The use of party drugs is spreading aggressively to reach suburban schools and children as young as 11. Covering a wide range of amphetamine-type stimulants and ketamine these drugs are becoming popular because they’re easy to get and are thought to have none of the side effects that more commonly abused opiates produce. The rate of abuse is high enough in fact that nearly 80% of those recently seeking drug treatment are users of these drugs. Many of those seeking treatment after becoming habitual users of these drugs are dealing with brain damage and other detrimental side-effects.

Party drugs are five times as commonly used as heroin in teens and twenty something social groups in Malaysia and the age of users is becoming shockingly low with some as young as 11. Officials of treatment centers say that those who deal the drugs deliberately get their customers addicted with a two week freebie and then when the user is hooked they’re often going as far as offering the drugs to friends, stealing and in some cases trading sex to get their fix. Drugs with street names like syabu, ice, WY, Pil Kuda, Yaba have been present in the country since 1997 but ketamine entered in 2003. The drugs became especially [popular when it was realized that police drug testing couldn’t pick up on their presence in the user’s urine.

Improved opiate drug use prevention may also have played a part as less and less of these drugs are available verses what they had been even a few years ago. Early signs of abuse are the best way to determine if someone you know is abusing these drugs : abnormal sleep cycle, appetite and weight loss, asking for money, acting overly friendly or, in the more advanced stage, and becoming verbally abusive.

In a wide spread study researchers have found that in w groups of people, loneliness can “spread like the flu”. What starts out as a single person being “infected” with the emotion of loneliness spreads like a contagion within the group. When a group of people know that a person is lonely, usually communicated verbally to someone within the group it starts the spread of the emotion.  Once the loneliness sets in for someone else in the group, the rest will eventually fall into the same pattern. Societies tend to shed off the lonely because it is a crippling and devastating emotional state that creates a cycle of not being able to trust anyone and making new friends is difficult if not impossible to do.

Researchers in the study are urging people who have these feelings, sometimes symptoms of mental or physical diseases, to understand what coping mechanisms exist for this emotional state.  They are also stating that the act of speaking up about ones loneliness can cause the feeling to be compounded or expanded because of the group eventually feeling the same and disconnections within the group tend to make them spread out into separate if not isolated individuals. Bringing this news to light was research into the second generation of Framingham Heart Study patients. As the researchers discuss in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, most societal groups have a similar mentality like humans do. Monkeys who felt lonely spread the feeling around the group, causing everyone to filter into the outskirts of the known social group. Once on the fringe of humanities outskirts it is difficult to make the conscious decision to rejoin the group and become a social member as before.

Those who smoke skunk weed are nearly seven times more likely to develop psychotic illnesses than those who have the regular form of the drug according to a study.  In the UK where the rate of available cannabis is roughly 80% skunk this is particularly problematic. At the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London scientists made the discovery after they studied admissions to hospitals for illnesses like serious depression, schizophrenia, and paranoia. Patients were seven times more likely to have used skink weed than regular forms of the narcotic even with increased risk associated with heavy use of the weaker variety of the drug.

“Our study is the first to demonstrate that the risk of psychosis is much greater among people who are frequent cannabis users, especially among those using skunk, rather than occasional users of traditional hash,” said Dr Marta Di Forti. “Unfortunately, skunk is displacing traditional cannabis preparations in many countries, and the availability of skunk on the UK “street market” has steadily increased over the past six years. Public education about the risks of the drug abuse use of high potency cannabis is vital.”

Roughly 1% of the UK population has suffered some for of psychotic illness including paranoia, schizophrenia and hallucinations at some point in their lives and the risk only rises with consistent habitual use. Teen pot users are particularly vulnerable and are more likely to develop paranoid personalities, hallucinatations and even schizophrenia later in life. Family history is the still the most common determining factor for these mental health issues but the drug may act as a trigger for these predispositions. Researchers feel that THC may be the cause. There is up to 20 per cent of THC in skunk, while there is only 4% in regular grade marijuana. Skunk also has almost none of a counteracting agent known as CBD (cannabidiol).

“Psychosis was associated with more frequent and longer use of cannabis. Our most striking finding is that patients with a first episode of psychosis preferentially used high-potency cannabis preparations of the skunk variety.”

This may be one of the most difficult questions to answer – as the last one who will admit, or realize, that he or she has an alcohol problem is the one with the problem to begin with.

Many people associate alcoholism with the image of someone who will always have a glass of bourbon or scotch or gin in hand, drinking day in and day out; anyone less than that cannot be considered an alcoholic. Not exactly, according to a feature on WebMD.

It turns out that being an alcoholic is not only determined by how much one drinks, or how often. One can not drink everyday or drink a whole lot but still abuse alcohol, or be at risk for addiction. The feature shares several signs for both.

Signs of alcohol abuse that people should watch out for include having problems at school or at work – such as tardiness, absence, injury or being unproductive. Irresponsible behavior – such as drinking and then driving, is also considered a sign of abuse, as is experiencing blackouts, or not remembering anything after drinking.

One can tell that they may be at risk for addiction if they start drinking more often than they used to – or start drinking more than what they planned to drink. Another sign will involve a change in the amount of alcohol that it will take for one to become drunk, and experience withdrawal symptoms – such as shakiness and anxiety – when one stops drinking.

The first step, of course, is acceptance. It is very important to reach deep within and admit that one has a problem, so that one can get the help he or she needs.

The days of relative ease at which medical marijuana dispensaries have been able to set up shop and open their doors in the Los Angeles area may come to an end if the city council passes an ordinance that may lead to the closing of hundreds of dispensaries.

There are reportedly an estimated eight hundred to a thousand medical marijuana dispensaries in the city – the huge range a testament of sorts that may indicate how unregulated the industry currently is. Getting owners to comply with new regulations brought about by a new ordinance may be easier said than done, though.

The ordinance will reportedly peg the maximum number of medical marijuana dispensaries at 70 – certainly a huge drop from current estimates. A community districting plan may be set up and put in place, with different numbers of clinics designated for different areas. As an example, the Wilshire area to the west of downtown will have six clinics, but Venice will only have one.

A radius will also be placed around areas that are considered as “special uses”. A dispensary should be at least a thousand feet from schools, parks and other gathering sites. Existing medical marijuana dispensaries that are within this zone may have to relocate, and advocates are criticizing this strategy as it will force patients to travel long distances to get their medical marijuana.

This ordinance is almost five years in the making, as discussion began as far back as 2005.

Medical marijuana has been legalized in a number of states, but after being touted as a “prohibited substance” for so long, the terms of its use are still clouded. Okay, so a patient who has been legally allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes is protected from prosecution; but what about the workplace? Is the medical marijuana user protected there too?

Apparently not. An article on the Denver Post carries the head line: “Medical marijuana users on uncertain ground in work places.” It shares the story of a few individuals who found their careers in jeopardy for resorting to a treatment method that has been rendered legal.

In one scenario, a writer from Manitou Springs who is suffering from arthritis, Dorian Beth Wenzel, wrote a letter to a local paper that revealed that she used medical marijuana. Soon after, she was called to the office of the human resources director of the organization that she works for where she was told that their office was a drug-free workplace.

Another employee from Denver failed a routine drug test that was taken after figuring in an on-duty car accident. Since the employee was a patient who used medical marijuana, the test came out positive.

What, indeed, can the employer do to an employee who has opted for an alternative treatment plan that is basically legal?

No one really knows for sure, although more often than not, that means that employers are free to interpret the rulings in whatever manner they see fit. Advocacy groups are calling it a form of discrimination, basically against the sick who have chose medical marijuana as treatment. What do you think?

A mother in Michigan is facing charges after deliberately giving her child methadone in a bid to evade having a positive drug result by trying to use her 4 year old daughter’s urine in place of her own. Carr was given a four-year and nine-month to 20-year prison term by Judge Margaret M.S. Noe who presides over the case. Carr had been caught drug trafficking in May 2008. She was being monitored for drug abuse when she came up with the plan to use her daughter’s urine to pass routine screenings while using drugs. Carr was prescribed methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction, so she gave her daughter methadone to make sure the girl’s urine would test positive for that drug to keep her substitution secret.

Asking her older daughters to keep the drugging secret Carr had hoped to evade being caught but was found out anyway. Her public defender argued in court that methadone does not meet the state’s definition of a harmful substance, argued her daughter did not suffer bodily injury, and that Carr did not obstruct justice by telling her two daughters not to let anyone know. He went on to defend her actions by referring to her long history with drug abuse which stemmed from childhood. Noe argued that there was no way that the drugging could be seen as anything but child abuse and neglect that warranted harsh punishment to make Carr’s abuse for the purpose of continued drug use clear.