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The federal government wants to leverage interest and investment in vaccine development to get pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that could "inoculate" people against addiction to cocaine, nicotine, and other substances, Reuters reported Oct. 20th.....

A famously-rude Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country's dire child abuse problem - sterilise the "underclass". Michael Laws - who stirred up contempt by calling the late Tongan King a "bloated brown slug" - has again hit headlines for the wrong reasons. The regional mayor claimed that the children of social security beneficiaries, drug addicts and criminals had little chance in life and were prime targets for child abuse. Sterilising their parents was the best solution, he brazenly suggested. "If we gave $10,000 to certain people and said 'we'll voluntarily sterilise you' then all of society...

It’s worth looking at how life used to be. Now, as early as a thousand years ago, people didn’t have laptops. Back even further, in the hunting and gathering days — the 60s — there were no computers of any kind. At all. The primary method of social networking was drawing pictures on cave walls. So, for instance, if one of the cave dwellers was hunting buffalo, instead of using his cell phone to update his Facebook status to “kilin buf-lo,” he’d go to the cave wall and draw a picture on it of a buffalo next to himself holding...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A vaccine helped block the high felt by cocaine users in 38 percent of people who took it, U.S. researchers said on Monday, offering promise of a new approach to treating those addicted to the drug. The aim is to prevent cocaine’s rewarding effects -- the high -- in order to reduce cravings that trigger drug relapses. “The concept works,” Dr. Thomas Kosten of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, whose study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry, said in a statement. Cocaine molecules on their own are too small to draw the attention of...

Some children and teens are more likely than their peers to become addicted to the Internet, and a new study suggests it's more likely to happen if kids are depressed, hostile, or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or social phobia. Although an Internet addiction is not an official diagnosis, signs of a potential problem include using the Internet so much for game playing or other purposes that it interferes with everyday life and decision-making ability. (The diagnosis is being considered for the 2012 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "bible" of mental ailments published by...

Fifty one rejection letters -- that is the number Irene Vilar received before she finally found someone to publish a tale so extreme it would surely be fiction if it wasn't her personal story: A woman who says she had 15 abortions and describes it as an addiction. The book, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict -- a graphic and disturbing tale of one woman's abortions and her personal quest to understand her actions -- is bound to provoke a fury when it is released next week. It is no surprise that publishers backed away. Ms. Vilar says the...

Tried to pawn off her 6-year-old son for $10 in gas money For $10 in gas money, Marcy Pappalardo was prepared to give up her 6-year-old boy. At least according to a tow truck driver who told police Pappalardo made the proposition to him at a gas station in Melbourne, Florida. The tow truck driver turned the offer down, then dialed 911 and followed Pappalardo for several miles until police caught up to her. Pappalardo, 37, denied the allegations. She was charged with child neglect anyway. She is being held in Brevard County jail on a $2,000 bond. She is...

Report: David Hasselhoff Rushed to Hospital for Alcohol Poisoning for Second Time in Five Months David Hasselhoff’s struggles with alcohol seem to be far from over, as new reports claim the actor was rushed to the hospital this weekend after severe alcohol poisoning. According to Radar Online, Hasselhoff was at home with his 17-year-old daughter Hayley and his male assistant when he appeared to be in physical danger. After allegedly drinking for more than a day, his daughter found him and frantically called her mother, who then had a friend call the authorities. Hasselhoff, 57, recently finished taping his show...

IT'S official - Victorians simply can't live without the internet. A new survey shows most of the state would give up sex, our car or even our partner before surrendering the beloved internet. When given a list of things they could survive without for a month, seven out of 10 Victorians said they would rather give up their partner than their internet - higher than the national average, the Herald Sun reports. Victorians also claimed they could give up chocolate or their daily coffee in favour of the worldwide web.....

Burt Reynolds Enters Fla. Rehab For Pill Addiction WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Actor Burt Reynolds has checked himself into a rehab facility in West Palm Beach to be treated for an addiction to painkillers. Reynolds' manager Erik Kritzer said in a statement Wednesday that the "Smokey and the Bandit" star was struggling after a recent back surgery and "realized that he was in the prison of prescription pain pills." Kritzer says Reynolds hopes his story will help others in similar situations and that they will not try to solve the problem by themselves.

Security at risk from Russia addicts - Medvedev 08 Sep 2009 14:46:33 GMT Source: Reuters * Up to 2.5 million Russians are drug addicts * Drug use contributes to demographic problem * Students may face tests By Denis Dyomkin MOSCOW, Sept 8 (Reuters) - High drug use among Russia's youth is a threat to national security, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. Russia is the world's top consumer of Afghan heroin, fuelling concerns in Moscow about the growth of the opium trade in Afghanistan. "The young age of drug users is a threat to the country's national security, a serious...

Signs of Internet addiction, according to Hilarie Cash, executive director of the ReSTART center for Internet addiction near Seattle. Three of the following symptoms suggest abuse, five or more addiction: -Increasing amounts of time spent on Internet -Failed attempts to control behavior -Heightened euphoria while on Internet -Craving more time on Internet, restless when not there -Neglecting family and friends -Lying to others about use -Internet interfering with job and school

FALL CITY, Wash. – Ben Alexander spent nearly every waking minute playing the video game "World of Warcraft." As a result, he flunked out of the University of Iowa. Alexander, 19, needed help to break an addiction he calls as destructive as alcohol or drugs. He found it in this suburb of high-tech Seattle, where what claims to be the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States just opened its doors. The center, called ReSTART, is somewhat ironically located near Redmond, headquarters of Microsoft and a world center of the computer industry. It opened in July...

At the heart of this inquiry lies the nature of the community where Garrido chose to make his home after serving just 11 years of a 50-year sentence for a previous sex attack. For contrary to initial reports, this is far from being mainstream, middle-class, suburban America. Together with his new wife, Nancy, whom he had met while she was visiting her uncle in jail, Garrido settled in a crime-ridden backwater where nobody pries into anyone else's business - unless they are willing to pay the price. 'The people here are like hillbillies,' says one local film-maker. 'They are all...

The author of a book about Silvio Berlusconi's wife says aides to the Italian prime minister want him to get treated for sex addiction. An updated version of "The Veronica Trend" by Maria Latella is scheduled to hit bookstores Wednesday, The Times of London reported. Veronica Lario, a former actress, has threatened to divorce Berlusconi. In the book, Latella says some aides have suggested Berlusconi and Lario announce a formal separation, with Lario then privately working to help her husband. Berlusconi would stay for a week or two in a clinic specializing in sex addiction. "This scenario hasn't been completely...

Seeking. You can't stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in trouble. Google searches are becoming a cause of mistrials as jurors, after hearing testimony, ignore judges' instructions and go look up facts for themselves. We search for information we don't even care about. Nina Shen Rastogi confessed in Double X, "My boyfriend has threatened to break up with me if I keep whipping...

More than a dozen years ago, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana for people with serious illnesses. Many used it to relieve pain or other symptoms — and that's still true. But medical marijuana has now become a thriving business in California that serves a lot more than just sick people. In some parts of Los Angeles, medical marijuana is more common than McDonalds or Starbucks. Places where you can buy a Big Mac or a double tall mocha latte are outnumbered by pot stores, at least 2 to 1. Signs like this are beginning to crowd...

The girlfriend of actor Cameron Douglas was arrested Monday for allegedly trying to smuggle heroin to him in an electric toothbrush, court papers show. Kelly Sott was busted after passing the toothbrush to Douglas while he was under home detention following a court hearing on his drug charges. She was arrested at the Hotel Gansevoort in Manhattan where she was staying. Douglas, 30, the son of actor Michael Douglas, was arrested at the same hotel last week and faces a methamphetamine-dealing charge. Douglas had been on house arrest at the New York home of his stepmother, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and went...

The girlfriend of actor Michael Douglas' troubled son, Cameron, was arrested after she tried to pass him 19 bags of heroin -- hidden in an electric toothbrush -- at the posh Manhattan pad owned by his mother Diandra Douglas. SNIP Cameron Douglas "appeared to be very concerned about when the tooth brush would be delivered," according to court papers.

BEIJING, Aug. 4 -- A teenager was allegedly beaten to death by counselors at an Internet addiction rehabilitation clinic in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The 15-year-old middle school graduate, surnamed Deng, was pronounced dead around 3 am Sunday at Wuxu town health center in Nanning, China's national radio website cnr.cn reported on Sunday. The medical record showed the boy had no pulse or blood pressure when he was taken to the hospital. Police have detained the suspects, the report quoted an anonymous official with Nanning public security bureau as saying. On Saturday afternoon, the boy's parents took him to...

In dozens of mountain hamlets in this remote corner of Afghanistan, opium addiction has become so entrenched that whole families — from toddlers to old men — are addicts. From just one family years ago, at least half the people of Sarab, population 1,850, are now addicts. Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin. "I am ashamed of what I have become," says Beg, an unwashed turban curled on his head. "I've lost my self-respect. I've lost my values. I take the food from this child to pay for my opium," he says,...

His parents hoped their teenage son would be home in a month, cured of his addiction to the internet. They never thought that within 10 hours of taking him to an addiction clinic they would receive a telephone call notifying them that he was dead. Deng Senshan, 16, was addicted to playing on the internet, like tens of millions of other young Chinese. He was just the latest teenager to be sent by his parents to one of the clinics being set up across China to cure youngsters of their obsession with online gaming

WASHINGTON -- The RV arrived at a corner near Marvin Gaye Park, also known to locals as "Needle Park." A steady procession of addicts came to the door, mounted a few steps and sat down. One by one, they dropped used needles into a container and received new needles in return, along with alcohol wipes and the small, bottle cap-like "cookers" in which heroin is heated. Reggie, Teefari and Hazel -- staff members at PreventionWorks!, Washington's largest needle exchange program -- are at the park twice a week, offering clean needles to prevent disease transmission, condoms, drug treatment referrals, AIDS...

Published on More Intelligent Life (http://moreintelligentlife.com) WHEN NOVELISTS SOBER UP By Tom Shone Created 20/07/2009 - 10:57 Writers who drink are old hat. But what about writers who quit drinking? Tom Shone has been studying them for his new novel ...From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009John Cheever was most unhappy to be picked up for vagrancy by the cops. “My name is John Cheever [1]!” he bellowed. “Are you out of your mind?” Found sharing some hooch with the down-and-outs in downtown Boston, he was promptly admitted to Smithers Alcoholism Treatment Centre on Manhattan’s East 93rd Street, where he...

A New York Times article on Sunday discussed the debate over whether more and more potent types of cannabis affect the levels of addiction to the drug. This particular issue has become part of the larger debate over whether marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized. Antidrug activists say that if the drug is legalized, more people will use it and addiction levels, made worse by the increased potency, will rise too. Legalization advocates note that pot addiction is not nearly as destructive as, say, abuse of alcohol. What would be the effect of legalization or decriminalization on marijuana abuse and...

NASCAR said Jeremy Mayfield once again tested positive for methamphetamine and asked the federal judge who lifted the driver's drug suspension to reinstate the ban. The positive result from a July 6 random test was included in a U.S. District Court filing Wednesday that included an affidavit from Mayfield's stepmother, who claimed she personally witnessed the driver using methamphetamine at least 30 times over seven years.

Even though the world has said goodbye to Michael Jackson, the lingering suspicion is now linking his longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor to his alleged prescription-drug overdose. Sources told The Daily Beast that Taylor influenced Jackson to take multiple prescription drugs introducing him to doctor Arnold Klein -- the same doctor whom she's since revealed prescribed her multiple medications including Dilaudid and Ativan, the first a powerful opiate that street users dub "the Bentley of heroin" and the latter a tranquilizer. According to a source familiar with Taylor's medical history, she sought help from at least two doctors to counter her...

Michael Jackson took more than 10 Xanax pills a night, "asking his employees to get the prescription sleep medicine under their names and also personally traveling to doctor's offices in other states to obtain them," according to CNN. The bombshell reports comes from a 2004 Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department document that contains confidential interviews with two of Jackson's former security guards. The interviews were conducted as officials prepared for the singer's 2005 child molestation trial.

June 28, 2009 Nanny reveals tragic secret life of Jackson Maurice Chittenden and John Harlow Los Angeles THE nanny who became “mother” to Michael Jackson’s three children has told how she regularly had to pump his stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs. Grace Rwaramba, 42, who flew from London to Los Angeles yesterday in the hope of being reunited with his children, has given a graphic account of the singer’s increasingly desperate final months. She paints a grim picture of Jackson, sometimes penniless but deluded about his “riches”, leading a nomadic life, moving from country to country and hotel...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama may have just made life more difficult for cigarette makers, but he is not above sneaking a smoke every now and again. Obama, who has publicly struggled to quit smoking, said he still hasn't completely kicked the habit even after signing a law this week that will likely set tough new rules for the tobacco industry. "As a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No," Obama said at a news conference. "I don't do it in...

The cap of an entertaining, wide-ranging press conference that included a spirited defense of the public health care option: A carefully-framed, detailed question from Obama on his smoking habit. "You just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking," he told the reporter, before conceding that he has "fallen off the wagon sometimes." "Am I a daily, a constant smoker? No," he said. "I don't do it in front of my kids. i don't do it in front of my family." Obama said he was "95% cured" and compared himself to a recovering alcoholic. "Once you've gone down this...

WASHINGTON — Lamenting his first teenage cigarette, President Barack Obama ruefully admitted on Monday that he's spent his adult life fighting the habit. Then he signed the nation's toughest anti-smoking law, aiming to keep thousands of other teens from getting hooked. Obama praised the historic legislation, which gives the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products, to make public the ingredients and to prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children. But he didn't say how his own struggle was coming since he moved into the White House. And aides were no more forthcoming. As senator,...

Asked if the president still smoked, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has "a struggle with nicotine addiction" every day. Obama has a long history of smoking and a photo emerged of him during the campaign trail smoking as far back as college. During the presidential campaign, he chewed nicorette chewing gum in an effort to kick the habit. Gibbs said he "assumed" the president still chewed the nicorette. The president dodged questions at the start of his administration about whether he was still lighting up. The struggle to quit is one millions of Americans face, and Obama praised...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who has struggled with depression, alcoholism and addiction for much of his life, said Friday that he has checked into a medical facility for treatment. The Rhode Island Democrat said in a statement that his recovery is a "lifelong process" and that he will do whatever it takes to preserve his health. "I have decided to temporarily step away from my normal routine to ensure that I am being as vigilant as possible in my recovery," Kennedy said. He did not disclose where he was being treated. Kennedy, who has wrestled with alcoholism, bipolar disorder, an addiction...

Fathers for Good, a website for men operated by the Knights of Columbus, is offering a host of resources to address the growing availability of and addiction to pornography. Click HERE to listen to a podcast of Deacon Ralph Poyo talk about his former addiction to pornography and how other men can avoid falling into the same trap. Click HERE for an article by Gerald Korson on computer porn and the ways it can destroy a marriage and a family. Korson's article also includes a link at the end that will take you to other resources, such as counseling and...

Sen. Tom Coburn, who is also a medical doctor, is calling for an outright ban on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products. "What we should be doing is banning tobacco," the Oklahoma Republican declared on the Senate floor during a debate on a tobacco regulation bill. "Nobody up here has the courage to do that. It is a big business. There are millions of Americans who are addicted to nicotine." The battle against tobacco use has been ongoing. Earlier this year Congress passed legislation that included an increase in the federal tax on cigarettes of more than 60...

The war on drugs has failed - now it's time to take a softer approach with addicts, a top UN rights official said today. Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture for the U.N. Human Rights Council, called for greater access to medical treatment and respect for the human rights of addicts. He accused countries of taking a punitive approach to dealing with addicts, saying many lump them in with traffickers. He also bemoaned countries that have that sentence addicts them to lengthy prison terms or even death with little or no access to treatment. Singapore, for instance, canes drug users...

Nearly one in 10 American children who play computer games are pathologically addicted, according to new research. Some young gamers show at least six symptoms of gambling addiction, such as lying to family and friends about how much they play games, using the games to escape their problems and becoming restless or irritable when they stop playing. They may also skip homework to play games or spend too much time playing and do poorly in school, the study shows. Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, where the study was carried...

Hundreds of former Payette Clinic patients, riddled with chronic pain or a severe addiction to painkillers, have swarmed Clark County hospitals and pain clinics in recent weeks. Many of them are being turned away or placed on months-long waiting lists. Even those being treated in emergency rooms or by primary care doctors say they are being told to fend for themselves because of doctors' fear of medical liability. Payette Clinic was the subject of a Washington Department of Health investigation last month that found nurse practitioner and clinic co-owner Kelly M. Bell was prescribing "extremely high doses of opioids." As...

Fictional parody video poem related to Bill and Hill. Click to watch video. While opening his bills, he found her envelope. Its fragrance made him think of perfumed hotel soap. The razor blade inside it almost cut his hand. Note said: "Your hour glass will soon run out of sand. That girl you met last week was my paid prostitute. You never saw the signs beneath her business suit. Don't worry married man. No, I wont tell your wife. The gift you received from me will soon take your life. You've lied so many times, and, now, your payback's here....

NEW CANAAN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Cocaine and martinis on Wall Street? Nothing new there. Masters of the Universe admitting they have an alcohol problem? Not so common. Experts say more and more people in finance are seeking treatment for addiction as the global economic crisis sinks its teeth into a high-stakes industry where confidence is the name of the game and nobody wants to admit to a weakness. "We absolutely do see more people coming in naming either a job loss or huge financial reversals or big investments with Bernie Madoff," said Sigurd Ackerman, medical director at Silver Hill Hospital...

One week from today, the star of "Luau Orgy," "Gazongas" and the ahead-of-its-time "Wanda Whips Wall Street" will walk onto the campus of Truman State University in Kirksville to debate a pastor on the subject most dear to his heart: porn. It will fall to the Rev. Craig Gross to rebut actor Ron Jeremy's arguments that pornography is a harmless activity that most people pursue in the privacy of their own homes. "If Ron was right, I wouldn't have a job," said Gross, founder of XXXChurch.com — a Christian website dedicated to battling pornography. "Porn rips apart homes and families."...

Modafinil's effect on the brain suggests it could be addictive for some. A drug used to treat narcolepsy — and often taken to increase alertness and improve cognitive performance — may have the potential to become addictive, a small pilot study has shown. Brain-imaging studies performed on ten men before and after taking the drug, called modafinil (Provigil), showed that it boosts levels of a chemical called dopamine, which influences the brain's reward system1. Drugs of abuse, from tobacco to heroin, also impact dopamine levels, particularly in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. In the new study,...

The Rev. Joseph C. Martin, a recovering alcoholic and an international leader in the fight against alcoholism and substance abuse who was a co-founder of Father Martin's Ashley, a Harford County treatment center, died early today of heart disease at his Havre de Grace home. He was 84. Father Martin's "Chalk Talk on Alcohol" and "No Laughing Matter" have become standard tools used by recovery centers, schools and employee assistance programs the world over. "Father Martin is an icon in the treatment industry and was one of the first to describe alcoholism in layman's terms as a disease," said Mark...

HANOVER (Reuters) - German twenty-somethings would ditch their spouses and do without a car in a heartbeat if they had to choose between having them or Internet access or a mobile phone, according to an industry study. In a survey by German broadband association Bitkom around 84 percent of respondents aged 19-29 said they would rather do without their current partner or an automobile than forego their connection to the Web. Living without a mobile phone was also unthinkable for 97 percent of those questioned in that age range One of the main themes at this year's annual tech trade...

I’ve been a baseball fan since I was six years old, when my father took my brother and me to a Detroit Tigers game in the summer of 1966. I’ll never forget the beauty of the intensely, almost garishly, green field and the crisp white uniforms of the home-team players under the bright lights that night. I started with tee-ball when I was seven and moved through many years of little-league and Babe-Ruth league, becoming in time a pretty good hitter and shortstop.

The Politics of Porn by Robert R. Reilly    2/18/09     In many major American cities, the tawdry sections of town that once housed pornographic cinemas, bookstores, and strip joints have given way to shiny new office buildings and Starbucks coffee houses. Does this sign of urban renewal also signify moral renewal? Has America finally grown bored with a surfeit of pornography? Unfortunately not. Pornography has simply relocated from inner city slums to a far worse location -- the home, which it now infiltrates via the latest technology.   U.S. News and World Report (Feb. 10, 1997) revealed...

Ok 2/7/09 I am saying I am an internet addict. I spend every free hour on FR, Amazon, , news sites, various message boards, playing games or emailing friends. I go to bed at midnight and get up at 6:30 AM How much more rich could my life be if I get help and has anyone gone through counseling for this?

'My mother's fame drove me to drug addiction,' says daughter of campaigner Erin Brockovich By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE 03rd February 2009 The teenage daughter of environmental campaigner Erin Brockovich has said she blames her mother's fame for her ongoing battle with drugs. Elizabeth Brockovich said she began experimenting with drugs while her mother was out campaigning or promoting the hit Hollywood film. Elizabeth said she first smoked marijuana when she was 12 and was hooked on cocaine and prescription pills by the time she was 14.

Marijuana Users Experience Withdrawal Symptoms, Typical of Drug Addiction Marijuana Addiction Characterized By Withdrawal Symptoms, Study Shows Atlanta, GA 1/28/2009 08:20 PM GMT (TransWorldNews) Marijuana use is often described by users as ‘recreational’ and ‘non-addictive'. These same users will, however, experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop using marijuana, a study shows. “Marijuana is generally not considered an addictive drug,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for Atlanta Recovery Center, Narconon Drug Rehab GA. “Studies and interviews with people going through drug rehab have shown all the signs of withdrawal: irritability, restlessness, headaches, depression, and cravings for the drug.” A study by...