Featured Drug Articles

Marijuana's well-known effects on short-term memory may be the result of misfiring brain cells, according to neuroscientists.

Diversion and abuse of the prescription pain reliever OxyContin has become a major problem. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that, in the United States, oxycodone products, including OxyContin, are frequently abused pharmaceuticals.

The more alcohol an individual drinks, the more the risk of suicide grows, according to a researcher at Canada's Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

New-found independence can sometimes be dangerous: Alcohol use and abuse among college students is a serious cause for concern. Many students are under the legal drinking age and many engage in heavy episodic, or binge, drinking. There are a variety of simple screening methods that can help identify those students at greatest risk for alcohol problems so that preventative steps can be taken before it's too late.

Western states like Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota have binge-drinking levels far higher than the national average, and local experts say that boredom plays a huge role in the problem, the New York Times reported Sept. 2.

A recent survey of teens conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that one in four questioned said they had a friend or class mate whom they knew had used Ecstasy, and 17% said they knew more than one user. Often referred to as this decade’s version of LSD, Ecstasy is, according to some of its users “the hottest drug going now.â€

Individuals who suffer from addiction often have one or more accompanying medical issues, including lung and cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and mental disorders. Imaging scans, chest x-rays, and blood tests show the damaging effects of drug abuse throughout the body.

In one study, one in four veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan reported symptoms of a mental or cognitive disorder; one in six reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These disorders are strongly associated with substance abuse and dependence, as are other problems experienced by returning military personnel, including sleep disturbances, traumatic brain injury, and violence in relationships.

According to researchers, nicotine withdrawal symptoms begin just 30 minutes after a smoker takes his last cigarette.

In addition to out-of-control aggression, anabolic steroids have been reported also to cause other behavioral effects, including euphoria, increased energy, sexual arousal, mood swings, distractibility, forgetfulness, and confusion.

The adverse effects of smoking may occur in every trimester of pregnancy; they range from spontaneous abortions in the first trimester to increased premature delivery rates and decreased birth weights in the final trimester. The decreased birth weights seen in infants of mothers who smoke reflects a dose-dependent relationship: the more the woman smokes during pregnancy, the greater the reduction of infant birth weight.

The chemical structure of ecstasy allows it to reach the brain quickly after ingestion. First, the pill is ingested and it disintegrates quickly in the stomach contents. Once dissolved, some ecstasy molecules are absorbed from the stomach into the bloodstream, but most of the ecstasy molecules move from the stomach into the small intestine. There, they are absorbed into the bloodstream very easily.

By: Hugh C. McBride

There aren’t a lot of textbooks in the Idaho desert, but Sean Tomkinson, a therapist with SUWS Adolescent and Youth Programs, believes that the students who spend weeks in that wilderness environment emerge more motivated and better prepared to pursue academic success when they return to the classroom.

A new survey estimates that as many as three-fourths of American adults think they know enough about how drinking affects their blood alcohol levels, while in fact, most don't even know the legal limits in their own state. The Century Council, a group backed by major distillers, is campaigning to better educate the public about those limits and how much you have to drink to exceed them.

Also referred to as "ultra rapid opiate detox," rapid detox is generally conducted in a hospital setting and under general anesthesia for treating opiate based substances and addictions such as heroin, vicodin, methadone, or any prescribed narcotic pain killers.