15 Year-Olds No. 1 in World Drug use

Honestly, this is shocking to me. The numbers are much larger than I had initially thought! Chemical dependency counseling hasn't been getting many young patients, but they most likely end up coming in later in life, after a dependency is formed. Check out this report from a chemical dependency counselor...

"15-year-olds No. 1 in world use, Carleton researchers say

Canada's 15-year-olds are among the world's No. 1 teen pot smokers, according to an expansive new drug and addiction physiology study funded by Health Canada.

The work by Carleton University researchers found about half of Grade 10 students have used marijuana at least once, up from onethird in 1990.

That places Canadian 15-yearolds first in age-related cannabis use among 43 countries and regions participating in the World Health Organization's collaborative Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study.

The Carleton researchers conclude: "The proliferation of cannabis use in this population suggests a need to monitor this trend closely and its potential consequences for cognitive and psychomotor functioning and related risk behaviours."

Meanwhile, the study found alcohol use and drunkenness dropped slightly among youths 12 to 17 years old.

The research, results of which are to be published in the April edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, is the first time nationally representative samples gathered over several years have been used to estimate drug and alcohol use among Canadian adolescents.

Previous research relied largely on one-time, provincial and regional surveys.

The new work, led by Frank J. Elgar in Carleton's psychology department, is based on five HBSC surveys of Canadian adolescents every four years from 1990 to 2006, about 30,000 students in all. Results from 2002 and 2006 also were compared to international HBSC data Among the findings:

- In 1990, about 25 per cent of Grade 10 students reported using marijuana at least once.

- By 2002, that figure rose to 45 per cent, then dropped to 38 per cent in 2006.

- Lifetime prevalence of Canadian Grade 10 students using other drugs, such as cocaine, remains below 10 per cent.

- Since 1990, a relatively consistent percentage of about eight per cent of Grade 10 students used prescription drugs or over-the-counter medications to get high, dropping to five per cent in 2006.

- In all five national surveys, most Grade 10 students reported being drunk at least once, while about onethird of Grade 8 students and onetenth of Grade 6 students admitted to what they considered drunkenness.

From 1990 to 2006, the percentage of students in all grade levels who have been drunk at least once decreased by about seven percentage points: from 61 per cent to 54 per cent in Grade 10 students, from 34 per cent to 27 per cent in Grade 8 students, and from 13 per cent to 6 per cent in Grade 6 students.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided additional research funding."

Ian Macleod
Ottawa Citizen
April 28, 2011
Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Canadia...433/story.html

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Cocaine Plane Crashes

Just another tragic story of the things people will do for drugs and the effects of it. A chemical dependency counselor can tell you countless stories of people who's lives have been wrecked from drugs. In this case a small plane crashed and everyone inside of it was killed. More on the story from addiction physiology...

"A small planed loaded with bundles of cocaine crashed into a lake in northern New Mexico on Sunday morning, apparently killing all on board, according to the New Mexico State Police.

Police Lieutenant Eric Garcia said the number of people aboard the aircraft was not immediately known but there were no signs that anybody had survived the crash.

All access to the 4-mile long, 3-mile-wide Heron Lake was closed after bundles of what turned out to be cocaine began floating to the surface, Garcia said.

He said state police responded with boat and diver teams after fishermen on the lake reported seeing the plane nose-dive into the water at about 11 a.m. local time. The plane was fully submerged, Garcia said

The National Weather Service in Albuquerque reported there were thunderstorms and wind gusts of up to 30 miles an hour in the area at the time of the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration regional office in Fort Worth, Texas, also was investigating but had no further information, as well as anyone with a counselor degree.

Heron Lake State Park, about 100 miles north of Santa Fe, is located on the edge of the reservoir."

Reuters
SANTA FE, New Mexico 
Sun Apr 24, 2011

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73O08Y20110425

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Banning Bath Salts in Emergency

It seems more and more states are begining to see the nasty effects of bath salts. Chemical dependency counseling and addiction physiology have been analyzing the side effects of bath salts and they have been not only devastating, but also scary to an extent. Heres more from NBC on an event that took place in Washington recently...

"OLYMPIA, Washington - A synthetic drug sold as bath salts was found in the home, car and in the pockets of a man who killed his wife and himself after a high-speed chase on a highway in Washington state.

Thurston County Coroner Gary Wornock said Thursday he's having the bodies of David Stewart and Kristy Sampels tested to see if they had used the chemicals on April 5. The body of their 5-year-old son had been found suffocated at their home in Spanaway.

The chemical has come to the attention of officials, and those with a counselor degree, after the state poison center reported a growing number of calls from people who became ill after using them as a substitute for cocaine or methamphetamine.

The state Pharmacy Board banned the bath salt drugs on Wednesday in an emergency action."

 

Source: http://www.41nbc.com/news/national-news/3620-bath-salt-drugs-found-on-man-in-...

 

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If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

 

 

Test Kits in Schools

Addiction physiology is always getting new stories about drugs, but I dont know if this one is good or bad! Over 15 students were found using a kit to test Ecstasy for it's purity. Ecstasy has always been a very unsafe drug, as listed in our article under chemical dependency counseling, and the drug is normally flooded with other ones. The fact that the students were testing the drug to make sure it was pure ecstasy was "good", but the fact they are testing it to take it is bad!...

"About 15 students used a test kit provided by Students for Sensible Drug Policy to assess the purity of Ecstasy pills in the days leading up to Spring Weekend, according to Jared Moffat '13, the group's president. Of those, it is possible a few were supplying those drugs to multiple users and were testing a large quantity of pills. Seven or eight students requested the kit last Spring Weekend, he said.

About 60 percent of the pills tested contained MDMA, the active ingredient in Ecstasy tablets. About 40 percent induced no reaction from the testing agents, Moffat said, citing feedback SSDP received from students who tested pills this year. Though no other substances were reported, the 40 percent of pills containing no MDMA may have included substances not detected by the chemicals of the test kit, Moffat said.

The kit, which SSDP lent out free of charge to students for the third year in a row, can reveal the presence of a handful of substances, such as DXM — dextromethorphan, a drug sometimes used in cough medicines and for pain relief — and methamphetamines, in pills sold as Ecstasy. It includes four liquid reagents that change color when they come into contact with different drugs and chemicals. A chart included in the kit correlates colors to chemicals.

But the test cannot show how much of any substance is included in a pill. "It only tells you if there are certain chemicals present. It doesn't tell you the ratio," Moffat said.

Roughly 20 students contacted SSDP via email to organize a time to meet. SSDP representatives explained how to use the kit and then lent it out for a short time.

"We bought it, we're lending it out free of charge, but we don't actually handle any of the drugs," Moffat said.

SSDP does not condone the use of illegal drugs, Moffat said. The group's mission is student education and protection. Brown students choose to buy and use drugs but are ignorant of the drugs' origins, he said. SSDP tries to help manage the risks involved in such behavior.

The test kit shows students what they might ingest other than MDMA. "That's what we're trying to get people to do, think about what they're doing," Moffat said.

"My real interest in this is harm reduction," agreed Rebecca Elizabeth McGoldrick '12, an SSDP member.

"I saw people do some really dumb things" with drugs, especially in high school, she said.

Because MDMA on its own cannot hold together, it has to be combined with other substances, such as corn starch, in order to bind together as a tablet. But some makers dilute the recipe with other drugs to stretch the MDMA and sell more pills. Pill makers often choose drugs that mimic the effects of MDMA to fool users into thinking they have bought the real thing, Moffat said.
"Ecstasy is supposed to give you energy and a loving feeling," so pill makers might include amphetamine or caffeine to simulate an Ecstasy-induced energy rush, McGoldrick said.

Other substances and drugs contained in a pill sold as Ecstasy can be more dangerous to the user than MDMA, especially if the user combines the pill with other substances such as alcohol.

A female junior who used MDMA last Friday said she sent SSDP an email requesting use of the kit a few hours before that night's concert, but the group did not get back to her until the next day. She said she cannot blame SSDP because it must have been a busy time, and the group emailed her back within 24 hours. "I think I should've given them at least a day warning," she said. She spoke on the condition of anonymity because use of MDMA is illegal.

Friday was her first time taking Ecstasy, she said, so she did not know exactly what to expect. But "there's some suspicion" among her friends about the composition of the pills they took, she said.

Coming down from her high left her anxious Saturday, she said. But she and a friend experienced another bout of anxiety on Sunday, she said, which made her question the purity of the pills.

"It's unclear what was just the MDMA, and what was something else," she said, adding that she now feels fine.

"It was really fun," she said of her experience. "It was pretty gentle, in terms of the high."

"I'm glad I had the experience," she said, but "I probably wouldn't do it again.""

Jake Comer
Senior Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Source:
http://www.browndailyherald.com/15-u...rity-1.2547523

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Cocaine under Examination...Again.

The future review seems to have a lingering bias around it, but we wont know till it is written. Chemical dependency counseling and addiction physiology have already shown the horrid dangers of cocaine in the 70's and 80's. It's obvious that no one is taking heed to the cocaine research and the use of it has been increasing in the UK. More on the story...

"Cocaine's reputation as a "safe drug" at middle-class dinner parties is to be examined by the Government's drugs advisers.

Professor Les Iversen said the year-long review will look at the harms posed by the growing popularity of cocaine, but added there are no plans to consider changing its illegal class A status.

The review follows concerns over a three-fold rise in the number of cocaine users over the last 10 years and "a popular misconception, at least as far as powder cocaine is concerned at middle-class dinner parties, (that) it's a safe drug", Prof Iversen said.

"We want to examine the drug pharmacology in detail and see whether or not powder cocaine really is safe," he said. "I don't believe it."

David Liddell, who will lead the review for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said it would look at who uses cocaine, how often they take it and what other drugs they are using at the same time.

"Not just the overall numbers using cocaine, but more precisely how they're using it," he said.

"We will be looking at the nature of the trade and we will make specific recommendations regarding improvements that we feel are necessary in terms of the response to cocaine," he said.

Mr Liddell, of the Scottish Drugs Forum, added the review would also look at the physical, psychological and social harms of cocaine and is expected to report in spring next year.

Last month, the United Nations warned that the UK is becoming an increasingly important hub for the importation of cocaine into the rest of Europe.

Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Spain are the traditional routes for the drug's entry to the EU, but the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said there had been a recent surge in cases of the UK being used as point of entry."

UKPA
April 12, 2011

Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukp...1302614857628A

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Head Shops and Hemp Supporters

Government and chemical dependency counseling is acting fast on these new synthetic drugs to get them banned. This bust is an interesting story, different from the typical busts you hear in addiction physiology. Though it is a small accomplishment, it's one less head shop that a chemical dependency counselor will have to worry about, along with government officials. Heres the story...

"Lexington, KY - A couple of weeks ago, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Lexington police had raided a head shop on Winchester Road called The Botany Bay. The operation resulted in the police's confiscation of money, guns, bongs and, importantly, a quantity of "synthetic marijuana," the selling of which apparently prompted the raid in the first place. For the uninitiated, the term synthetic marijuana refers to some combination of herbs and lab-concocted cannabinoids, the latter of which produce a mild high when smoked.

This ersatz grass, sold under various brand names, was made temporarily illegal in this country on March 1 by the emergency powers of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a move that, for at least 12 months, reclassified several chemicals common to synthetic pot as Schedule 1 controlled substances. Other Schedule 1 substances include heroin, meth and marijuana itself. The Botany Bay continued to sell the stuff despite the ban.

But head shops get busted all the time for reasons legitimate and otherwise; by the letter of the law, this bust was by the book. What makes this bust worthy of commentary was gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett's association with The Botany Bay: According to the Herald-Leader, Ginny Saville, the shop's owner, "helped organize a Dec. 7 fund-raiser for Moffett and, with her husband, donated $2,000 to him. When the raid happened, she and her husband were with the Moffett campaign at the Conservative Action Political Conference in Washington, D.C."

Let's backtrack a bit: On March 14, Moffett issued a press release that called for Gov. Steve Beshear to take the steps necessary to "get the FDA, DEA and Department of Agriculture off our farms and defend Kentucky against this federal choke hold." Now, while one could certainly question the wisdom of completely deregulating our food supply — for example, the FDA spends a lot of time protecting us from things like botulism, salmonella and listeria, which anyone who's suffered acute food poisoning would agree is a pretty good thing — the issue of DEA meddling in state affairs is one of great importance to proponents of industrial hemp production in Kentucky and elsewhere. And Moffett was on target when he stated, in the same press release, that "we are importing industrial hemp products into the United States from 31 Western industrialized countries, including Canada, worth hundreds of millions of dollars in textiles, clothing, fabrics, oils, rope, pet products and many other goods. We are needlessly exporting jobs and dollars that could be in the pockets of Kentuckians."

Actually, Canada's hemp industry, which was legalized in 1998, is currently suffering from the problem of too much supply for too little demand, and exports of hemp seed and products to the United States and other countries generated revenue of only around $8 million Canadian in 2009. Most of the world's hemp imports come from China, not Canada. Still, Moffett's reasoning is sound; in fact, the outlook in Canada is bright enough that, this past December, the government in Ottawa supplied hemp processors with a substantial grant designed to, according to the Alberta Office of Agriculture and Rural Development, "increase production capacity and make new inroads into the U.S. market." These inroads, Moffett and other supporters of industrial hemp believe, could be made by Kentuckians instead.

Which is why Moffett's association with head shops is disappointing, and damaging to the cause. Despite the fact that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that has yet to legalize the production of industrial hemp, which might lead anyone but the most fervent believer in American exceptionalism to think that maybe we've got this one wrong, the conflation in many people's minds of industrial hemp with recreational marijuana, combined with our nation's apparent requirement that politicians distance themselves from anything resembling a pro-drug position if they wish to be taken seriously by the mainstream of American culture, means that the DEA's rigid anti-industrial hemp stance is seen to be the morally correct one, one that politicians challenge at the risk of costing themselves the next election. In short, drugs are immoral, and therefore so is industrial hemp — or so the DEA would have us believe.

The only way to combat this problem, of course, is to divorce the issue of industrial hemp production from the pot-legalization movement and, by doing so, to reclaim moral authority from the DEA. The only moral question involved in the production of industrial hemp is the utter immorality of keeping poor, rural states such as our own from improving our economic situation with specious reasoning and unjustifiable regulatory practices. But what Phil Moffett has done, by associating himself with a head shop selling synthetic pot, is to perpetuate the conflation of industrial hemp with illegal drugs, thereby ceding moral authority straight back to the very agency he rails against in his press releases.

But is it realistic, or even possible, to completely separate industrial hemp from its psychoactive cousin? The analogy most often trotted out by hemp proponents is that of heroin and poppy seeds: Heroin is terrible, but lemon-poppy seed muffins are great, and we never seem to confuse the two, even though it's quite possible to fail a drug test by consuming too many of the latter. It's a tired comparison, but it does seem to point to the possibility that one day we might be able to think about industrial hemp without summoning visions of bongs and head shops. But only if folks like Phil Moffett do their part."

Keith Halladay
Lexington Business News
April 12, 2011

Source: http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-201...2-97443.113117

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Watch out for "MDPBP"

Watch out for the new "ecstasy" like drug called MDPBP. A chemical dependency counselor in addiction physiology would put heavy warning on this. Ecstasy often goes underestimated in it's harmful effect, so this drug might fly under many's radar of "dangerous drugs". A ban should be coming soon...

"A new "designer" drug related to "ecstasy" (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and methamphetamine has recently been found on sale as bath salts in the USA, although it was first identified on the black market in Germany in 2009. A new study discusses how infrared and NMR spectroscopy were used in conjunction with mass spectrometry to identify the compound as 3,4-methylenedioxypyrrolidinobutyrophenone.

B. Klein and Giselher Fritschi of the Hessian State Criminal Office in Wiesbaden together with Folker Westphal and Thomas Junge of the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, and Ulrich Girreser of the Pharmaceutical Institute at the Christian-Albrechts-University, also in Kiel, Germany, used various techniques to identify the new designer drug. They used one- and two-dimensional proton and carbon-13 NMR spectroscopy and product ion mass spectrometry of the immonium ion with m/z = 112 formed after electron ionization to elucidate the aliphatic part of the compound.

There are countless synthetic compounds marketed illicitly as "legal highs". Their control is a grey area in terms of regulation as the law relies on slow-moving machinery that seemingly cannot keep pace with the synthetic chemistry prowess of those creating new drugs of abuse. Compounds such as "miaow miaow" (mephedrone), a synthetic derivative of the active component in the east African khat plant, for instance, are sold surreptitiously as plant food, incenses, and even bath salts that must be "inhaled very closely" (usually with a straw) to be experienced fully. Of course, many of these compounds have a remarkably close resemblance to compounds, such as ecstasy and methamphetamine, which are controlled substances in many parts of the world.

Chemical dependency counseling

As new substances enter the black market, chemists are quick to identify them and characterize their structure this can provide law enforcement with evidence of criminality. The identification of such compounds can also provide medicine with important clues as to potential problems that might arise following ingestion or inhalation of compounds that are likely to be highly toxic under certain circumstances.

The German team explains how they previously reported the appearance in 2007 of 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), a compound that has since reached the global black market. 4'-Methyl-alpha-pyrrolidinohexanophenone and 4'-methyl-alpha-pyrrolidinobutyrophenone were known in 2000 and 2004, respectively, although other members of the chemical group, the alpha-pyrrolidinophenones, have been around since at least 1996. The team explains that the alpha-pyrrolidinophenones are closely related in structure to the central nervous system stimulants, prolintane, cathinone, methcathinone, and other alpha-aminophenones.

One additional interesting point regarding the formulation of the various designer drugs circulating in Germany is that until this latest compound reached the black market, all previously synthesized members of the series had been found as rare nitrate salts of the organic parent compounds. These were allegedly traced to a single criminal chemist in the German State of Hesse. This latest compound is not on the market as the nitrate salt and so the analytical results hint at another source.

Misleading labels

Designer drugs, colloquially and misleadingly known as "herbal highs" are very much a focus of potentially high-yielding criminal activity around the globe, luckily analytical chemists and spectroscopists have the tools to identify and characterize them faster than ever before. This could ultimately help the emergency services, on both the legal and medical sides, in addressing the problem of such drugs."

April 1, 2011
Source:http://www.spectroscopynow.com/coi/c...&chId=5&page=1

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The Shady Sales of "Loosies"

Ever since taxes went up on cigarette packs the sales of individual cigarettes have gone drastically up! People see a cigarette for 75cents and it doesnt seem like alot so they buy it, but it adds up after a few days or weeks of buying. A chemical dependency counselor in addiction physiology would explain that this is extremely unhealthy because a habit for cigarettes is being engraved into the person. A man by the name Mr. Warner is the seller of these 75cent cigarettes and day in and day out he sells them. Read more...

"By 8:30 a.m., amid the procession of sleepy-eyed office workers and addicts from the nearby methadone clinic, Lonnie Loosie plants himself in the middle of the sidewalk on Eighth Avenue in Midtown. Addressing no one in particular, he calls out his one-size-fits-all greeting: “Newports, Newports, packs and loosies.” 

Rarely does a minute go by without a customer stopping just long enough to pass a dollar bill to Lonnie Loosie, known to the police by his given name, Lonnie Warner, 50. They clench the two “loosies” — as single cigarettes are called — that he thrusts back in return.

Soon Mr. Warner’s two partners, both younger men, arrive for the day and fan out along the same block. By midmorning, the block to the south is occupied by Carlton, who sells loosies, as does Carlton’s younger brother, Norman, 54.

A few blocks north, another man sells cigarettes near a check-cashing storefront. Add to these a few roving vendors who poach territory when they can.

Itinerant cigarette vendors have long been a fixture in some parts of the city, like bodegas that sell individual cigarettes in violation of state law. But with cigarette prices up and the number of smoke-friendly places down, the black market for loosies is now thriving on the streets.

The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has outlawed smoking in restaurants, bars and playgrounds, and outside hospital entrances. Even city parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas will soon be off limits to smokers. Then there have been successive rounds of taxes — the most recent one, a $1.60 rise in the state tax in July — that raised the price of a pack of cigarettes to $12.50 at many Midtown newsstands.

“The tax went up, and we started selling 10 times as much,” Mr. Warner said. “Bloomberg thinks he’s stopping people from smoking. He’s just turning them onto loosies.”

Mr. Warner and his partners patrol the east side of Eighth Avenue, from 35th to 36th Street. He started out on Seventh Avenue, but eventually moved a block west, in front of Staples at 35th. “You look for the crowd,” he said.

Mr. Warner said he believed that the official price was above what many people were willing or able to pay. As evidence, he noted that his customers included office workers from as far south as 32nd Street and as far north as 40th Street — people with good-paying jobs, as far as he can discern.

Mr. Warner said he bought his cigarettes — almost always Newports — for a bit over $50 a carton from smugglers who get them in states like Virginia, where the state tax is well under a dollar a pack. He then resells them for 75 cents each, two for $1 or $8 for a pack ($7 for friends).

Mr. Warner said he and each of his two partners took home $120 to $150 a day, profit made from selling about 2,000 cigarettes, mostly two at a time. Each transaction is a misdemeanor offense.

Among all of Midtown’s cigarette vendors, Mr. Warner stands out, partly because he seems to get arrested more frequently than others. That may be because his style of salesmanship is hardly furtive.

“The cops call me a fish — that’s my nickname, cause I’m easy to catch,” Mr. Warner said during a series of recent interviews. “When they need a body to arrest, they come pick me up.”

In the four years since he began selling cigarettes, Mr. Warner recalls being arrested 15 times, generally on the charge of selling untaxed tobacco. He has been arrested so often that he can recognize 10 different plainclothes police officers, he claims. The ever-present risk of arrest makes working with partners valuable — “we have six eyes on this block,” he explained.

Over many court appearances, Mr. Warner has made a favorable impression on the lawyers in Midtown Community Court, who know him as Lonnie Loosie and consider him better company than the typical misdemeanor defendant.

“There are people who are known bad guys, and then there’s him,” said Russell S. Novack, the Legal Aid lawyer who represents many of Midtown’s hustlers, prostitutes, shoplifters and public drunks. “He’s like the goodwill ambassador of Eighth Avenue. And when he comes into court, he says hello to everybody.”

For Mr. Warner, punishment usually means a few days in jail on Rikers Island, or a week of community service, some of it spent sweeping cigarette butts.

Mr. Warner asserts that the block is safer and less unruly because of him.

“A lot of them believe they are quitting,” he said, “but they come back every day.”"

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
New York Times
April 4, 2011
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/ny..._r=1&src=twrhp

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Fake Drugs, Real Death

A chemical dependency counselor will tell you that synthetic drugs are no better than real drugs. Whether they are "legal" or not, addiction physiology and the cold hard evidence will show how deadly these drugs are. A chemical dependency counselor cannot save someone after they are dead. More on the story...

"Synthetic substances that mimic marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs are making users across the nation seriously ill, causing seizures and hallucinations and even killing some people.

The products are often packaged as insence or bath salts and can be obtained for as little as $10 at many head shops. As more people experiment with them, the results are becoming evident at hospitals: a sharp spike in the number of users who show up with problems ranging from labored breathing and rapid heartbeats to extreme paranoia and delusions. The symptoms can persist for days.

At the request of The Associated Press, the American Association of Poison Control Centers analyzed nationwide figures on calls related to synthetic drugs. The findings showed an alarming increase in the number of people seeking medical attention.

At least 2,700 people have fallen ill since January, compared with fewer than 3,200 cases in all of 2010. At that pace, medical emergencies related to synthetic drugs could go up nearly fivefold by the end of the year.

"Many of the users describe extreme paranoia," said Dr. Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Center. "The recurring theme is monsters, demons and aliens. A lot of them had suicidal thoughts."

The chemicals are suspected in at least nine U.S. deaths since last year, including that of Mike Rozga's 18-year-old son, David, an athlete and band standout from Indianola.

The young man got high last June on a marijuana look-alike product called "K2" and complained to a friend "that he felt like he was in hell," his father said.

Though the teen had never suffered from depression, he went home, found a shotgun and killed himself.

"These kids weren't looking for anything bad to happen," Mike Rozga said. "The truth is they didn't know what they had gotten themselves into."

The recent surge in activity has not gone unnoticed by authorities. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently used emergency powers to outlaw five chemicals found in synthetic pot, placing them in the same category as heroin and cocaine.

But manufacturers are quick to adapt, often cranking out new formulas that are only a single molecule apart from the illegal ones."

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2011/04/07/2011-04-07_synthetic_d...

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Teens with Ecstasy...

 Just recently wrote an article on our website on the dangers of Ecstasy, you can find it filed in addiction physiology. Its always sad for a addiction physiology has to raise awareness about teens and even little kids with drugs. The arrest of two teenagers was made a few days ago and Ecstasy was in there possesion. Not good at all!...

"Two teenagers were arrested in connection with a theft at Freedom High School on March 31.

Police are also made an arrest in a driving while on drugs case and are searching for suspects in a reported burglary, all on March 31.

At 9:26 a.m. yesterday, police responded to Freedom High School off of Neabsco Mills Road on a report of a larceny. School officials told police that iPods, cell phones and money were stolen from students' lockers. School officials had detained two possible suspects, who are students, before police arrived, and a majority of the items were returned to their owners.

Omar A. Hidalgo, 18, of Redbud Court, was charged with grand larceny and conspiracy to commit a felony. He is a senior at the school. His court date is May 24. Police also arrested another senior who is 17. His name was not released because of his age, but he was charged with the same crimes.

At 1:10 a.m., police stopped a vehicle near Cambridge and Oakwood drives in Lake Ridge for an unknown reason. Police detained the driver because they had a suspicion he was under the influence of drugs. Police searched the vehicle and said they found marijuana and ecstasy.

 Eric A. Lumpkin, 23, of Kerrydale Road, was charged with driving under the influence of drugs, resisting arrest, driving on a suspended license, possession of marijuana and ecstasy. The police report states that Lumpkin also had four unrelated outstanding warrants for his arrest. 

At about 7:05 p.m. on March 31, police responded to Midsummer Lane where a homeowner reported that someone forced open the front door between 8:50 a.m. and 7:05 p.m. and stole electronics and jewelry valued at more than $700. Money also was taken from the home. Police continue to investigate the burglary."

Very sad!! :(

 

Source:http://lakeridge.patch.com/articles/two-teens-charged-in-school-thefts-driver-charged-with-having-ecstasy-burglary-on-midsummer-lane

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Has the Drug War failed?

The failed drug war in the U.K could be a good thing. They may start using chemical dependency counseling or a chemical dependency counselor instead of using prison. Sometimes prison isn't always the answer to solving problems like addictions...More on the latest...

"Leading peers – including prominent Tories – say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible.

Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country.

The increasing use of the most harmful drugs such as heroin has also led to “enormous health problems”, according to the group.

The MPs and members of the House of Lords, who have formed a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, are calling for new policies to be drawn up on the basis of scientific evidence.

It could lead to calls for the British government to decriminalise drugs, or at least for the police and Crown Prosecution Service not to jail people for possession of small amounts of banned substances.

Their intervention could receive a sympathetic audience in Whitehall, where ministers and civil servants are trying to cut the numbers and cost of the prison population. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has already announced plans to help offenders kick drug habits rather than keeping them behind bars.

The former Labour government changed its mind repeatedly on the risks posed by cannabis use and was criticised for sacking its chief drug adviser, Prof David Nutt, when he claimed that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

The chairman of the new group, Baroness Meacher – who is also chairman of an NHS trust – told The Daily Telegraph: “Criminalising drug users has been an expensive catastrophe for individuals and communities.

“In the UK the time has come for a review of our 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. I call on our Government to heed the advice of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that drug addiction should be recognised as a health problem and not punished.

“We have the example of other countries to follow. The best is Portugal which has decriminalised drug use for 10 years. Portugal still has one of the lowest drug addiction rates in Europe, the trend of Young people's drug addiction is falling in Portugal against an upward trend in the surrounding countries, and the Portuguese prison population has fallen over time.”

Lord Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, said: “I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster.

“This is an important issue, which I have thought about for many years. But I still don't know what the right answer is – I have joined the APPG in the hope that it may help us to find the right answer.”

Other high-profile figures in the group include Baroness Manningham-Buller, who served as Director General of MI5, the security service, between 2002 and 2007; Lord Birt, the former Director-General of the BBC who went on to become a “blue-sky thinker” for Tony Blair; Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, until recently the Director of Public Prosecutions; and Lord Walton of Detchant, a former president of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council.

Current MPs on the group include Peter Bottomley, who served as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher; Mike Weatherley, the newly elected Tory MP for Hove and Portslade; and Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge.

The group’s formation coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which paved the way for a war on drugs by describing addiction as a “serious evil”, attempting to limit production for medicinal and scientific uses only, and coordinating international action against traffickers.

The peers and MPs say that despite governments “pouring vast resources” into the attempt to control drug markets, availability and use has increased, with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin in 2008.

They believe the trade in illegal drugs makes more than £200 billion a year for criminals and terrorists, as well as destabilising entire nations such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

As a result, the all-party group is working with the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust, to review current policies and scientific evidence in order to draw up proposed new ways to deal with the problem."

By Martin Beckford,
Health Correspondent 

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...S-and-BBC.html

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