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The British Government's chief drug adviser has sparked controversy by claiming ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol. Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, attacked the decision to make cannabis a class B drug. He accused former home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified the drug, of "distorting and devaluing" scientific research. Prof Nutt said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. And he claimed advocates of moving ecstasy into class B from class A had "won the intellectual argument". All drugs, including alcohol and tobacco,...

Andre Agassi used crystal meth while he was playing professional tennis, according to a new autobiography to be released next month. The Times of London plans to serialize the book and released details on Tuesday which describe how Agassi came to use the drug and how he avoided discipline by the ATP. In 1997, Agassi was struggling with his game and with his decision to marry actress Brooke Shields. His assistant, identified as Slim, introduced him to the drug, according to the excerpt.

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...

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 early baby boomers may be known as the generation of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. But it turns out, they're hitting the bottle pretty hard as they age, as well. And that portends significant alcohol-related health problems ahead as those mid-lifers become seniors. A new study finds that among men and women 50 to 64 years old, almost 1 in 4 men and 1 in 10 women is a "binge" drinker -- meaning that at some point in the last 30 days, he or she has downed four (for women) or five (for men) servings of alcohol in...

August 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study led by Susan Cochran and her team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry, reports that homosexuals seek treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse at a rate over two times higher than heterosexuals. The study of 2074 people interviewed in the California Health Interview Survey found that 48.5% of homosexual and bisexual individuals reported receiving psychiatric or drug abuse treatment in the past year as compared to 22.5% of heterosexuals. When the research results were broken down by gender, the report...

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...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush reflected on his own struggle with alcohol in a White House meeting Thursday that touted gains in the war on drug abuse. President Bush speaks about his administration's efforts in fighting drug abuse at the White House on Thursday. CNN was the only media outlet invited to attend the entire meeting, which other reporters joined in the final minutes for remarks from the president.Several in the room, including Don Coyhis of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who runs a program targeting Native Americans battling substance abuse, were recovered addicts or alcoholics.Bush, who quit drinking at the...

(CNN) — A prominent surrogate for John McCain on Thursday raised Barack Obama's admitted cocaine use as a teenager and said the Illinois senator should speak candidly about it to the American people. Speaking to Dennis Miller, a comedian and conservative radio talk show host, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said Obama should be more forthright about his background and what he called his "very extreme" record. "He ought to admit, ‘You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but...

WMNF Evening News Wednesday Listen to this entire show: Tags: John McCain, Barack Obama, 2008 election, NAACP, school vouchers A campaign surrogate for John McCain told WMNF today that Barack Obama should be "disqualified" to run for president because of his admitted past drug use. More on that in a moment. But first, John McCain received a polite reception in front of the NAACP at the group's annual meeting in Cincinati today. Whether that will transfer to any votes coming from those in attendance is a different story. The GOP nominee spoke to the nation's oldest civil rights organization, spotlighting...

The other day, reading the New York Post's popular Page Six gossip page, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: "ABC'S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs". I had attended a Marijuana Policy Project event celebrating the New York State Assembly's passage of a medical-marijuana bill. (The bill hasn't passed the Senate.) I told the audience I thought it pathetic that the mere half passage of a bill to allow sick people to try a...

BREAKING NEWS: Barry Bonds is charged with 14 counts of lying and one count of obstruction of justice in a new indictment stemming from a steriod probe. Full article coming shortly.

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday. A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters,...

Teen In Critical Condition After Cough Medicine OverdosePOSTED: 6:25 pm EST February 27, 2008 UPDATED: 8:22 pm EST February 27, 2008 TAYLOR, Mich. -- Some teenagers in Taylor are using some over-the-counter medications to get a dangerous high. A 17-year-old is in intensive care after he tried to get high by drinking cough medicine. Timathy Berczel said he lives with guilt and hopes to stop what has become a dangerous trend among teenagers. Berczel was there Tuesday when his friend took an excessive amount of cough medicine to get high. "I really did not know he took that much from...

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

As the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival got under way, fest poobah Robert Redford warned audiences not to expect too many films that directly engaged the significant issues of the day, because filmmakers were reacting to dire world problems to a great extent with "levity" instead. From the blurbs in the festival catalogue, it hadn't appeared that comedy looked to be a major item from American indies this year. But after the first weekend, it dawned on me that perhaps Redford had meant a very different sort of levity. It seemed that nearly every film I saw featured...

BRISBANE, Australia, December 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Australian research team has found a close connection between previous abortion and drug and alcohol abuse. The work is added to a growing body of scientific research showing the long-term negative psychological effects of abortion on women. Young women who have abortions are more likely to drink heavily and abuse hard drugs, the study found. The study of 1,122 young women, born at the Mater hospital in the early 1980's, showed that about one third had an abortion. This one third was three times more likely to have abused methamphetamine, heroin...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Law enforcement authorities have discovered that people are willing to go to great lengths to get high, including a troubling new method that features a frightened toad. "Toad smoking," which is a substitute for "toad licking," is done by extracting venom from the Sonoran Desert toad of the Colorado River. The toad's venom — which is secreted when the toad gets angry or scared — contains a hallucinogen called bufotenine that can be dried and smoked to produce a buzz. In October, a Kansas City man was charged with possessing a controlled substance after Clay County...

WATCH THE CLINTON COCAINE DISCUSSION So, Barrack Obama admits cocaine use. There is plenty of evidence of Bill Clinton's cocaine use --- BUT HE WOULD NEVER ADMIT IT. He used it while he was a public official. This would be a fun thread to bring in your Bill Clinton cocaine links.

One Of Every Three Popular Songs Contains References To Substance Use ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2007) — Know what your kids are listening to when they’re blocking you out with their iPod earbuds firmly in place? If they are listening to popular music, chances are high that they are hearing references to substance use. According to new research presented at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, D.C., 33 percent of the most popular songs of 2005 portrayed substance use. The study, in which researchers analyzed 279 of the year’s most popular songs according to Billboard magazine,...

Medical marijuana advocate kills herselfBy MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded. After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain. That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a...

Silence is golden, everywhere but the Church. Yet, silence has largely been the Church’s response to the issue of drugs in American culture. In his most recent book High Society, Joseph Califano, a personal friend and the chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, offers a harsh, but accurate, look at America’s addiction to addiction. Listen to some of the shocking findings in his excellent new book: Americans consume two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs, although we make up only four percent of the world’s population. Sixty-one million Americans are chronic smokers. And more...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The father of the gunman from the May 2006 shooting at the Sully District Police Station in Centreville pleaded guilty Tuesday to two gun charges. Brian Harold Kennedy, 50, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to a licensed firearms dealer in connection with the purchase of an AK-47 assault rifle and to the unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition by a user of marijuana, authorities said. In April, a federal grand jury indicted Kennedy on six counts of weapons charges and two counts of drug charges. In his plea announced Tuesday, Kennedy admitted using marijuana for...

The prescription drugs allegedly found in Al Gore III's possession Wednesday are favorites among young people, according to drug abuse experts, who say prescription drugs may soon overtake street drugs in popularity. "I wouldn't be surprised if right now at this point in time, there are more kids abusing prescription drugs than abusing marijuana," said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and president of CASA, the National Center on Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Gore was arrested on charges of possessing -- in addition to marijuana -- Vicodin, Xanax, Valium and Adderall. According to a CASA report, between 1993...

AUKLAND, July 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Researchers at Massey University in New Zealand have joined their work to numerous other studies showing the rate of substance abuse is markedly higher in the gay community. Lead researcher Frank Pega said that the government needs to pay special attention to homosexuals in dealing with substance abuse issues. The findings will be presented at the Public Health Association conference in Auckland this week. Analysing data taken by the Ministry of Health of 15,000 New Zealanders between 2003 and 2004, the researchers found that 42.7 per cent of those in the homosexual lifestyle regularly...

JULY 2--Wrestler Chris Benoit was identified by Drug Enforcement Administration agents as an "excessive purchaser of injectable steroids" who, over the past year, was prescribed a 10-month supply of anabolic steroids every three to four weeks by a Georgia doctor who was indicted today on federal charges. Benoit, who last week murdered his wife and son before committing suicide, came to the attention of DEA agents probing a company called RX Weight Loss. It was during that investigation, which is "currently being prosecuted in the Northern District of Georgia," that narcotics agents discovered the World Wrestling Entertainment performer's steroid purchases,...

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) was in the news recently for saying some things that he wished he hadn't said. Presumably intending to compliment Barack Obama, Biden made some remarks that were patronizing, at best. I salute him. Why? Do I approve of making thoughtless remarks about African-Americans? Of course not. Do I think he should have thought before he spoke? You bet. But I admire him for what he didn't do. After saying something stupid and embarrassing and potentially harmful to his career, he didn't run off to a rehab center. Biden took responsibility for his actions, didn't blame them...

Marijuana is not a "gateway" drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study. Moreover, the study's findings call into question the long-held belief that has shaped prevention efforts and governmental policy for six decades and caused many a parent to panic upon discovering a bag of pot in their child's bedroom. The Pitt researchers tracked 214 boys beginning at ages 10-12, all of whom eventually used either legal or illegal drugs. When the boys reached age 22, they were categorized into three groups: those who used only alcohol or tobacco, those who...

Washington, D.C. − Concerned Women for America (CWA) draws attention to an annual back-to-school survey about risky teen behavior released by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. The random-sample national survey of over 1,000 teens and nearly 600 parents is a warning to parents. The survey suggests that parents are the last to know when their teens are involved in drug and alcohol abuse. At least a third of teens go to parties at homes where alcohol and drugs are used even though parents are present. CWA urges parents to become aware of the...

Survey finds parental ignorance Suggests presence doesn't deter drug use in the home By Naila Moreira, Globe Correspondent | August 17, 2006 Parents may be badly mistaken if they believe their mere presence at home prevents teenagers from drinking or using drugs out of their sight. A third of children ages 12 to 17 -- and almost half of 17-year-olds -- said they had attended parties where drugs and alcohol were available despite parents being at home, according to a survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Half of those surveyed said they attended...

They have such whimsical names as heavenly blue, crimson rambler and pearly gates, and delicate blooms that crawl quickly up trellises. But when morning glory seeds aren't planted -- when they are instead ingested -- whimsical thoughts can crawl through altered minds with kaleidoscope-like visions. Kristy Peterkin, whose family owns Ayers Variety and Hardware, says the owners caught two teenage boys stealing "13 or 14 packs of these seeds." And teenagers know this. Once popular in the hippie era of the 1960s, morning glory seeds as a hallucinogen seem to have sprouted once again. Local gardening shops have noticed their...

(STNG) Two women from the Chicago Housing Authority’s Dearborn Homes who reportedly died Saturday night were among more than a dozen people from the South Side, including a 70-year-old woman, who have been hospitalized over the past six hours apparently from taking bad heroin, police said. Reports of people overdosing on the bad drugs have been "pouring in" throughout the late night and early morning hours today, one police official said. The deaths, two women in their 40s, happened Saturday afternoon in the South Side Dearborn Homes, which spans the area roughly from 27th Street through 30th Street and State,...

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Nearly 3,000 Wisconsin students have been denied aid under a law that prohibits those who have been convicted of selling or possessing drugs from receiving Pell Grants and other forms of federal financial aid for college.The U.S. Department of Education said the measure has been used since 2000 to refuse assistance to more than 189,000 needy students, including 2,897 in Wisconsin. The agency released the state-by-state breakdown this week in response to a public records request by Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a nonprofit organization made up people who have been or will be denied financial aid...

Drug use has edged downward among teens nationwide, with the biggest decreases driven by teens in the Midwest and South, according to a national survey on drug and alcohol use. Children 12 to 17 years old who reported using any illicit drug in the past month declined from 11.4% to 10.9% between 2002 and 2004. States that saw the biggest declines in teen drug use were Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Virginia and Vermont. The study, to be released today by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), combines data from interviews of 135,500 people in...

Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills. Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations...

Drug testing is now officially a reality for Fort Payne middle and high school students. The Fort Payne Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to adopt a drug-testing program, aimed at middle and high school students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities. Board member Jimmy Durham did not attend Monday’s meeting but had earlier voiced support for the program. The board voted to implement “phase one� of the program beginning April 3, which will allow any students to volunteer for drug testing. Those students would then be subject to random selection. During the first phase, any student may volunteer to...

CESANA, Italy — Russian biathlete Olga Pyleva was thrown out of the Olympics and stripped of her silver medal Thursday for failing a drug test, the first athlete caught for doping at the Torino Games. Pyleva, who won silver at the 15km event Monday, was scratched just before the start of Thursday's 7.5km sprint, in which she was considered a leading medal contender. She also won gold and bronze medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to “freedom, free enterprise, and limited government� and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle. One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’re ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on drugs? The conservative will respond, “Even though I believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited government, we’ve got to continue waging the war on drugs.� The libertarian will respond, “End it. It is an immoral...

Restricting Cold Medicine Won't Curb Meth Use by Radley Balko Radley Balko is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Despite 30 years and many billions of dollars spent on the Drug War, America's appetite for illicit drugs really hasn’t subsided. It merely shifts, as the same drugs (or incarnations of them) come in and out of vogue. Inevitably, reaction from media, politicians and regulators to a particular drug's fashionability is overblown and does little to diminish actual abuse. Instead, efforts to thwart drug use often result in costly, needless hassling of law-abiding people that chip away at civil liberties...

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, January 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) –A recent study reinforces previous findings that women who have abortions frequently turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with the aftereffects of the trauma.Author Pricilla Coleman, professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, said studies show women who have abortions are up to five times more likely to use drugs and alcohol, and to smoke, than women who have not had an abortion, in a research review published in Current Women’s Health Reviews.Coleman said studies show women are more likely than men to rely on drugs or...

The '60s are gone, but for some baby boomers, the drugs aren't. A guide to the cost of a 40-year high. Few people know the perils of drug abuse better than a 55-year-old former schoolteacher whose job it used to be to teach that very topic--which is why it's particularly ironic that she's a cocaine addict today. More than 30 years ago, Gwen spent her days teaching in the Virginia school system and drafting the schools' drug-and-alcohol-abuse curriculum. She spent her nights researching the subject firsthand. "I started using alcohol and pot in college," she says. "Then I turned to...

WAKE FOREST, N.C. --North Carolina started enforcing its new law intended to stop the spread of methamphetamine labs on Sunday. Since 1999 the number of meth labs in the state has skyrocketed. Then the State Bureau of Investigation busted nine labs; in 2005 they discovered 328 of them. As of Jan. 15 you must be at least 18, show photo ID and sign a log if you want to by over-the-counter cold medicines such as Sudafed and Tylenol Cold. Both medicines contain either pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, which are key ingredients used to make meth. (snip) Under the new law you...

On October 5, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gonzales v. Oregon. On the surface, this case is about the legitimacy of physicians' prescribing of medications under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act and whether the federal government can overrule the states in defining "legitimate medical practice." Just beneath the surface, however, lies the risk of empowering agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) — whose traditional role is to prevent drug abuse and diversion — to evaluate the end-of-life practices of physicians whose patients die while receiving prescribed opioids or barbiturates. A finding in favor of the...

(AgapePress) - A prominent mental health counselor says depression may be the new sexually transmitted disease. He points to a new study that finds sexual experimentation and drug use often precede adolescent depression. Many mental health counselors assume students will medicate their depression with sex and drug use. However, a recently published study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that depression is actually a risk factor for sexual experimentation on the part of girls, and heavy drug use on the part of boys. The study, led by Dr. Denise Hallfors, followed more than 13,000 middle and high school...

WASHINGTON - The FBI, famous for its straight-laced crime-fighting image, is considering whether to relax its hiring rules over how often applicants could have used marijuana or other illegal drugs earlier in life. Some senior FBI managers have been deeply frustrated that they could not hire applicants who acknowledged occasional marijuana use in college, but in some cases already perform top-secret work at other government agencies, such as the CIA or State Department. FBI Director Robert Mueller will make the final decision. "We can't say when or if this is going to happen, but we are exploring the possibility," spokesman...

The FBI, famous for its straight-laced crime-fighting image, is considering whether to relax its hiring rules on how often applicants could have used marijuana or other illegal drugs earlier in life. Some senior FBI managers have been deeply frustrated they couldn't hire applicants who acknowledged occasional marijuana use in college, but in some cases perform top-secret work at other government agencies, such as the CIA or State Department. FBI Director Robert Mueller will make the final decision. "We can't say when or if this is going to happen, but we are exploring the possibility," spokesman Stephen Kodak said The change...

When Dr. Avrim Fishkind received an early-morning call to help turn a slab of concrete in the Reliant Astrodome into a medical clinic, he knew part of that task would be assisting substance abusers experiencing withdrawals from days without drugs or alcohol. Since thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims began arriving at the clinic two weeks ago, Fishkind estimates 30 percent to 50 percent have needed substance-abuse treatment. But as those working with patients at Reliant Park, the George R. Brown Convention Center, and local hospitals and clinics respond to the sudden influx of people with medical and mental health needs,...

Country Singer Being Treated For Overdose POSTED: 7:23 am EDT July 26, 2005 NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- There are more troubles for country singer Mindy McCready. According to authorities in Pinellas County, Fla., McCready was found unconscious Friday in a hotel lobby. She's being treated for an overdose. An incident report did not list the nature of the overdose. McCready was charged last week in Arizona with identity theft and other counts. Within the past two years, she has also faced allegations of driving under the influence and a drug violation. Dennis Tomlin, who had been her attorney until midday Monday,...

Drug Czar Favors Testing Teens If school boards institute random drug testing in the public schools, the use of illegal drugs among teens would be sharply reduced, said John Walters, the director of National Drug Control Policy. President Bush's drug czar has called for catching alcohol and drug abuse early in the teen population, particularly by instituting random drug testing. Random drug screening is an effective measure that local school boards should consider adopting, said John Walters, addressing the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors on Friday in Bal Harbour. "[Random drug testing in public high schools]...