http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog Addiction and Drug Education Blogs and Podcasts, looking at drug use trends and treatment, and how addiction is tied to the brain as well as the body Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:29:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 2007-2008 service@cnsproductions.com (CNS Productions) service@cnsproductions.com (CNS Productions) Addiction education 1440 http://www.cnsproductions.com/144logo.jpg http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog 144 144 A leader in the creation of drug education books and videos for educators, health care professionals and the public --- used by treatment facilities, counselor-training programs, law enforcement, and businesses and industries concerned about drugs in t... Addiction and Drug Education Blogs and Podcasts, looking at drug use trends and treatment, and how addiction is tied to the brain as well as the body addiction, drugs, education, recovery, substance abuse education, prevention, chemical dependency, AOD CNS Productions CNS Productions service@cnsproductions.com no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/731/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/731/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:41:30 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=731 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/731/feed/ 0 00:01:01 A look at mephedrone or MCAT -  a  synthetic verson of the eastern African khat plant - is  a strong stimulant, with reports coming from ... A look at mephedrone or MCAT -  a  synthetic verson of the eastern African khat plant - is  a strong stimulant, with reports coming from UK, where it has become very popular, of  serious overdose issues.   Prescription drugs misuse and abuse continues as an escalating problem especially among young people - and the increased possibility of addiction to opiod pain medication leading to heroin use -- made more pronounced by the flooding of the market with high potency and low cost heroin coming in from Mexico and Afghanistan. Also more on the implications of legalizing marijuana. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:   Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast.  I am Howard LaMere with Dr. Darryl Inaba.  Looking at the recent news of addiction, drug use and dependency, I see a lot of stories about things we’ve talked about recently, like the addicting qualities of eating, especially high fat/high flavor items like bacon, chocolate, potato chips and desserts, a big story just came out in Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=addicted-to-fat-eating) about that.  Also the continuing story on legalizing marijuana in California where the question will be on the ballot – what will that mean to the people using it medicinally, the people growing it and the government.  If it passes in California, it’s still going against federal law. We’ll have to wait to see what happens. Let’s talk more about prescription drugs and some of the substances that are being abused and causing serious illnesses.  There are some stories about a sharp upturn in the last few years especially among adolescences in the use of pharmaceuticals and what that leads to. Kids start on the OxyContin from their parent’s drug cabinet and because it is such an expensive drug, they end up substituting heroin. The other interesting item out of the UK is this new craze going on with something called MCAT. DARRYL:      It is mephedrome and it’s been around for awhile. It is related to khat which East Africans have chewed for generations, maybe up to 1000 years. The shrub produces leaves which must be picked fresh because the (drug substance) cathinone is destroyed by the environment within 24 hours.  So because it was found Africa and the leaves needed to be fresh – it has never been a big item here. But what happened in the United States in the early 90’s was the development of a synthetic version called “methcathinone” by putting a metho group on it, a CH3 group on the apparent compound cathinone, it became more stable in the environmental and it could be sold off as a pill or powder. CNS:   Is it just as strong? DARRYL:      Yes, they claim it was just as strong.  Pharmacologists say it wasn’t as strong, but what we’re seeing now in Europe is a number of deaths related to its (methcathione) use.  We don’t see many deaths associated with methamphetamine abuse, so it must be that the methcath is much stronger than even methamphetamine.  But it’s growing there (in Europe) and its potential for abuse here stems from the fact that there are no laws that prohibit methcathinone.  So, like many other new drugs, it’s finding its way on the internet and you can buy it. I’ve also heard of people in this country gaining access on the internet to fresh cut khat leaves, and have heard that the chemical properties really don’t get destroyed within 24 hours, so it can be cut and shipped and people can get high.  On a personal note - Amnesty International contacted me once and asked me to detoxify a person from Somalia who was trying to come into the United States to be with his family, but he was a known khat addict so the US wouldn’t let him in.  I said,” Sure we can detoxify him.”   We detoxify methamphetamine users so we had it all set up and I never heard from the guy.  He never showed up for treatment.  About 5 years later he gets busted for Decriminalization / Legalization, Dr. Darryl Inaba, Heroin & opiates, In the News, Marijuana, Podcasts, Prescription/OTC drugs, Uppers CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/651/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/651/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:34:15 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=651 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/651/feed/ 0 00:01:01 The California State Assembly’s public safety committee approved a bill Tuesday Jan 12 to tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, proposing ... The California State Assembly’s public safety committee approved a bill Tuesday Jan 12 to tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, proposing to add potentially one billion dollars to California's deficit-wracked budget. Colorado is consider similar measures, and New Jersey just became the 14th state to allow medical use of marijuana. We look at the long history of governments using addictions, whether substances or processes, such as gambling, as revenue sources ... and also issues of treatment, or lack thereof, when  of these things become problems... and also an innovative organization in South Dakota working to create a grassroots, community effort to pick up where traditional treatment leaves off. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS: Darryl, there are interesting things in the news this week – we have the California legislature about to debate legalizing and taxing marijuana, and a story out of Maryland about the need for a new commission similar to the one we had at the end of Prohibition, looking at the way we deal with our drug laws; also an interesting story out of South Dakota about a new community organization looking at dependency issues as a long-term illness. These things seem related. DARRYL: The first two are related, I am not sure about one in Sioux Falls, S.D. California, Colorado, and eleven or twelve other states have been moving to legalize, or decriminalize marijuana for some time now. There are huge movements or initiatives, which got momentum from the medical issue of marijuana and now the economic issue. I think basically what’s leading the thing along now is the great potential revenue source it represents for the states. CNS: Which is of course historically true of alcohol and other drugs. DARRYL:  Any addictive substance, whether it’s a mild substance like nicotine or tobacco, or a strong substance like heroin, that is capable of inducing substance-dependency is always going to be profitable. If you think marijuana will become legal soon so it can be taxed -  you might to invest in something small like maybe patenting a name, like Maui-Wowie, or some kind of packaging, or some kind of thing that goes along with marijuana because if it becomes a legal and tax issue, it represents a huge source of revenue. Research indicates that 10 or 20% of those who consume alcohol, consume 80% of all alcohol sold. The individuals who use these substances consume huge amounts and ultimately pay a penalty in terms of taxation which supports the rest of society. I have no illusion that the money will go towards treatment. Here in Oregon, the voters approved gambling, which is a huge addiction, the citizens agreed to legalize it with the proviso that about 5% or 10% of the money would be reserved for treatment of gambling addiction. But when the (economic) downturn happened, the legislature and the people in power didn't give a darn what the people voted for, they stripped the money for gambling treatment down to 1%, and diverted the other revenues toward supporting the  infrastructure and political machinery that seems to be running our country at this time. CNS: Even though it was written into the law, they just decided to modify it. DARRYL:  Yes, I don't know how that works, but they do it all the time. When governments declare a state of emergency, they do anything they want, state militia and all that, so I guess the executive and legislative powers can decide what they want to do about anything. But marijuana is moving rapidly toward taxation, or legalization, or medical use.   I think the California legislature is looking at that now, talking about $50 per ounce as the proposed tax, which they say is only one dollar per joint, but that's a pretty thin joint. CNS:  But if you're talking about high THC, sinsemilla, or what have you, that's probably close. DARRYL:   It depends on the user’s tolerance, because you do get tolerance to marijuana, it Decriminalization / Legalization, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Marijuana, Podcasts, Treatment & Testing, gambling CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/630/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/630/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:05:16 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=630 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/630/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Dr Lloyd Johnson of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, has been studying drug use by adolescents for over three decades. In a ... Dr Lloyd Johnson of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, has been studying drug use by adolescents for over three decades. In a new report, he finds that use of marijuana by teenagers has increased in the last study period.  Dr Inaba comments on the findings and some of the implications in this weeks podcast. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the CNS pod cast, I’m Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba and Darryl what’s in the news this week? Darryl: Well, Dr Lloyd Johnston from the University of Michigan has just released the latest study on drug abuse among US high school students. He’s been doing this study for well over forty years and he calls it “Predicting the Future”. It’s probably one of the best indicators of where things are going with drugs and youth in this country and it foretells the future of adult use.  Although some criticize his study, he’s a lifetime researcher performing the same study using the same methodology. He gathers reports from massive numbers of high school age youth through out the country so his study has become a reliable source of where things stand as to youth and drugs. The study released in December (2009) shows a sudden change in young people’s perception of the risk involved in smoking marijuana.  Anytime there’s a perception that a substance or drug is riskier by that population there’s a decrease in its abuse patterns or use. If there is a decrease in perceived risk of use, there is a natural increase in abuse. We’re seeing a change in perception now created by a growing trend of legalized pot in the form of medical marijuana. Young people are naturally going to perceive it as less dangerous if it is being distributed as medicine. But obviously that is misleading. CNS: Right. Law enforcement at every level is looking very closely at this issue because the numbers don’t match up. There are significantly more people with marijuana cards and growing certificates than there are people with diagnosed conditions. Darryl: And the sales outlets are mushrooming. There are people are growing more of it - much more than they can smoke in a year so they’re growing it for other populations. Another scary trend is the number of doctors prescribing “medical marijuana” to teen-agers for a variety of conditions including attention deficient disorder and autism where it seems to have a positive affect. There are reports that marijuana does help some kids with autism to control head banging and similar behaviors. We need medical marijuana but it should be administered in ways other than rolled up in a joint and smoked. CNS: We need a different delivery mechanism. Darryl: We need delivery mechanisms that don’t harm the lungs. We need to aim towards administering medicine in its purest, least dangerous form. CNS: I was reading something recently about the dopamine system in adolescents not being well developed and that is part of the reason cigarettes are so compelling and so easily addictive in teens. That is problematic with prescribing marijuana. Darryl: It’s also problematic for a future addiction and one of the main reasons why the greatest predictor of future problems with drugs and alcohol is age of first use.  We find that anything that brings about an imbalance of dopamine in the system seems to affect the connective tissue.  This network of fibers connects the pre-frontal cortex to the mesocortex or the limbic system. This is the “go” area or the compulsive area in the brain. The connective tissue that allows those two areas to communicate is called the Fascicules Retroflexus.  An imbalance of dopamine especially at an early age erodes those fibers. The first cigarette you smoke creates enough of an imbalance in dopamine to begin killing the connective tissue between your brain’s control center and its compulsive center. The more you smoke, the more those “commu All Arounders, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Marijuana, Podcasts CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/591/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/591/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:36:29 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=591 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/591/feed/ 0 00:01:01 The US Attorney General's office recently released new guidelines saying the Federal Government will not pursue users and suppliers of medical marijuana under federal law, ... The US Attorney General's office recently released new guidelines saying the Federal Government will not pursue users and suppliers of medical marijuana under federal law, essentially turning over enforcement of medical marijuana laws to the states that have enacted them. Addiction Radio discusses some aspects. Listen to this week's podcast Transcript: CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the CNS addiction radio podcast. I’m Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. Darryl in the news today, this week a lot of marijuana, medical marijuana - a new policy statement from the Attorney Generals Office and also some kind of advance warning to the medical marijuana suppliers in Los Angeles city and county. What do you make of all this? Darryl: Well, first of all Howard, it is a major shift and a dramatic one from the Federal Government, from the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and then there was a letter from the David Ogden, the Deputy Attorney General, clarifying that the US government and the federal prosecution will no longer be going after medical marijuana providers and users in those states which allow or have medical marijuana as a legal situation, as long as the people who are involved with it are in compliance, full compliance, with the state laws. And that’s a remarkable change because prior to now, the federal government was saying each state can do what ever they want to and enact what ever they wanted to but it’s the Federal Supremacy Act and, and federally marijuana was illegal so it didn’t matter what the states want to say, the federal government would come in and prosecute. Now they’re saying no, we’ll leave it up to the states, to do  their own, make their own laws and prosecutions about marijuana and where it is legal in those states, we’re not going to intervene and come in, so that in itself is remarkable and that makes a major change; as well as it’s a statement by the federal government saying that there is viable evidence, there is enough proof that in certain circumstances, in certain medical conditions - pain, nausea, maybe glaucoma - marijuana does seem to have some beneficial affects. I still feel that it’s not the smoking marijuana, it’s actually the chemicals in marijuana, THC; that we need to have a much healthier way of providing it, then just by people rolling up weed and smoking it. In Oregon, the physicians I talk to who are promoting or prescribing, if you are or however you say you’re going to do it, suggesting medical marijuana to your patients are wisely suggesting that they not smoke it but that they actually bake it in cookies and in brownies and in substances like that and eat it so that they won’t expose their lungs to the harmful effects of the tars and the other chemicals that can hurt your lungs. CNS: Right, same, same kind of dangers of smoking cigarettes and actually I’ve been experimenting with vaporizing tobacco here myself personally to grapple with my tobacco addiction, and a lot of people mention that as a possible alternative also. Darryl: I think that’s long over due where they not a smoke marijuana but they extract the chemicals in it, provide it in different forms and of course the major objection by many medical marijuana advocates to Marinol and other synthetic marijuana, is that the onset is so much slower if you take a tablet or even if you inject so I think somebody should come up with a more pure, cleaner anatomizer just like somebody with asthma, who has an asthma vaporizer can just inhale that and get the immediate results and get cleaner results and more reliable results than smoking a combination of four hundred and twenty different chemicals, sixty of which are psychoactive when you smoke marijuana. The other thing that you mentioned though Howard is kind of interesting also, and that’s what the marijuana, medical marijuana advocates have always told me, was the real problem they saw in getting their product to be leg Decriminalization / Legalization, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Marijuana, Podcasts CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/516/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/516/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:13:31 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=516 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/516/feed/ 0 00:01:01 With college starting up, the issue of selling beer at football games as a revenue source has caused some concern. Also we are seeing marijuana ... With college starting up, the issue of selling beer at football games as a revenue source has caused some concern. Also we are seeing marijuana being grown on many more national forests than 10 years ago. Dr Darryl Inaba offers comments on this weeks Addiction Radio podcast. Addiction Education / Prevention, Alcohol, Decriminalization / Legalization, Demand reduction, Dr. Darryl Inaba, In the News, Marijuana, Podcasts CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/in-the-news/406/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/in-the-news/406/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:19:36 +0000 Darryl http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=406 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/in-the-news/406/feed/ 0 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/understanding-addictions-and-the-brain/359/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/understanding-addictions-and-the-brain/359/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:03:14 +0000 Darryl http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=359 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/understanding-addictions-and-the-brain/359/feed/ 0