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Her death came just hours after she went to the hospital seeking help for severe abdominal pain. “Jamie was seeking help; she was in extreme pain,” family friend Kemper Kimberlin said. Hospital staff reported Jamie wouldn’t cooperate, in too much pain to even lie down, so employees asked a Pauls Valley police officer to assist. Unfortunately, when police found two prescription pills that didn’t belong to Jamie, police took her to jail for drug possession. That’s where Jamie sat for less than two hours before being found unresponsive.

Former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy says he’s established a group to lobby against legalized marijuana. … The Providence Journal reports that Kennedy’s group, Project SAM—for Smart Approaches to Marijuana—will instead lobby for increased treatment for marijuana and drug abuse. …

New psychoactive drugs are appearing on the market at the rate of about one a week as Europeans seek “legal highs,” a job made easier by the large rise in online drug retailers. 57 new substances have already been detected this year, up from 49 in 2011 and 41 in 2010, according to a report published on Thursday (15 November) by the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines continue to be the main stimulants, but they are competing with a growing number of emerging synthetic drugs. … Three natural products—kratom, salvia and...

ULSA, Okla. — The picture of what happened to the children becomes more clear as KRMG finds out more details. Tulsa Police were called to a home in the 4900 block of N. Frankfort Pl. late Sunday evening. The neighbor called 911 to say the 4-year-old boy from next door was outside screaming because temperatures were in the 40's and he was locked outside in the nude. KRMG spoke with one of the neighbors. She says, "All she heard was this little boy screaming for his dad saysin 'I'm cold, I'm scared, let me in'" When Police pulled up, Ofc....

The Idea That Barack Obama Was Stoned Is Not Outlandish. The man has lost a lot of weight. He has a history of drug abuse. By his own admission he has been unable to focus on one of the most important events of his life, scheduled to occur in front of 70 million people. His published schedule reveals a pattern of empty hours. His image has deteriorated markedly with dark shadows under his eyes, sagging cheeks, and generally a hangdog look which is commonly associated with drug abusers. He was listless in the debate. He could not maintain eye contact,...

Lately, the media has been beating up on Barack Obama for not giving them enough love and attention. Out of frustration, the media didn’t heckle or taunt Obama like they did Romney in Poland, but the message was sent and, just a few minutes ago, Obama surprised everyone in the White House Briefing Room with an unscheduled press conference. This was brilliant timing on the president's part. All last week the Romney campaign was on offense and Obama was dealing with Vice President Race-Baiter and a campaign that had gotten so vicious it had finally backfired. But with the media...

Barry The Dope Dealer; one reason Obama's school files are SEALED. Barry was quite the accomplished marijuana addicted enthusiast back in high school and college. Excerpts from David Maraniss' Barack Obama: The Story "Barry the Dope dealer" with the elaborate drug culture surrounding the president when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles . He definitely inhaled, a hell of a lot of smoke. 1. The Choom Gang A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning "to smoke marijuana."...

Seems like teens have gotten the memo that cigarettes are bad for you; however, the same isn’t true for marijuana, according to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.Released late last week, the government study revealed that in a nationwide study of 15,000 high school students, pot is now more popular among teens than cigarettes, CBS reports. Eighteen percent of surveyed students in 2011 reported smoking a cigarette in the past month, while 23% reported smoking marijuana in the last 30 days. Perhaps thanks to the anti-smoking campaigns in ads and in schools, or to the personal...

(CNN) -- A Cleveland couple faces child endangerment charges after giving away their neglected 2-year-old girl, authorities said. The parents were arrested Thursday after authorities learned that they gave away the toddler 10 days earlier, according to Cleveland police reports. Police got a tip Thursday and went to the parents' home, where they found an emaciated pit bull and fecal matter. The child was nowhere to be found, police said. Officers learned the suspects had given the child away to friends in their neighborhood, who said they agreed to take custody of her if the couple agreed to get help...

Betty Fordhas died at the age of 93.

In the United States the number of people hospitalised for prescription drug abuse has increased four hundred percent in the past ten years. The small town of Portsmouth, Ohio is the epicentre of the problem. Over thirty people - many in their early twenties - have died from prescription drug abuse. One in ten babies born in Scioto County (Sy-oh-toe) last year tested positive for drugs. Fatal overdoses have surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio. I met Andrea Queen, a reformed abuser at her new place of work in Portsmouth a clinic helping today's...

TALLAHASSEE -- Applying for welfare benefits in Florida? Soon you’ll need to get drug tested. A measure requiring the tests passed the Senate on Thursday and is headed to Gov. Rick Scott, who called it one of his legislative priorities. “It’s fair to taxpayers,” Scott said after the vote. “They’re paying the bill. And they’re often drug screened for their jobs. On top of that, it’s good for families. It creates another reason why people will think again before using drugs, which as you know is just a significant issue in our state.” Scott already signed an executive order requiring...

Taking cocaine just once can trigger dramatic changes in the brain, causing memory loss and leaving the user addicted, researchers have found. The drug can 'hijack' normal memory function, making it difficult for those who have taken it to think about anything else. The findings - the first to show cocaine's impact on the brain - will add to growing alarm about its long-term effects. [Snip] The processes which under-lie memory are also accelerated over this period. Dr Antonello Bonci, assistant professor of neurology at the University of California in San Francisco, who led the research, said: 'The study shows...

Crystal Meth Use 'Rampant' in N.Korea North Korea's collapse will be brought about not by external pressure or the economic malaise but by widespread crystal methamphetamine abuse, say North Korean defectors who have recently arrived in the South. How serious the problem is can be gleaned from a special instruction issued by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un, who earlier this year ordered the security forces to round up drug users, "regardless of rank" -- implying that addiction is widespread in all strata of society. Defectors say that youngsters at an elite school in Chongjin, North Hamgyong...

Synthetic chemist David Nichols describes how his research on psychedelic compounds has been abused — with fatal consequences. This is the start of the international year of chemistry, intended to celebrate the contribution of my field to mankind's well-being. Yet, during the previous year it has become disturbingly clear to me that some of my scientific contributions may not be aiding people's well-being at all. In fact, they could be causing real harm. A few weeks ago, a colleague sent me a link to an article in the Wall Street Journal. It described a "laboratory-adept European entrepreneur" and his chief...

When Miley Cyrus says she “can’t be tamed” she means it! According to TMZ, new video shows the newly 18-year-old singer taking hits from a bong that sources say was filled with salvia.

EL PASO -- The Socorro Independent School District has taken action. According to SISD officials, the district held an executive committee meeting to discuss the violations under former Head Coach Ron Vicencio. Vicencio appeared in court in August for a plea deal. He was head coach of the El Dorado Boys Basketball program, and the committee found that he recruited four of those players from various parts of Mexico. The committee found the players in violation of two UIL rules - in violation of moving for athletic purposes and recruiting from Mexico. For that, all four players received three year...

The son of legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel had the unconditional love of his parents and a second child on the way -- but the twin demons of drugs and booze were a deadly lure he couldn't duck, friends said yesterday. Andrew "Drew" Koppel, 40, had "many substance-abuse issues," said a longtime family friend. Still, that friend found it "shocking" that Koppel died in a stranger's seedy Manhattan apartment Monday after nearly 12 hours of drinking whiskey with a man he had just met in a Hell's Kitchen bar. "What's really puzzling the family is why he ended up...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former teen idol Leif Garrett was released on bail on Wednesday, after being arrested and booked for heroin possession by police who saw him "shaking and sweating" on a subway platform, a law enforcement spokesman said. Garrett, a 1970s child actor and pop star whose disco-era hits included "I Was Made for Dancing," was arrested on Monday when police approached him on a subway platform in Los Angeles because he was exhibiting "pronounced symptoms" of drug dependency, such as "shaking and sweating," said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L.A. sheriff. Officers searched Garrett and found...

Tiger Woods Admitted to Hospital as OD Posted Dec 8th 2009 1:00AM by TMZ Staff Tiger Woods was admitted to Health Central Hospital the day after Thanksgiving as an overdose. Sources connected with the hospital tell TMZ the admissions chart lists "OD" and that he was having trouble breathing. We're told the fifth floor of the hospital was put on lockdown when Tiger arrived. Tiger was admitted under an alias -- William Smith. His wife, Elin Nordegren was by his side. As we first reported, Elin gave paramedics two pill bottles at the accident scene -- we now know the...

Hip Hype Justice? by: Brittany Fortier, July 13, 2009 The ongoing debate concerning the disproportionate presence of African-Americans and other minorities in the criminal justice system has become crucial as the United States tries to find an approach to fund its prisons in an ailing economy. Paul Butler, a former prosecutor and author of the book Let’s Get Free: A Hip Hop Theory of Justice, spoke about this issue at the Center for American Progress (CAP) on July 1, 2009. He believes the criminal justice system needs to undergo major reform. “I didn’t go to law school to put anybody...

Hackers last week broke into a Virginia state Web site used by pharmacists to track prescription drug abuse. They deleted records on more than 8 million patients and replaced the site's homepage with a ransom note demanding $10 million for the return of the records, according to a posting on Wikileaks.org, an online clearinghouse for leaked documents. Wikileaks reports that the Web site for the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program was defaced last week with a message claiming that the database of prescriptions had been bundled into an encrypted, password-protected file.

An explosive video being shopped to media outlets has plunged the White House and Vice President Joe Biden into a cocaine scandal, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively. The video shows a woman, who is represented by the seller and his attorneys to be Biden’s daughter Ashley, snorting several lines of cocaine. The tape has been viewed by a RadarOnline.com freelance reporter who confirms the woman looks identical to Ashley Biden. Tom Dunlap, an attorney for Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver in Washington D.C. is representing the seller of the tape in brokering a deal and several news organizations have seen the footage....

After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them. The units were put up for sale Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece. The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York, Los Angeles and Boston, among other cities, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars...

An argument at a south Hilton Head Island nightclub spilled over to a north-island all-night breakfast restaurant, where a group of up to 15 women fought, some using their high heels as weapons, according to a Beaufort County sheriff’s report released today. The fight occurred just after 5 a.m. Saturday in the parking of Huddle House, 40 Palmetto Parkway. Several of the women had been in an argument earlier in the evening at Club Life, 81 Pope Ave., the report stated. When officers arrived, the people involved in the fight were uncooperative with the deputies and left the area, authorities...

RIVERTON — Tie dye, tee-pees, and cries for free love and world peace. If it sounds like an image of the 1960s, residents near Pinedale may believe they've traveled back in time next week when a large band of "hippies" hold their annual gathering at a national forest near Pinedale. Federal officials began arriving in Riverton earlier this month to prepare for the arrival of the group, which calls itself the Rainbow Family of Living Light. Anywhere between several hundred to a few thousand members of the group are expected, and their arrival has already drawn the ire of some...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Vermont leads the United States in marijuana use, while Utah has the highest number of people reporting mental health problems, U.S. government researchers said on Thursday, based on a new state-by-state report. They said substance abuse and mental health issues vary widely by state, but all struggle with these problems to some degree. "This report shows that although states may be uniquely affected by serious public health problems like underage drinking, every state and region must confront these issues," said Terry Cline, chief of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which compiled the study....

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryMarch 1, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       2008 National Drug Control Policy (PDF, 6.73MB, 79 pages) THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Today, my Administration is releasing our 2008 National Drug Control Strategy. This report lays out the methods we are using to combat drug abuse in America. And it highlights the hopeful progress we're making in the fight against addiction. When I took office in 2001, our country was facing a troubling rate of drug abuse, particularly among young people. Throughout America, young men and women saw their dreams disrupted...

If this is true Obama is done. There have been rumors about Obama experimentig with drugs as a teen. Even people from Hillary Clinton's camp have said that something big was coming out about Obama back around Christmas. Could this be it? I don't really care for Obama but I don't like Hillary Clinton. Eventually Obama will have to respond.

Heath Ledger's death on Jan. 22 was due to an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York has concluded. "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine," said an announcement released Wednesday morning by office spokesperson Ellen Borakove. Oxycodone is a pain medication, hydrocodone is a cough suppressant, diazepam is commonly called Valium, temazepam treats anxiety or sleeplessness, alprazolam is known as Xanax, and doxylamine is a sedating antihistamine.

Los Angeles - Eva Mendes has checked into Utah’s Cirque Lodge, the substance abuse treatment centre where Lindsay Lohan recently completed a rehabiliatory stint. The Hitch actress’ rep confirmed that Mendes has been seeking treatment for the last several weeks for a substance abuse problem. -snip-

Ahh, cancer. One learns so much from being diagnosed with a death-sentence disease. Of course, 95% of it is stuff you would rather not know, but that other 5% is downright interesting. For example, "America's Next Top Model" is much more fun to watch when you've lost 15 pounds without trying. During chemotherapy, vanilla smells good, but vanilla wafers taste disgusting. And eyelashes really do have a purpose; without them, my eyes are a dust magnet. But the most compelling fact I learned was about my friends. Not just what you would expect: how they cooked for my family and...

AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON --Improper use of patches that emit the painkiller fentanyl is still killing people, the government said Friday - its second warning in two years about the powerful narcotic. Some of the deaths came after doctors prescribed the patches to the wrong patients, the Food and Drug Administration said. The drug is only for chronic pain in people used to narcotics, such as cancer patients, and can cause trouble breathing in people new to this family of "opioid" painkillers. Yet the FDA found cases where doctors prescribed it for headaches or post-surgical pain. The FDA said patients...

Download entire report including names of players implicated here.

Sociologists Discover Religion by: Heyecan Veziroglu, October 16, 2007 Religious belief and practice helps people prevent conflict by showing them a mutual sacred purpose and vision, leading sociologists said recently in a conference session hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Associate Professor Dr. Jeffrey Ulmer from Pennsylvania State University examines the degree to which religiosity increases self-control. He points out that religious observance builds self-control and substance use is lower in stronger moral communities. Dr. Ulmer argues that self-control is a cognitive resource and that it is a product of social learning. Psychologists have developed a ‘muscle’ or a ‘strength’ model...

They tell us he was steaming, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom shouldn't have been too surprised when The Chronicle reported that Golden Gate Park was littered with used drug syringes. After all, his own Public Health Department spent $800,000 last year to help hand out some 2 million syringes to drug users under the city's needle exchange program -- sometimes 20 at a time. Although Health Department officials say 2 million needles were returned, the fact is they don't count them and can only estimate how many are coming back. And from the looks of things, a lot of...

New York would become the first state requiring all addiction treatment programs to help their clients quit smoking under a proposed rule to be announced today. Pointing to the high number of tobacco-related deaths among former addicts, the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Service said that by July 24 of next year, all facilities treating drug or alcohol addiction would have to have programs in place to encourage clients to stop smoking. Under the plan, all treatment centers would have to be smoke-free, and staff members would also have to abide by the ban. Treatment for nicotine addiction,...

On April 14, 2005, the day Dr. William E. Hurwitz was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Karen Tandy called a news conference to celebrate the sentence and reassure other doctors. Ms. Tandy, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, held up a plastic bag containing 1,600 opioid pills. “Dr. Hurwitz prescribed 1,600 pills to one person to take in a single day,” she announced. This bag showed that he was “no different from a cocaine or heroin dealer peddling poison on the street corner,” she said, and made it “immediately apparent” that he was not a legitimate doctor. “To the...

Ronald McIver is a prisoner in a medium-security federal compound in Butner, N.C. He is 63 years old, of medium height and overweight, with a white Santa Claus beard, white hair and a calm, direct and intelligent manner. He is serving 30 years for drug trafficking, and so will likely live there the rest of his life. McIver (pronounced mi-KEE-ver) has not been convicted of drug trafficking in the classic sense. He is a doctor who for years treated patients suffering from chronic pain. At the Pain Therapy Center, his small storefront office not far from Main Street in Greenwood,...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. —William E. Hurwitz, the prominent doctor on trial here for drug trafficking, spent more than two days on the witness stand last week telling a jury why he had prescribed painkillers to patients who turned out to be drug dealers and addicts. But the clearest explanation of his actions — and of the problem facing patients who are in pain — came earlier in the trial. It occurred, oddly enough, during the appearance of a hostile witness, Dr. Robin Hamill-Ruth, one of the experts who was paid by the federal prosecutors to analyze Dr. Hurwitz’s prescriptions for OxyContin...

The young father told police that he was alone with his newborn son when he inhaled the spray from a can of electronics cleaner, an increasingly popular choice for those seeking a cheap high Moments later, he went on to tell investigators, he awoke from a brief blackout to find his 15-day-old son bruised and disfigured. Kenneth George Ryan said he does not remember how the baby was hurt, but yesterday police announced that the 20-year-old Baltimore County man had been charged with murder. Young people call the practice "dusting," a name taken from the "Dust-Off" brand product that uses...

A Huff Equals a Puff By Rhitu ChatterjeeScienceNOW Daily News10 January 2007 Sniffing, or huffing, glue, paint, cleaning fluids, and nail polish remover may appear relatively harmless, but it is physiologically no different from other forms of drug abuse. That's the conclusion of a new study that shows that toluene, the solvent in many of these inhaled substances, has the same effect on our brains as notorious drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. The findings explain a long-standing mystery about the impact of this addictive substance on the brain and suggest ways of developing treatments for addiction. Solvent abuse increases a...

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Eric Clapton is playing "Cocaine" in concert again. The recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who founded the Crossroads Centre addiction recovery center on the Caribbean island of Antigua, stopped performing the song written by J.J. Cale when he first got sober. "I thought that it might be giving the wrong message to people who were in the same boat as me," Clapton recently told The Associated Press. "But further investigation proved ... the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song. And so I thought that might be a better way to...

Commentary Mel Gibson is the latest reminder of the perils of drunken driving. But in his case it was talking while intoxicated that attracted so much attention. Typically, of course, it is not what someone says under the influence that concerns the public, but what he does. Safety is our main worry. And the goal is to keep the person from driving while intoxicated. That was the aim of the judge who in June handled the case of another high-profile arrestee, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island. Mr. Kennedy pleaded guilty to driving under the influence after crashing his...

SAN FRANCISCO, July 3 — The newest attraction planned for Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco's most popular tourist destination, has no sign, no advertisements and not even a scrap of sourdough. Yet everyone seems to think that the new business, the Green Cross, will be a hit, drawing customers from all over the region to sample its aromatic wares. For some, that is exactly the problem. "The city is saturated with pot clubs," said T. Wade Randlett, the president of SF SOS, a quality-of-life group that opposes the planned club. "Fisherman's Wharf is a tourism attraction, and this is not the...

Last month, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was host to a conference about addiction for a small, invitation-only crowd of neuroscientists, clinicians and public policy makers. It was an unusual gathering. Addiction conferences are usually sober affairs, but M.I.T. offered a lavish cocktail reception (with an open bar, no less). More important, the conference was a celebration of the new ways scientists and addiction researchers are conceptualizing, and seeking to treat, addiction. While many in the treatment field have long called addiction a "disease," they've used the word in vague and metaphorical...

A HUMILIATING accident. An apparent memory lapse. A sudden, emotional confession. Representative Patrick Kennedy's car crash on Capitol Hill early Thursday and a news conference a day later had a familiar rhythm, especially for those who study addiction or know it firsthand. Mr. Kennedy, a six-term Democrat from Rhode Island, said that his addiction was to prescription medication and that he planned to seek treatment at an addiction clinic, as he had done before. "I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans," said Mr. Kennedy, who is 38. But will a cure that apparently didn't take...

When writer Marcia Segelstein headed to the bookstore to scout out books for her 12-year-old, she wasn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t expect rampant drinking, drug use, profanity, and explicit descriptions of sex and nudity. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what she found. Segelstein’s daughter had been clamoring to read the Gossip Girl series, which “‘all’ of her friends were reading,” she said. After seeing what was in the books, Segelstein was floored. But a school librarian confirmed, “They’re very popular among sixth and seventh graders.” Even worse, the librarian added, “Some parents are so happy that their kids...

Prescribing of hyperactivity drugs is out of control 31 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Peter Aldhous Rise in ADHA? THE figures are mind-boggling. Nearly 4 million Americans, most of them children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetamine-like stimulants to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Up to a million more may be taking the drugs illegally. Now, amid reports of rare but serious side effects, leading researchers and doctors are calling for a review of the way ADHD is dealt with. Many prescriptions are being written by family doctors with little expertise in diagnosing ADHD, raising doubts about how...

Former Full House cutie Jodie Sweetin has earned herself a spot on the lengthy list of child stars gone wrong. During an appearance on Good Morning America Wednesday, Sweetin, who played middle sister Stephanie Tanner on the hit sitcom, revealed that she is a recovering meth addict and once battled a daily drug habit. The ex-actress, 24, said she had trouble figuring out how to adjust to a regular childhood existence after Full House ended its run in 1995. "There is a certain sense of loss when a series ends," Sweetin said. "It is kind of hard to figure out...