But how much of the National Treatment Agency’s dedicated funding of £25 million is being spent on this? How many teenagers are emerging drug free from their encounters with services? How effective are the disparate psychosocial interventions, pharmacological prescribing interventions, specialist harm reduction, and family interventions on offer? It is simply not enough for the NTA to tell us that the proportion of young intervention according to the goals set out in their care plans’ is 57%. Unless we know what the goals of their care plans are in the first place and what the aspirations are for the young people in question, it is a pretty meaningless statement. As we already know from adult services ‘completing treatment’ may be a measure of virtually nothing.
Source:  Institute of Alcohol Studies,  Alcohol Alert No.1, 2009

The Government’s official drug advisers will recommend later this month that the “legal high” mephedrone should be banned because of the potential serious risks to public health.  But the drug – a legal stimulant sold as plant food and known as miaow-miaow – will not be formally banned until at least the summer as further consultation is needed on whether it should be a Class A, B or C drug.

Pressure on the Government to outlaw mephedrone intensified yesterday when a post-mortem examination on John Sterling Smith, 46, of Hove, East Sussex, showed he died from mephedrone poisoning. His family said they were stunned and called for a ban. Results of toxicology tests released last night blamed mephedrone for his fatal cardiac arrest.  A Sussex Police spokeswoman said that Mr Smith collapsed at a party in Hove in the early hours of February 7. “Two men, aged 35 and 40, both from Brighton, were arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs and released on police bail until May 5 pending further inquiries,” she said.

Headteachers called yesterday for action on the drug, which has been linked with at least five deaths.  Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, from Scunthorpe, died after taking mephedrone, which can be bought for £4 and is also known as “M-cat”. Both teenagers had been drinking alcohol and police said last night that they may have taken the heroin substitute methadone too.  There have been two other deaths in Britain linked to mephedrone, which is illegal in countries including Norway, Germany and Finland.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at present lacks sufficient members to make a formal recommendation, but the appointments process is being brought forward to next week to get over the legal problem. A spokesman said: “The council has been looking at the dangers of mephedrone and related cathinone compounds, as a priority. The ACMD held an evidence-gathering meeting on February 22 and continues to carefully work on considerations with a view to providing advice to ministers on March 29.”

Alan Campbell, a junior Home Office minister, said: “We are determined to act swiftly but it is important we consider independent expert advice to stop organised criminals exploiting loopholes by simply switching to a different but similar compound.”  The Home Office denied that the sacking of Professor David Nutt, former chairman of the council, and subsequent resignations of key members of the organisation had led to “inordinate” delays in considering a ban.

Professor Nutt warned yesterday against a hasty reaction, saying a ban had to be based on “sound science”.

Tim Hollis, the Association of Police Chief Constables’ spokesman on drugs, said a ban would enable police to act against those possessing and supplying the drug. He spoke as Mike Stewart, head of Westlands School in Torquay, Devon, said teachers were in the absurd position of having to hand back packages of the drug seized in lessons.  Side-effects of mephadrone include high blood pressure, a burning throat, nose bleeds and purple joints.

Source:   Times online 18th March 2010

A record number of young people were treated for a drugs and alcohol problem last year.
Counsellors in England alone saw 52,294 people aged 13-24, a rise of 12% in two years, according to data from the National Treatment Agency (NTA).
There’s been a sharp drop in those addicted to ‘hard’ drugs like heroin.
Instead under-25s are now more likely to have a problem with a cocktail of ‘party’ drugs like cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy, often mixed with alcohol.
Campaigners say treatment services aimed at young adults need to change quickly to deal with what some are calling the biggest shift in drug habits in a generation.
‘Taken it all’
Newsbeat went to a drug treatment scheme in Stockport to speak to 24-year-old Steve, not his real name, from Liverpool.
“It first started when I was 15,” he said.
“Cannabis led to whizz, Es, pills and coke. Alcohol and drugs were a major part of my life for five years.
“When you’re young you hate to be the one left out and most my friends at school were alcohol and drug users.
“I was taking whatever I could get my hands on and mixing them with alcohol. We would come back at one or two in the morning every night and my mum and dad would be fuming.”
Treatment rises
Officials from the NTA say the overall rise in treatment over the last three years does not necessarily mean a record number of young people are abusing drugs and alcohol.
They claim at least part of the increase can be explained by the growth in treatment services.
Young people picked up by the police are also more likely to be drug tested and referred to a treatment centre.
But the figures do show a major change in the kind of drugs young people are getting treated for.
Counsellors are seeing a dramatic shift away from heroin and crack use, the two ‘problem drugs’ typically linked to serious abuse.
18,597 people aged 13-24 were treated for an addiction to those two drugs last year, down 19% in just two years.
At the same time, more young people are having a problem with booze mixed with ‘softer’ party drugs, a phenomenon nicknamed ACCE (pronounced ‘ace’) by drug workers, short for Alcohol plus Cocaine, Cannabis and Ecstasy.
The number of under-25s getting treatment for one or more of those drugs has gone up 44% from 21,744 in 2005/6 to 31,401 in 2007/8.
“Alcohol is cheaper and more available, cannabis is far stronger, cocaine is half the price it used to be and you can get half a dozen ecstasy tablets for £10,” according to Howard Parker, Professor Emeritus at Manchester University, who coined the term ‘ACCE’ last year.
“Put those three together and you’ve got just as serious a problem for health, family life and society as heroin.”
Work carried out by Parker and researchers at Liverpool John Moores University shows the average age of a heroin user in treatment in North West England has risen to 36. The average age of someone with an ACCE problem is just 22.
But while youth services aimed at under-18s can be effective at dealing with an ACCE-type problem, when users hit their 18th birthday they are often forced to switch to an adult-only drug treatment service.
“Those [adult] services are there to deal with heroin and crack users,” said Parker. “The real issue is why there are hardly any services for ACCErs when they get to 18. It’s just pot luck; it’s a postcode lottery.”
Adult drug projects are paid twice as much for treating a heroin and crack user as someone with a powder cocaine or ecstasy problem.
As a result, those services tend to focus on medical treatment like methadone replacement, a drug used to wean heroin users off their addiction.
But there are no ‘replacement’ drugs to treat a cocaine or cannabis problem.
Instead months or even years of therapy and support are needed to get users to manage their drug problem and eventually quit.
Alcohol plus drugs
The man in charge of young people’s drug policy for the National Treatment Agency, Tom Aldridge, told Newsbeat that adult services focus on heroin and crack users for a reason.
“There are very clear links between acquisitive crime and problematic [heroin and crack] drug use,” he said.
“We want to prioritise those drugs because they have more of an impact on society in terms of criminal activity and public health.
“But we are very clear that people should be given a service depending on their need, not depending on their age.
“If you have a 20 or 21-year-old that requires treatment best given by an under-18 service then they should go to that service.”
All under-18 services in England combine alcohol and drug treatment so young people can get detox and therapy for both problems at the same time.
But almost all adult services split alcohol and drugs into two completely separate programmes in different locations with different counsellors and critics say that can often mean young people drop out.
Tom Aldridge accepts that there may be an argument for combining alcohol and drug treatment for over-18s in England, as they have recently decided to do in Northern Ireland.
“We have no responsibility for the alcohol agenda,” he said. “If that were the case, there may well be lots in advantages in that. But it’s not the case at the moment.”
The Stockport solution
But in some parts of the country a handful of treatment services are already changing the way they work to deal with the ACCE phenomenon.
Newsbeat went to see a council-run drug scheme for young people in Stockport that has increased the age range of its patients from 18 all the way up to 25.
Heidi Shaw, who runs the centre called Mosaic, said that decision was a direct result of seeing more young people with recreational drug problems come through the doors.
“We knew those young people would not get help elsewhere,” she said. “Their lives are still being devastated by drugs. They are still having problems with crime, housing, training and employment.
“The same profile of substance misuse is coming through. It’s cannabis, alcohol and then cocaine.”
Mosaic also runs a service to support parents and family members of people in treatment and carries out drug prevention work in Stockport’s 14 schools.
Steve has been getting treatment for his alcohol and drug problems there for four years.
“I feel more comfortable because they seem to understand more about you,” he said. “They contact you virtually every day to see how you are doing.
“I went through detox. They put you in a dry house for a week and give you medication to counteract the effects of alcohol and the cravings.
“Since then I’ve not touched a drop and I’ve got Mosaic to thank for that.
“My life’s changed because I’m off alcohol completely and I’m working on the drugs. Hopefully this time next year, I will be off them as well.”
Source:  BBC Newsbeat 8th June 2009

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency is adding marijuana smoke to the Proposition 65 list1, effective June 19, 2009.
Marijuana smoke was considered by the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) of the OEHHA Science Advisory Board2 at a public meeting held on May 29, 2009.  The CIC determined that marijuana smoke was clearly shown, through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles, to cause cancer.  Consequently, marijuana smoke is being added to the Proposition 65 list, pursuant to Title 27, California Code of Regulations, section 25305(a)(1) (formerly Title 22, California Code of Regulations, section 12305(a)(1)).
A complete, updated chemical list is published elsewhere in this issue of the California Regulatory Notice Register.
In summary, marijuana smoke is being listed under Proposition 65 as known to the State to cause cancer:
Source:  State of California published announcement l9th June 2009

The annual United Nations World Drug Report published yesterday confirmed my analysis of the available data which shows the UK to have the worst drugs problem in Europe. Yet a month ago when the The Phoney War on Drugs was published by the CPS Jacqui Smith and the Home Office went into denial mode.
While repeating Labour’s worn out justification that “overall drug use is lower than when Labour took office”, and that this is “a clear sign that our strategy is working” – exactly the myth that my paper debunked – she resolutely turned her back on the facts of rising drug deaths, rising ‘problem’ drug use (now put by the UN at 400,000, some 70,000 higher than 2006 measures)  rising prescribed methadone dependency and the doubling of cocaine consumption.
Even before the latest UN report figures were released new data in the last month on drugs related damage and a new analyses of seizure data confirmed my thesis.  The Independent on Sunday  revealed a 67% increase in the number of babies born suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms in the past 10 years even though these statistics (of opiate addicted babies) exclude those newborns with problems due to their mother’s exposure to cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis.
Yesterday’s UN Report repeated my comparative data analysis which showed that the UK is the largest market for cocaine and that consumption has more than doubled in recent years and is higher than anywhere else in Europe.
Martin Blakebrough, the CEO of the drug charity Kaleidoscope said in response that, “The numbers exploded probably around five years ago and they’ve continued to rise because it’s become more mainstream .. it has a kudos or glamour not associated with other substances”. Meanwhile drugs counsellors confirm that teenagers are moving from cannabis to cocaine as young as 14 and that use by children as young as 11 is rising. It is something that the government’s preferred treatment intervention, methadone prescribing, can do nothing about.
SOCA’s claim that this consumption rise is despite cocaine prices reaching record levels due to their interdiction must however be treated with extreme scepticism. These are not street prices and reflect currency exchange rate changes as I pointed out a few weeks ago.
The truth is that the explosion in cocaine use mirrors a period in which UK cocaine quantity seizures have dropped, as have prices, while the market has expanded. The hard evidence I detailed in my paper points to failing enforcement competence and commitment on the part of the government and SOCA. Furthermore publication this month of an analysis of Scottish heroin seizures by Professor Neil McKeagney confirmed that these are at record lows.
So, surely now the Government and its various drugs satellites and quangos must face the truth of the uniquely appalling social problem we face in Britain and the extent to which their misguided policy has contributed to it.  They must finally give up trying to justify themselves by one selective measure of drugs use prevalence picked from the British Crime Survey and the English Schools survey and accept the fact that this does not even begin to measure the extent of drugs related harm. Even less does it measure policy efficacy.
Nowhere is this claim less credible than in their resort to these ‘official’ measures of declining cannabis use to ‘prove’ that adolescent drug use and addiction are under control.  Neither of these surveys reach the part of the population that drugs reach most. Fewer schools sampled each year chose to cooperate.  The number of truanting, absentee and excluded children continues to rise.  The Government apparently remains convinced that if schoolchildren’s cannabis use is dropping that this is sufficient unto the day. The ‘if’ remains quite big.
The reality on the streets however is one of a youth alcohol and drugs crisis that Ray Lewis illustrated powerfully in response to my paper. The number in need of drugs treatment continues to rise (alongside hospital admissions); demand outpaces provision while the ‘treatment’ on offer is totally inadequate.
One thin and poorly nourished boy I met last week told me that on his estate he knew no one, neither adolescent nor adult, who did not use drugs.  And just a few weeks ago when I asked a health visitor working in inner London how many of the 400 families on her books had a drug problem, she countered defensively, “don’t ask, it is a fact of life, we have to accept it.”  That is the trouble. This is the official attitude to drug use and everything that goes with it is: ‘There is nothing you can do’.
But it is the Government’s performance-driven, methadone ‘treatment’ drugs policy that is maintaining these lifestyles rather than changing them. All the kids do, one adolescent addiction counsellor told me, is use ‘community treatment’ on offer as part of this lifestyle.  They are offered nothing to make them change or to enable such a change. Treatment ‘in the community’ leaves them with the same older adults still in their lives and subject to the same environment. They may go through several methadone ‘detoxes’ with the aim of ‘bringing down’ their illicit drug use, but this is often even without a plan to reduce the methadone use. There is no other ambition. “You can get up to 40mls of methadone a day if you are under 16”, one girl confidently told me. “All it does”, she said, “is to keep everything going – to maintain everything else”.
She was one of the handful of lucky ones. Two three month sessions at Middlegate, the only dedicated residential adolescent addiction centre in the country, had changed her life. A heroin addict at 14, moved from one inadequate foster home to another, finding herself on the street and in dealers flats, missing out on years of her education, she had, thanks to one enlightened and persistent social worker who forced the local authority to stump up the cash, been sent to Middlegate. This summer she has been sitting four academic AS levels.
The staff at Middlegate despair at the years of wasted public money pumped into ‘community treatment’ when they know what they can achieve with the most desperate of cases. What the kids need, they say, is rescuing and lifting out of their environments – not a sequence of social workers and drug workers operating with their government defined agendas to ‘rebuild families’ at whatever the cost yet incapable of providing the long term commitment required.
Yet the National Treatment Agency, wedded to this ‘treatment in the community’ agenda for all adolescents,  refuses to ring fence any funds for Middlegate to ensure this life changing programme can continue, let alone be replicated anywhere else.
Responding to The Phoney War on Drugs one highly respected addiction psychiatrist commented that I had not emphasised sufficiently “the huge waste of resource brought about by the NTA’s enthusiasm to allow managerialism to take over the field.”  He is right. The NTA’s approach to treatment is now so entrenched in a complex, resource hungry but inflexible bureaucracy that it is standing in the way of the revolution in rehabilitation that is required.  Nothing less than a major diversion of resources in the direction of rehabilitation and away from people processing plus a clearly conditional and contractual approach to drug treatment will work.
The government would do well now, before inflicting more damage on our society, to face the facts and acknowledge that their approach to ‘treatment’ and their drugs policy has failed abysmally.
Source:  http://www.cps.org.uk  25.06.2009

More than 11,000 children under 16 years old were treated last year for addictions to alcohol and drugs, including heroin, according to new figures released this week.
The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse puts the total figure of children treated at 11,294. This includes 6,075 under-16s addicted to cannabis, of which 102 are under 12 years old.
More than 4,000 children received help for alcoholism, including 57 under-12s.
The children addicted to class A drugs included ten under-12s who were dependent on heroin, out of 93 under-16s. A further 323 children were treated for cocaine misuse, 165 for ecstasy, and 36 for crack.
Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the government is neglecting a ‘forgotten generation’ of children. “It’s a sad indictment of our broken society that so many are turning to things like drug and alcohol abuse at such a young age” he said.
The Department of Health said the high figures were due to an increase in spending on treatment, a rise of £10million, from £15million to £25million in the past five years,
Funding for the government’s national anti-drug campaign which is aimed at teenagers has been cut by 41 per cent from £9.05million in 2006-7 to £5.35million today.
Charity Drugscope offered an optimistic approach to the figures, saying the overall numbers of young people using illegal drugs has fallen in recent years, especially cannabis.
Source: www.askamum.co.uk  8th July 2009

White House ‘drug czar’ Gil Kerlikowske lays out his most thorough arguments yet against marijuana legalization. They help clear up confusion over White House drug policy, and can serve as talking points for parents and officials.
The Obama White House has finally laid out its most thorough, reasoned rebuttal to arguments for marijuana legalization – countering a campaign that is gaining alarming momentum at the state level.
The president’s tough position was delivered in early March by his “drug czar,” Gil Kerlikowske, in a private talk before police chiefs in California – which is ground zero for this debate.
“Marijuana legalization – for any purpose – is a nonstarter in the Obama administration,” said Mr. Kerlikowske, a former police chief himself.
It’s almost certain that California voters will be asked in a November ballot initiative whether to allow local governments to regulate and tax marijuana (similar to taxes on sales of alcohol). Other states are considering similar proposals, which are really a backdoor way to legalize pot.
(For a Monitor news story on the California ballot initiative, click here)
Thirteen states have decriminalized the use or possession of small amounts of marijuana, which is not the same as legalizing it. Selling it is still illegal except in states where it is used for medical purposes. And under federal law, any sort of marijuana use or sale is a criminal offense.
The drug czar’s remarks are worth notice for two reasons. First, they provide needed talking points for those who oppose legalization but who can’t seem to make their message resonate in the face of a well-financed, well-organized pro-marijuana effort. Second, they help clear up confusion about the White House policy on legalization.
When Attorney General Eric Holder announced last year that US law enforcement officials would neither raid nor prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries or those using them, states got mixed signals. Mr. Holder explained it as a matter of the best use of scarce federal law enforcement resources, which he didn’t want to expend in the now 14 states that have approved some use of medical marijuana.
But “a lot of people believe the administration is somewhat in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana,” says Scott Kirkland, police chief for El Cerrito, in the San Francisco Bay area. In California, the public, city council members, city managers, even police chiefs have “misinterpreted” the administration’s position, says Mr. Kirkland, the spokesman for marijuana issues for the California Police Chiefs Association.
The drug czar couldn’t have been more plain. On medical marijuana, which has strong public backing in opinion polls, the former Seattle police chief said that “science should determine what a medicine is, not popular vote.” As Kerlikowske pointed out, marijuana is harmful – and he has the studies to back it up. Read the footnotes in his speech; they’re sobering, especially No. 8.
(For a previous Monitor editorial on the perils of legalizing pot, click here)
Legalization supporters argue that no one has ever died from an overdose of this “soft” drug. But here’s what “science” has found so far: Smoking marijuana can result in dependence on the drug.
More than 30 percent of people who are 18 and over and who used marijuana in the past year are either dependent on the drug or abuse it – that is, they use it repeatedly under hazardous conditions or are imparied when they’re supposed to be interacting with others, such as at work. This is according to a 2004 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pot is also associated with poor motor skills, cognitive impairment (i.e., affecting the ability to think, reason, and process information), and respiratory and mental illness.
The recent “Pentagon shooter,” John Patrick Bedell, was a heavy marijuana user. The disturbed young man’s psychiatrist told the Associated Press that marijuana made the symptoms of his mental illness more pronounced. Mr. Bedell’s brother, Jeffrey, told The Washington Post that marijuana made his brother’s thinking “more disordered” and that he had implored him to stop smoking pot, to no avail.
Kerlikowske also effectively knocked down the argument that regulating and taxing marijuana is a great way for states to make money in these deficit-dreary times. Indeed, NORML, the lead group in the legalization movement, is set to launch a digital ad campaign in Manhattan’s Times Square next week: “Money CAN grow on trees!”
It’s a claim that’s too good to be true, just as the exclamation point implies. Look at the nation’s experience with regulated alcohol. America collects nearly $15 billion a year in federal and state taxes from alcohol. But Kerlikowske says that covers less than 10 percent of the “social costs” related to healthcare, lost productivity, and law enforcement. And what about lost lives? Let’s not add marijuana to the mix of regulated substances.
“The costs of legalizing marijuana would outweigh any possible tax that could be levied,” Kerlikowske explains. In the United States, illegal drugs already cost an estimated $180 billion annually in social costs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. That number would increase as marijuana became more widely and easily available.
The Dutch – so often praised by marijuana advocates – have had to greatly ratchet back the number of legal marijuana outlets because of crime, nuisance, and increased pot usage among youth. Los Angeles, too, now sees the need to scale back the number of private dispensaries of medical marijuana. Many California towns have looked at L.A. and are saying “no” to dispensaries.
The California Board of Equalization, which administers the state’s sales tax, estimates $1.4 billion of potential revenue from a marijuana tax. Found money? Its reasoning is based on either “a series of assumptions that are in some instances subject to tremendous uncertainty or in other cases not valid,” according to an independent study by the RAND Corporation.
What’s too bad about the drug czar’s speech is that it was made behind closed doors at a venue not accessible to the press, then quietly put on the administration’s website. Given the confusion over the message, the White House needs to be far more outspoken about this.
President Obama himself needs to get more involved than simply letting his drug czar reveal this critical stance below the radar. As a high-profile parent, he can help other parents who are struggling to prevent their children from going down the rabbit hole of drug use. If one message can resonate in this debate, it’s that America’s young people are most vulnerable to the threat of legalization.
They are particularly sensitive to the price of pot (and prices will come down if pot is legalized). They’re the most influenced by societal norms (and public approval is growing). And they’re the ones most heavily engaged in studying and learning – a process that pot smoking can impair.
Individuals who reach age 21 without using drugs are almost certain to never use them. But according to a study by a leading source on young people and drugs, Monitoring the Future, marijuana use among teens has increased in recent years, after a decade of decline. Teens perceive less risk in use – not surprising when states approve of it as medicine. Risk perception greatly influences drug use among young people.
The risks of marijuana – and the wisdom of knowing that joy and satisfaction are not found in a drug – are lessons that Mr. Obama could effectively teach the nation. But even so, it can’t stop there.
The momentum, for now, is with those who want to legalize marijuana. They have been generously financed by a few billionaires, including George Soros, and make strategic use of the Internet and media.
It will take clear-thinking parents, teachers, local officials, faith leaders, and law enforcement officers to convincingly articulate why the march to legalization must be stopped. They can, if they use the kinds of reasonable and fact-based arguments that the nation’s drug czar has just laid out.
(To read Gil Kerlikowske’s speech, click here.)
Kerlikowske also effectively knocked down the argument that regulating and taxing marijuana is a great way for states to make money in these deficit-dreary times. Indeed, NORML, the lead group in the legalization movement, is set to launch a digital ad campaign in Manhattan’s Times Square next week: “Money CAN grow on trees!”
It’s a claim that’s too good to be true, just as the exclamation point implies. Look at the nation’s experience with regulated alcohol. America collects nearly $15 billion a year in federal and state taxes from alcohol. But Kerlikowske says that covers less than 10 percent of the “social costs” related to healthcare, lost productivity, and law enforcement. And what about lost lives? Let’s not add marijuana to the mix of regulated substances.
“The costs of legalizing marijuana would outweigh any possible tax that could be levied,” Kerlikowske explains. In the United States, illegal drugs already cost an estimated $180 billion annually in social costs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. That number would increase as marijuana became more widely and easily available.
The Dutch – so often praised by marijuana advocates – have had to greatly ratchet back the number of legal marijuana outlets because of crime, nuisance, and increased pot usage among youth. Los Angeles, too, now sees the need to scale back the number of private dispensaries of medical marijuana. Many California towns have looked at L.A. and are saying “no” to dispensaries.
The California Board of Equalization, which administers the state’s sales tax, estimates $1.4 billion of potential revenue from a marijuana tax. Found money? Its reasoning is based on either “a series of assumptions that are in some instances subject to tremendous uncertainty or in other cases not valid,” according to an independent study by the RAND Corporation.
What’s too bad about the drug czar’s speech is that it was made behind closed doors at a venue not accessible to the press, then quietly put on the administration’s website. Given the confusion over the message, the White House needs to be far more outspoken about this.
President Obama himself needs to get more involved than simply letting his drug czar reveal this critical stance below the radar. As a high-profile parent, he can help other parents who are struggling to prevent their children from going down the rabbit hole of drug use. If one message can resonate in this debate, it’s that America’s young people are most vulnerable to the threat of legalization.
They are particularly sensitive to the price of pot (and prices will come down if pot is legalized). They’re the most influenced by societal norms (and public approval is growing). And they’re the ones most heavily engaged in studying and learning – a process that pot smoking can impair.
Individuals who reach age 21 without using drugs are almost certain to never use them. But according to a study by a leading source on young people and drugs, Monitoring the Future, marijuana use among teens has increased in recent years, after a decade of decline. Teens perceive less risk in use – not surprising when states approve of it as medicine. Risk perception greatly influences drug use among young people.
The risks of marijuana – and the wisdom of knowing that joy and satisfaction are not found in a drug – are lessons that Mr. Obama could effectively teach the nation. But even so, it can’t stop there.
The momentum, for now, is with those who want to legalize marijuana. They have been generously financed by a few billionaires, including George Soros, and make strategic use of the Internet and media.
It will take clear-thinking parents, teachers, local officials, faith leaders, and law enforcement officers to convincingly articulate why the march to legalization must be stopped. They can, if they use the kinds of reasonable and fact-based arguments that the nation’s drug czar has just laid out.
Source: www.csmonitor.com  By the Monitor’s Editorial Board / March 12, 2010

Calls for action as crime hits six times worldwide average. Scotland is the worst country in the world for drug-related crime, according to an international study.
The United Nations found there were 656 drug offences per 100,000 people in Scotland. Second-placed Iran recorded 619 per 100,000.
The figures, which compared drug-related crime, possession and abuse across more than 70 states, put Scotland’s drug crime rate at more than double that of England and Wales, and six times the worldwide average.   Experts and opposition parties described the statistics, from a survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as “horrifying”.
Former director of Scotland Against Drugs, Alistair Ramsay, said: “This report should act as a wake-up call to the government. There has been a huge rise in problematic drug users in recent years and we know many of them fund their habit through crime.
“The fact is the way drugs are tackled needs a radical shake-up. We need a proper, co-ordinated strategy.”    Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “These are horrifying figures and it is clear action is long overdue.
“Practically all crimes such as shoplifting, housebreaking and car theft are related to a need to feed a drug habit. It may be that much tougher action is necessary in the years ahead.”
However, Gordon Meldrum, director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, insisted that the war on drugs was being won.   He said: “The latest Scottish Crime and Justice Survey shows encouraging signs that more people in Scotland are living their lives  free from the influence of drugs. We have better intelligence than ever before and more hard drugs are being intercepted closer to source before they are cut into multiple street-level deals.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said that the administration was investing record amounts in justice as well as delivering the highest number of police to fight serious crime.
Source: www.news.stv.tv.  21 February 2010 10:58 AM

Nine people accounted for 2,678 of the emergency room visits in the Austin, Texas, area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report by the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.  The average emergency room visit costs $1,000.  Hospitals and taxpayers paid the bill through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.  Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless.
Source:  St.Petersburg Times. 4th April 2009

Have you ever forgotten to post an important letter or let an appointment slip your mind? A new study from UK researchers suggests that for those who regularly use ecstasy or other recreational drugs, this kind of memory lapse is more common. Their research, which uncovered potential links between memory deficits and cocaine for the first time, appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, published by SAGE.

Florentia Hadjiefthyvoulou, John Fisk, and Nikola Bridges from the University of Central Lancashire and Catharine Montgomery from Liverpool John Moores University wanted to delve deeper into the link between deficits in prospective memory (remembering to remember, or remembering to perform an intended action) and drug use.

The new research into prospective memory expands on previous studies, which have shown that ecstasy or polydrug users are impaired in performing a number of cognitive tasks, including verbal and spatial exercises. A team led by Fisk also published evidence in 2005 that those using ecstasy perform worse in deductive reasoning, too. Prospective memory tasks can be either time or event based, which means that the external trigger to remember could be in response to an event, or because it is time to do something. The distinction is important because these memory tasks use somewhat different brain processes.

The researchers recruited 42 ecstasy/polydrug users (14 males, 28 females) and 31 non-users (5 males, 26 females) for the study – all were students. The students were quizzed about their drug habits (including tobacco, cannabis and alcohol), and given questionnaires to assess their everyday memory, cognitive failures and prospective and retrospective memory. They were then given a number of lab-based memory tests, including some that required students to remember something several weeks later. The results showed that recreational drugs such as ecstasy, or the regular use of several drugs, affect users’ memory functions, even when tests are controlled for cannabis, tobacco or alcohol use. According to Fisk, memory deficits were evident in both lab-based and self-reported measurements of subjects’ prospective memory.

The results also suggested that ecstasy/polydrug users “possess some self awareness of their memory lapses.”
The authors say that although ecstasy/polydrug users as a whole are aware of their memory problems they may be uncertain as to which illicit drug is behind the defects they perceive. “The present results suggest that these deficits are likely to be real rather than imagined and are evident in both time- and event-based prospective memory contexts,” Fisk says.

Source: www.cadca.org l8 March 2010

Summary

While there is a wealth of research into the health impact of tobacco smoking, there is relatively little on the effects of cannabis smoking.
Research investigating whether the inhalation of cannabis smoke causes damage to the lungs and airways focuses on whether this effect is independent of the effects of tobacco smoke or not.
In general, the studies indicate that there is an increased negative health impact on those who smoke cannabis compared to those who do not smoke at all. When cannabis is smoked together with tobacco then the effects are additive.
However, what is not clear is whether it is the addition of the cannabis or the tobacco which is more harmful or whether this is the result of the combined effects of equally harmful substances.
Some key findings emerge from the research:
• The cannabis smoked today is much more potent that that smoked in the 1960s. The average cannabis cigarette smoked in the 1960s contained
about 10mg of tetrahydrocanabinol (THC), the ingredient which accounts for the psychoactive properties of cannabis, compared to 150mg of THC today. This means that longitudinal studies carried out in the 1960s and 1970s may not be
indicative of the effects of cannabis cigarettes
smoked today.
• Studies comparing the clinical effects of habitual cannabis smokers versus nonsmokers demonstrate a significantly higher prevalence of chronic and acute respiratory symptoms such as chronic cough and sputum production, wheeze and acute bronchitis episodes.
• 3-4 Cannabis cigarettes a day are associated with the same evidence of acute and chronic bronchitis and the same degree of damage to the
bronchial mucosa as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day.
• Cannabis tends to be smoked in a way which increases the puff volume by two-thirds and depth of inhalation by one-third. There is an
average fourfold longer breath-holding time with cannabis than with tobacco. This means that there is a greater respiratory burden of carbon
monoxide and smoke particulates such as tar than when smoking a similar quantity of tobacco.
• Cannabis smoking is likely to weaken the immune system. Infections of the lung are due to a combination of smoking-related damage to the
cells lining the bronchial passage (the fine hair-like projection on these cells filter out inhaled microorganisms)and impairment of the principal immune cells in the small air sacs caused by cannabis.
• The evidence concerning a possible link between cannabis smoking and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has not
yet been conclusively established. A number of studies indicate a causal relationship between the two whereas others contradict these findings.
• Research linking cannabis smoking to the development of respiratory cancer exists although there have also been conflicting findings. Not
only does the tar in a cannabis cigarette contain many of the same known carcinogens as tobacco smoke but the concentrations of these are up to 50% higher in the smoke of a cannabis cigarette. It also deposits four times as much tar on the respiratory tract as an unfiltered cigarette of the same weight. Smokers of cannabis and tobacco have shown a greater increase in cellular abnormalities indicating a cumulative effect of smoking both.
• The THC in cannabis has been shown to have a short term bronchodilator effect. This has lead to suggestions that THC may have therapeutic benefits in asthma. However, the noxious gases, chronic airway irritation or malignancy after long term use associated with smoking would seem likely to negate these benefits.

Recommendations
From a clinical perspective the main effects of smoking cannabis on the lungs are increased risk of pulmonary infections and respiratory cancers. Benzpyrene, a known constituent of the tar of cannabis cigarettes has been shown to promote alterations in one of the most common tumour suppressor genes, p53, hence facilitating the development of respiratory cancer. Gene p53 is
thought to play a role in 75% of all lung cancers. The British Lung Foundation recommends a public health education campaign aimed at young people to ensure that they are fully aware of the increased risk of pulmonary infections and respiratory cancers associated with cannabis smoking. The increased potency of the cannabis smoked today compared to the cannabis smoked twentythirty years ago suggests that earlier studies may underestimate the effects of cannabis smoking. In addition the lack of conclusive evidence concerning
the link between cannabis smoking and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) underlines the need for further research.
The British Lung Foundation recommends that further research is undertaken to take into account the increased potency of today’s cannabis and to establish what link (if any) there is between COPD and cannabissmoking.

Source: British Lung Foundation Report ‘A Smoking Gun’ 2007

November 9, 2006

Men diagnosed with cancer are less likely to survive the disease if they were smokers or heavy drinkers. Smoking and drinking are well-known risk factors for cancer, but researchers have begun looking into how these addictions affect survivability, as well. Researcher Young Ho Yun and colleagues at the National Cancer Center in Goyang, South Korea tracked 14,578 cancer patients for about nine years and compared mortality data to patients’ history of smoking and alcohol use.
The researchers found that former smokers were more likely to die from any kind of cancer than nonsmoking cancer patients, possibly because smoking causes tumors to grow more aggressively. Smokers also may be less likely to get cancer screening tests, the authors noted, so their disease is often further advanced when treatment begins.
Among patients with head, neck, or liver cancer, heavy drinkers were more likely to die than nondrinkers, with risk increasing with consumption levels.
“Our findings suggest that groups at high risk of cancer need to be educated continually to improve their health behaviors — not only to prevent cancer, but also to improve prognosis,” the study authors noted.

Source: Journal of Clinical Oncology Nov. 1, 2006.

Reference:
Park, S.M., Lim, M.K., Shin, S.A., Yun, Y.H. (2006) Impact of Prediagnosis Smoking, Alcohol, Obesity, and Insulin Resistance on Survival in Male Cancer Patients: National Health Insurance Corporation Study. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 24(31): 5017-5024.

September 7, 2007

Research Summary
Cocaine and amphetamine users appear to develop an abnormal protein in their brains that could play a role in addiction.
Researchers at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, Ill., found that use of these drugs alters a protein that controls how RNA is copied — an anomaly that could cause structural changes in tissues, diseases, and behavior changes.

Reference:
Marinescu V, Loomis PA, Ehmann S, Beales M, Potashkin JA (2007) Regulation of Retention of FosB Intron 4 by PTB. PLoS ONE, 2(9): e828; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000828.
This article summarizes a mainstream media report of research published in a scientific journal. It is not an original analysis of the source material, which is cited in the reference above.

Source: online journal PLoS One. September 2007

Research Summary

Vitamin K helps prevent brain injury in newborns. If alcohol dependence is associated with brain development in infancy, giving babies vitamin K might reduce their future risk of dependence. To explore this possibility, researchers studied a 30-year prospective cohort of male infants in Denmark.
Of 238 men, 18% had received 1 mg of vitamin K intramuscularly at birth, 16% had alcohol dependence (assessed at age 30), and 68% had fathers with alcohol dependence. Receipt of vitamin K was not significantly associated with gestational age, birth weight, birth complications, or signs of neurological impairment at birth.
• Only 5% of men who had received vitamin K at birth had alcohol dependence compared with 18% of men who had not received the vitamin.
• In an analysis adjusted for birth weight and having a father with alcohol dependence, men who had received vitamin K had significantly fewer symptoms of alcohol dependence.
Comments by Richard Saitz, MD, MPH:
The results of this analysis suggest that perinatal brain injury (e.g., hemorrhage, which is now much less common due to universal administration of vitamin K to neonates) increases the risk of alcohol dependence. These results also imply that preventive interventions that reduce neurological trauma early in life may lower vulnerability to dependence later.
Reprinted with permission from Alcohol and Health: Current Evidence.

Source: JoinTogether Online. Jan.2006

Cannabinoids may suppress tumor invasion in highly invasive cancers, according to a study published online December 25 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, are used to reduce the side effects of cancer treatment, such as pain, weight loss, and vomiting, but there is increasing evidence that they may also inhibit tumor cell growth. However, the cellular mechanisms behind this are unknown.
Robert Ramer, Ph.D., and Burkhard Hinz, Ph.D., of the University of Rostock in Germany investigated whether and by what mechanism cannabinoids inhibit tumor cell invasion.
Cannabinoids did suppress tumor cell invasion and stimulated the expression of TIMP-1, an inhibitor of a group of enzymes that are involved in tumor cell invasion.
“To our knowledge, this is the first report of TIMP-1-dependent anti-invasive effects of cannabinoids. This signaling pathway may play an important role in the antimetastatic action of cannabinoids, whose potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of highly invasive cancers should be addressed in clinical trials,” the authors write.

Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2007, December 27). Cannabinoids May Inhibit Cancer Cell Invasion. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2007/12/071226004546.htm

A longer-acting alternative to methadone that never quite caught on following its FDA approval in 1993 may now greatly increase the number of addicts who stick with treatment, thanks to a new Johns Hopkins study.

The study suggests better ways of taking LAAM (levomethadyl acetate hydrochloride), a drug similar to methadone in its capacity to discourage heroin use and block withdrawal symptoms. However, unlike methadone, which addicts must use daily, LAAM can be taken three times a week, making it far more convenient and potentially less expensive.
LAAM isn’t widely used, because of both uncertainties about how effective it is in the first stages of addiction treatment and doubts that it would be accepted by addicts. Earlier this year, for example, only about 3,000 U.S. patients were getting the drug.
“Use of LAAM has been less than hoped for since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration,” says Rolley E. Johnson, Pharm.D, associate professor of psychiatry, who headed the Hopkins study. Early studies didn’t test participants’ responses at various dosages, and under the cautious little-by-little approach to giving the medication, it appeared less effective than methadone at the first stage of treatment. Because of this, many assumed that LAAM lacked the necessary opiate-like effects early on. “Users said they couldn’t feel the drug working and were more likely to drop out of treatment,” Johnson noted.
The new Hopkins study, however, reported in this month’s Archives of General Psychiatry, shows that at the proper dosage on the proper schedule, LAAM is safe, effective and acceptable to addicts. “It could become a valuable addition to heroin addiction programs. Its convenience compared with methadone is a great advantage for addicts who hold jobs,” says Hendree Jones, Ph.D., one of the investigators. “They can earn a living more easily while continuing to receive treatment.”
To test LAAM, researchers gave 180 heroin-addicted volunteers either low-, medium-, or high-dose schedules, phasing in the drug over 17 days. They then looked at a combination of drug tests on subjects’ urine samples and subjects’ own reports to get a picture of how their heroin use had changed.
Heroin use dropped in all groups. The reduction was significant, though, in the high-dose group, showing a more than 80 percent plunge in self-reported heroin use. Also, more than 80 percent of the volunteers stayed with the trials, says Johnson. “That’s high for a study like this. It’s a good sign that most participants accepted LAAM.”
Though LAAM seems to work best on the high-dose course, Johnson says, that dose also had the most subjects drop out of the study. “It’s mostly because side effects begin to appear at higher doses.” So he suggests an approach that uses careful monitoring as the dose gets higher. Johnson would like to see more studies to help figure the optimal LAAM dose for individual patients: “Then we’ll be able to help even more addicts.”
LAAM works on the tiny receptors in the membranes of nerve cells in the brain. It binds to the so-called mu opioid receptors, the same ones that heroin and methadone target. Once attached, molecules of LAAM stimulate the receptors. But because LAAM remains there for a relatively long time, it blocks receptor access for other opioid drugs: addicts take heroin, for example, and it has none of its usual effects.

Source. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 11, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/1998/08/980817081828.htm

Alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales are twice as high among people born in Scotland or Ireland compared with the rest of the population, a study has shown
Alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales are twice as high among people born in Scotland or Ireland compared with the rest of the population, a study has shown.
Research, conducted by the University of Edinburgh and the Office for National Statistics, also found that men born in India – but living in England and Wales – had similar rates of alcohol-related death as Scottish- and Irish-born people.
The findings showed too that people born in parts of Asia or Africa were at greater risk of dying from liver cancer, but generally had lower rates of alcohol-related deaths. The higher rate of death from liver cancer could be attributable to the fact that viral hepatitis is more common in ethnic minority communities.
The team used information on deaths for England and Wales from 1999 to 2003 and figures from the 2001 census to quantify the link between a person’s country of birth and the likelihood of dying from an alcohol-related condition.
The difference in alcohol-related deaths rates could be explained by cultural differences in rates of alcohol consumption. For example, adults who are Scottish or Irish have been shown on average to drink more than the recommended limit of alcohol.
The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, follows recent reports that alcohol-related hospital admissions in the over 65s are rising.
Dr Neeraj Bhala, who led the study, said: “Deaths from alcohol-related conditions, liver disease and liver cancer are increasing in the UK, but little is known about the role of ethnicity or country of birth. Some ethnic groups appear to be setting an example for the population as a whole with very low rates of liver disease, almost certainly as a result of low alcohol consumption.”
“These findings show significant differences in death rates by country of birth for both alcohol-related deaths and liver cancer. We now need to focus on developing new policy, research and practical action to help address these differences.”
Alcohol is thought to cause as much death and disability worldwide as tobacco use or high blood pressure. In England alone, alcohol misuse is estimated to costs more than £20 billion a year.

Source: EurekaAlert. 19th March 2009

Brain volume decreases with age at an estimated rate of 1.9 percent per decade, accompanied by an increase in white matter lesions, according to background information in the article. Lower brain volumes and larger white matter lesions also occur with the progression of dementia and problems with thinking, learning and memory. Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease; because the brain receives blood from this system, researchers have hypothesized that small amounts of alcohol may also attenuate age-related declines in brain volume.
Carol Ann Paul, M.S., of Wellesley College, Mass., and colleagues studied 1,839 adults (average age 60) who were part of the Framingham Offspring Study, which began in 1971 and includes children of the original Framingham Heart Study participants and their spouses. Between 1999 and 2001, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a health examination. They reported the number of alcoholic drinks they consumed per week, along with their age, sex, education, height, body mass index and Framingham Stroke Risk Profile (which calculates stroke risk based on age, sex, blood pressure and other factors).
“Most participants reported low alcohol consumption, and men were more likely than women to be moderate or heavy drinkers,” the authors write. “There was a significant negative linear relationship between alcohol consumption and total cerebral brain volume.”
Although men were more likely to drink alcohol, the association between drinking and brain volume was stronger in women, they note. This could be due to biological factors, including women’s smaller size and greater susceptibility to alcohol’s effects.
“The public health effect of this study gives a clear message about the possible dangers of drinking alcohol,” the authors write. “Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to confirm these results as well as to determine whether there are any functional consequences associated with increasing alcohol consumption. This study suggests that, unlike the associations with cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption does not have any protective effect on brain volume.”

Source: Paul et al. Association of Alcohol Consumption With Brain Volume in the Framingham Study. Archives of Neurology, 2008; 65 (10): 1363 DOI:

Key findings from Professor Martin Plant, Alcohol Health and Research Unit,Faculty of Health and Sciences, University of the West of England and AlcoholConcern, the national agency on alcohol misuse.

Professor Plant and his team were commissioned by Alcohol Concern in April 2009 to investigate what the future may hold for the nation’s drinking habits and associated harms. Professor Plant’s forecasting allows us to answer how our drinking patterns are likely to affect the state of the nation’s health in 2035.

For the first time in the UK, the relationship between alcohol consumption and mortality has been calculated. The research indicates a definitive link: the higher our society’s alcohol consumption, the more deaths occur as a result. Based on this, it is possible to forecast how health harms from alcohol may increase in the next 10 years if we continue to drink at the rate of the last 15 years.

Source: www.Alcoholconcern.org.uk Oct 2009

Poor parenting is not the reason for an increase in problem behaviour amongst teenagers, according to research led by Oxford University.

A team led by Professor Frances Gardner from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Oxford found no evidence of a general decline in parenting. Their findings show that differences in parenting according to family structure and income have narrowed over the last 25 years. However, the task of parenting is changing and could be getting increasingly stressful, particularly for some groups.
Parents and teenagers are choosing to spend more quality time together than 25 years ago, with 70 per cent of young people regularly spending time with their mothers in 2006 compared to 62 per cent in 1986. For fathers, the figure had increased from 47 per cent to 52 per cent.
This research follows a Nuffield-funded study in 2004, which identified an increase in both adolescent conduct and emotional problems over the last 25 years.
Despite the rise, this latest study shows that today’s parents are more likely to know where their teenage children are and what they are doing than their 1980s equivalents. The proportion asking what their children were doing has increased from 47 per cent in 1986 to 66 per cent in 2006.
Differences in the monitoring of teenage children, according to family type and income, have narrowed. For example in 1994, 14–15 year olds from single parent families were more likely to be out late without their parents knowing where compared with two parent families, but by 2005 this difference had disappeared.
Professor Gardner said: ‘We found no evidence for declining standards of parenting overall, and this leads us to believe this factor does not generally explain the rise in problem behaviour.’
Parents of teenagers are increasingly likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety themselves, particularly one-parent families and those on low incomes. For example, the proportion of parents from the most economically disadvantaged group who reported symptoms of depression and anxiety had increased by more than 50 per cent between 1986 and 2006.
The research highlights a different set of challenges for parents compared with 25 years ago. Young people now are reliant on their parents for longer, with higher proportions of 20–24 year olds living with their parents. Many more remain in some kind of education or training into their late teens. In addition, the development of new technology, such as mobile phones and the Internet, has created new monitoring challenges for parents.
‘Today’s parents have had to develop skills that are significantly different and arguably more complex than 25 years ago, and this could be increasing the stress involved in parenting,’ Professor Gardner said.
The research, commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation for a briefing paper, Time trends in parenting and outcomes for young people, was authored by Dr Ann Hagell, Head of the Nuffield Foundation’s Changing Adolescence Programme.
The research team reviewed published evidence, and analysed two sets of UK nationally representative data. The first was the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), with annual data on parenting reported by teenagers and their parents from 1994 onwards. The second data source comes from a related Nuffield-funded project, led by Dr Stephan Collishaw, to study causes of trends in youth mental health.

Source: Science Daily 2 August 2009

The Hague – Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin plans to criminalise the sale of merchandise designed for the cultivation of marihuana. The legislation is aimed at combatting ‘grow shops’ which trade throughout the Netherlands.

A majority of Dutch MPs favour banning ‘grow shops’ which sell everything necessary for growing cannabis plants. The outlets also often give advice on large-scale cultivation of the drug and on getting started in the marihuana trade.

Parliament is today debating the drugs issue and is expected to urge wide-ranging research into the effects of the Netherlands’ famously tolerant drugs policy.

Source: http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/5672665 March 6th 2008

The Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) today called for a clear-cut policy for the government to help rehabilitated drug addicts who have turned over a new leaf to secure jobs. Its vice-chairman, Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, said both the government and private sector should look into the employment of rehabilitated drug addicts and help them to be re-integrated into society so that they could settle down and not have to live a life of crime.

“The government should consider initiating a policy to help former drug addicts to seek employment just as it has a policy on the employment of disabled persons,” he said in a statement on Sunday. Lee said providing employment to former drug addicts to keep them away from crime was essential as unemployed former addicts had been identified as one of the primary causes of snatch thefts and other petty crimes in the country.

“Drug addicts who have successfully undergone drug rehabilitation and retraining need to be assisted to eke out an existence. “If they fail to seek employment, they will continue to be involved in petty crimes such as snatch thefts,” he said.

Lee said tackling the problem of snatch thefts required an integrated approach, including strengthening street patrols by the police in crime-prone areas.
Besides, he said, more severe punishment for snatch thieves should be provided as a deterrent to others.

Other proposals included installing more road barriers to separate the roads from the pedestrian paths to make it difficult for snatch thieves to grab the belongings of pedestrians, as well as enhancing crime prevention vigilance and awareness among pedestrians, he added.

Source: www.Bernama.com Malaysian news agency 28th March 2010

The Road Safety Monitor, a national telephone survey conducted each year involving Canadian drivers indicates that drug impaired driving is seen as second only to alcohol
impaired driving as a serious issue and that illicit drugs are seen as a more serious
problem than prescription or over the counter drugs1. Overall, 17.7%, or 3.7 million
Canadian drivers report driving within two hours of using illicit, prescription or over the
counter drugs.
Collisions remain a major cause of death and injury in Canada, and concerns about the
role of cannabis in road safety in this country date back many years. Much less is known
about the impact of cannabis on road safety than the impact of alcohol, in part because of
the much greater difficulty involved in measuring the presence and amount of
cannabinoids compared to alcohol. However, there is renewed interest in this issue
stimulated in part by proposed legislative changes on the part of the Government of
Canada to reduce substantially the penalties for possession of small amounts of cannabis.

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of available research and evidence on
the potential impact of cannabis on road safety in Canada focusing on two areas: 1)
research on the prevalence of cannabis use in Canada; and 2) research on the prevalence
of driving after cannabis use in Canada.

Prevalence of Cannabis Use in Canada
Little information is available on the prevalence of cannabis use in Canada prior to the
1960s. However, in that decade, cannabis use increased substantially. While a variety of
possible sources of information on cannabis in the Canadian population have been used
over the years, including such measures as amounts of the drug seized by police and the
number of individuals prosecuted by the courts for cannabis offences, the most direct and
the most accurate measures of the prevalence of cannabis use are those derived from
surveys. Although cannabis is an illegal drug and there are concerns that survey
responses may be influenced by its legal status, research demonstrates that respondents
to anonymous surveys, where there are no adverse consequences involved, generally
provide valid responses.
Smart and Fejer presented one of the very first estimates of the prevalence of cannabis
use in a Canadian population, based on a survey of a representative sample of residents
of Toronto conducted in 1971. They found that 12.2% of males and 5.5% of females had
used cannabis at least once in the preceding year. The prevalence of use differed
substantially by age group and gender. Among males, 41.5% of those aged 18-25, 20.8%
of those aged 26-30, and 1.8% of those aged 31 and over had used cannabis in the
preceding year. Among females, 20.0% of those aged 18-25, 6.3% of those aged 26-30,
and 1.8% of those aged 31 and over had used cannabis in the previous year. These data
clearly demonstrate that, by the end of the 1960’s, cannabis use had become very
common among young people. Ogborne and Smart reported on cannabis use in the
general population of Canada aged 15 and over based on the National Alcohol and Other
Drugs Survey conducted in 1994. This survey was the largest representative survey with
information on cannabis use ever made in Canada, with a sample size of 12,155. Use of
cannabis at that time was relatively uncommon, but not rare. Only 7.3% of respondents
reported using cannabis in the preceding year, and 2.0% reported using it as often as once per week. However, nearly a third (29%) reported that they had used cannabis at least once in their lives. Substantial regional differences were observed, with the proportion reporting use
at least once in the past year ranging from a low of 4.9% in Ontario to a high of 11.4% in
British Columbia.
The data provide a valuable perspective on the use of cannabis across Canada,
unfortunately there is little information on other important issues, such as change in rates
of use over time. However, in Ontario a series of surveys has been conducted over the
past 20 years that allow a picture of current use and changes in use over time in that part
of the country.

The Use of Cannabis in Ontario
Repeated cross-sectional surveys conducted in Ontario by the Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health provide the most comprehensive picture of the use of cannabis and other
drugs use in Canada. These surveys have been conducted among the student population
and adult population since the late 1970s.
A summary of recent data on the use of cannabis and other drugs (any
use in the past year) among students in grades 7 and 126, and among adults aged 18-29
(young adults), 40-49 (the middle-aged) and 65 and over (seniors). shows cannabis is the most
widely used illicit substance, with nearly half of grade 12 students reporting cannabis use
at least once in the past year. It is worth noting that by grade 12 most students will have
reached the age when they will be eligible to drive. Use of cannabis drops with increasing
age, however, and is used by less than 2% of seniors. Use of other illicit drugs is much
less common than the use of cannabis, with highest levels occurring for Hallucinogens and
Ecstasy among grade 12 students. Not surprisingly, alcohol is the most commonly used
substance. While cannabis is used by a smaller proportion of students than alcohol; it is still used
by a substantial minority of students. There have been important changes in the use of
cannabis over time. The general trend appears to have been one of reduced use of cannabis
and alcohol from the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s. The proportion reporting use of cannabis declined from a peak of 31.7% in 1979 to 11.7% in 1991. However, since the mid-1990’s self-reported use
of both substances has increased, with 28.6% reporting cannabis use in 2001.

Prevalence of Cannabis Use and Driving in Canada:

Survey data on the prevalence of driving under the influence of cannabis are available. In
the first reported data from the general population in Canada, the prevalence of driving after
use of cannabis at least once in the preceding 12 months. The
survey included 9943 persons aged 16-69, obtained through random digit dialling.
The prevalence of DUIC varied with age, while the prevalence of DUIC was relatively low,
it was higher in younger age groups. DUIC was significantly associated with a variety of other risk behaviours, such as driving after drinking, use of illicit drugs other than cannabis, and collision
involvement.
Information on the incidence of DUIC in a representative sample of the Ontario adult
population surveyed in 1996/97.
Among all drivers, 1.9% reported DUIC in the previous 12 months. Several factors influenced the likelihood of reported DUIC, including gender, age, marital status and education level. DUIC was most
frequently seen in younger age groups, with 9.3% of the youngest age group (18-19)
reporting the behaviour. DUIC was more common among men (3.0%) than women
(0.8%), more common among those never married (4.7%) than among those married
(0.9%) or previously married (2.1%). It was also least common among those with a
university degree. Among cannabis users, DUIC appeared to be a relatively common
behaviour; 22.8% reported DUIC, and the probability of the behaviour was significantly
influenced by gender and education level As well, DUIC and drinking-driving were strongly
related in this sample.
Prevalence of DUIC by Age among Cannabis Users in Ontario, 1996-97
Data derived from Walsh and Mann8.
The observation that DUIC was more common among younger respondents was recently
extended . Among students with a drivers licence in grades 10-13, 19.3% reported driving
within one hour of using cannabis at least once in the preceding year; this proportion was higher than the
proportion that reported driving within an hour of two or more drinks (15.0%). Males were
significantly more likely than females to report DUIC (23.8% versus 13.5%). DUIC was
more frequently reported than driving after drinking .

Prevalence of riding with a drinking driver, drinking driving, and DUIC by Gender
among Ontario students, 2001
Among respondents, 5.1% reported using marijuana, and 1.5% reported DUIC at least
once in the preceding 12 months. These authors also noted that males and respondents
under 30 were most likely to report DUIC, and also that there was a strong relationship
between DUIC and driving after drinking. Recently, the first report on trends over time in
cannabis use and driving in Canada appeared.

The proportions of Ontario adults reporting DUIC in a representative sample
of the Ontario population surveyed in 2002
A trend for an increase over time was observed, with the proportion of adult drivers reporting DUIC increasing from 1.9% in 1996/97 to 2.7% in 2002. The authors note, however, that this increase is not statistically significant and recommend further monitoring of this trend.

Conclusions
The data presented here indicate that cannabis use is relatively common in Canada,
particularly among young people. The prevalence of use appears to have increased
substantially in the 1960s and ‘70s, while since then some fluctuations have occurred.
Driving after cannabis use is less common, but among cannabis users it does appear to
occur with some frequency. In particular, young cannabis users appear more likely to
report DUIC. Among high school students, DUIC appears to occur as frequently, or more
frequently, than driving after drinking. These data provide grounds for concern about this
behaviour, particularly among younger drivers. Further research on the prevalence of
DUIC in Canada, including differences between provinces, is needed.

Source: CAMH Population Studies eBulletin, May/June 2003 No.20

A proposal to create medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii has gone up in smoke.
The idea is dead because the House Judiciary Committee refused to consider the measure before a legislative deadline Thursday.
Committee Chairman Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu says he was worried that marijuana dispensaries would fuel illegal sales of the drug. He’s also concerned about the state running up against federal drug laws.
Medical marijuana patients argue that Hawaii needs to reform its decade-old law allowing them to smoke and even grow the drug, but prohibiting them from buying it.
The bill passed the Senate and two House committees before stalling. Medical marijuana dispensaries will likely be considered again during next year’s legislative session.

Source: www.omaha.com, 1st April 2010