March 1st, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in For College Students, For Health Professionals, For Parents, For Youth, Interesting Information
I used to have fairly liberal views on cannabis and have compared it favourably in the past with alcohol and tobacco, both of which exact a bigger toll on our society than all illegal drugs combined. [...]
February 16th, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in For Educators, Interesting Information
Metro schools will start using a new spray to test students for drug possession, a method designed to keep illegal narcotics off campuses. [...]
January 22nd, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Interesting Information
The latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine carries an article by researchers from Boston’s Children’s Hospital who checked out some of the “partrisan” websites that carry information about illicit drugs and found many that carry dangerous misinformation. [...]
January 21st, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Interesting Information
The latest Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report—drawn from a sample of hospital emergency departments across the Nation—indicates that more than 1.7 million visits to emergency departments (ED) were associated with some form of substance misuse or abuse. [...]
December 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Interesting Information
“Drug abuse and addiction are major burdens to society; economic costs alone are estimated to exceed half a trillion dollars annually in the United States, including health, crime-related costs, and losses in productivity. However, staggering as these numbers are, they provide a limited erspective of the devastating consequences of this disease,” [...]
December 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in For Health Professionals, Interesting Information
We know that methadone is the best drug used in addiction treatment. Therefore our only problem in addiction medicine is that we do not have a methadone for all the other drugs of addiction. Leading Science Administrators in Australia and USA. [...]
December 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Interesting Information
It’s a turquoise sky on a December afternoon. Out the window, I see the Rhine meandering far below me, the last rays of sunlight shimmering on the surface; a storm is passing through from France heading toward Cologne. [...]
October 15th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in For Educators, Interesting Information, Psychoactive Substances
The purpose of this article is to set out ten key facts that teachers need to know about cannabis if they are to be able to inform the pupils in their care authoritatively and which ideally they need to actively communicate when the context or situation arises: [...]
October 15th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture, For Health Professionals, Interesting Information
The number of people admitted to hospital in England with mental illnesses linked to use of illegal drugs has doubled in the past decade, official figures revealed yesterday. The NHS Information Centre said 38,170 adults and children were admitted with [...]
October 7th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Interesting Information
Nicotine becomes habit-forming by hijacking the brain’s pleasure pathways. But to better treat nicotine addicts, scientists need to figure out precisely how it does so. University of Chicago researchers led by postdoctoral student Huibert Mansvelder appear to have [...]
The world’s best business model has always been addiction. Tobacco and alcohol have been around for ages, but new temptations and spinoffs are being marketed all the time: meth, painkillers, energy drinks, you name it.
Importantly, the study also finds that the risk of violence from patients with psychoses who also have substance use disorder is no greater than those who have a substance use disorder but who do not have a psychotic illness – in other words, schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses do not appear to be responsible for any additional risk of violence above the increased risk associated with substance abuse.
Smoking marijuana over an extended period of time appears to greatly boost a young man’s risk for developing a particularly aggressive form of testicular cancer, a new study reveals. [...]
Relief from pain. In some people, prescription pain relievers also cause euphoria or feelings of well being by affecting the brain regions that mediate pleasure. This is why they are abused. Other effects include drowsiness, constipation and slowed breathing. [...]
On Sunday researchers at the University of Buffalo reported that Ritalin, used on children diagnosed with ADHD, may cause long-term changes in the brain. Many clinicians regard Ritalin as short-acting but the research with gene expression in an animal model suggests that it has the potential for causing long-lasting changes [...]
The body produces many chemicals and hormones, i.e., histamines, steroids, thyroid hormone, digitalis-like substances, adrenalin, etc, all of which work by attaching to corresponding brain receptors. The key is that these natural substances produced by the body are present in nanogram amounts [...]
As California State Assembly member Tom Ammiano put it: “What if California could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to preserve vital state services without any tax increase?” [...]
“The fight against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan,” said Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he took office in 2002. Judging by the current situation, Afghanistan is losing. [...]
Among the things everybody knows is that Democrats, being the party of the little people, raise money in small contributions, whereas Republicans, being the party of fat cats, raise funds in huge basketfuls from wealthy corporate types. At least, that’s the way the world is usually portrayed by the “Today Show,” The New York Times and the Democratic Party. So it’s of more than passing interest to see [...]