27. March 2011 by stationmanager.

People who use cannabis in their youth dramatically increase their risk of psychotic symptoms, and continued use of the drug can raise the risk of developing a psychotic disorder in later life, scientists said on Wednesday. In a 10-year study of links between cannabis use and psychosis, Dutch researchers found that cannabis use almost doubled the risk of later psychotic symptoms.Experts commenting on the results said the major challenge for health authorities was to deter enough young people from using cannabis so that rates of psychosis could be reduced.“This study adds a further brick to the wall of evidence showing that use of traditional cannabis is a contributory cause of psychoses like schizophrenia,” said Robin Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, who was not involved in the research.Wednesday’s findings, published in the British Medical Journal, echo research last year which found that young people who smoke cannabis for six years or more are twice as likely to have psychotic episodes, hallucinations or delusions. Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in the world, particularly among adolescents, and is increasingly linked to added risks of developing mental illness.But scientists say it is not yet clear whether the link between cannabis and psychosis is causal, or whether it is because people with psychosis use cannabis to self-medicate to calm their symptoms. For this study, a team of Dutch researchers led by Jim van Os from Maastricht University studied a random sample of 1,923 adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 24 years. The study took place in Germany and the researchers separated out anyone who said they were already using cannabis and excluded those with pre-existing psychotic symptoms so they could look at links between new cannabis use and psychosis.They found that so-called “incident”, or new, cannabis use almost doubled the risk of new psychotic symptoms, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, socio-economic status, use of other drugs and other psychiatric problems.They also found that in those who were already using cannabis at the start of the study, continued use increased the risk of persistent psychotic symptoms. There was no evidence for self-medication effects since, psychotic symptoms did not predict later cannabis use, they said.Peter Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, said the study suggested authorities should take “a cautious and thoughtful approach to cannabis legislation.”“It’s important to remember that psychosis is a very complex bio-psycho-social phenomenon…but this important paper certainly reminds us that there’s a strong link to the use of cannabis,” he said in an emailed comment.

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20. March 2011 by stationmanager.

Florida’s new governor wants to eliminate a prescription-tracking system that Kentucky authorities believed would help cut the flood of pills coming into the state from Florida.

The proposal has set off alarm bells and anger in Kentucky.

“Everyone up here, law enforcement, feels like we’ve been kicked in the teeth,” said Frank Rapier, director of the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, based in London. “To take a step back like this is incredible.”

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, a physician, said he doesn’t think Florida Gov. Rick Scott understands the deadly impact pills flowing from unscrupulous clinics in the Sunshine State are having elsewhere.

“I’m infuriated,” by Scott’s move, Mongiardo said Thursday.

“What they’re doing by this is basically setting up billboards across the country saying, ‘Come to Florida and get your drugs,’” Mongiardo said. “Unfortunately, the end result is people dying.”

It has become commonplace the last few years for car loads of people from Kentucky, particularly the eastern end of the state, to go to other states seeking prescriptions for pain and anti-anxiety pills — such as OxyContin, Percocet and Xanax — and then sell or abuse the drugs in Kentucky.

One reason addicts and drug traffickers do so is that Kentucky has a model system to track prescriptions. Doctors can use it to make sure a person is not trying to get prescriptions from several different sources, and police can use it to investigate diversion of pills to illegal sales.

Florida has been a key destination for people from Kentucky and other states seeking pills because it has hundreds of pain clinics — some of them cash-only operations where doctors allegedly do little real treatment — and because it had no system to track prescriptions.

Raids on clinics in Florida have turned up files on hundreds of people from Kentucky, and Florida had essentially become the pill mill for Appalachia and the East Cost, police have said.

In 2009, Florida lawmakers approved the creation of a prescription-monitoring system that officials said could begin operating this year. However, Scott, a Republican, included language to eliminate the program in his proposed budget this week.

That is just a proposal, which the legislature could override.

Florida state Sen. Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican who sponsored the bill creating the monitoring program, has vowed to fight the move to eliminate the computerized tracking system, said his chief legal assistant, Greg Giordano.

“He’s extremely disappointed that the governor has made this proposal,” Giordano said of Fasano.

Scott’s office did not respond to a question Thursday about why he wanted to do away with the monitoring program.

Florida is facing a steep budget shortfall, but the monitoring system, set up mostly with federal money, would cost only $500,000 a year to run, said Bruce Grant, former head of Florida’s Office of Drug Control.

Florida has not put any money into the monitoring system, and the goal was to fund it with federal grants and donations, supporters said.

Abolishing the system would not save any state money, Giordano said.

Grant said a spokesman for Scott had been quoted saying Scott didn’t think it was appropriate for the government to be involved in the monitoring program.

Grant pointed out that most other states have seen fit to adopt such a program, however.

Police and others in Kentucky had applauded the creation of a prescription-monitoring program in Florida, saying it would help shut down the Florida-to-Kentucky pipeline.

“We thought we’d be able to write Florida off the list” and start dealing with Georgia and other states without monitoring programs, Rapier said.

Among other things, the system would have made it easier for police in Kentucky and other states to identify people going to Florida to get pills, several officers said.

Dave Gilbert, director of the Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force, estimated that at least 60 percent of the prescription pills diverted to illegal sales in the area come from Florida.

“It is a daily occurrence of car loads of people driving south on I-75 to Florida pain clinics,” Gilbert said.

The average person who goes from the area to Florida brings back 180 pain pills and 90 Xanax tablets, worth a total of well over $10,000 on the street, Gilbert said.

“It’s crazy” to not have a system in place in Florida to help stop that, he said.

The pills flowing out of Florida contribute to overdose deaths in Kentucky, authorities said.

Earlier this week, when police stopped a car driving erratically on I-75 in Madison County, they found Lisa Rogers, 42, of Mount Sterling, dead in the back seat.

Rogers was with others who had been to Florida to get pills, said state police Trooper Chris Lanham. Police are investigating her death as an overdose.

“It’s a huge problem,” he said.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/02/11/1630349/mongiardo-fla-governors-move-will.html#more#ixzz1DqJNHIIS

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12. March 2011 by stationmanager.

A decade after the pain reliever Oxycontin was linked to an increasing number of fatal overdoses, a new form of the pill — designed to keep addicts from snorting or injecting the drug — is making its way into Kentucky.The impact of the new formula on prescription drug abuse is unclear. But experts agree it isn’t likely to end the opiate addiction that is ravaging parts of Kentucky. Drug abusers are likely to switch to the substance that will produce the most similar high: heroin.Drug maker Purdue Pharma has long maintained Oxycontin is safe if used correctly. But, as law enforcement agencies across the country, including Kentucky, began blaming the drug for a rise in prescription pill addiction and fatal overdoses in 2001, the company began talking of creating a new formula.Oxycontin — which was formulated to treat the severe pain of cancer patients — was designed to work on time release, dispensing an equal dose of pain relieving medicine over a 12-hour period. But addicts quickly discovered the pills could be ground up and injected or snorted to provide the full power of the narcotic in one, addictive rush. The company has worked with the FDA to produce a tablet that couldn’t be easily ground up to hamper abuse. The new pill looks similar to the old one but is slightly larger.“Purdue is very aware that the abuse of painkillers and prescription drugs is a very serious public health problem,” said Libby Holmen, associate director of public affairs for the drug maker. “We are committed to being part of the solution to that problem.”While the company hopes it has found a tamper-proof product, there is no data to back up that claim — yet, Holmen said. “It was developed in a way that hopefully it will be,” she said, adding that the company will be working with the FDA to test the new formula. “We are anxious to know that we are having a positive impact,” she said. The new formula has made the tablets difficult to manipulate, said Dr. Sharon Walsh, director of the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research at the University of Kentucky. The pill won’t become powdery when crushed, but instead it breaks into chunks that can’t be snorted or injected. If addicts try to melt the pills, they become gummy, she said.If the new formula is successful it could prove an important template for safeguarding the abuse of other potentially addictive drugs, she said.After years of research and getting FDA approval last April, the company began shipping the new formula to pharmacies and distributors in August. The pills have been appearing on the streets in Kentucky in the last two months, said Jennifer Havens, a University of Kentucky researcher who is studying drug addiction in Eastern Kentucky. Havens’ team interviews 503 addicts every six months. So far, she said, the addicts don’t seem to like the new version of their preferred drug.“They are not able with the new formulation to snort and inject,” she said. “That seems to be changing the drug-use patterns. “We may see a big change in the next year or two,” she said, adding that she expects the drug abusers to seek a similar high from another form of opiate, most likely heroin.“If you still got that monkey on your back at that point you are going to go to heroin,” said Frank Rapier, director of Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, which coordinates drug control efforts between local, state and federal agencies. Right now, he said, “it’s pills, pills, pills” in much of Kentucky, and Oxycontin is “eating everybody’s lunch.” Statistics Rapier has from the FBI show that about 70 people in Kentucky are dying each month as a result of prescription drugs overdose, he said.The number of Oxycontin addicts is not likely to decrease because of the new formula because the addiction is so strong, he said. But as addicts switch to heroin a whole slew of new problems will come to Kentucky towns.Based on Rapier’s experience in the field, most people involved in selling Oxycontin in Kentucky are doing it to fund their own drug habits. “Most of them don’t even have a criminal record,” he said. But the heroin trade is dominated by gangs and organized crime, he said. The level of violence associated with its distribution would change the character of drug wars in Kentucky for the worse, he said, adding his peers in other states have reported in recent months that there’s an increase in heroin sales in Ohio and West Virginia.Karen Kelly, director of Operation Unite, said the new formula may have some impact but she is skeptical as to how much.“Addicts are always going to find a way,” she said.

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6. March 2011 by stationmanager.

WASHINGTON — Drug legalization is an “entirely legitimate topic for debate,” President Barack Obama said Thursday during his online YouTube town hall, in response to a question from a former deputy sheriff who has turned sour on the drug war. In endorsing such a debate, Obama went further than any president has since the start of the war on drugs, which can be traced back at least to President Richard Nixon, but more realistically to the early 20th century, when the federal government began criminalizing drugs that had long been legal.Obama, who said again toward the end of his answer that drug legalization is “worth a serious debate,” lent legitimacy to a policy area that has long been relegated to the “unserious” corner of American political discourse. His answer indicates an evolution in his administration’s approach to the question of legalization. In the past, Obama has not treated the issue with the same respect.In 2009, during a similar online event, the president paused to address the hundreds of questions that had been submitted regarding marijuana and drug policy. “Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that we — we took votes about which questions were going to be asked and I think 3 million people voted,” he said to aide Jared Bernstein. “I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy — (laughter) — and job creation. And I don’t know what this says about the online audience — (laughter) — but I just want — I don’t want people to think that — this was a fairly popular question, we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy — (laughter) — to grow our economy in 2009.”His answer Thursday was hardly an endorsement of legalization, but it was nonetheless a marked turnaround. “I think this is a entirely legitimate topic for debate,” he said. “I am not in favor of legalization. I am a strong believer that we need to think more about drugs as a public health problem.”The president’s comments came in response to a question from MacKenzie Allen, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and a retired deputy sheriff with law-enforcement experience in Los Angeles and King County, Washington. In this year’s YouTube poll, Allen’s question garnered twice as many votes as the second-most popular question online.Story continues belowLEAP head Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics cop, applauded Obama’s comment but called for him to turn the words into action. The White House is preparing a budget to submit to Congress in the coming weeks, and how much priority it gives to drug treatment versus incarceration will be an indication of the direction the administration plans to take. “The president talks a good game about shifting resources and having a balanced, public health-oriented approach, but it doesn’t square with the budgets he’s submitted to Congress,” Franklin said in a statement. “The Obama administration has maintained the Bush-era two-to-one budget ratio in favor of prisons and prosecution over treatment and prevention. It doesn’t add up. Still, it’s historic that the president of the United States is finally saying that legalizing and regulating drugs is a topic worthy of discussion. But since the president remains opposed to legalization, it’s clear that the people are going to have to lead the way. Police officers and innocent civilians are dying every single day in this drug war; it’s not a back-burner issue.” 

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