By Join Together Staff | March 28, 2012 | 2 Comments | Filed in Drugs, Young Adults & Youth
Whip-Its—small canisters filled with nitrous oxide—are once again becoming popular among teens and young adults as a recreational drug, ABC News reports.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Whip-Its are the most popular inhalant among young adults.
“What makes them really popular is they’re easily accessible,” William Oswald, founder of the Summit Malibu drug treatment center, told ABC News. “You can get them at a head shop, you can get it out of a whipped cream bottle.”
Inhaling nitrous oxide, either from a whipped cream canister, or a nitrous tank, leads to a high that can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Many online retailers sell large quantities of Whip-Its, without asking the purchaser’s age or what they will be using the product for, according to the news report.
Inhalants such as Whip-Its can be deadly. Dr. Westley Clark, Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at SAMHSA, said inhaling nitrous oxide can cut off oxygen to the brain. This can cause severe consequences for the heart, nervous system and organs, he said.
By Join Together Staff | March 28, 2012 | Leave a comment | Filed inCommunity Related & Drugs
Heroin use has increased so much in Ohio that users say it is “falling out of the sky,” according to a new report by state health officials. Children as young as 13 are starting to use the drug, they said.
Heroin’s popularity is increasing because it is seen as less expensive and easier to obtain than prescription opioids, according to theAssociated Press. Many heroin users responding to a state surveysaid increased demand for the drug was due to the reformulation of OxyContin, which makes it more difficult to abuse.
The report, released by the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, said availability of heroin in Cleveland is considered to be at epidemic levels. The survey found an increase in heroin abuse across the state during the previous six months.
The state’s Department of Health reports that heroin-involved deaths increased from 16 percent (233) of all drug overdoses in 2008, to 20 percent (283) in 2009, to a high of 22 percent (338) in 2010.
At the Recovery Center in Lancaster, Ohio, an area considered to be the “hotspot” for heroin use in the state, most of the 360 patients are addicted to painkillers or heroin, according to CEO Trisha Saunders. She told the AP that most patients who are addicted to heroin started with painkillers. “They say, `I never thought I’d switch from taking a pill to putting a needle in my arm,’” Saunders said.
The Department of Justice 2011 National Drug Threat Assessmentfound increased heroin-related overdoses have been reported in cities in at least 30 states.
The report notes, “New users frequently overdose because they are unfamiliar with their tolerance levels; users resuming heroin use after prolonged absences often restart at their prior dosage level, even though their tolerance may have declined in the interim.”
New Technology Aims to Prevent Drunk Driving
By Join Together Staff | April 4, 2012 | 3 Comments | Filed in Alcohol &Research
Cars and trucks one day may have built-in blood alcohol detectors,The Wall Street Journal reports. Research on the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) is progressing more quickly than expected, and could be available within eight to 10 years, experts say.
The technology could be built into a vehicle’s dashboard or controls. It would check a driver’s blood alcohol level, and would not start if the level were above the legal limit. Researchers developing the system are working with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The next goal would be to develop a commercially produced vehicle that could drive a drunk owner home, the article notes.
About one-third of drivers killed in car crashes have blood alcohol levels of 0.08 or higher, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Devices called alcohol interlocks are already available to disable a car if the driver is intoxicated. They are primarily used for people who have been caught with blood alcohol levels above the legal limit. About 16 states require people convicted of drunk driving to install these devices in their vehicles. Drivers must blow into a tube to verify they are sober before they can start the car.
The new technology being developed would not require blowing into a tube. It could be embedded in a starter button or shift lever.
A proposed federal transportation bill would give the NHTSA’s alcohol detector program $24 million over two years. The fundingwould allow the agency to equip 100 or more cars with prototypes of the new alcohol detection devices. One device would measure alcohol in the driver’s breath, while the other would take a reading from the driver’s skin.
By Join Together Staff | April 13, 2012 | Leave a comment | Filed in Marketing And Media & Prescription Drugs
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials say criminal scam artists are selling prescription drugs online, then using customers’ personal information to blackmail them.
The scam artists pose as federal drug enforcement agents. They use DEA agents’ real names to call customers, telling them they can pay up and their name will be cleared, or else they will be charged as suspects in a criminal investigation and face jail time, according toABC News.
The victims say the calls sound authentic, because the person calling has their personal information. In one case in Fort Worth, Texas, fake DEA agents showed up at a victim’s house.
Thousands of people have called the DEA hotline for help, many of whom have paid the scammers. The DEA believes the operation is being run out of the Dominican Republic. The agency is working with the Dominican government to have 11 suspects extradited to the United States.
The DEA warned Americans to be wary of online pharmacies. “I think that’s one of the takeaways for people to understand, that buying over the Internet for controlled substances is highly suspicious, and they should be very cautious about trying to do that,” DEA agent Gary Boggs told ABC News.
By Join Together Staff | April 13, 2012 | Leave a comment | Filed inPrescription Drugs & Prevention
Scientists are working to make prescription painkillers and other commonly misused drugs “unabusable” by reformulating them, according to Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Pharmaceutical companies have an important role to play in fighting prescription drug abuse, by reformulating commonly abused drugs, she said at the National Rx Drug Abuse Summit in Orlando, Florida.
Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, released a new version of the drug two years ago that is resistant to crushing and cutting, common ways in which the drug was tampered with to enhance its effect. It is now much more difficult to prepare for snorting or injecting, a company spokeswoman told the Orlando Sentinel.
Acura Pharmaceuticals has developed two methods to prevent tampering with pills, according to CEO Bob Jones. The company has incorporated a substance in pills that turns them into a gel when someone tries to dissolve the drug to inject, so that it will not go through a needle.
The company also has formulated pills so that they create intense nasal irritation when they are crushed and snorted. This formulation is incorporated into the drug Oxecta, an immediate-release oxycodone product, the article notes. Acura plans to use the formulation in other painkillers, Jones said.
Acura has developed technology that limits how much of the key ingredient in methamphetamine a person can extract from the nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine. The technology, which is not yet commercially available, cuts the yield in half.
Drug companies also are creating pills with the consistency of gummy bears, which are too soft to crush. Some drugs in development won’t work unless they come into contact with the stomach’s digestive enzymes, making them useless if they are snorted or injected.
'Tweaking memories' could help addicts avoid relapsingBy James GallagherHealth and science reporter, BBC News
Can memories of drug use be rewritten?
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Manipulating memories of drug use may help reformed addicts avoid a return to a life of drug abuse, according to scientists in China.
They said memories linking "cues" - such as needles or cigarettes - and the pleasurable effects of drugs caused cravings and relapsing.
Authors of the study, published in the journal Science, "rewrote" those memories to reduce cravings.
Experts said targeting memories could become a new avenue for treatment.
Repeatedly showing people drug cues without actually giving patients the drug is a part of some therapies for addicts. It can break the link between cue and craving in the clinic. But this does not always translate to real life.
The researchers at Peking University tried to rewrite the original memory so that it would be as if the link between cue and the craving never existed.Flexible memories
The work relies on the idea that a memory can become malleable after it is accessed, creating a brief window during which the memory can be "rewritten".
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
I'm quite excited by this research... It could be really important for treatment of addiction”Dr Amy MiltonUniversity of Cambridge
Twenty-two heroin addicts who had not taken the drug for - on average - 11 years, took part in the study.
They were initially shown a brief video to remind them of taking drugs - opening the memory window. Ten minutes later they watched more videos and looked at pictures of heroin drug use.
Other addicts were shown an initial video of the countryside, which would not open the window.
Tests 180 days later showed that levels of cravings were lower in those treated during the 'memory window' than in the other groups. These experiments were backed up by further tests on "addicted" rats.
The authors wrote: "The [memory] procedure decreased cue-induced drug craving and perhaps could reduce the likelihood of cue-induced relapse during prolonged abstinence periods."
Dr Amy Milton, who researches memory and addiction at the University of Cambridge, said: "I'm quite excited by this research."
She said it was "such a minor" difference from current therapies which "tapped into an entirely different memory process" and the reconstruction of the original memory.
"Full clinical studies are needed, but it could be really important for treatment of addiction," she said.
Dr Milton added: "There is no theoretical reason it couldn't apply to other addictions such as alcohol. That's obviously very exciting."
