CNN– Last week, the government released its National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It didn’t make much of a news splash, but it should have — and in years past, it would have.

When a serious war is taking place, officials throughout the administration hold press conferences and issue statements while print and televised media across the country report on it. Almost none of this happened, although the reasons for talking and reporting are greater than they have been in a very long time.

Here’s the takeaway: Illicit drug abuse is seriously affecting our children, our schools, our workplaces and our society. And it is on the rise. In 2009, nearly 22 million Americans were regularly abusing illicit drugs: a rise of 1.5 million abusers of marijuana from 2008 and a rise of 2.3 million users from 2007, a rise of 205,000 abusers of Ecstasy from 2008, a rise of 188,000 abusers of methamphetamine from 2008 and a rise of 800,000 abusers of prescription drugs from 2008.

Then there’s the death toll. Nearly 40,000 Americans are killed each year by drug overdoses — not drug-related car accidents, not drug-related gang violence or homicide; those are an entirely different and eye-popping set of numbers. By overdose alone, we lose the equivalent of more than one 9/11 a month and almost eight times as many Americans as have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 (deaths the national media reports on weekly, if not daily).

There are more people dying from drug overdose in America than people dying from gun violence. In several states, drug overdose deaths outnumber deaths caused by car crashes. But these drug-death statistics receive almost no media attention.

Who, outside those that toil in the fields of addiction and recovery, knows these numbers? And how many people caught this in another recent report: Almost 30 percent of public school students ages 12-17 attend schools that are both “gang and drug-infected.” This accounts for almost 6 million children attending schools where drugs and violence dominate their campuses. Places of learning, places once known as safe.

Keeping drugs from children should be our main focus and concern. As Joseph Califano, the founder of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, points out, a child who gets to age 21 without using illegal drugs “is virtually certain never to do so.” But fewer and fewer children are getting the message they need about the dangers and toxicity of illegal drugs, both from our national leaders and our culture. The message the dominant culture in America does send on drug use and abuse is the wrong one.

President Obama may be struggling to find an issue on which leaders from both sides of the aisle can come together. We suggest the growing drug abuse epidemic as ideal. But our president, a man popular with the youth of America, a man children look up to and listen to, has been silent on the issue, the very one with which he could make a dramatic difference in the lives of young people.

As for the popular culture, the message has been even more damaging. Where once television shows actively promoted the dangers of drug use, several of our more popular shows, from “Weeds” to “Entourage” to “Mad Men,” make drug use a laugh line.

Back when our country was making a serious assault on drug abuse, a show like “Weeds” would never be aired. Today it is promoted in full page ads in our nation’s most popular magazines. This, for a comedy about the life and times of a marijuana-growing and -dealing family.  As the head of the network that produces and airs “Weeds” put it, “Our ratings were va-va-va-voom! Who said hedonism is passé?” This, for a show where one is lured to root for a family responsible for the death of a DEA agent, children dropping out of school, gang violence and rape.

In the meantime, the state of California has certified a proposition for November’s ballot that would legalize the individual possession of dozens of joints of marijuana, even as more and more studies come out revealing the connection between marijuana use, psychosis and psychotic symptoms, among other ill-health effects; even as a recent Rand Corp. study found that such a legalization scheme in California could increase use by as much as 50 to 100 percent. Just what California needs. The most recent polling shows this proposition has an even chance of passing.

With all this, it should be no real surprise the drug numbers are on the increase. Our national leaders are silent, our culture makes laugh lines of drug use and serious numbers of serious people are advocating further legalization.

Legalization, however, is a siren song that truly will shipwreck more of our youth. Even with marijuana as prevalent and accessible as it is to young people, there is a reason the numbers for alcohol and tobacco use are higher than illicit drug abuse. When one talks to children, they give the answer: It is found in the word “illegal.” Legalization removes stigma, is the handmaiden of availability and, as Joe Califano has pointed out, “availability is the mother of use.”

The verbal and cultural detoxification of the dangers of drugs has shown its cost in the cultural message that has been sent out. The only question that remains is how much higher a price do we want our children to pay with the further verbal, cultural and legal detoxification of the toxic?

Once upon a time, our national and popular cultural leaders took a strong stand against drug use, and a unified, concerted message was disseminated to help reduce drug use in America. It worked. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, use was reduced by more than 50 percent. But it took effort from our political leaders, our cultural leaders, television, movies and schools — everyone got involved to help create a “sobriety chic” where drug use was not glamorized, and the media gave intense coverage to the devastation wrought by drugs.

That is exactly what is needed again, and now. We know how to do this. There is a rare group of actors and entertainers who have been lucky, fortunate, rare enough to overcome their addictions. Society has cheered for them and repaid them for their recovery at the box office. We should find a way for them to convey to the public their cautionary stories as to what it was like thinking they were going to die, or waking up in a cold jail cell, about their ruined relationships and the time they wish they had back.

At the same time, let’s start a national campaign with those who have not had drugs ruin their lives. Let them be the new national role models for young people. We should see public service announcements and ads from the likes of Beyonce, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, the Jonas Brothers; from the likes of the Williams Sisters and the Manning brothers; from Jimmy Johnson and Danika Patrick.

This issue needs such a campaign. In drug recovery circles, there is a popular saying: If you do the same thing over and over again, you will get the same result. This message has a very helpful converse however, if we repeat the strategies we used that worked once before, i.e., in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we can also get the same result.

This is our plea to the country’s national and cultural leaders: Address it, talk to our youth about it, make a campaign of it and, as for Hollywood and the rest of California: Stop with the drug use and legalization “chic.” Such a national campaign worked before, it can work again.

Source:  By William J. Bennett, Alexandra Datig and Seth Leibsohn, Special to CNN September 24, 2010   http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/24/bennett.drug.abuse/

In the winter issue of National Affairs, Jon Caulkins seeks to answer the question, “is marijuana dangerous?” While acknowledging some of the known harms of the drug, he ultimately undersells marijuana’s health risks, calling them “minor.” He characterizes the drug as a “performance degrader” and “more dangerously, a temptation commodity with habituating tendencies.”

Caulkins’ evidence regarding respective drug dangers, such as comparison to alcohol, turns on damage to organs (excluding, notably, the brain) and lethality. One wishes that he was more familiar with the 1974 testimony before a Senate Committee that also examined alcohol and marijuana in comparative fashion:

Brain activities in relationship to [alcohol and marijuana] are drastically different. Alcohol does not … directly and profoundly affect brain function as the cannabis preparations do…. You can use alcohol for a long period of time without producing any sort of persistent damage. But with marihuana … it seems as though you have to use it only for a relatively short time … before (it) produces distinctive and irreversible changes in the brain.

Since the time of that over-forty-year-old testimony, the evidence for marijuana’s brain-altering damage has only grown, as has the average potency, dramatically, something Caulkins’ analysis critically leaves out. There are also changes to the “habituating tendency” of the developmentally-adolescent to use the drug on a daily basis.

The drug is increasingly ingested in additional forms beyond smoked leaves (Caulkins notices the pulmonary consequences of smoking). Today, youth are consuming edibles with high doses of THC (the intoxicating and damaging component), and drinks, and “vaped” combustible concentrates, while at the same time often combining the drug with continued use of alcohol.

The impact of increased potency is still unknown, but will not be inconsequential. Forms of the drug now contain 70-80 percent THC, in contrast to the more familiar THC potencies found in smoked leaves of earlier years, which only rarely exceeded 5-10 percent.

Two things immediately follow from these chemical facts. First, most longitudinal studies of the risks of marijuana for producing cognitive effects and chemical dependency tracked youth using low-potency marijuana. The future for today’s adolescents is simply an unknown, but all signs indicate that the damage will escalate.

Second, the realization of potency renders somewhat irrelevant one of Caulkins’ key policy points, which follows his careful calculation of the volumes of the drug being consumed by users with different use profiles. Because Caulkins analyzes only the amount of (largely) self-reported leaf consumption by either slight or heavy users, he misses the critical variable, which is the amount of THC actually being consumed. As potency has escalated and is not factored in to his equations, his calculations are not as meaningful as he supposes.

A single candy bar purchased today in Colorado, for instance, can contain ten times the amount of THC as a single, premium quality marijuana “joint” of recent years. Psychotic episodes related to the consumption of these edibles are escalating in both emergency room episode reports as well as mortality toxicology reports. Caulkins needs to re-do his analysis with this factor considered.

There is also the matter of his reliance on the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) as input for his analysis. The survey, consisting of self-reports of use, also depends upon self-reports of problems in relation to DSM-established criteria for dependency. But these self-reports depend upon (no matter whether they are understated or not) a person’s sense of their behavior as it is affected by the drug.

The problem lies here: a drug that can be shown to alter brain structure and function (albeit in subtle ways, in some instances, and the permanency of such changes is today largely unknown) does not necessarily produce an impact that rises to the level of self-apprehension. That is, the user likely has a blind-spot about the actual impact, which can occur without noticeable manifestations for the person or his friends, until the impact becomes pronounced.

Rather than behavior alone, we should attend to, in addition to clinical judgments, the results of brain analysis, such as MRI analyses, of brain changes. Such a literature exists, and it is not comforting. Even casual use, a profile that Caulkins is inclined to treat as non-threatening in his policy recommendations, has been linked to “neural noise” as well as structural brain changes, even at relatively low exposure – that is, “youthful recreational use” or even “half-a-joint.”

Caulkins also appeals to relatively standard policy postures adopted by libertarians who count on market forces to shape drug behavior futures. It remains an open question whether such market forces are appropriate regulators for adolescents who are, says the medical literature, doing major but unwitting damage to themselves. And under legalization youth exposure increases considerably.

But more importantly, it’s hard to reconcile the pure public health impact of expanding drug use by adults (or semi-adults) with the recent literature showing detrimental effects of maternal use on offspring, including (in animal studies) permanent impairment of the brains of embryos exposed through maternal use. Recent findings are troubling, and call into question the conventional wisdom that drug use “harms only the user him/her self.” Should not drug policy concern itself with these effects?

There is also the question of Caulkins’ use of the literature regarding the ratios of users to those who become dependent users for various forms of drug use, including alcohol, as a means of evaluating respective dangers. The research has been interpreted to rank-order relative dangers from drugs and alcohol by calculating the respective number of users who become dependent users, seeing the outcomes as a reflection of the drug’s impact. Somewhat carelessly, this literature is cited to argue that marijuana is actually “less dangerous” than other drugs, particularly alcohol and tobacco. The most common citation is to research (Antony, 1994) that found roughly one in nine marijuana users become dependent. Caulkins wisely notes that the ratio is likely higher than that (in fact, NIDA has indicated that for daily users, the ratio is about one-in-two). Very likely the potency issue will render those early ratio assumptions to be even farther off than we today experience.

But more importantly, Caulkins misses the clear policy caveats contained in the original research, which, when grasped, weaken his main theme—that we can accommodate by a new legal “architecture” some “permissible” level of non-dependent use and only suffer public health consequences consistent with what the past literature suggests.

What the Antony research actually demonstrates is that we have fixed on the wrong interpretation of the study’s findings. One cannot conclude from Antony’s ratios anything reliable about the respective “dangers” of the substances themselves, taken in isolation, as potentially dependency-producing drugs. Nor does the original research make that claim. In fact, the researchers are well aware of the potential limitations of these results, and explicitly discuss the complexities they present.

As they write:

The array of interrelated factors includes relative drug availability, and opportunities for use of different drugs as well as their costs; patterns and frequencies of drug use that differ across drugs; different profiles of vulnerabilities of individuals … as well as both formal and informal social controls and sanctions against drug use or in its favor…. Considered all together … the transition from drug use to drug dependence runs a span from the microscopic (e.g. the dopamine receptor) through the macroscopic (e.g. social norms for or against drug use; international drug control policies).

When this position is understood, we see that, if anything, it is an argument cutting against the policy of marijuana legalization under any liberalized architecture. Both tobacco and alcohol are legal substances, and have use rates multiple times in excess of (illicit) marijuana. Moreover, they are used in patterns that make exposure to them considerably in excess of exposure to marijuana. Those who smoke tobacco do so multiple times a day, commonly every day; in relative fashion the same holds true for alcohol use.

And this research specifically notes that it is just such patterns of access, frequency, and persistence of use that contribute to the overall dependency-producing potential, in conjunction with the biology of the substance itself in relation to the brain. Simply put, were marijuana to be legal, and subject to access and use patterns comparable to alcohol or tobacco on a daily basis, the impact on subjects as found in dependency and addiction rates, while unknown, would likely be staggering.

And then, to make the final observation, Caulkins envisions possible legal architectures for dispensing the drug, without any consideration of this overwhelming fact: wherever we today find commercial, legal marijuana, there we also find, robust and thriving, the very criminal and violent and corrupting black market. The danger is great and it is getting worse rapidly.

Source:  David Murray replies to article in National Affairs.  Quoted in email from Drugwatch International  January 2016

By legalizing “recreational” marijuana in 2012, Colorado challenged marijuana policy, not just for the United States but for the world. Even earlier, Colorado legalized “medical marijuana,” with a full blown commercial industry beginning in 2009. Today, three years into fully legal marijuana, it is time to ask, “How’s that working out?”

While there is dispute over just about everything related to marijuana in Colorado, three facts stand out.

First the advent of legal marijuana did not eliminate the illegal market for marijuana. Illegal marijuana is cheaper than legal marijuana because of the taxes paid and the regulations required for the legal product. A common, half-joking, observation is that the legal marijuana sales are mostly to people from out of state and senior citizens. Among the many users the illegal market serves are those underage. But the illegal market doesn’t impact only Colorado. Marijuana from Colorado is trafficked to 40 other states. As the problems created by marijuana multiply, the increasing regulation of legal marijuana products will further empower the illegal suppliers who face none of the costs or restrictions placed on legal marijuana.

Second, legal marijuana has unleashed a new gold rush with big money pouring into the marijuana industry fuelling shameless and dishonest commercialization that makes the sellers of tobacco and alcohol look downright timid. Big money is pushing out the hippie entrepreneurs who used to characterize local marijuana growers. This new money has powerful political consequences that are increasingly shaping the public reactions to marijuana and making any restrictions on the industry more difficult.

Third, any hope that more marijuana use would decrease alcohol use is now being dispelled. Data from the Colorado Department of Revenue Alcohol use confirms that alcohol consumption has not declined since marijuana legalization. The use of alcohol – and other drugs – is positively correlated with marijuana use. Alcohol and marijuana are economic complements. National survey data confirms that people who use marijuana are more likely to use alcohol than those who do not use marijuana, instead of less.

The hopes that marijuana legalization would end the black market, that legal marijuana would escape the worst abuses of the sale of alcohol and tobacco and that more marijuana would translate into declines in alcohol have been dashed by Colorado’s dramatic three year experiment.

The disputes over marijuana policy go on. There is abundant data showing increases in underage marijuana use, increases in marijuana-related poison control calls, emergency room visits and hospital admissions, and increases in the prevalence of marijuana-related traffic deaths in Colorado. These outcomes will not dim the widely promoted claims about the benefits from marijuana legalization.

The citizens of Colorado are left with the disturbing consequences of their dangerous experiment.

Source:  http://www.hudson.org/research/12039-lessons-from-pot-experiment

Two recent measures of educational performance, one at the national level (National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NEAP) and one among 11 regional states and the District of Columbia showed not only poor and deteriorating performance for all students, but staggering differences between white students and black students.

At the national level, the NEAP reported that 66 percent of all 8th graders were “not proficient” in reading, rising to 67 percent in math. But for black 8th graders, fully 84 percent were “not proficient” in reading, with 87 percent “not proficient” in math.

And the report on students in the District of Columbia revealed an educational disaster. In 3rd through 8th grade, only 79 percent of whites were “proficient” in English, with 70 percent so for math. For black students, proficiency in either skill fell to 17 percent.

In high school, it got worse. Only 52 percent of whites were proficient in geometry, compared to four percent of blacks. In English, only 20 percent of black students were proficient, compared to 82 percent of whites.

Importantly, the blame falls not on the expectant students. It falls squarely on the institutions—and the adults—entrusted with the task of educating them. (The District spent $17,953 per pupil, outranking all states but Alaska, in the most recent, reported year.) Teaching youth is the most fundamental operation of any culture, upon which acquisition of other capacities will depend. If they can’t read, write, or calculate, we are failing to render self-sufficient in the tools of daily life the coming generation.

We may not have the power to fix all the things that are wrong with public schools. But surely we have the power, and the responsibility, to not make things worse, particularly for those already struggling. And making things worse is just what the District, and now other places in America, are doing, by making marijuana use more normalized and widespread.

According to the latest results from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), marijuana use doubled between the period 2001-2002 and the most recent wave of findings, the years 2012-2013. There was also a near-doubling of “marijuana-related disorders,” such that three-in-ten users now suffer problems.

But an equally troubling finding was what NESARC termed “significant increases across demographic subgroups.” In fact, “Black and Hispanic individuals showed especially notable increases in the prevalence of marijuana use and marijuana use disorders, trends consistent with other studies showing that marijuana use is now more prevalent in black than white individuals.”

These disturbing results for marijuana only add to the bad news, which most affects youth — and perhaps critically affects disadvantaged youth.   No one says that drug use is the single factor “causing” student failure; there are documented institutional and social deficiencies enough for that. But who will not face that marijuana use will most penalize those most at risk? Minority youth are both using more dope and suffering more of the consequences, and the impact hits hardest those without support.

The clear science on adolescent marijuana use and school failure is undeniable. The loss of 8 IQ points from heavy use, the measurable detriment to memory and learning, the risks of depression and psychosis for the vulnerable, the greatly increased risk of school drop-out; these are now well-established associations, and they seem to worsen as marijuana potency skyrockets, while dependency becomes “more severe.”

We can anticipate the objections from legalization advocates. Under the District’s rules, marijuana is still illegal for kids. But there is strong evidence showing that where marijuana is legalized and normalized, youth use soars, damaging learning and bringing addiction to the young.

It could also be that the “causation” is reversed; the reason that those failing in school are turning to marijuana is because they’re already failing in school. It’s possible, and may be true for some facing social disadvantage and psychological co-morbidities.  But surely that is no argument to therefore make dope wall-to-wall. One-in-every-eight high school kids in Colorado is now a current marijuana smoker. Moreover, teachers tell routinely another tale, of the high-performing youth who in a single semester changes dramatically—for the worse—and becomes a “stoner.” And then they lose them.

We should at least examine the true nature of the impact, and plan a response. We could explore programs like in-school screening for at-risk kids; if they’re starting to use drugs, it could be a chance to intervene and bring help.  Fixing this will require serious educational reform. Instead, inexplicably, the District determined to take us in the wrong direction – they legalized.

For education advocates and those of us especially concerned by the worsening failure of at-risk Americans in the classroom, it is time to recognize that the brain-altering effects of marijuana are now a dangerous and growing educational threat. David W. Murray

David W. Murray

Source: http://hudson.org/research/12095-last-thing-struggling-students-need-is-more-marijuana

Developmental trajectories of adolescent cannabis use and their relationship to young adult social and behavioural adjustment: A longitudinal study of Australian youth.

Abstract

This study aimed to identify distinct developmental trajectories (sub-groups of individuals who showed similar longitudinal patterns) of cannabis use among Australian adolescents, and to examine associations between trajectory group membership and measures of social and behavioural adjustment in young adulthood. Participants (n=852, 53% female) were part of the International Youth Development Study. Latent class growth analysis was used to identify distinct trajectories of cannabis use frequency from average ages 12 to 19, across 6 waves of data. Logistic regression analyses and analyses of covariance were used to examine relationships between trajectory group membership and young adult (average age: 21) adjustment, controlling for a range of covariates. Three trajectories were identified: abstainers (62%), early onset users (11%), and late onset occasional users (27%). The early onset users showed a higher frequency of antisocial behaviour, violence, cannabis use, cannabis-related harms, cigarette use, and alcohol harms, compared to the abstinent group in young adulthood. The late onset occasional users reported a higher frequency of cannabis use, cannabis-related harms, illicit drug use, and alcohol harms, compared to the abstinent group in young adulthood. There were no differences between the trajectory groups on measures of employment, school completion, post-secondary education, income, depression/anxiety, or alcohol use problems. In conclusion, early onset of cannabis use, even at relatively low frequency during adolescence, is associated with poorer adjustment in young adulthood. Prevention and intervention efforts to delay or prevent uptake of cannabis use should be particularly focussed on early adolescence prior to age 12.

Source:  Pub Med  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26414206 Author information:  Scholes-Balog KE1, Hemphill SA2, Evans-Whipp TJ3, Toumbourou JW4, Patton GC5.

A study of mice found that the drug can trigger out-of-control “autophagy”, a process by which cells digest themselves.

When it is properly regulated, autophagy provides a valuable clean-up service – getting rid of unwanted debris that is dissolved away by enzymes within cell “pockets”.

Dr Prasun Guha, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US, who led the research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: “A cell is like a household that is constantly generating trash. Autophagy is the housekeeper that takes out the trash – it’s usually a good thing. But cocaine makes the housekeeper throw away really important things, like mitochondria, which produce energy for the cell.”

The scientists carried out post mortems that showed clear signs of autophagy-induced cell death in the brains of mice given high doses of cocaine. They also found evidence of autophagy in the brain cells of mice whose mothers received the drug while pregnant.

The scientists showed that an experimental drug called CGP3466B was able to protect mouse nerve cells from cocaine death due to autophagy. Since the drug has already been tested in clinical trials to treat Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease, it is known to be safe in humans. But much more research is needed to find out whether the drug can prevent the harmful effects of cocaine in people, said the team.

Co-author Dr Maged Harraz said: “Since cocaine works exclusively to modulate autophagy versus other cell death programs, there’s a better chance that we can develop new targeted therapeutics to suppress its toxicity.”

Source:     http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/18/high-cocaine-doses-can-cause-brain-to-eat-itself 

By Mark H. Moore; Mark H. Moore is professor of criminal justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— History has valuable lessons to teach policy makers but it reveals its lessons only grudgingly.

Close analyses of the facts and their relevance is required lest policy makers fall victim to the persuasive power of false analogies and are misled into imprudent judgments. Just such a danger is posed by those who casually invoke the ”lessons of Prohibition” to argue for the legalization of drugs.

What everyone ”knows” about Prohibition is that it was a failure. It did not eliminate drinking; it did create a black market. That in turn spawned criminal syndicates and random violence. Corruption and widespread disrespect for law were incubated and, most tellingly, Prohibition was repealed only 14 years after it was enshrined in the Constitution.

The lesson drawn by commentators is that it is fruitless to allow moralists to use criminal law to control intoxicating substances. Many now say it is equally unwise to rely on the law to solve the nation’s drug problem.

But the conventional view of Prohibition is not supported by the facts.

First, the regime created in 1919 by the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, which charged the Treasury Department with enforcement of the new restrictions, was far from all-embracing. The amendment prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages; it did not prohibit use, nor production for one’s own consumption. Moreover, the provisions did not take effect until a year after passage -plenty of time for people to stockpile supplies.

Second, alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.

Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.

Third, violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition’s 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after.

Fourth, following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption increased. Today, alcohol is estimated to be the cause of more than 23,000 motor vehicle deaths and is implicated in more than half of the nation’s 20,000 homicides. In contrast, drugs have not yet been persuasively linked to highway fatalities and are believed to account for 10 percent to 20 percent of homicides.

Prohibition did not end alcohol use. What is remarkable, however, is that a relatively narrow political movement, relying on a relatively weak set of statutes, succeeded in reducing, by one-third, the consumption of a drug that had wide historical and popular sanction.

This is not to say that society was wrong to repeal Prohibition. A democratic society may decide that recreational drinking is worth the price in traffic fatalities and other consequences. But the common claim that laws backed by morally motivated political movements cannot reduce drug use is wrong.

Not only are the facts of Prohibition misunderstood, but the lessons are misapplied to the current situation.

The U.S. is in the early to middle stages of a potentially widespread cocaine epidemic.    (in 2001)   If the line is held now, we can prevent new users and increasing casualties. So this is exactly not the time to be considering a liberalization of our laws on cocaine. We need a firm stand by society against cocaine use to extend and reinforce the messages that are being learned through painful personal experience and testimony.

The real lesson of Prohibition is that the society can, indeed, make a dent in the consumption of drugs through laws. There is a price to be paid for such restrictions, of course. But for drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which are dangerous but currently largely unpopular, that price is small relative to the benefits.

Source:  http://nyti.ms/U1QHdN  Published October 16 1989

1.     Prohibited the commercial manufacture, and distribution of alcoholic beverages

It DID NOT prohibit use, or production for one’s own consumption

2.     Alcohol consumption declined dramatically during prohibition.

Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 inn 1929

Mental hospital admission for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.

Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conducted declined 50% between 1916 and 1922

Consumption of alcohol declined by 30 to 50%

3.     Violent crimes DID NOT increase dramatically during prohibition.  Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during prohibition’s 14-year rule.  Organized crime did become more visible during prohibition but it existed before and after.

4.     Following the repeal of prohibition, alcohol consumption increased.  Today alcohol is estimated to be the cause of 50% of traffic deaths and is implicated in more than half of the nation’s homicides.

Source:  J.McDougal 2001  –  re-printed Drug Watch International e-mails.

From potent pot fumes to dispensaries opening a block from elementary schools, the City of Vancouver received a constant flow of feedback about the exploding number of illegal cannabis retailers from the concerned public and neighbouring businesses in the year and a half before it finally took action.

The city logged more than 200 pages of letters, e-mails and calls between January, 2014, and April of this year, as the number of dispensaries bloomed from roughly a dozen to more than 100, according to a Freedom of Information request filed by The Globe and Mail. Those concerns about the industry helped prompt Vancouver to become the first city to craft a bylaw this past June aimed at regulating and curtailing the illegal shops, which operate outside of federal drug laws.

Many of the complaints concerned how close the new stores were located to schools or child-care centres, and the advertising they used to attract new customers. Businesses complained that because dispensaries weren’t required to pay licensing fees to operate, an uneven playing field had been created. Other letters criticized the city’s police force for not shutting down the shops. Neighbours also grumbled about the overpowering smell of cannabis wafting into their own stores.

Councillor Kerry Jang, who was sent many of the complaints as the designated expert on the file for the governing Vision Vancouver, said public feedback about the haphazard shops wasn’t “too heavy” compared with other controversial issues such as certain condo developments or trash on the streets. But the “consistent” correspondence identifying the explosion of new locations operating near schools helped the city understand the public-health risks of inaction, he said.

“[The growth in dispensaries] really came out of nowhere on us,” Mr. Jang said. “It was just like ‘Bang!’ One day there were three or four and the next day there were 60, and then it went up to 100. Our staff were trying to keep count.”

The head of a group representing 13 buildings at the City Gate development, near Main Street and Terminal Avenue, e-mailed the city manager last January complaining that a money-lending business opened up a dispensary kiosk within its store in partnership with the Weeds chain.

Patsy McMillan’s complaint stated that the dispensary was “just steps, literally,” from a YWCA child-care centre and opened “without any community notification, information or input.” She added that a dispensary should not be selling cannabis in the area, because a “toxic mix” already exists where employees of two neighbouring temporary labour firms routinely cash their cheques at the end of each weekday and then buy and consume other street drugs outside the store.  “The [city] has said that they don’t issue [dispensary] licences as this is a grey area within the federal government,” Ms. McMillan wrote in an e-mail. “Does this mean someone could sell booze out of this site as well because it is a [provincial] mandate?”

Her e-mail continued: “I have to say as a reasonable person this seems ridiculous. Do you or do you not control what happens in Vancouver? Please let me know if you are as concerned about this as we are here in the rapidly deteriorating hood.”

In response to the e-mail, the manager of community services asked colleagues to contact the police about the store, as well as look into whether the city can deny building or development permits to these money-lending stores if they are close to schools and liquor stores. (The Weeds location inside the money-lending store shut down months ago

due to a contractual disagreement with the franchisee, according to chain owner Don Briere.)

Another concerned citizen called the city in January reporting nine new dispensary locations after being referred by the Vancouver Police Department, which told him they were not a priority for the force. Still, others complained of one shop offering free product to those who recruit new members. (“Isn’t this called trafficking?”)

In a response in January to a complaint from the head of the Marpole Business Association concerning a block with three new dispensaries, Mr. Jang explained the “quandary” the shops posed to the city because its police force did not have the resources to investigate the low-priority sales of an illegal drug regulated by the federal government.

“The city was able to create bylaws and business licence categories for body rub parlours, for example, because federal and provincial law governing body rub parlours exists and do [sic] not conflict with other laws,” Mr. Jang wrote. “This is not the case with cannabis dispensaries, as I have been advised.”

The city announced in October that of the 176 applicants, only 11 – six of whom want to open non-profit compassion clubs – had met the stringent 300-metre distancing rules meant to keep shops away from schools and community centres in a bid to limit young people’s exposure to the controversial storefronts.

City staff are still breaking up another 10 clusters of multiple shops too close to each other and will let one winning applicant from each of those groups move on to the next stage of permitting.

The city also gave a grace period of six months for all failed applicants to continue operating and try again with a different location.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouvers-pot-shop-boom-drew-steady-stream-of-public-complaints/article27956352/

The drug kratom is being used by some people as an alternative to heroin and other illegal drugs even though it, too, can be addictive, The New York Times reports.

Kratom is increasingly popular and easily available, the article notes. Some people using kratom go back to using heroin, which is stronger and less expensive. Powdered forms of kratom, which come from a leaf found in Southeast Asia, are sold in head shops, gas station convenience stores and online.

The drug is categorized as a botanic dietary supplement. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot restrict the sale of kratom unless it is proved unsafe, or manufacturers claim it treats a medical condition. The FDA banned the import of kratom into the United States in 2014.

Kratom is not controlled under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has listed kratom as a “drug and chemical of concern,” and  notes on its website that there is no legitimate medical use for kratom in the United States.

According to the DEA, at low doses, kratom produces stimulant effects with users reporting increased alertness, physical energy, and talkativeness. At high doses, users experience sedative effects.

Indiana, Tennessee, Vermont and Wyoming have banned kratom. The Army has forbidden its use by soldiers, according to the newspaper.

“It’s a fascinating drug, but we need to know a lot more about it,” said Dr. Edward W. Boyer, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who has studied kratom. “Recreationally or to self-treat opioid dependence, beware — potentially you’re at just as much risk” as with an opiate, he said.

Kratom bars have opened in South Florida, as well as Colorado, New York and North Carolina. The bars sell brewed varieties of kratom, in plastic bottles that look like fruit juice.

Source:   drugfree.org  7th January 2016

Medical Director at Victoria Hospital, Dr. Lisa Charles says there is an increase in the number of young people developing COPD.

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Thursday January 7, 2016 – Health officials in St. Lucia are advising against a dangerous practice they say is turning people into “respiratory cripples” before killing them – mixing marijuana and tobacco.

Medical Director at Victoria Hospital (VH) Dr. Lisa Charles said over the past 10 years she has seen an epidemic emerging with an increased number of young patients suffering with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

She says patients who smoke marijuana mixed with tobacco are developing COPD at a very young age.  “We are talking about young men and women in their 30s with end-stage lung disease. And by end stage lung disease, I mean they are no longer able to carry out any normal activity, such as cooking [or] walking from the bed to the bathroom because of severe shortness of breath,” the doctor said.

COPD is an extremely debilitating, progressive disease which directly affects the lungs. The effects of COPD cannot be reversed.

Patients with the disease are literally confined to a bed with oxygen tanks to aid in breathing “because any degree of exertion, any degree of activity causes shortness of breath to the point where you have to stop, you have to sit, you cannot do any of those normal functions that you can do for yourself,” Dr. Charles explained.

The medical director said available bed space at the Victoria Hospital was severely compromised as a result of increasing cases of COPD.

“Upwards of 12 patients per day require some degree of treatment for their breathing difficulty. In terms of patients who are end stage, which is my primary concern, we probably have what we call a revolving-door patient population of close to 15 to 20. These are patients who literally come to A&E either daily or weekly, because their disease is so far progressed that they need that level and that frequency of attention in the emergency department and on the wards,” Dr. Charles disclosed.

“We do also have patients who have lived at VH for the last several months because they can’t take care of themselves at home and they have no option but to stay with us because they need continuous oxygen and full care.”

Sherman Esnard is one of the patients with COPD. He once earned a living as a carpenter and was an avid football player – activities he can no longer participate in. “Who wouldn’t miss that? To be a young active fella and you cannot do any of these things again . . .” lamented  Esnard.  He spends most of his time between his home and the Victoria Hospital and can’t last a minute disconnected from an oxygen tank.

Dr. Charles said the cost of treating COPD is tremendous, with most of the expense being absorbed by Victoria Hospital, the government and the taxpayers.

“Look at oxygen alone without looking at the nursing cost, the cost of physicians, the cost of other medications, the cost of nebulization, the cost of treating heart failure and the cost of inpatient hospital stays . . . I wouldn’t even know where to start to measure, but it’s very significant,” she said.

The Pan American Health Organization says COPD is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Americas, representing an important public health challenge that is both preventable and treatable.

The World Health Organization has designated November 16 annually as World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day.

Source: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/health-officials-warn-of-deadly-effects-of-combining-marijuana-and-tobacco#ixzz3wahTD4VB

A first-of-its-kind study of the effects of high-potency marijuana on brain structure shows it can damage the corpus callosum (imaged above), a huge section of white matter that consists of nerve fibres responsible for communicating between the two halves of the brain. This part of the brain is rich in receptors to which THC binds. Study results “reflect a sliding scale where the more cannabis you smoke and the higher the potency, the worse the damage will be,” says Dr. Paoloa Dazzan, reader in neurobiology of psychosis at the institute of psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience at King’s College London and senior researcher of the study. Scientists recruited 56 people reporting a first-episode psychosis and 43 people without psychosis and administered clinical and brain imaging assessments to all. The structure of the white matter of high-potency marijuana users in both groups – those with and those without psychosis – was significantly damaged. High-potency marijuana they used contained from 16-22% THC and 0.1% CBD. The Brits call this “high-potency” and “skunk,” while U.S. marijuana dispensaries and pot shops in legal states call this average. Here, marijuana concentrates such as wax or shatter contain much higher levels of THC, from 50-75%. The researchers note that their study cannot confirm that THC caused the structural changes – it may be that people with damaged white matter are more likely to smoke marijuana. But what they can say is that if you smoke marijuana frequently and it is high-potency, your brain is different from the brains of those who use low-potency marijuana infrequently or not at all.

ScienceDaily 27th November 2015

Easy-to-use technology provides alternative to injectable form of lifesaving medication.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, is pleased to announce that intranasal naloxone –a nasal spray formulation of the medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose – has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The new technology has an easy-to-use, needle-free design, providing family members, caregivers and first responders with an alternative to injectable naloxone for use during a suspected opioid overdose.

The new technology will be marketed by Adapt Pharma Limited, a partner of Lightlake Therapeutics Inc. NIDA and Lightlake, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel treatments for addiction, entered into a partnership in 2013 to apply new technology towards developing a lifesaving intervention for opioid overdose. The product will be marketed under the brand name NARCAN® Nasal Spray.

In 2013, more than 16,000 people died from a prescription opioid overdose, or approximately 44 people per day. In addition, another 8,000 died from heroin-related overdoses, a rate that has nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013. This FDA-approved intranasal delivery system could reduce the thousands of opioid-related deaths each year, and give patients a second chance to enter into long term addiction treatment. Family members can ask their health providers or pharmacists how to obtain the nasal spray, which is expected to be commercially available by early next year.

Source:    https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2015/11/18