Almost all liver disease is preventable yet we are met with a sheer resistance to tackle it.

UK has the highest rate of oesophageal cancer in Europe while liver cancer deaths have jumped more than 70%, according to two new sets of figures.

Alcohol and obesity are helping fuel both types of disease, with many of these cancer cases preventable if people were healthier.

A league table of European cancer rates of the oesophagus show about 6.4 out of every 100,000 people develop oesophageal cancer in the UK every year.
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This is almost double the European average of 3.3 and higher than Ireland, which came in second place (5.9), and the Netherlands in third (5.8).

France had a figure of just 3.9 while the rate in Spain was 2.8.

Cyprus's rate of 0.5 is the lowest in Europe while Mongolia has the highest rate in the world (18.7).

The oesophagus is part of the body's digestive system and is the tube which links the back of the mouth to the stomach.

The UK's high rate is partly due to high levels of alcohol consumption and obesity - known risk factors for the disease.

The league table was compiled by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) using World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates.

Around 8,000 oesophageal cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK each year and the disease kills more than 7,000.

Just 8% of men and women are still alive five years after diagnosis.

Dr Rachel Thompson, deputy head of science for the WCRF, said: "The fact that the UK has the highest rate of oesophageal cancer in Europe is a real concern because it is a type of cancer that has a particularly low survival rate.

"It is also a particularly preventable type of cancer and most oesophageal cases in the UK could be prevented through a healthy diet, limiting alcohol consumption, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking.

"The problem is that we have the highest obesity rate in Europe and we drink more alcohol than the European average.

"This means that thousands of people every year are being diagnosed with an oesophageal cancer that could have been prevented.

"The good news is that not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, cutting down on alcohol and eating more of a variety of fruits and vegetables will not just reduce your risk of oesophageal cancer.

"It will also reduce your risk of other types of cancer, as well as being good for health generally."

The second set of statistics published today, from the British Liver Trust, shows that since 1997 liver cancer deaths have risen by 74% in England and Wales.

Both Scotland and Northern Ireland are also experiencing increasing numbers of deaths from liver cancer.

Andrew Langford, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said: "Liver disease seems to be the poor relation to the other big killers yet is the only health problem out of the big five showing an increasing trend.

"The situation is now at breaking point and we need to see direct action to prevent the daily death rate from liver cancer increasing."

Liver disease is influenced by obesity and alcohol but can also result from hepatitis.

"At the moment all we are seeing are weak policies or no action at all, however there are so many solutions to the problem," Mr Langford said.

"Almost all liver disease is preventable yet we are met with a sheer resistance to tackle it.

"We are still awaiting the National Liver Disease Strategy, our Government-led alcohol policies are a joke and despite nearly every other developed nation having universal vaccination for hepatitis B we are still debating whether we should. While this debate continues many are being infected and for some this will lead to them dying of liver cancer. "

The figures show that 1,968 men and 1,371 women died from liver cancer in England and Wales in 2010, as did 230 men and 132 women in Scotland.

In 1997 in England and Wales, the figure was 1,133 men and 848 women.

Across the whole of the UK in 2010, an average of 10 people a day died from the disease

experts agree that a war on drugs is ineffective in reducing drug production and often has extreme negative long-term impacts on development and human rights.

In 2003 the illicit drugs market was worth an estimated $320 billion with over 5 per cent of the world's populations aged between 15 and 64 years of age, or nearly 250 million people, consuming illicit drugs.

East and Southeast Asia is home to about a third of the global population and is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. Economic development in the region is leading to new infrastructure and trade initiatives. However, the accelerated movement of people, trade and goods has given rise to many opportunities for drug traffickers to exploit to make their business prosper. As raised in recent United Nations reports, there is a real challenge facing the region from amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and other synthetic drugs. ATS drugs, particularly methamphetamine, are widely used and it is now estimated that up to 20 million people in the region have used amphetamines in the past year.

Although opium production has plateaued, its production increased by 80 per cent between 1998 and 2009. Afghanistan accounts for almost 90 per cent of the world's opium supply, although recent intelligence suggests that production in Burma is increasing after years of decline. The policy of eradication of poppy crops in many countries has seen an unintended negative and rapid increase in drug injecting as people change from smoking the drug to seek a bigger effect from the drugs they are able to obtain. It has also contributed to a rapid increase in the number of people switching to ATSs which are far cheaper and easier to produce.

In the aid arena, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 for realisation in 2015. They provide a benchmark for tackling extreme poverty and provide a framework for the international community to work together. However, reductions in poverty do not necessarily address gender equality and environmental sustainability, and the expansion of health services does not automatically mean improvement in quality.

The MDG is where the worlds of development aid and illicit drugs collide. The negative impact of illicit drugs on achieving the MDG cannot be overstated. Drug users are not necessarily poor but the poor are disproportionately affected by drugs.

Widespread production, trafficking and use of illicit drugs not only affect health, livelihoods and governance but also impinge on national and regional economies, legislation, basic human rights and life itself.

For too long there has been limited recognition of the relationship between illicit drugs and social and economic development. Lack of development and the lack of education and employment opportunities exacerbate drug use and drug trafficking while rapid development and the accompanying social and economic changes creates problems for some groups that can result in greater involvement with drugs. Countries within Asia, and increasingly the Pacific, provide many examples of the relationship between rapid change, displacement, poverty, migration, violence and involvement in illicit drugs. Many of the reasons for increased drug use in countries like Burma, Pakistan and Afghanistan are very much related to economic development - whether it is truck drivers taking drugs to drive all night or those needing drugs to cope with being forced into commercial sex work - the impact of drugs can be seen. The impact on migrant groups is often particularly severe as they rarely have access to a health system or community support.

Aid programs must address the fact that development is about change and that better and more attractive alternatives to drugs need to be a part of that change. In Asia and the Pacific, programs dealing with illicit drugs are often too narrowly focused on law enforcement, with some occasional focus on prevention, harm reduction or treatment. An approach that is integrated with reducing drug supply, providing attractive livelihood alternatives, reducing drug use and demand, reducing the harms caused by drug use and the provision of treatment for existing drug users is needed as part of the development process.

Adding to these problems is conflict and the resultant instability, which not only helps to facilitate illicit drug economies, but can sustain the conflict. We see this in countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia, and Myanmar, where rebel and pro-government forces have used illicit drug economies to finance their activities.

Most experts agree that a war on drugs is ineffective in reducing drug production and often has extreme negative long-term impacts on development and human rights. Unfortunately, while drug users are seen as the problem and not as people that need assistance they will continue to be imprisoned, victimised and disenfranchised. This only exacerbates HIV and other health problems.

As a world leader in drug policy and treatment, and the funding increase for AusAID, Australia has a unique opportunity to assist our region.

Academics found that women who had high IQ scores in childhood were more likely to take illegal drugs when they are in their 30s.

INTELLIGENCE early on in life among women may be linked to drug-taking as they get older, Welsh researchers have discovered.

Academics found that women who had high IQ scores in childhood were more likely to take illegal drugs when they are in their 30s. One of the theories they give for being behind this is that those people with a high IQ are more willing to try new experiences.

Dr James White, who led the research, said: “Although most studies suggest that higher child or adolescent IQ prompts the adoption of a healthy lifestyle as an adult, other studies have linked higher childhood IQ scores to excess alcohol intake and alcohol dependency in adulthood.

“Although it is not yet clear exactly why there should be a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, previous research has shown that people with a high IQ are more open to new experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation.

“There is a clear need for future epidemiological and experimental studies to explore these and other pathways.”

The study, by the university’s Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer), examined data from just under 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study, which is a large ongoing population-based study, looking at drug use and other factors in society.

The IQ scores of the participants were measured at the ages of five and 10 years, using validated scales, and information was gathered on self reported levels of psychological distress and drug use at the age of 16, and again at the age of 30.

Drugs assessed at 16 included cannabis and cocaine; and at 30 years of age included cannabis; cocaine; amphetamines; and ecstasy.

By the age of 30, 35.4% of men and 15.9% of women had used cannabis, while 8.6% of men and 3.6% of women had used cocaine, in the previous 12 months.

A similar pattern of use was found for the other drugs, with overall drug use twice as common among men as among women.

Men with high IQ scores at the age of five were around 50% more likely to have used amphetamines, ecstasy, and several illicit drugs than those with low scores, 25 years later.

The link was even stronger among women, who were more than twice as likely to have used cannabis and cocaine as those with low IQ scores. The same associations emerged between a high IQ score at the age of 10 and subsequent use of cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines, and cocaine, although this last was only evident at the age of 30.

Recognised risk factors for drug use, such as, levels of anxiety and depression during adolescence, parental social class, level of education, social class at 30 years and monthly income were all taken into account during analysis of the study’s findings.

rising number of lawyers, doctors, dentists and vets in Britain are turning functioning alcoholics

rising number of lawyers, doctors, dentists and vets in Britain are turning “functioning alcoholics”, experts have warned.

Addiction specialists have given them the “functioning alcoholics” label because they do not fit the typical image of down-and-out street drinkers, the Daily Mail reported.

There has been a surge in demand from professionals who are seeking rehab treatment abroad so as to avoid being recognised in nearby hospitals or clinics, it is claimed.

Alistair Mordey, who runs a substance abuse clinic in Chiang Mai, Thailand, said the demand for treatment from doctors was growing at twice the rate of any other occupation.

“We are seeing a lot of professionals coming in, particularly from London,” he said. “They are in workplaces where you really wouldn’t want them to be.”

According to the British Medical Association’s estimate, one in 15 doctors will develop an addiction problem at some point and they are three times more likely to develop cirrhosis of the liver than the general population.

Cirrhosis of the liver is a chronic disease interfering with the normal functioning of the liver; the major cause is chronic alcoholism.

Research has also suggested that up to 24 percent of lawyers will suffer from alcoholism during their careers.

Roxies sell on the street for as much as $30 per pill and offer a high that tops crack, heroin or meth

PHOTO BY MICHAEL PATRICK, COPYRIGHT © 2011 // BUY THIS PHOTO

Michael Patrick/news sentinel The two most wanted prescription pills on the streets of East Tennessee. The small pills are Roxie 30 and the large green pill is an Oxycontin 80. The second-generation Oxys, made by Purdue Pharma, are now wrapped in a sticky gelcap coating that will burn nostrils and resists needles.

PHOTO BY SOURCE: U.S. DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE

Effects of oxycodone: The high caused by oxycodone and other opiates affects nearly every major organ in the human body. So does withdrawal. This chart illustrates some of those effects.

Oxy's out. Roxies rule.A tiny blue pill, no bigger than a baby aspirin, overshadows nearly every other illegal drug on the market in East Tennessee. Men and women beg, haggle, threaten, lie, steal and kill — all for a handful of pills.

"It's the new crack," Knox County Sheriff's Office Lt. John Hopkins said. "Most of the addicts we see don't even shop for Oxys now. They've all switched to Roxies, and it's worse than crack ever was."

Doctors, police and emergency workers see the fallout every day. Sometimes it's a pill-sick addict who steals today to buy tonight's fix. Sometimes it's a baby born shaking with seizures from withdrawal.

Commonly abused prescription drugs

Oxycontin: A time-release form of oxycodone, an opioid painkiller, produced by Purdue Pharma and used to treat chronic pain. Strengths range up to 80 mg per pill. Nicknames include Oxys, O's and hillbilly heroin.

Roxicodone: Instant-release form of oxycodone produced by Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals and used to treat breakthrough pain. Strengths range up to 30 mg per pill. Nicknames include Roxies, blues and stars.

Opana: Time-release form of oxymorphone, a synthetic opioid, produced by Endo Pharmaceuticals. Nicknames include stop signs, biscuits, octagons and Mrs. O.

Methadone: Synthetic opioid, typically prescribed in pill or wafer form, used to treat pain and to ease withdrawal symptoms for opiate addicts.

Percocet, Endocet, Roxicet: Mixtures of oxycodone and acetaminophen.Percodan, Endodan, RoxiprinMixtures of oxycodone and aspirin.

Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet: Mixtures of hydrocodone and acetaminophen. Nicknames include Vikes and hydros.

Fentanyl: Synthetic opioid, stronger than morphine, typically prescribed in patch or lollipop form. Nicknames include china white and perc-a-pop.

Xanax: Brand name of alprazolam, a benzodiazepine produced by Pfizer and used to treat panic, anxiety and insomnia. Strengths range up to 2 mg. Nicknames include footballs and totem poles.

Valium: Brand name of diazepam, a benzodiazepine produced by Roche and used to treat panic, anxiety and insomnia. Strengths range up to 10 mg.

Klonopin: Brand name of clonazepam, a benzodiazepine produced by Roche and used to treat panic, anxiety and insomnia. Strengths range up to 2 mg.

Ambien: Brand name of zolpidem tartrate, a sedative produced by Sanofi-Aventis. Strengths range up to 10 mg.

Suboxone: Combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, used to treat opiate withdrawal.

Pill Sick: The series

Sunday

Tennessee drug task force waging lonely war on Rx diversion

Law enforcement battling to cut off pain drug pipeline

Drug war's new front makes for unlikely targets

Living for the needle: Addict's life a daily, desperate struggle

Prescription pills are East Tennessee's 'new crack'

A year of pills: Drugs leave trail of damage, crime

Summary findings from the News Sentinel investigation into the pill trade

Sometimes it's a corpse — a dealer killed for pills or an addict who chased the last high off the edge of oblivion.

Oxycodone hydrochloride tablets sell at the pharmacy counter under the brand name Roxicodone and offer quick relief from chronic pain for the old, the aching, the crippled and the dying.

Roxies sell on the street for as much as $30 per pill and offer a high that tops crack, heroin or meth — all without the pesky time-release formula that coats Oxycontin, the drug's sister medication.

"It's the epidemic of the day," Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said. "Everything is attached to it now. Our investigators will tell you that 90 percent of the folks we see who've committed a crime say it's to get their medicine. That's what they call it — medicine.

"The days of the crack dealer on the corner are slowly waning. It's become the medicine dealer on the street."

Drugs of choice

Three people died last year in South Knox County when two men broke into a former police officer's house to steal legally prescribed painkillers. Police say a North Knoxville man's stepson beat him and his wife to death in August to steal pain pills, then burned down the house to cover up the crime.

A rash of drugstore robberies last fall and winter set a local record. Semiannual drug roundups keep rural jails packed and court dockets clogged.

Officers on the beat report dealing with addicts desperate to avoid jail and the agonies of withdrawal. Sometimes they run. Sometimes they fight.

"We're out here beating the bushes today, and in a few months we'll be out here again doing the same thing," said Capt. David Honeycutt, chief investigator for the Claiborne County Sheriff's Office, as he headed out with a stack of indictments in another drug roundup. "Pills have changed the face of law enforcement. It used to be pot, maybe Valium. Now it's pain pills, and they're crazy as hell on them. You'd be hard-pressed to find a family that's not been hurt by these drugs."

Tennessee topped the nation last year in busts of methamphetamine labs, where addicts churn out toxic waste breaking down cold and sinus pills to produce a homemade stimulant. Meth hasn't gone away, but police say they spend more time and money now fighting to keep the cap on the prescription bottle.

"People are afraid of meth, because everybody doesn't do meth," Newport Police Chief Maurice Shults said. "Everybody doesn't do crack. But everybody's on pills of some kind. Pills come from a doctor. People see that as safe. A doctor gives them out, so they've got to be good."

From Oxy to Roxies

Purdue Pharma's Oxycontin tablets once stood as the gold standard for opiate abusers, with concentrated doses of up to 80 mg of oxycodone locked inside a time-release formula easy to crack. Addicts crushed the pills to powder, then snorted or injected them to turn 12 hours of pain relief into an instant high.

That golden egg gained an extra shell when Purdue introduced a new formula last year meant to cut down on abuse. The second-generation Oxys come wrapped in a sticky gelcap coating that burns nostrils and resists the needle.

Some addicts claim to have found ways to beat the coating. Most don't bother.

Roxicodone and its generic equivalents deliver smaller doses of the same drug to treat the short, sharp bursts of breakthrough pain that plague cancer patients and others between round-the-clock doses of painkillers like Oxy. The pills come in 15 mg and 30 mg strength with no gelcap and no time-release coating, ready to deliver instant relief — or an instant high.

"There's no preparation," said Officer Phil Jinks of the Knoxville Police Department's Repeat Offender Squad. "It's straight out of the bottle."

The easy access and potential for profit have caught on among young and old.

"We're dealing with kids in high school, and we've got people retirement age selling," KCSO Sgt. Chris Bryant said. "Pills are easy to get for kids. We've given several drug education classes to teachers, and the first question is always, 'What are those little blue pills we keep seeing?' Those are Roxies."

Some officials expect the problem will only get worse. Opana, a time-release form of oxymorphone introduced five years ago, and fentanyl, a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine, offer a stronger high than the old Oxycontin with an even greater potential for overdosing.

Meanwhile, addicts keep working on ways to crack the new Oxys.

"Any time there's a chemical change, there's somebody out there who can alter the effects of that change," Hamblen County Sheriff Esco Jarnagin said. "I don't think you can stop these people from doing what they're doing. The only thing you can do is try to slow them down."

Addiction's Brain Abnormalities Can Be Reversed

 

 

Researchers from the University of Minho in Portugal have discovered that rats exposed before birth to glucocorticoids (GC) not only show several brain abnormalities similar to those found in addicts, but become themselves susceptible to addiction (the glucorticoids, which are stress hormones, were used to mimic pre-natal stress).  But even more remarkable, Ana João Rodrigues, Nuno Sousa and colleagues were able to reverse all the abnormalities  (including the addictive behavior) by giving the animals dopamine (a neurotransmitter/ brain chemical).  The study has several implications – for a start it alerts for the dangers of high levels of stress during pregnancy, but - since GC are often prescribed as an anti-inflammatory or to help organ maturation during pregnancy - it also calls for an urgent investigation on the effects of this drug in pregnant women. But it is what we learn about addiction that is most interesting - the work not only unveils stress as a new susceptibility factor for the disease, but  also a very simple treatment that, if translated into humans, could one day mean an effective treatment, and maybe even the prevention of human addiction.  Drug addiction was for a long time a character flaw, a moral problem. Now, instead,  is accepted as the complex brain disease that is with the addict a patient in need of treatment. After all many people try drugs, but only a few become addicts And it is in these few that lays the key to the disease and its treatment. So what do we know about these patients and the disease? First although the psychological and social contexts in which the drug is taken are important,  as much as 50% of the compulsion is in the  individual’s genetic makeup. We know that addiction is linked to the mesolimbic system - the brain area that evolved to provide feelings of pleasure to actions that increase our survival chances, such as eat, sex and social stimulation. In fact, drugs activate the mesolimbic circuit too, only far stronger than any physiologic stimulus.  This leads to the production of very high quantities of dopamine – the brain chemical linked to pleasure – creating the euphoria that brings users back. After while, though, the brain no longer can cope with the constant ” high” and adapts by becoming desensitised to dopamine (produced by any type of stimulus) what leads users to consume more in order to “feel” again and trapping those more susceptible in addiction. And with the brain changes induced by drugs being apparently long-lasting - since both cravings and relapses don’t disappear with time – it is not easy to escape once trapped. Adding another piece to the puzzle, recently the disease was also linked to stress during crucial developmental periods, such as feotal life. In fact, high levels of prenatal stress increase propensity to mental problems and now have been suggested also to substance abuse, with the effects being mediated by glucocorticoids (GC).    Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Rodrigues and Sousa’s group have a long history of interest in stress and have seen before that  rats from mothers injected with GC while pregnant (mimicking pre-natal stress) show changes in their mesolimbic area and in the dopamine response. So in the study now published, following these results and the addiction-stress link, the researchers investigated the responses to drugs in rats exposed to GC while in the uterus. These rats were found to have a susceptibility to addiction not present in control (non-exposed) rats. When their mesolimbic system was examined they also showed several structural and molecular abnormalities,  including less dopamine. The levels of their dopamine receptor Drd2, despite initially being very high, once they experimented drugs, went to abnormally low levels . So why is this important? Because reduced dopamine and Drd2 levels are typical of addicts suggesting that stress and long-term exposure to drugs affect the brain in very similar ways what could explain why the first could lead to the second.  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The good news is that low levels of dopamine can be treated so Rodrigues and colleagues restored the rats’ dopamine levels to normal just to find,much to their surprise, that all the structural and molecular abnormalities induced by prenatal GC were reversed. Even more surprising, the addictive behavior also disappeared. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 As Ana João Rodrigues explains, “This is a remarkable result because it suggests that with a relatively simple pharmacological approach- restoration of dopamine levels- we can eventually treat, and even more importantly, potentially prevent drug abuse in vulnerable individuals. Of course that we still have a long way to go but our results are quite promising. In fact, if we know where susceptibility to substance abuse lies – and low dopamine and altered Drd2 response seems to be it - then maybe we can find better ways to prevent/treat this disorder. “ Restoring dopamine levels has been used to treat cocaine cravings but the few trials looking at its effect on addiction were never very clear. One possible reason might be the length or the dosages used – in Rodrigues’ study, rats treated for 3 days reverted back to an addictive behavior 3 weeks after the end of the treatment,  but this no longer occurs if the treatment continues for 3 weeks Now it will be necessary to test this new theory in humans what could be problematic with addicts as they are notoriously not the most cooperative or reliable research subjects. Large human studies on the effect of prenatal stress are also difficult to mount but there are a couple of them being run at the moment that could be tagged into such as “Project Ice Storm” in Canada.This study is following women pregnant n January 98 in southern Québec during an extreme ice storm that led to electrical power failures affecting more than 3 million people for as much as 6 weeks during the coldest month of the year(when temperatures can go to -18 C).  It is still early for any studies on addiction(the children are only 13 years old after all) but it will be an interesting place to look, especially since abnormal levels of behavioral and cognitive problems have already been detected by scientists. Drug abuse and addiction carry enormous social and financial costs to society, families and individuals.Only in the US, the National Institute for Drug Abuse calculates that more than600 billion dollars are being spent, annually, to combat the disease. Despite this,a steady increase of drug use among teenagers and in prescription drugs continues with treatments remaining as inefficient as ever.  Rodrigues and Sousa’s work might be the first step towards a solution if their remarkable results can be translated into humans.

UC Berkeley researchers pinpoint areas of brain linked with addiction

 

Researchers at UC Berkeley have determined the specific areas of the brain that value and interpret decisions, which they hope may lead to new treatments for individuals who struggle with addiction. By measuring the neural activity of macaque monkeys, researchers were able to pinpoint the two specific ways the brain makes decisions, which they explained in a study published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They now understand that neural activity in the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex determines the value of decisions, while neural activity in the anterior cingulate cortex evaluates the difference between expectations and results, which is responsible for future behavior. “The brain is basically a computer, and the neuron is taking information and then giving information that they’ve calculated,” said Jonathan Wallis, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the principal investigator of the study. “This is the first time we’ve been able to show the specific computation to decision-making in specific areas of the brain. That was really the novelty.” While previous research has determined that these sections of the brain are dysfunctional in addicts, the new research explains how the damage leads to addiction. If these parts of the frontal cortex are impaired, addicts lack the signals that provide them with accurate information about how valuable a choice is, making it less likely that they will learn the consequences of their actions, according to Wallis. “If you’re an addict and this area is impaired, you may not realize your goals, and you potentially are not going to learn from unhealthy decisions,” Wallis said. Wallis and his team conducted the research by testing the neural activity of macaque monkeys as they played games that gauged their ability to make decisions. Researchers could measure the calculations that the monkeys were making in the different areas of the brain, which mimicked the way that humans make decisions. The researchers completed the experiment in 2006 and have spent the last five years analyzing the data. Although still a few steps in the future, the ultimate goal of the study is to use the results to treat for individuals with addictions. “Besides therapy, there is nothing we can do for someone that is severely addicted,” Wallis said. “So far no surgical or pharmaceutical treatments exist. By figuring out what is going on when healthy people are making decisions, we can figure out what is going wrong when addicts make bad decisions and find some ways to target these specific areas of the brain.” While the study has led to a greater understanding of how the brain values decisions, researchers will still need to further investigate how addictive drugs are valued in order to develop more effective treatments, according to Howard Fields, professor of neurology and director of the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction at UC San Francisco. “This is a new and important scientific advance,” Fields said. “It is likely that addiction involves dysfunction of the relation between valuation of outcomes and subsequent decision making. In other words, drugs become overvalued compared to other action outcomes. Only by understanding the relation of valuation to action selection will we fully understand how drugs become addictive. After we do that, we’ll be able to develop more effective treatments.”

Drug That Killed Michael Jackson "Was Self-Injected"

 

The jury hear evidence that MJ had also taken a large number of sleeping pills… 08:42, Sunday, 30 October 2011 The last defence witness in the trial of Dr Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s personal physician, has told the courtroom that he believed the star was responsible for his own death.   Dr Paul White told jurors that the most likely cause of death was self-injection of a fatal dose of the anesthetic Propofol, after Murray had already administered a small amount. "With the administration of the additional 25 milligrams that we're speculating was self-injected by Mr Jackson, the level increases rapidly and at the time of death would be almost identical to the level found in the urine at autopsy," Dr White said. He revealed that the superstar also appeared to have taken a large dose of sedatives – eight Lorazepam tablets – earlier in the night without Murray’s knowledge. White said that mixing the two drugs would be deadly. "The combination effect is potentially profound." Earlier this week a specialist testified that Michael may have also been addicted to the painkiller Demerol, and was also a regular user of Botox. Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter into the star’s untimely death in June 2009. The prosecution has already presented four weeks of evidence so it won’t be long before the jurors retire to decide the verdict. Michael’s sister Janet Jackson recently postponed tour dates in Australia in order to be in LA when the verdict is announced. She explained her decision in a statement: "When I planned these shows, the schedule in California was completely different. After talking with my family last night, I decided we must be together right now.”

Enabling drug addicts

 

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Vancouver’s Insite program, where addicts can “fix” in a “safe” environment.   As a result of this ruling, other Canadian cities may follow suit, to the delight of some and the significant uneasiness of others. So as not to be close-minded about the idea, a friend of mine suggested maybe Ottawa should be next in line for an Insite, and proposed an ideal location: an underused spacious building in the Ottawa city core on Wellington Street where Insite could be opened on the same floor as offices that are in temporary use. The building is called the Supreme Court of Canada. This way, our cabal of esteemed justices can experience first-hand the profoundly beneficial societal effects of their latest decision. Wishful thinking, no doubt. Most of us realize the next Insite will be in some neighbourhood far removed from the environs of the Supreme Court offices. The true and practical repercussions on a community will no doubt be some average working stiff’s problem. Like it or not, addicts are responsible for inordinate amounts of crime. Any recovered addict will openly tell you, drug addiction dehumanizes to the point where there is no concern for oneself, and thus no empathy or concern for anyone else. The only purpose and urge is to obtain the next fix, the next high, through any means necessary. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt. This very point is made every day in courtrooms across this country, in support of leniency for those claiming to be under the influence of various chemical intoxicants when committing their crimes. Insite, and programs like it, enables addicts to fix more frequently in an environment that protects from arrest, ensures medical treatment will be on hand to deal with overdose, and provide the necessary mechanics to inject (needles, etc.). The program reduces negative consequence to extremely dangerous behaviour and it becomes much more comfortable to be an addict. Does anyone seriously think this will somehow cause addicts to surrender their addictions? Hardly. We intuitively understand addictions will be attenuated. The only thing accomplished is fostering an environment that implies a societal acceptance of drug addiction. Addicts are now more comfortably able to destroy themselves by degrees. If this is where we are headed, why not just remove the middle man and have taxpayers supply the drugs, too? I seriously wonder if this isn’t the ultimate goal. Most recovering addicts I have spoken to only changed because they had finally realized there was no lower to go: it was rehab or death. Given the limited resources in these challenging economic times, why not use our funds to create greater rehab opportunities? Funding true rehabilitation seems to me to be an altogether better idea, benefitting both society and addict. In the meanwhile, we’re left to wonder where the next Insite will arrive, thanks to the ruling of judges that will never get anywhere near being confronted by the street level consequences of their decision.

Eminem talks addiction, says 'The bigger the crowd, the bigger my habit got'

Eminem hasn’t exactly avoided the topic of his relationship with a variety of illicit chemicals. After all, his last two albums were calledRelapse and Recovery. But the man born Marshall Mathers has rarely been as candid about his struggles with addiction in the press.

In the pages of GQ, where he was named a “God of Rock” next to the likes of Keith Richards and Robert Plant, Em let the world know exactly why he is so prone to addiction. “I’m very much a creature of habit,” he told GQ. “If I’m used to waking up in the morning and having [a Red Bull], I could do it every morning for the next ten years straight until I find something else to move on to. So if I’m used to taking a Vicodin when I wake up in the morning because I’m hungover from ­drinking or taking pills … The bigger the crowd, the bigger my habit got.”

Eminem also explained that his drug problems could be traced over the course of his discography, noting that The Slim Shady LP was written almost entirely sober, the dark experiments on The Marshall Mathers LP were the result of more experimentation with substances, and Encore was hampered both artistically and practically thanks to his addiction to prescription medication (including Valium and Ambien).

After a failed stint in rehab (“Every addict in rehab feels like everyone’s staring at them. With me? Everyone was staring at me”), he had a traumatic overdose experience and finally made the decision to get clean when he realized he was killing himself. “I had a feeling in my arm that was weird, man,” he said. “Like, it really freaked me out. So I went to some people I trust and said, ‘Look, I know I need help. I’m ready now.’ I got a room in the same hospital where I overdosed, and I detoxed.”

His revelations fueled Recovery, which returned him to the top of the sales mountain and ranks among his finest work. The most revealing part of the interview involves his moment of clarity. “Sometimes [sobriety] sucks, and I wish I was wired like a regular person and could go have a f—in’ drink,” he told GQ. “But that’s the biggest thing about addiction: When you realize that you cannot f— around with nothing ever again. I never understood when people would say it’s a disease. Like, ‘Stop it, d—head. It’s not a disease!’ But I finally realized it really is.”

It’s refreshing to hear a star as huge as Eminem talking about his drug woes so frankly. And it’s refreshing to know that the reason why Encore is such a mess is because Ambien, as he puts it, was “[eating] a hole through my brain.” That certain explains this.

What do you think of Eminem’s thoughts on addiction? Where do you rank Recovery in his discography? Sound off in the comments!

 

Frightening 'Drug Threat Assessment' for the USA and Mexico

 

The National Drug Intelligence Center, a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, recently released a document entitled the "National Drug Threat Assessment 2011."  You can read the document online here.  The document paints a gloomy picture for both the U.S. and Mexico. The Assessment's Executive Summary begins: "The illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs present a challenging, dynamic threat to the United States.  Overall demand is rising, largely supplied by illicit drugs smuggled to U.S. markets by major transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).  Changing conditions continue to alter patterns in drug production, trafficking, and abuse. Traffickers are responding to government counterdrug efforts by modifying their interrelationships, altering drug production levels, and adjusting their trafficking routes and methods. Major Mexican-based TCOs continue to solidify their dominance over the wholesale illicit drug trade as they control the movement of most of the foreign-produced drug supply across the U.S. Southwest Border. "The estimated economic cost of illicit drug use to society for 2007 was more than $193 billion...." One of the contributing factors is the high demand for drugs in the United States. This high demand finances the drug cartels, allowing them to spend more and expand their operations.   According to the 2011 Assessment, that demand is growing. The document reports that "The abuse of several major illicit drugs, including heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine, appears to be increasing, especially among the young."  Elsewhere it says that "Overall drug availability is increasing."  One exception to this tendency is cocaine - its availability and use are down.   The document states that "The Southwest Border remains the primary gateway for moving illicit drugs into the United States.  Most illicit drugs available in the United States are smuggled overland across the Southwest Border...."  The Southwest Border is comprised of the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas with Mexico. Then there is the tunneling: "Despite enhanced detection efforts and better countermeasures, Mexican drug traffickers will continue to build tunnels under the Southwest Border." In the U.S., Mexican cartels have cornered the market.  The 2011 Assessment states that "Mexican-based TCOs [transnational crime organizations] dominate the supply, trafficking, and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in the United States."  Elsewhere, it predicts that "Major Mexican-based TCOs and their associates are solidifying their dominance of the U.S. wholesale drug trade and will maintain their reign for the foreseeable future." The Mexican cartels are active in many urban areas.  The Assessment calculates that "Mexican-based TCOs were operating in more than a thousand U.S. cities during 2009 and 2010...." And, "Mexican-based trafficking organizations control access to the U.S.-Mexico border, the primary gateway for moving the bulk of illicit drugs into the United States.  The organizations control, simultaneously use, or are competing for control of various smuggling corridors that they use to regulate drug flow across the border. The value they attach to controlling border access is demonstrated by the ferocity with which several rival TCOs are fighting over control of key corridors, or ‘plazas.'" The document says that seven major Mexican drug cartels are supplying the United States, but that "... the Sinaloa Cartel is preeminent - its members traffic all major illicit drugs of abuse, and its extensive distribution network supplies drugs to all regions of the United States." U.S.-based gangs are involved in the distribution north of the border: "The threat posed by gang involvement in drug trafficking is increasing, particularly in the Southwest Region. With gangs already the dominant retail drug suppliers in major and midsized cities, some gang members are solidifying their ties to Mexican TCOs to bolster their involvement in wholesale smuggling, internal distribution, and control of the retail trade." The Assessment reports that "Criminal gangs - that is street, prison, and outlaw motorcycle gangs - remain in control of most of the retail distribution of drugs throughout much of the United States, particularly in major and midsize cities." The document predicts that "Collaboration between U.S. gangs and Mexican-based TCOs will continue to increase, facilitating wholesale drug trafficking into and within the United States.  Most collaboration occurs in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, although some occurs in other regions of the country. Some U.S.-based gangs in the Southwest Border region also operate in Mexico, facilitating the smuggling of illicit drugs across the border." The 2011 Assessment paints a gloomy picture of the drug trafficking situation, drug cartels, and the safety and security of both the U.S. and Mexico.

Roman Abramovich is a "gangster", court told

 

Boris Berezovsky said Mr Abramovich was part of “black ops” by the Russian security service designed to force him to give up his business interests in the country. Mr Berezovsky, the so-called “godfather” of the Russian oligarchs, says he met Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, at the Kremlin “eye to eye” and was told to give up his control of a television station that had criticised the president over his handling of the sinking of the nuclear submarine the Kursk. When he refused, he was threatened with arrest and policemen in balaclavas, dubbed “maski” stormed the TV station ORT to remove documents. Mr Berezovsky says he fled the country and Mr Abramovich, his former protegee took advantage of the situation to pressure him into selling both ORT and the oil conglomerate Sibneft they had created together. Mr Abramovich is then said to have sold his minority stake in the aluminium giant Rusal, massively devaluing Mr Berezovsky’s stake.

Michael Jackson's heartbroken daughter lashed out at Dr Conrad Murray for failing to save her father's life, jurors heard today as they again saw a photo of the pop stars dead body.

The King of Pop's three children 'cried and cried and cried' after being told their father was dead.

His daughter, Paris, now 13, told Murray, her father's personal doctor: 'I will wake up in the morning and I won't be able to see my daddy.'

On Tuesday a court in Los Angeles heard recordings of Conrad Murray saying Michael Jackson's children sobbed when they learned their father died and saw a photo of the singer's dead body

According to the 58-year-old cardiologist, she said: 'Dr Murray, you said you save a lot of patients. You know, you save people with heart attacks, and you couldn't save my dad.'

Paris's anguish was revealed in an interview Murray gave to detectives two days after Jackson's death on June 25, 2009.

The court saw a photograph of the painfully thin star taken before an autopsy was carried out on his body the day after his death. It was the second time the jury has seen a photo of the dead star after a picture was displayed on the opening day of the trial.

 Jackson's mother, Katherine, who flew back to Los Angeles from the weekend tribute to her son in Wales, left the courtroom before the disturbing image was shown on a screen.

Dr Christopher Rogers, Los Angeles Deputy Medical Examiner, said the 5 ft 9 ins tall singer was comparatively fit when he died.

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A coroner's photo of Jackson's naked body, with his genitals blacked out, was shown to jurors as they heard he was relatively fit for his age, but had many puncture wounds on his arms and legs from injections

'He was healthier than the average person of his age,' said Dr Rogers, who added there was no sign of any fat or cholesterol on the walls of Jackson's heart.

He ruled the cause of death was homicide as a result of acute Propofol intoxication, the court heard.

Dr Rogers dismissed Murray's claims that the singer took a deadly dose of Propofol himself while the doctor left his bedside for two minutes to go to the toilet. 

He suggested it was too short a time for Jackson to be able to self-administer the drug and for it take sufficient effect to stop his breathing.

He said Murray had no equipment to help deliver the correct amount of Propofol to help Jackson sleep.

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A close up of Jackson's wrist shows his date of death, which was actually June 25, 2009 but mis-labelled as August, and Coroner Case Number 2009-04415

'It would be easy for the doctor to estimate wrongly and give too much Propofol,' he added.

Murray, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter, is not expected to testify at the trial at Los Angeles Superior Court, but the recording means jurors at least got to hear his side of the story.

Before Rogers the last 45 minutes of the two-hour tape was played in the hushed courtroom on Tuesday.

Murray told police Jackson's children 'really were weeping, really weeping' when they were told that doctors at UCLA Medical Centre in Los Angeles had been unable to revive their 50-year-old father.

'I hugged them all, gave comfort to Paris, comfort to Prince, comfort to Blanket, which is the last little guy, because whenever they were sick, they would always ask for Dr Conrad,' he said.

NJ Town First to Consider Medical Marijuana

 

Medical marijuana could get a little closer to sprouting in the Garden State, as one licensed dispensary heads to the zoning board in the town of Maple Shade, NJ. Authorities in March licensed six non-profit alternative treatment centers across the state, but they’ve largely been in a holding pattern ever since. On Wednesday, Compassionate Sciences Inc. will be the first center to seek local approval. The firm wants to convert an old furniture store into a 5,000 square foot center, with consulting rooms for patients to discuss the controlled substance, a lab to conduct research and, as spokesman Andrei Bogolubov describes it, a very secure vault for the marijuana. “There's a lot of controls, a lot of safeguards, and the state's going to do a site visit to make sure those systems are in place before they issue the permit and let us open the doors,” he said. Even if it gets a local go-ahead, Compassionate Sciences and the other approved dispensaries are still waiting for New Jersey to issue final regulations. Each center will grow and harvest its own crop of marijuana and Bogolubov estimates it will take about nine weeks to generate enough to supply customers. About 30,000 of them are expected state-wide. Governor Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, has said he would not have signed the bill into law. He wants to make sure the drug only gets to people who need it for pain relief from illnesses such as cancer and multiple-sclerosis. He said he is determined to avoid “abuses” that he said have plagued medical marijuana programs in Colorado and California.

The Netherlands is embarking on a crusade against its multi-billion-euro marijuana industry

 

The Netherlands is embarking on a crusade against its multi-billion-euro marijuana industry, with significant implications both for its economy and its famously liberal approach to life. Along with tighter control of legalized prostitution and a swing to the right in attitudes toward immigration and Islam in recent years, the clampdown is seen as further evidence of an erosion of tolerance in a country known for its liberal social policies. The push to clamp down on soft drugs has come mainly from the Christian Democrats, the junior partner in the minority government and one of the larger parties in a fragmented political landscape. "There's clearly a shift in the moral debate. It's all about the culture of control," said Dirk Korf, professor of criminology at the University of Amsterdam. Instantly recognizable from the sickly sweet, burned-leaf smell that wafts out onto the street, the Netherlands' world-renowned "coffee shops" are almost as common as supermarkets in big cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam and in certain border towns. Like trained sommeliers, the staff or "bud tenders" are experts on the flavors and after-effects of whatever is on the menu -- white widow, vanilla kush, or hazers like amnesia "known for its extreme, almost paranoid psychedelic high, with an unforgettable strong fruity taste and smell." Counter staff do a brisk trade in plastic sachets of loose grass, ready-rolled joints and chunks of hashish for those who want take-away. The Netherlands tolerates the sale of up to 5 grams per person per day of marijuana and hashish in the controlled environment of the coffee shops. It also tolerates the home cultivation of marijuana plants, within a limit of five plants per person, but any cultivation larger than that is illegal. Strong demand has spawned secret cannabis plantations that provide a so-called back-door supply to the coffee shops and are a headache for Dutch authorities who have to find and raid them. DRUGS TOURISTS On a typical Saturday evening, the coffee shops in central Amsterdam are packed with smokers. The clientele is middle class, the voices mostly foreign -- Italian, Spanish, French, German, English. Concerned about this influx of soft-drugs tourists, not to mention what it sees as the associated crime, nuisance and health risks, the Christian Democrat Party wants to see the country's 700 or so coffee shops shut down, but for the moment is settling for introducing restrictions on their activities. A measure expected to be passed in parliament by the end of this year will have coffee shops operate as members-only clubs, meaning that only local residents will be eligible to register for "weed passes," effectively barring foreigners from buying soft drugs. Already, some cities have introduced tighter restrictions, limiting the coffee shops' proximity to schools or relocating them to the outskirts. On October 1, coffee shops in the southeastern city of Maastricht banned all foreigners except for neighboring Germans and Belgians, as a first step toward introduction of weed passes. Crime expert Korf says there is little justification for the clampdown, with scant evidence that the Dutch public supports the change. "No serious polls have been conducted, we don't know if opinions about coffee shops have even changed," said Korf. "Before coffee shops we had street dealing, they were selling marijuana in the street and ripping off tourists. The whole drug problem is nothing compared to (what we had in) the 1980s, 1990s -- we don't have a heroin problem." The Trimbos Institute, which studies addiction and mental health, said 5 percent of Netherlands citizens smoked weed or hashish in the past year, against an EU average of 7 percent. GLOBAL CONFUSION Policymakers around the world are seeking fresh ideas on how to combat drug abuse, opening up a debate on policies on soft drugs. In June, a high-profile group of global leaders declared the "war on drugs" a failure and urged governments to consider decriminalizing drugs in order to cut consumption and weaken the power of organized crime. The Global Commission on Drug Policy -- which includes former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and British billionaire Richard Branson -- said a decades-long strategy of outlawing drugs and jailing users while battling drug cartels had not worked. It recommended that governments experiment with the legal regulation of drugs, especially cannabis, citing the successes in countries such as the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland, where drug consumption had been reduced. Portugal, for instance, has gone much further than the Netherlands by decriminalizing all drugs, replacing jail time with counseling and treatment. The Christian Democrats disagree and say the Dutch policy has had a negative effect on public health and crime. "In other countries there is no tolerance. The Dutch coffee shops attract a lot of foreign drug tourists, especially in the border region, causing much nuisance," according to a statement published on the Christian Democrat Party website. The centrist party has cast doubt on the rationale for allowing coffee shops, which was to separate the soft and hard drugs markets, and said that people who smoke cannabis often turned to other drugs. It also argues the active substance in cannabis is much stronger than twenty years ago, putting it on a par with harder drugs -- a reflection of years of cultivation of new varieties by growers. A Dutch commission earlier this year found that hashish and marijuana on sale in the Netherlands contain about 18 percent of THC, the main psychoactive substance, and said a level above 15 percent put the drugs on a par with heroin or cocaine. Maxime Verhagen, a Christian Democrat who is deputy prime minister, said on October 7 the government would ban the sale of cannabis whose concentration of THC exceeds 15 percent. The Christian Democrats also want tougher regulations on the so-called cannabis plantations. In addition to illegally supplying the coffee shops, "much of the illegally cultivated cannabis in the Netherlands is exported abroad. There is an extensive network illegally created in the grip of organized crime," the party said in its statement. Dutch authorities already devote considerable resources to tracking down these large-scale plantations. The police work with the local electricity company to detect unusual consumption patterns, for example round-the-clock usage in sheds and attics, and have used tiny sniffer-helicopters which can detect the smell of pot plants wafting from ventilation shafts and chimneys, according to media reports. Rotterdam city council recently distributed "scratch and sniff cards" to households, hoping that concerned citizens would tip off the police if they recognized the smell of illegal cannabis plantations in the neighborhood. PUSHBACK AT HOME There is plenty of opposition to the crackdown. Dutch smokers do not welcome the idea of having to register for weed passes. "Many of my customers are locals, artists, writers, doctors, lawyers, professionals. They don't want their name on a register -- they don't know who could see it or use it. So they may go to other sources on the street," said Paula Baten, manager of the Siberie coffee shop in central Amsterdam. "This government is more Christian, more right-wing. They don't want drugs but they forget about the effects of alcohol." Already, there's talk of how foreigners can circumvent the new rules, for example by asking Dutch citizens to buy soft drugs on their behalf to take away, and concern that dealing in soft drugs will go onto the street. Some politicians oppose the proposals. Eberhard van der Laan, the mayor of Amsterdam, says restricting the activities of coffee shops would lead to greater health risks, nuisance and drug dealing on the streets. As mayor, he could simply choose not to enforce the weed pass regulations. "At the moment the mayor is in conference with the minister to convince him that the measures regarding coffee shops will be counterproductive for Amsterdam," the mayor's office said in a statement to Reuters. Others cite the likely economic impact. The Netherlands, like other European countries, has had to introduce austerity measures and cut spending in the wake of the credit crisis, when it pumped 40 billion euros into rescuing financial institutions. Tax revenue from the coffee shops is estimated at about 400 million euros a year. Studies by the finance ministry and academics estimated that if the Netherlands legalized the "back-door" supply, bringing it "above board," it could collect as much as an additional 400-850 million euros a year, including savings on the cost of law enforcement. Then there's the tourist revenue. In Maastricht, which gets a lot of day tourists because it is so close to the German and Belgian borders, a study commissioned by an association of coffee shop owners calculated that visitors to the city's coffee shops spent about 119 million euros a year, mostly on shopping and eating out. A study by Professor Korf of the University of Amsterdam found that tourists who visited coffee shops in central Amsterdam had similar spending habits to other tourists, and were just as likely to spend 200 euros or more on a hotel room, or splash out at smart restaurants or nightclubs. The Bulldog and Barney's -- the big names in the industry -- run coffee shop chains, and many coffee shop owners also make money from lodgings and related businesses. Hundreds of tourists attend the annual cannabis cup award for the best new strains, and the local edition of Time Out runs monthly weed reviews. Jackie Woerlee, who runs customized cannabis tours, said that among her recent tour guests were members of one of the Middle East royal families who rented a luxury apartment for several weeks and spent several thousand euros shopping at luxury stores. "Customers might easily spend 100 euros in a coffee shop, but it's not just that, it's the hotels, the eating out, renting apartments," Woerlee said. "These people spend."

Addiction vaccine could be approved in five years

 

Some of the best medical minds in the country are working on a vaccine to help people kick a disease that often lasts a lifetime and ends in death. They're working on a cure-all to addiction. A shot that would stop a life of smoking, drinking or drugs before it starts.   "I have a husband who is an alcoholic and so if he could get a shot of something that would get him to stop drinking, that would be great (laughs)," Valois Mickens said. Mickens laughs, but knows her husband's 20 year alcohol addiction is not a joke. Her 25-year-old son is also a smoker. "Once you're an addict you're a lifetime addict. If you can take a shot of something to get it to stop, that's great," Mickens said. Mickens is eager to learn more about a simple vaccine that could cure nicotine, alcohol and cocaine addiction. Maybe even obesity. "So what we do is basically make a cocktail such that we can trick the immune system into recognizing something like cocaine or heroin as being foreign and the immune system will attack it as something foreign and basically remove it," Dr. Kim D. Janda from the Scripps Research Institute said. We spoke to Dr. Kim Janda, a professor for the Scripps Institute via Skype in San Diego. He's been working on the addiction vaccine for the last 25 years. "The main problem has been trying to get a vaccine which works in all humans. Though some of these vaccines only work in about 30 percent of the people," Dr. Janda said. Dr. Janda hopes to finally get FDA approval within the next three to five years. Then he plans to make the addiction vaccine affordable and available to everyone. So for those with addictions, like Felix Baez, who has tried everything to quit smoking, "I've tried the patches, I've tried the gum, I've tried cold turkey and nothing," Baez said. To those who treat addictions like Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chair of psychiatry at Maimonides Medical Center in Brookln, it's a great idea. "I think it's a terrific idea and we would probably be further along right now with a vaccine that worked if vaccines were more profitable," Dr. Kolodny said. This vaccine can't come soon enough.

Mum tells of battle to beat a serious addiction to Diet Coke

 

Claire Ayton drank seven pints – or four litres – a day for 10 years in the belief it was “normal”. She only realised she was an addict after seeking help to lose weight and has now ditched the fizzy pop after hypnotherapy. The teaching assistant, 36, drank up to 14 two-litre bottles a week – totalling 7,280 over the decade. Kicking the habit will save her almost £1,000 a year. Advertisement >> “I didn’t think of it as an addiction,” said the married mum-of-two, of Pailton, Warwicks. “But I topped 13st after putting on 3st in 12 years. I was always tired and went to see my GP when I found I couldn’t lose any weight, but I didn’t mention how much Diet Coke I was drinking because I didn’t think it was relevant. “I went to see a hypnotherapist in August and told him. He was surprised and said I needed to cut it out of my diet. Since then I’ve not touched a drop. “There were a few side-effects at first but now my head’s clearer and I have more energy. I’ve lost 5lb and am aiming for more.” Claire’s hypnotherapist Russell Hemmings, of Coventry, said: “Hers was the worst case of fizzy drink addiction I’ve ever treated. I’m glad she kicked the habit.” In June a University of Texas study revealed that regularly guzzling diet sodas actually makes people fatter – by boost-ing a craving for sweet foods.

12 steps to destruction

 

Some say that A.A.'s Steps are based on the Bible. And they are: www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml Some say that most came from the teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Jr., Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York. And they did: www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml. Some say they are "12 steps to destruction," and the contention is about as valueless as the erroneous documention behind the contention. Some say A.A. is not a Christian Fellowship. It isn't - today. Some say A.A. could not have had its origins in Christianity. But those who argue for that just haven't come close to looking at the history of the Christian Recovery Movement, the Christian upbringing of A.A.'s co-founders, the requirement in early A.A. that all profess belief in God and come to Him through Jesus Christ. www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml, www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml, www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml, www.dickb.com/realhistory.com. Are all these "Christian issues?" Only among those who are blinded by their own lack of understanding, their own lack of research, and their own desire to cast down any and all who walk in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a strong and growing Christian Recovery Movement moving forward today. Part of it is grounded in International Christian Recovery Coalition www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com. Part of it is grounded in the fact that early AAs were, called themslves, and were called a Christian Fellowship. www.dickb.com/IFCR-Class.shtml. Part of it is grounded in the frequent statements that early AAs considered the Book of James, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 to be "absolutely essential" to their program. www.dickb.com/JamesClub.shtml. Correctly viewed, the only "modern Christian issues" are flawed by not beginning with the facts and then laying out a picture of error that certainly concerns the thousands of Christians who have been and presently are devoted members of Alcoholics Anonymous. We've provided 42 titles and over 675 articles that enable a viewer to see and decide for himself. That's how to deal with the "modern Christian issues," and find they are just drifting puffs of smoke. www.dickb.com. www.dickb.com/titles.shtml. We Christians in the recovery arena are not alone!