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 Copyright © 2010 Addiction Education Blog - www.cnsproductions.com 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/podcasts/820/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/820/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:09:42 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=820 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/820/feed/ 0 16:47 Downers  - especially oxycontin and vicodin - are becoming the new drugs of choice for young people, and surprisingly, suburbanites. Viewed as less dangerous than ... Downers  - especially oxycontin and vicodin - are becoming the new drugs of choice for young people, and surprisingly, suburbanites. Viewed as less dangerous than heroin because these are pharmaceutics, they are actually becoming the new gateway TO heroin. We look at the neurotransmitter dopamine, how drugs affect it, and the brain's GO and OFF switch functions; also practices and regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA role, and doctor training around these powerful drugs. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:    Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast, Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. A lot of stories in the news this week were about downers.  All over the place, all over the news…one reported on a major bust of OxyContin on Interstate 5 in southern Oregon - a half a million dollars worth…the cops stopped them for speeding …..why would someone speed when they are transporting illegal drugs? DARRYL:      Good question - any abused drug that acts centrally actually turns off major portions of the brain…the cognitive, the thinking, the logical portions of the brain are just turned off. CNS:    drugs just turn it off… DARRYL:    Yes, if you take drugs.. you turn it off. It is no wonder that people who are abusers do crazy things like carry 8000 hits of OxyContin in his car, speeds down I-5 and is surprised when he gets pulled over for speeding and is busted.   I once had a client in San Francisco who was a meth addict and he got so paranoid on meth he thought his neighbors were coming in to steal his stock of drugs …his stash, so he calls the cops!  He calls the cops!  I couldn’t believe it. The story has a tragic ending – the guy had a shotgun in his hands when the cops showed up and they see this guy is wired out…he is tweaking, he is hollering incoherently and he has a shotgun in his hand.  They told him to put it down and he didn’t.  They shot him and today he is a paraplegic.  So the question of “what was he thinking” is really that he was NOT thinking because he was too loaded out on drugs. CNS:    Well, that answers the question, thank you!  So, as we’ve commented  over the last several weeks, we do seem to be headed into a depressive cycle.  Not the economic depression, but into a downers cycle. I want to focus a little bit on dopamine here.  To what degree does dopamine play a role in all addictions, but depressive addictions in particular…downer addictions? DARRYL:    Well, its role is the same in every drug that can cause compulsivity and addiction disorder.  It is the natural chemical in the brain that magnifies or turns on the go switch that is part of the reward/reinforcement circuitry and it is responsible for that drive or the compulsion or the survival impulse the user has to access and continue use of the drug.  It’s that same dopamine in the brain that  projects a little further to the frontal cortex of the brain setting in motion the stop switch…the orbital prefrontal cortex sends a message back to the go switch saying, you’ve had enough…it’s great, but you don’t need to do any more.  Drug use makes dopamine dysfunctional in both of those parts. It doesn’t matter if the drug is an upper or a downer or an all arounder like marijuana, addictive behavior happens when the “on” or the go switch gets stuck. That causes the stop switch to malfunction and – it also causes damage to some of the fibers that connect the stop switch to the go switch which is one of the reasons people get stuck and become addicted. Now the thing about the downer phase that is on the horizon is, it is looking like it’s going to be an opiate downer phase.  Other countries, like Russia are staggering with a heroin epidemic right now, but I think our biggest danger is the pharmaceuticals.  It’s our prescription drugs and it shouldn’t surprise us at all, but it’s still surprising how i Downers, Dr. Darryl Inaba, Heroin & opiates, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts, Prescription/OTC drugs, Understanding Addictions & Brain Chemistry, food addiction CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/788/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/788/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:10:36 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=788 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/788/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Traditional summer events beginning saw the return of Raves and the use and abuse of club drugs, with several overdoses and one fatality at the ... Traditional summer events beginning saw the return of Raves and the use and abuse of club drugs, with several overdoses and one fatality at the Memorial Day rave-dance in San  Francisco. Dr Inaba shares his experiences including rock medicine in the 60s Haight. Listen to Podcast Transcript (edited): CNS: Welcome to the CNS Podcast featuring Dr. Darryl Inaba, research director for CNS Productions. CNS: Darryl, it looks like the big news this week is the big rave in California, in the Bay area at the Cow Palace where several people became very ill and at least one person died of an overdose attributed to ecstasy. Its summer now and there’s likely to be a lot of festivals and musical events. There is talk of banning raves, but not musical festivals. So, hearkening back to your experience in Haight -Ashbury, what are your thoughts as we move into summer and what kind of drugs and drug activity are we likely to see? DARRYL: Howard, I was actually in San Francisco for the Memorial Day weekend and one of my nephews went to that rave, actually it wasn’t called a rave, and it was called some sort of music scene or music festival for 2010. And so, it wasn’t advertised as a rave, but obviously it turned out to be a rave. There were a lot of drugs floating around - club drugs and a number of real bad reactions - overdoses. I think one gentleman died from a suspected ecstasy overdose or whatever drug he bought there…5 are in critical condition. So, it appears to me that they didn’t have what we used to recommend for all large gatherings…rock medicine. We would have an actual medical group to deal with whatever trauma we encountered…injuries from just stomping around, falling off of curbs and things like that, which would have helped address some of these issues. From the stories and feedback from my nephew, it didn’t seem that they had any type of rock medicine group there to deal with the 16,000 kids that came to this event. And surprisingly, ecstasy was back on the map – along with LSD, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. It’s pretty crazy. They had enough undercover cops at the event to make over 70 arrests, which means that cops had pretty good evidence of and enough valid information that arrests would stick. A lot of cops and a lot of activity resulted in a lot of arrests at one little gathering. CNS: It would be nice of there was a medical assistance, if you’re going to put in that much resource. DARRYL: Yes, that’s a real sad thing because anytime you get a group of people together, you’re going to see injuries, heart attacks, you’re going to see the same things that you would see in any small city…on any given day… and there should have been some sort of emergency preparedness to deal with it. But the most amazing thing to me is that after years of decline, since about the end of 1990’s, the club drugs have really gone by the wayside. There was more interest in methamphetamine. Now we are seeing more interest in prescription opiates, prescription sedatives and heroin has come back. We thought pretty much it was the end of the club drug scenes and especially ecstasy. Ecstasy at one time was used by about 8% of high school seniors according to a study by Dr. Lori Johnson. The latest report from Dr. Johnson, in 2009 reported that number dropped to just less than 2%. So, we thought after 9-11 in 2001 that club drugs were more difficult to bring in…so street chemists were making other drugs that could maybe more profitable, but this experience in San Francisco appears to herald things to come. …the club drug scene is back with the younger population - they like to go out and dance and party. And what that means is that it won’t just be ecstasy, but a whole host of club drugs - the GHB, gamma hydroxyl butyrate drugs. You’re going to have Nexus 2CB. You’re going to have a wave of interest in psychedelics, which we see from time to time, especially as All Arounders, Dr. Darryl Inaba, Ecstasy/ MDMA & club drugs, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/783/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/783/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:49:24 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=783 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/783/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Purer, high potency heroin coming from Mexico is causing significant increases in overdose deaths, also doctor shopping and ways for Rx management, and the continuing ... Purer, high potency heroin coming from Mexico is causing significant increases in overdose deaths, also doctor shopping and ways for Rx management, and the continuing issues of addictions by health care professionals Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:   Heroin and opium are in the news this week.  There is a report about the purity of the current black tar or brown tar heroin coming in mostly from Mexico and how that’s creating a rash of overdoses increasing by many percentages or hundreds of percent the number of deaths occurring from heroin overdose.  In 2000 about 2000 deaths were reported across the U.S. and in 2008 the number is up to 3000, that’s still a significant rise.  And there is another story about pill pushing physicians and more about doctor shopping by drug abusers and the ongoing issue of abuse of prescription drugs by hospital personnel.  So Darryl, how do you view these things and their interactivity? DARRYL:      It’s fascinating…I’m not sure they have a lot of interactivity, but they’re all timely and they’re all expected.  First of all, the heroin story – we’re kind of overdue for another downer epidemic.  We’ve been on this cocaine and methamphetamine thing for awhile, about 30 years, and that’s the limit of how long an upper or downer fad goes.  So, we’re now ready to turn the corner and go to downers.  We see here in Oregon as well as all over the country a rising abuse of heroin – increased heroin overdoses and also an increase of prescription opiates.  So maybe there is a tie-in with prescription drugs and the health care professionals and general public starting to use more prescription drugs, or abusing more prescription drugs.  But the heroin story is an old one.  In terms of overdoses, they are much more linked to the variations in purity of heroin than it is to anything else.  And when we see…we see rashes of them, you don’t see, you know, a steady number of heroin overdoses every year…when we see rashes of them, especially occurring in any municipality or any state or something, it’s usually linked to a pure form of heroin that’s come in.  The latest story…I think was in Montana or something, it could have very well have been California or Oregon or any place else…actually talks about tar heroin.  Tar heroin has always been a more pure form of heroin in terms of actual milligrams of drugs, but less pure in terms of separating all the adulterants and ingredients and things leftover from the processing of opium from the opium poppy into morphine and then morphine into heroin.  It was a Mexican cartel, a third one, out of 1980’s that learned how to much more easily process the morphine that’s in opium to concentrate it without eliminating all the other adulterants and all the plant materials and everything else in opium and then easily converting the morphine that was in that resultant product into heroin by adding acetic acid to it or concentrated vinegar.  And that really is a simplified process, but it also resulted in a much more potent form of heroin because it was hard to cut.  You know, when it’s a finished product, it looks like tar.  It’s tacky, sometimes has a great sheen, black sheen to it and it’s, you know, it’s very hard, so…. CNS:   What do you mix that with? DARRYL:      Yeah, maybe tar or something else.  So, as it got to the street and it was sold in smaller quantities.  It’s in gram quantities instead of a bag of heroin, which is like 300, 400 mg of powder.  But powder you can do anything to, so everybody who touched it wanted some profit on it, or wanted to support their own habit, would step on it.  They would add all kinds of things - instant coffee – if you want brown heroin, they add any kind of white powder to it – quinine, lactose or anything to step on it or dilute it.  Well tar was hard to cut, so it comes in anywhere from 60 to 80% pure or 60 to 80% o Addiction Education / Prevention, Downers, Dr. Darryl Inaba, Heroin & opiates, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts, Prescription/OTC drugs CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/738/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/738/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:20:29 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=738 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/podcasts/738/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Several states are reporting a record number of deaths from opiod overdoses as well as related increase health issues from the misuse of prescription drugs. ... Several states are reporting a record number of deaths from opiod overdoses as well as related increase health issues from the misuse of prescription drugs. People who might start by experimenting with vicodin or oxycodone (OxyContin) can find themselves rapidly becoming addicted, and discover they cannot afford to continue on the pills due to the cost on the streets.  So we are seeing a shift to opiods, especially heroin, fueled by the low prices and increased purity of what is coming in from Mexico and  Afghanistan. We  continue our discussion with a look at the cycle of drug use and what appears to be the beginning of a new period of downer popularity. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:    Welcome to the CNS Podcast featuring Dr. Darryl Inaba, research director for CNS Productions. CNS:    Hi and welcome to the CNS Addiction Podcast.  I am Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba as we look at the news this week. A story from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Controls reports that last year they saw the highest number of deaths from drug related incidents ever,  and another news item covers the fact that the governor of Ohio commissioned a new task force aimed at curbing that state’s growing prescription drug abuse problem.  We’ve recently talked about the apparent decline in traditional illicit drugs – cocaine, marijuana and heroin – and the upswing in prescription drugs even though heroin is less expensive than it was back into the 60’s. How does the cycle of use go? DARRYL:    Well, Howard, it’s not just heroin it’s actually all the opiate and opioid drugs that are increasingly being prescribed. Oregon has seen that for the last 5 years or so.   Ohio and Oklahoma are now seeing a massive increase in the diversion of OxyContin, and Vicodin.  I think Oklahoma is the first state to computerize and monitor their entire schedule 2 and maybe even schedule 3 drugs – controlled substances that are prescribed in the state – to see where they go and how they are being handled.   But this all hearkens back to our prediction years ago - we noticed this strange phenomena of 10 to 30 year cycles in which the prominent drugs of abuse and/or those catching the general public’s attention through the media move back and forth between uppers and downers. CNS:    It seems like meth has at least stabilized for the time being. DARRYL:    Right.  We’ve been in an “upper” cycle since the 1980’s when crack cocaine exploded and that was followed by Ice and crystal meth through into the 2000’s and if we’re right on track with past cycles, we’re due to go into a heavy “downer” cycle where the major drug abuse will involve sedating drugs, drugs that depress the brain, numb the senses and induce sleep.  Prescription drugs are sort of leading the way with the comeback of opiate abuse - Vicodin, OxyContin, codeine and the other opiates - and what we’re going to now see, is a growing increase of use of heroin.  The last time I looked, OxyContin was selling for 50 dollars for an 8 mg pill and Vicodin was selling for 25. Because of the influx of heroin from various sources and our inability to stop drugs from entering our borders, the price is down to 5 dollars - a nickel bag, you know, which was unheard since back in the 1960’s and 50’s. We had “nickel bags” but then they were 10 dollars and then 25 dollars, but now because it is readily availability and the new growing populations of opiate abusers, heroin is back on the radar. Heroin and other opiates are tremendously addictive – causing a very rapid onset of addiction.  I do not think addiction is as quick as nicotine, which is probably the fastest, but the path from experimentation to full scale addiction is rapid. Heroin lends itself to injection and very quickly we have people injecting opiates as a form of use, more so than with cocaine, methamphetamine or other drugs.  So Downers, Dr. Darryl Inaba, Heroin & opiates, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts, Prescription/OTC drugs CNS Productions no no http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/ http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:39:44 +0000 CNS http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/?p=639 http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/uppers/639/feed/ 0 00:01:01 A recent story in the Wall Street Journal highlights some significant benefits to drinking coffee. Also a look at the new "anti-energy" drinks like Drank, ... A recent story in the Wall Street Journal highlights some significant benefits to drinking coffee. Also a look at the new "anti-energy" drinks like Drank, containing calming herbs like chamomile, melatonin, valerian root and rose hip. Dr Inaba comments include the every-few-decades cycling of the kind of drugs that are popular. Listen to podcast Transcript (edited): CNS:    Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast. I'm Howard LaMere, here with Dr Darryl Inaba. One of the topics we focused on recently was the negative aspects of coffee and caffeine, and here is an article in the (December 31, 2009) Wall Street Journal about the positive aspects of coffee. DARRYL: Quite a surprising story, an amazing one published by the WSJ which is fairly investigative and conservative in their reporting, and they published this just before Christmas, when people are gearing up for the Holidays  - the after-dinner coffees, and coffees during the day, so it was good timing. Contrary to many older studies which outline the negative aspects, the hazards and the addictive properties of coffee, this study showed positive results, amazing results from the practice of drinking coffee. Six cups of standard coffee lowered the risk of prostate cancer, 5 cups lowered the risk of Alzheimer’s by 65% in a Finnish study … that alone is enough to inspire me to go back to drinking coffee after I have been clean from coffee for some 30 something years.  I haven’t touched a drop of coffee because when I start I can’t seem to stop, I’ll go way above 6 cups, I’ll go up to 20 cups a day. But if 5 cups per day can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 65% that is saying something. It also cuts the possibility of stroke in women, and reduced the risk of developing Type II diabetes, which impacts a huge number of people in the United States. Close to 80 million people are pre-diabetic or diabetic type IIs so if 4 cups a day can cut that by 25 – 35 %, that’s a huge health benefit. The study also claims coffee cuts the risk of gallstones, and lowers the risk of committing suicide. That surprised me because one of the problems with drinking coffee in excess is the crash.  According to this study, people that drink at least 2 cups of coffee a day cut the risk of suicide by 60%.  All these positive things are quite amazing. The older studies found increased hypertension – high blood pressure, cardiac or heart irritability with a propensity to develop irregular heart beat, increased stroke risk, and risk of miscarriage. A recent study says that pregnant women who drink 3 cups a day increase the risk of miscarriage. A lot of major hazards, GI irritability, maybe even some cancers of the stomach are on the opposite side of these health benefits. So the jury is still out about if it’s positively good for you, or positively bad for you, but it seems like there’s a lot of good news about coffee drinking. CNS:    How are these studies conducted, it’s hard to do a regular double-blind test. DARRYL: This is purely anecdotal. These are just reports - asking questions of people, and that’s why these studies are controversial. Researchers will ask people how many cups of coffee they drink a day, over how long a period of time, because they want to gage results on a longitudinal basis, to see what risks are connected. A lot of people aren't going to remember how many cups of coffee they drank over the last ten years. And people are either stimulus-augmenters, or stimulus-reducers, I find very few people who are stimulus-normal.  And that means, some people are going to exaggerate - think they drank a higher number, and some will be stimulus-reducers; thinking they drink a lesser number per day. CNS:    So what do make of the effect you mentioned of the stimulant effect on blood pressure - high blood pressure and heart disease - it sounds like its very contradictory. The article also mentions other substances bes Dr. Darryl Inaba, History and cycles of drug use, In the News, Podcasts, Uppers, coffee CNS Productions no no