Category Archives: Drugs

Jun 19 2012 cannabis farm Image 1 THE FORMER government drugs adviser forced to resign over his views on cannabis has repeated his calls for the drug to be decriminalised. Professor David Nutt said a decision to make magic mushrooms Class A was "almost the final nail in the coffin of the rationality of the Misuse of Drugs Act" and there needs to be more "sensible, rational" regulation of drugs. He said Government decisions on drugs were often motivated by politics rather than science, and stood by previous, controversial comments in which he declared taking ecstasy was no more risky than horse-riding. Prof Nutt resigned as the chairman of the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in November 2009 over the decision to reclassify cannabis from a Class C to a Class B drug. Now chairman of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, he told the Home Affairs Select Committee today: "I think people have a very exaggerated perception of the harms of drugs and they tend to minimise the harms of other activities which particularly young people engage in which are potentially as harmful or more harmful." Prof Nutt called for a system similar to the Bank of … Continue reading →

The Irish Times - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 FIONA GARTLAND NEW DRUGS for the treatment of conditions including multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder and hepatitis C are to be made available following an agreement between the Department of Health and the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association. The department announced last night it had reached a deal with the association to deliver savings worth 20 million a year. The savings will allow the Health Service Executive to approve the release of new, more expensive drugs. Drugs to be released will include Brilique, to prevent thrombosis in patients with acute coronary syndromes; Gilenya, for multiple sclerosis; Sycrest, for bipolar disorder; and Incivo and Victrelis, both for hepatitis C. Pradaxa, for the prevention of stroke, which had been released for a short period and then withdrawn, is also to be made available. An alternative to blood thinner Warfarin, the drug is believed to be safer and more effective for patients with atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat. The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics had approved most of the drugs as cost-effective, and under a former agreement between the HSE and the pharmaceutical association the new medicines were to be made available within 40 days of an … Continue reading →

To clamp down on hallucinogens and quasi-legal drugs being sold as herbs, the health ministry will designate four types of regulated drugs as narcotics, ministry officials said Saturday. The designation will be the first one in four years. The ministry plans to issue them more often at least once a year and impose a blanket regulation on drugs that produce similar effects but have slightly different ingredients, to tighten control of quasi-legal drugs and other hallucinogens, the officials said. The four types of drugs JWH-018, cannabicyclohexanol, MDPV and mephedrone will be classified as narcotics, just like stimulants, as early as August. On July 1, nine types of quasi-legal drugs will be added to a list of regulated drugs that cause hallucinations and other health risks. The pharmaceutical affairs law bans the production and sale of 68 regulated drugs. Drugs found to cause serious addiction and other adverse health impacts are designated as narcotics, making their possession illegal. According to data compiled by the ministry, 389 stores in 29 prefectures were found to have sold quasi-legal drugs as of the end of March by taking advantage of legal loopholes. But it is hard to obtain more accurate data because they are … Continue reading →

There's a lot time to talk in the off-season and people have Twitter, message boards and Facebook to feed their need to gossip and tittle-tattle; so, I wasn't really stunned last week when false rumors spread from a Twitter account alleging that Jack Wilshere had not played for Arsenal because he had failed a drugs test. Wilshere suffered a stress fracture in his ankle in pre-season for the 2011-12 season, as the injury worsened it prevented him from playing for the Gunners. He underwent surgery in September of last year. The ankle injury even deprived him the opportunity to travel to the Euros with England. It was a major setback for the 20-year-old midfielder and now he has this junk rumor to deal with. How does someone on Twitter know that Wilshire failed a drugs test or not? The allegation got Arsenal to make a swift response and a short statement in The Sun. How do we know the tweet didn't come from some Tottenham fan that lives in his mom's basement, whose hobbies include stuffing their face with Ho Hos and playing hours of Warcraft? The Arsenal statement said: "The rumored reason on social networks behind Jack's absence this … Continue reading →

By: Denise Yost & Rick Reitzel | NBC4 , NBC4 Published: June 14, 2012 Updated: June 14, 2012 - 3:17 PM Police are investigating what role drugs and alcohol played in the death of a 15-year-old boyThursday morning. According to Westerville police, Kenneth Raymond Bores III, a resident of Columbus, was found unconscious at an apartmentat 954 Cross Country Dr. East in Westerville early Wednesday. He was transported at 2:30 a.m. to Mount Carmel St. Ann's Hospital by Westerville medics. He was subsequently transferred to Nationwide Children's Hospital, where his family took him off life-support on Thursday and he died. Westerville police charged two people who were in the apartment with Bores. Mitchell Allen Crabtree, 20, was charged with providing a place for underage consumption, a misdemeanor charge. A 17-year-old female from Blendon Township was also charged with providing alcohol. According to the Westerville police report, Crabtree told investigators there were no drugs in the house, and he denied seeing any drugs on the night in question. Bores was a Freshman at New Albany high school. Principal Ric Stranges said grief counselors were at the school on Thursday and will be back for students and staffon Friday. Visit link: Drugs, … Continue reading →

China ... an expert says it is the No.1 source of counterfeit drugs. Photo: Louie Douvis The rapid growth of internet commerce has led to an explosion of counterfeit drugs sold around the world, with China the biggest source of fake medicines, pharmaceutical experts said Thursday. The illicit trade is now believed to be worth around $75 billion globally, with criminal gangs increasingly using the web to move their products across borders, said Scott Davis, Pfizer's top security expert for Asia. "The internet has led to an explosion of availability of these products," Davis told a health forum in Manila. Advertisement: Story continues below "About 90 per cent of counterfeit drugs ... are at some point marketed and sold on the internet." He said websites selling fake drugs commonly did not have physical addresses and exploited weak or murky customs regulations to ship their products. "They are getting more sophisticated," he said, adding that law enforcers were finding it ever more difficult to tell the fake drugs from the real. "We often have to send the pills to our labs to tell us the difference," he said. The US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer makes the anti-impotence drug Viagra, which along with … Continue reading →

The reputation of bisphosphonates, the most widely prescribed osteoporosis drugs on the market, has taken a beating lately. Last month, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found inconsistencies in the ability of bisphosphonates to reduce fractures and suggested the drugs may not have much benefit for many women. In an accompanying article, researchers questioned whether women who are at a high risk for fractures and are currently taking the drugs would be better off only using them for a short period. The same month, a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found women taking bisphosphonates appear to actually face a higher risk of suffering rare, but very serious, atypical femoral fractures which account for less than 1 per cent of all hip and femur fractures. Unlike most fractures, atypical femoral fractures arent usually the result of a fall or other trauma; the thigh bone appears to snap for no reason. Healing can take months or years and the fractures may lead to complications. Last December, Health Canada announced it was updating the warning label on bisphosphonate drugs in light of evidence they are linked to a higher risk of … Continue reading →

By Kathleen Doheny and Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD WebMD Health News Rheumatoid arthritis patients who take medications known as anti-TNFs may be treating more than their disease. According to new research presented at a European meeting, these patients may be less likely to have a heart attack and are more likely to live longer than those with RA who are not taking the drugs. In one study, the longer the patients take the anti-TNF drugs, the more protected they are from heart attacks. "The unique feature of this study is, we have tied the time on the drugs with the reduction of heart attacks and other problems," says researcher Michael Nurmohamed, MD, PhD, of the VU University Medical Centre and Jan van Breemen Research Institute in Reade, Netherlands. "After one year on anti-TNFs, we saw a 24% reduction, after two years, 42%, and after three years, 56%, compared to those not on the drugs," he tells WebMD. He presented the findings this week at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism. The study was funded by Abbott, which makes the anti-TNF drug Humira. At the same meeting, other researchers also reported those on biologic treatments … Continue reading →

13 June 2012 Last updated at 01:17 ET By Vincent Kearney BBC NI home affairs correspondent Prisoner Ombudsman Pauline McCabe has said she is worried there is an acceptance of illegal drugs within Northern Ireland prisons. She made the comments after her report into the death of a Londonderry man who died after taking a cocktail of drugs in Maghaberry Prison in June last year. Patrick Duffy, 49, was on a range of prescription drugs for medical problems during his two months in the prison. It is believed he died after trading some of his tablets for illicit drugs. The day before his death he was given 63 different tablets, but only two were found in his cell after his death. It is believed Mr Duffy swapped the rest for a cocktail of three other illicit drugs, and died shortly after taking them. Ms McCabe has criticised the management of prescription drugs within the prison service. In a report published on Wednesday, she said it was inappropriate for Patrick Duffy to be issued with a week's supply as he had a history of overdose and self harming. Mr Duffy was committed to Maghaberry on remand on 20 April last year. … Continue reading →

David Nutt, former adviser to the UK government, says the ban on drugs like ecstasy is hampering neuroscience How do the drug laws in most countries affect scientific research? One of the things I find very disturbing about the current approach to drugs, which is simply prohibition without necessarily any full understanding of harms, is that we lose sight of the fact that these drugs may well give us insights into areas of science that need to be explored and may give us new opportunities for treatment. In what way? Almost all the drugs of interest in terms of understanding brain phenomena such as consciousness, perception, mood and psychosis are illegal. And so there is almost no work done in this field. How bad is the impact? The effects these laws have had on research is greater than those caused by the US government hindering stem cell research. No one has done an imaging neuroscience study of smoking cannabis. I can show you 150 papers telling you how the brain reacts to an angry face, but I can't show you a single paper that tells you what cannabis does. Any examples of missed opportunities? There were six trials of LSD … Continue reading →