On July 30, the U.S. Navy launched a revamped drug policy and began an agency-wide crackdown on substance abusing sailors. The new policy increases by half the percentage of Navy personnel that must be randomly drug-tested each month, and requires every sailor to be screened for substance use within 72 hours of reporting to a new command.

The new policy arises out of the Navy's intent to shed the last vestiges of a culture that has historically tolerated drug abuse, and even celebrated binge-drinking. The Navy is striving to reduce substance abuse by 25 percent within the next few years.

"Until we achieve zero, I have to assume that substance abuse is out there," said Bill Flannery, director of the Navy Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program. "In the field of prevention, if you feel like you've won, you've lost."

The new policy also includes stricter rules for dealing with sailors who repeatedly drink and drive. Under the new rules, a second DUI offense will result in expulsion from the Navy. In addition, more commands will be appointing a senior member as an alcohol and drug control officer.

(Source: signonsandiego.com)

Labels: binge-drinking, substance abuse

A new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry indicates that binge drinking may be more common among adults aged 50 and older than previously thought.

According to the study, 23 percent of men and 9 percent of women between the ages of 50 and 64 reported drinking at least five alcoholic beverages per day within the month prior to the study.

Carol Colleran, author of Aging and Addiction: Helping Older Adults Overcome Alcohol and Medication Dependence, commented: "This is not a teenage problem. This is not a college-level problem. This is a problem that is existing in today's boomer population."

(Source: abcnews.go.com)

Labels: alcohol, binge-drinking

According to data reported this week by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), adults who are part of the baby boomer generation are continuing an old habit: getting high on illicit drugs. Forty years after Woodstock, some baby boomers are continuing a lifestyle that set them apart from previous generations.

According to the new data, as baby boomers age, the number of adults in each progressive age group who use illicit drugs increases. The percentage of Americans age 50-59 who reported use of illicit drugs within a year nearly doubled between 2002 and 2007, from 5.1 percent to 9.4 percent. During the same time period, drug use among all other age groups remained stable or decreased.

SAMHSA Acting Administrator Eric Broderick said the continued drug use "is likely to put further strains on the nation's health care system."

(Source: Associated Press)

Labels: drug-abuse

According to a story appearing this week in The New York Times, addiction experts are testing the use of heroin to treat heroin addicts who are unresponsive to other treatment methods. The study is the first rigorous test of the new approach performed in North America. The results are appearing in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the study, researchers in Canada recruited 225 long-term heroin addicts who had failed to improve using other treatment methods, including methadone maintenance therapy. The researchers randomly assigned about half of the addicts to methadone treatment and the other half to receive daily injections of diacetylmorphine (the active ingredient in heroin).

After one year, 88 percent of those who received injections were still in the study and two-thirds of those had significantly reduced their heroin use and use of other illicit drugs. Of those in the methadone group, however, only 54 percent were still in the study and 48 percent had curbed their drug use.

Methadone has long been considered the best chemical treatment for heroin addiction because it is a chemical cousin of heroin that prevents withdrawal but does not produce the same high. Dr. Joshua Boverman, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, comments on the results of the study and the reason why methadone does not appear to work as well as heroin in the treatment of heroin addiction: "It showed that heroin works better than methadone in this population of users, and patients will be more willing to take it ... [perhaps the biggest weakness of methadone treatment is that] many patients don't want to take it; they just don't like it."

(Source: www.nytimes.com)

Labels: addiction, heroin, methadone, treatment

Afghanistan supplies over 90 percent of the world's opium and now the people of Afghanistan, including large numbers of women and children, are being crushed by a tsunami of opium addiction.

Experts estimate that there are around 2 million opium addicts in Afghanistan. In poverty-stricken areas, it is not uncommon for mothers to give their children opium. Opium suppresses hunger pains and relieves the biting cold of winter.

Although some families are lucky enough to receive addiction treatment, chronic poverty and suffering and easy access to opium draws them back into using. Dr. Toorpaikay Zazai, who runs a family treatment center where she treats more than 100 children in west Kabul, says children get addicted quicker and it's harder for them to quit.

"For every addicted mother, there are on average four addicted children," she said. "If something isn't done today, the country will lose a generation to drugs."

(Source: CBSnews.com)

Labels: addiction, drug-abuse, opium

In a high-profile story this week, Diane Schuler, 36, of New York, drove the wrong way for nearly two miles on the Taconic State Parkway before causing a head-on collision with three men in an SUV. The crash killed Ms. Schuler, her 2-year-old daughter, her three young nieces, and the three men in the other vehicle.

Ms. Schuler's autopsy report revealed that she had consumed the equivalent of 10 drinks and smoked marijuana within an hour of the crash. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found inside her wrecked minivan. Her blood alcohol level was more than twice the state's legal limit and she still had undigested alcohol in her stomach.

Ms. Schuler's husband denied, during a press conference, ever seeing his wife drunk during their entire marriage and refused to accept the autopsy findings. Meanwhile, families of the three men in the SUV are questioning how Schuler's family could have ignored what was, apparently, a substantial substance abuse problem. The families are considering pressing criminal charges.

Marc Galanter, director of the Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse at New York University, commented: "Families are often in denial and can't deal with the reality that a family member has a problem."

(Source: Associated Press)

Labels: alcohol, marijuana, substance abuse

Experts on the Texas-Mexico border fear that border residents are more vulnerable to illicit drug use due to a number of factors, including poverty, lack of education, proximity to stockpiles of illegal narcotics and limited access to treatment. Local mental healthcare providers fear that young people are the most vulnerable of all.

This week, healthcare providers, law enforcement officials and substance abuse treatment providers from Texas and Mexico gathered to discuss new strategies for combating illicit drug use near the border. Attendees included representatives from 32 border counties. Experts say that if these counties were treated as a state, they would have the highest poverty level and lowest employment rates in the nation.

Experts are especially worried about area youth, who often become entangled with cartels because gainful employment is so difficult to find. Young people become involved with ruthless drug bosses, unaware of the all-too-often violent consequences, and have no idea that they can be charged with federal crimes for border-related drug activities.

(Source: www.elpasotimes.com)

Labels: drugs, treatment

A new study involving an unlikely creature -- the zebrafish -- has shown that genes involved in brain reward processes and adult neuron formation may be involved in drug addiction.

German and Dutch researchers compared gene expressions in normal and mutant zebrafish who had and had not been exposed to amphetamines. They found that 139 genetic transcripts were expressed differentially between wild type zebrafish and mutant fish that don't respond to the drug. This allowed researchers to identify a dominant mutation that renders zebrafish indifferent to amphetamines.

Katherine Webb, a neurogenetics researcher at the German Research Center for Environmental Health and the study's lead author, commented on the study's goal: "Because a major step in the development of addiction is the switch from drug use to drug abuse ... we aimed to gain insight into the mechanisms triggering the initiation of addictive behavior."

The study results are available online through Genome Biology.

(Source: www.genomeweb.com)

Labels: addiction, brain_chemistry, drug-abuse

A new study involving an unlikely creature -- the zebrafish -- has shown that genes involved in brain reward processes and adult neuron formation may be involved in drug addiction.

German and Dutch researchers compared gene expressions in normal and mutant zebrafish who had and had not been exposed to amphetamines. They found that 139 genetic transcripts were expressed differentially between wild type zebrafish and mutant fish that don’t respond to the drug. This allowed researchers to identify a dominant mutation that renders zebrafish indifferent to amphetamines.

Katherine Webb, a neurogenetics researcher at the German Research Center for Environmental Health and the study's lead author, commented on the study's goal: "Because a major step in the development of addiction is the switch from drug use to drug abuse ... we aimed to gain insight into the mechanisms triggering the initiation of addictive behavior."

The study results are available online through Genome Biology.

(Source: www.genomeweb.com)

Labels: addiction, brain_chemistry, drug-abuse

Use of illegal narcotics in Mexico has increased by nearly 30 percent over the last five years, and the number of addicts has increase by 100 percent since 2002.

Experts worry that Mexico is ill-equipped to handle the implications of this increase in drug abuse, with an already weak infrastructure and struggling economy. Only about 100 competent drug abuse treatment centers exist in the country, although the government hopes to increase the number to 1,000 by the year's end.

In addition, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is considering signing a bill, already passed by Congress, to decriminalize drug possession. Although the bill is intended to free law enforcement agents to focus on drug dealers and traffickers, some experts worry that the bill could cause a further spike in drug consumption.

(Source: Newsweek.com)

Labels: addiction, drug-abuse, trafficking

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is touting a pill that supposedly has all the benefits of medical marijuana. Known as "Marinol," the pill has been legal and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use with a prescription anywhere in the United States since 1985.

The active ingredient in Marinol is the same as the primary psychoactive element of the cannabis plant -- dronabinol or THC. Neil Hirsch, a spokesman for Marinol manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals, commented on the advantages of Marinol over smoke marijuana: "Marinol provides standardized THC concentrations, does not contain the other 400 uncharacterized substances found in smoked marijuana, such as carcinogens or fungal spores, and is not associated with the quick high of smoked marijuana."

Proponents of medical marijuana point out, however, that Marinol is not the same thing as marijuana. While Marinol may lack some of the negative ingredients of marijuana, it also lacks some of the positive ingredients. For instance, Marinol does not contain cannabidiol, which has been found to alleviate seizures.

Other downsides include the fact that pill form takes longer to act in the body, dosage is harder to regulate with delayed effects, individuals who frequently vomit due to illness cannot keep the pills down long enough to digest them, and Marinol is about three to five time more expensive per dose than marijuana.

(Source: www.cbsnews.com)

Labels: marijuana, Marinol, pot

A unique women's self-help group is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. The Mom Off Meth group first met 10 years ago. Since then, chapters of the group have been established across the state of Iowa, and the program has helped hundreds of women turn their lives around. The meetings are open to any woman with an addiction, and meetings focus on replacing regret and shame with support.

According to member Lisa Gray, the group has simple ground rules: "No shaming, blaming, or hating." Lisa, age 37, is recovering from years of crack cocaine addiction. Her addiction cost her dearly -- her two youngest children were taken away. But she has now been sober for almost two years with the support of the group.

Lisa now has a job, a home and a relationship with her oldest child, but says that recovery is still a daily commitment: "At first I was doing it for my children because I wanted my children back, but now it's for me. It's one day at a time, that's all you can do is take it one day at a time."

(Source: www.wowt.com)

Labels: addiction, methamphetamines, recovery

According to a researcher at Baylor University, certain individuals may possess a genetic predisposition to stress which may increase the chances that they will abuse drugs and/or alcohol. A cluster of genes on chromosome one was shown to respond to stress in animal models, and could be partly responsible for the alcohol and substance abuse that many people engage in as a reaction to stress.

The Baylor University researcher who discovered the link, Doug Matthews, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, commented on the findings: "Humans report that they drink because of stress, and we've been able to identify a region on chromosome one that responds to both stress and, other studies have shown, responds to drug-taking behavior.

"So, we have reason to believe that there's a gene or a constellation of genes that might influence or control drug-taking behavior. This is a behavior that isn't a simple reflex. It involves high-level functioning -- motivation, emotion, memory -- that kind of stuff. So, what we're looking at here is a genetic vulnerability for stress that could lead to increased drug-taking."

(Source: www.wacotrib.com)

Labels: alcohol, substance abuse

The world's largest drug maker, Pfizer, Inc., goes on trial next week to face claims that its epilepsy drug Neurontin increases the risk of suicide. This case is the first of an estimated 1,200 similar cases pending against the drug company concerning this particular medication.

This case centers on the 2004 suicide of 39-year-old Susan Bulger, who took the medication before hanging herself. Pfizer maintains that Neurontin was not responsible for Ms. Bulger's actions, and points to her history of mental illness and drug abuse as more likely culprits.

Robert Rabin, a law professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., commented on the case for an article by Bloomberg: "If she was taking other drugs, there's a question if this particular drug contributed to the suicide."

Ms. Bulger's family claims that Pfizer's marketing of Neurontin for off-label uses (uses not specifically described in the drug's official labeling) influenced Ms. Bulger to take the drug. She used Neurontin, which is approved for treating epilepsy, to help with mood swings and arthritis pain. However, current law forbids companies from marketing medications for off-label uses.

(Source: www.bloomberg.com)

Labels: Neurontin, prescription-drug-abuse