Drug News

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
One Young Woman’s Descent Into Prescription Drug Addiction – WGRZ TV

It has become what law enforcement officials are calling an epidemic in Western New York: young people getting addicted to prescription pain medication. One of those young people- Destinee Henderson, one time straight A student and varsity soccer player at Newfane High School agreed to share the story of her addiction, whose eventually led her to selling her body and which nearly cost her her life.

HEROIN – UK
WILL heroin USAGE ROCKET IN A SLUMP? – Wales Online
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HEROIN use in Wales could rocket if the nation slumps further into recession, a leading drugs agency has warned.

ALCOHOL ABUSE – USA
Students don’t consider alcohol a drug – SW Iowa News
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Last October, a 17-year-old Harlan high-school student died from acute alcohol intoxication. Earlier this year, police arrested a 15-year-old girl at Storm Lake High School and charged her with possession of alcohol. A report found that nearly half of all high-school students use addictive substances, and 1 in 3 of those users are addicted.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
Ga. doctors develop prescription drug abuse prevention program – ‎Atlanta Journal Constitution

The supply chain for abuse of highly addictive drugs often can be traced back to a doctor’s prescription pad. So doctors are capitalizing on their unique position to combat the illegal use of prescription drugs by leading a statewide campaign to keep such medicines out of the wrong hands.

ALCOHOL ABUSE/DRUG ADDICTION – USA
Study: Alcohol, Drug Hospitalizations Rise – Patch.com
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A rising number of young adults nationwide, between ages 18 and 24, have been hospitalized for alcohol and drug overdoses. One out of three hospitalizations for overdoses in young adults involved excessive consumption of alcohol. “Alcohol overdoses alone caused 29,000 hospitalizations, combined alcohol and other drug overdoses caused 29,000, and drug overdoses alone caused another 114,000. The cost of these hospitalizations now exceeds $1.2 billion per year just for 18 to 24-year-olds.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE – USA
Family Dinners Linked to Less Risky Behavior in Teens – ABC News
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Compared to teens who ate with their families five to seven times a week, teenagers who had fewer than three family dinners a week were almost four times more likely to try tobacco, more than twice as likely to use alcohol and 2.5 times more likely to use marijuana.

ECSTASY – AUSTRALIA
Ecstasy crime ring smashed, says AFP – Sydney Morning Herald

A highly sophisticated drug ring has been smashed by federal authorities with the seizure of a record haul of a precursor drug capable of producing $70 million worth of ecstasy.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
War on prescription drug abuse has a need for speed – Tampa Bay Online

The number leaping from the page whenever the topic turns to prescription drug addiction is seven. Seven is the number of Floridians who suffer prescription-drug-related deaths each day. Seven also is the number of days, under the latest “pill-mill” statute, between reports pharmacies have to make to the state’s new database.

ALCOHOL ABUSE – USA
Parents’ View of Teen Drug Use: Your Kid, Not Mine – Web MD

One in 10 parents surveyed believed their own teenage child had used alcohol during the previous year. And just one in 20 believed their teen had smoked marijuana.
Teens themselves reported a much higher rate of substance use in a separate poll released late last year. About half of 10th-graders said they had used alcohol over the previous 12 months; about one in 4 (28%) reported marijuana use.

DRUG ADDICTION – USA
Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show – LA Times

Fueling the surge are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
Oxycodone bust tied to Westchester airport highlights US explosion – The Journal News

Ten years ago, if a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent were told he would be chasing traffickers in illicit prescription drugs like pain relievers and sedatives, he likely would have laughed. Not anymore. “Now, those same guys that would have laughed at it, they’re chasing this stuff all the time,”

HEROIN – USA
Dope-sick: Youths migrate to heroin as deaths spike – Belleville News Democrat

The suburban youth drug culture is graduating. Marijuana, alcohol and the occasional acid trip are being replaced by powerful painkillers and the drug blamed for more local overdose deaths: heroin. “It’s in your backyard. You just don’t know it.”

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
Abuse of Xanax Leads a Clinic to Halt Supply – New York Times

Gayle Mink, a nurse practitioner at a community mental health center here, had tired of the constant stream of patients seeking Xanax. Because of the clamor for the drug, and concern over the striking number of overdoses involving Xanax here and across the country, Seven Counties doctors stopped writing new prescriptions for Xanax and its generic version, alprazolam, in April and plan to wean patients off it completely by year’s end.

DRUG ADDICTION – USA
Synthetic drugs bring new rush hour to downtown Duluth – Duluth News Tribune

On many mornings, it looks like it’s the hottest business in downtown Duluth. Dozens of customers line up in front of the Last Place on Earth head shop on Superior Street to buy designer drugs.

ALCOHOL – USA
12 Health Risks of Chronic Heavy Drinking – Web MD

It’s no secret that alcohol consumption can cause major health problems, including cirrhosis of the liver and injuries sustained in automobile accidents. But if you think liver disease and car crashes are the only health risks posed by drinking, think again: Researchers have linked alcohol consumption to more than 60 diseases.

METHAMPHETAMINE – NEW ZEALAND
Addiction Brought Woman’s Downfall – Wanganui Chronicle

A Wanganui woman’s downfall from a good upbringing and acclaim as a top student to being jailed on drugs charges was “a classic methamphetamine story”.

DRUG REHAB – VIETNAM
Vietnam’s Drug Rehab Centers Under Fire – Voice of America

Rights advocates in Vietnam are criticizing a form of treatment used by the government to rehabilitate illegal drug users. The government says the work keeps addicts away from the temptations of the outside world while giving them useful jobs. Human Rights Watch says the centers are “little more than forced labor camps,” designed as profit-making machines for businesses.

METHAMPHETAMINE – USA
Meth investigation nets unlikely dealers – Richmond Times Dispatch

Its street names include “bikers’ coffee” and “poor man’s cocaine,” but an ongoing investigation into a loosely confederated group of area meth dealers shows the drug cuts across all social lines, hooking some unlikely players. Many of the 16 defendants sentenced thus far had little or no prior criminal records and led lives far removed from the dangerous, makeshift rural meth labs and renegade biker gangs popularly associated with the drug.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
For seniors, addiction often begins with prescription drugs – Miami Herald

According to the latest report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the phenomenon of elderly addicts has grown exponentially in the last decade and it requires doubling the number of centers of specialized treatment before 2020.

DRUG ADDICTION – THAILAND
Yingluck’s drive to ‘reduce drugs scourge by 80%’ – The Nation

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday launched a comprehensive campaign against the drug scourge called the Force of the Land, aiming to reduce the problem by 80 per cent within a year by getting state agencies to work together systematically. Yingluck said statistics showed that the country had 490,000 illegal drug users in 2007 and their population had tripled within four years. Drug abuse has spread to 60,000 of the country’s 80,000 villages.

ALCOHOL ABUSE – USA
Rowan seeks to head off alcohol abuse among students – Today’s Sunbeam

All first-year students must also take the school’s Alcohol-Wise online course before attending classes. “What we really try to do is debunk the whole Animal House image of the college experience,” said Rowan Dean of Students Richard Jones. The effort begins with orientation for incoming freshmen, Jones explained. The newbies and their parents learn about Rowan’s policy on drinking and drug use. parents’ participation in a big key, as they’re supposed to be “allies,” he said, of the university in making sure students intend to follow the straight and narrow.

ALCOHOL ABUSE – USA
UW-Madison changes policy on alcohol citations – Chicago Tribune

University of Wisconsin-Madison is now requiring most students who get an alcohol-related citation to take a course on the risks of alcohol abuse. Now, if a student gets an underage drinking ticket, a trip to detox, or an alcohol-fueled disorderly conduct citation he or she is required to enroll in the program. Students will be flagged by UW police or referred by Madison police officers.

ECSTASY – USA
LA Coliseum, Insomniac sued by parents of dead teenager – Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission and the event company Insomniac were sued Thursday by the parents of a teenage girl who died of an Ecstasy overdose after attending a Coliseum rave.

HEROIN – USA
Heroin a deadly draw in ‘Bluff’ – Atlanta Journal Constitution

He has seen a steady stream of suburban heroin users slip in and out of the neighborhood. More young Caucasians are traveling from suburban counties into the city to buy heroin. They buy a gram for about $160 and return home to abuse the drug and sell the leftovers.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
Authorities raid suspected ‘prescription mills’ – Los Angeles Times

Federal and local law enforcement officials close four medical clinics in the San Fernando Valley suspected of catering to addicts seeking heroin-like painkillers and other drugs.

ALCOHOL – USA
Online Course Helps Reduce Harmful College Drinking – Kansas City infoZine

Researchers found that students who took the online course reported significantly reduced alcohol use and binge drinking during the fall semester, compared with control students. These beneficial effects, however, did not persist into the spring semester.

DRUG REHAB – RUSSIA
In Russia, Harsh Remedy for Addiction Gains Favor – New York Times
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The treatment center does not handcuff addicts to their beds anymore. But caged together on double-decker bunks with no way out, they have no choice but to endure the agonies of withdrawal, the first step in a harsh, coercive approach to drug treatment that has gained wide support in Russia.

ALCOHOL – USA
Government Sues Trucking Company for Taking Keys Away From Alcoholic Driver – FOX News

Citing a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Obama administration is suing a trucking company for taking the keys away from an Arkansas driver

METHAMPHETAMINE – USA
Workplace methamphetamine use is higher in West – Los Angeles Times

Overall, positive methamphetamine screens in the workplace stands at 0.10% nationally. Hawaii ranked first in the highest rates of positive screens for methamphetamine–410% greater than the national average. The rates in Arkansas and Oklahoma were also high, 280% and 240% above the national average, respectively. California’s rate was 140% above the average.

ECSTASY – USA
Ecstasy drug transported through Utah – StandardNet

OGDEN — The Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force seized 79,321 pills of the party drug Ecstasy during 2010. The total is four times the average taken off the street annually for the entire state of Utah, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – USA
Prescription Drug User Fee Act: New Fee Agreement Led By FDA – Third Age

The Prescription Drug User Fee Act may include a new fee agreement, after the FDA agreed to work toward faster, more predictable reviews of new prescription drugs. Under the draft agreement unveiled by the agency Thursday, the FDA will, in turn, receive millions of dollars in additional fees from drugmakers.

COCAINE – USA
Oscar de la Hoya Admits to Cheating, Cocaine and Cross-Dressing – International Business Times
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Oscar de la Hoya publicly admitted to cheating on his wife, using cocaine and cross-dressing in a recent interview about his ongoing treatment for alcohol abuse and thoughts of suicide. “I am tired now of lying, of lying to the public and of lying to myself.”