One in seven Cambridge students is dealing drugs to help pay their way through university, according to a survey. It found many claim that they have been forced to sell illegal substances to friends to make ends meet as they study. And it revealed nearly two-thirds admitted taking drugs, with cannabis the most popular substance.
Experts say that teenagers who have seen the most films featuring alcohol are twice as likely to start consuming alcohol as those who watched the least. Parents should closely monitor the films their children watch, advise the researchers, while Hollywood should look at phasing out drinking scenes, just as it has for smoking. The team, from a number of US universities, aliken American films to the flu virus, quickly spreading risky drinking behaviour around the globe. For two years they conducted regular phone interviews with 6,500 children, aged 10 to 14 at the start of the study. They asked them about the films they watched, whether they consumed alcohol, whether they drank without their parents knowing, and whether they took part in 'binge' drinking. They found watching lots of films with drinking scenes was one of the most powerful factors, when it came to predicting both whether a child would start drinking, and progress to binge drinking. Only being an older child at the start of the study, and having lots of friends who drank, were more important when it came to predicting who took up drinking. Writing in the British Medical Journal Open, they suggested that Hollywood should place "similar emphasis" on vetting films for drinking scenes, as they already did for smoking scenes.
Pancreatic cancer cells can be destroyed by combining two drugs, researchers have found - giving hope that more effective treatments can be developed to combat the disease. The research by Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute showed in mice that combining a chemotherapy drug called gemcitabine with an experimental drug called MRK003 sets off a chain of events that ultimately kills cancer cells - multiplying the effect of each drug on its own. MRK003 blocks an important cell signalling pathway called Notch in both pancreatic cancer cells and the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels supplying tumours with essential nutrients. Experts found the addition of MRK003 to gemcitabine - a drug used commonly in patients with pancreatic cancer - increased the ability of gemcitabine to destroy tumours. The research was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicin, and study author Professor David Tuveson said: "We've discovered why these two drugs together set off a domino effect of molecular activity to switch off cell survival processes and destroy pancreatic cancer cells." Around 8,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year and the disease is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the UK. Survival rates are very low in relation to other cancers and the length of time between diagnosis and death is typically short, usually less than six months. The most recent data for England show that around 16% of patients survive their disease beyond 12 months after diagnosis - prompting the need for new treatments. The discovery is now a clinical trial being led by Duncan Jodrell, professor of cancer therapeutics at the University of Cambridge. He said: "We're delighted that the results of this important research are now being evaluated in a clinical trial, to test whether this might be a new treatment approach for patients with pancreatic cancer, although it will be some time before we're able to say how successful this will be in patients."
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spokesman, examines the British middle class's troubled relationship with alcohol and his own long and complicated history with drink. To read the headlines about Britain's drink problem, you might think it is largely an issue of teenage binge-drinking in town centres up and down the country. You would be very wrong. Young people drinking too much is a problem. But it is not the biggest drink problem Britain faces. The real problem comes in the form of our hidden alcoholics. Back in my hard-drinking days I was one of them - professional, successful on the surface, with a good job, a steady relationship, a mortgage, nice holidays, lots of friends. But I was heading for a very big fall. The Office for National Statistics tells us that the professional classes are now the most frequent drinkers in the country and that 41% of professional men drink more than the recommended daily limit of three to four units at least once a week. Women are also drinking much more than they used to, with alcoholic liver disease now split evenly between the sexes. My own drinking reached its peak while I worked in Fleet Street in the 1980s - a time when the pub was an extension of the office. Anne Robinson, one of my colleagues on the Daily Mirror back then, was one of the many casualties of the hard-drinking culture. Reflecting back on the days before she too gave it up, Anne said: "It was just a sea of alcohol. If you were editing the paper, people just came in to your office to empty your drinks cabinet." Annie has been dry for years. I paid a heavy price for the same sort of lifestyle when my drinking, coupled with depression, triggered a mental breakdown that landed me in hospital. It forced me to confront my drinking, and by 1986 I'd stopped and started a slow road to recovery. Since then, even in newspapers, Britain's boozy workplace culture has largely disappeared. 24-hour mistake? Yet, paradoxically, more people are being treated for alcohol problems. Recent figures show that nearly 9,000 people die each year in the UK from alcohol-related diseases. Perhaps more alarmingly, liver disease in general is the only major cause of death in Britain that is on the rise, year after year - claiming 100 lives every week - whereas mortality for all the smoking diseases is falling dramatically. Find out more Panorama: Britain's Hidden Alcoholics BBC One, Monday 20 February at 20:30 GMT Then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer That Britain has a problem with drink is highlighted not just by the figures, but by the fact that the government is busy devising a new strategy to address alcohol-related ill-health. David Cameron has signalled his appetite for reform, including the possibility of minimum pricing as already being taken forward in Scotland, and tougher rules on promotion and marketing. So how did we get here? Well, as with so much of our recent history, the answer lies in Europe. With closer ties came cheaper travel and a newly developed taste for all things European, wine included. Then came the booze cruises to France and the birth of a seemingly unquenchable British thirst. Since 1970, our consumption of wine has gone up five-fold, according to the Beer and Pub Association. We now consume 1.6 billion bottles a year (not counting the ones we drink when we go abroad). It has gone from a middle-class luxury to an everyday part of middle-class life. Anne Robinson remembers a "sea of alcohol" in the newsroom Though ultimately individuals have to take responsibility for their own relationships with alcohol, governments have to set the framework, which is why the planned new strategy is so important. I defend virtually everything done by the government I worked for under Tony Blair. I confess however, as he and Tessa Jowell will confirm, that I was never a big fan of the laws to introduce 24-hour licensing, surely one of the factors in the troubled relationship between Brits and booze. I had left Downing Street by the time the law came in, but it had been mooted for some time before and I never really bought the argument that Britain would suddenly become a continental-style drinking nation. Cheap booze I think we have always had this tendency, where there is drink, to drink it to excess. Did it make things worse? Was it a mistake? On the one hand it is quite nice to have a sense of London and other cities being more European in their approach to drink. But I think it is entirely possible to see a link between increased availability of alcohol and our increased consumption. Britain is, after all, the nation of the gin epidemic - back in the 18th Century. While in 1914, the government had to bring in the Defence of the Realm Act because our own drinking was deemed a threat to our ability to defend ourselves in war. Health campaigners cite those as the first major British drinking crises. They believe we are now facing the third. The big shift in recent times has been the rise of drinking at home, which is why the binge-drinking stereotype is neither accurate nor helpful. The issue is largely about price. Pubs charge a lot for a pint. Supermarkets don't. It is a sad paradox that the decline in pubs has come alongside what seems to be a rise in drinking and alcohol-related problems. In 1970, 90% of all pints were poured in a pub. Today, it is only 50% - the other half are bought much more cheaply in supermarkets and off-licences. The government has to do its bit. But in making a film about Britain's relationship with drink, and in meeting some of the hidden alcoholics, I met people who had each come to their own arrangement with alcohol. For most, the answer is complete abstinence, or complete loss of control. I too said no for 13 years, but then I started having the odd drink again. This time, I feel as though I am more in control. To be frank, it would be hard not to be. Alcohol facts 10m people in England drink more than recommended Daily units men: 3-4 Daily units women: 2-3 New advice is to abstain from alcohol for two days a week Source: Drinkaware But, having met others as they underwent rehabilitation treatment, I do wonder if I am doing the right thing. Partly I am testing myself, having one or two so I can then enjoy the satisfaction of being able to say "No". I also like being able to be "normal" like other social drinkers, just have the odd one and then call it a night. I cannot say I have not drunk since first falling gently off the wagon in 1999. But I can say I have never been drunk, never had a hangover, never touched spirits and never felt the loss of control that had me hospitalised prior to my 13-year unbroken dry spell. The psychiatrist who I see for my depression thinks that even occasional drinking on my part is a bad idea, and interestingly, in making a documentary on the subject, I did once again stop drinking altogether, not least perhaps as a result of the tour of Queen Mary's Hospital anatomy department, where I was shown a few damaged livers. I do feel that my own relationship with alcohol is more secure. And while government has a role to play in setting rules and regulations on responsible drinking, on a certain level I think that our connection to alcohol is a deal that each of us has to make with ourselves. I hope this film helps some of Britain's drinkers to do that.
Failure to reform alcohol laws could lead to 210,000 preventable deaths in England and Wales in the next 20 years, doctors have warned. They are putting pressure on the government ahead of its "alcohol strategy" for both countries, expected in the coming months. Writing in The Lancet, doctors said the UK was at a "potential tipping point". Prime Minister David Cameron has already vowed to tackle the "scandal" of drunkenness and alcohol abuse. The projected mortality figures comes from Prof Ian Gilmore, a former President of the Royal College of Physicians, Dr Nick Sheron, from the National Institute for Health Research and members of the British Society of Gastroenterology. Their figure of 210,000 is a slight reduction from their previous estimate of 250,000 and represents their "worst-case scenario" of no change to alcohol policy. "It remains entirely within the power of the UK government to prevent the worst-case scenario of preventable deaths," they wrote. The figures for England and Wales suggest 70,000 of the deaths could be from liver disease and the rest from accidents, violence and chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, breast cancer and cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. 'Tipping point' They were critical of the "responsibility deal" in England, which are voluntary agreements with the drinks industry on issues such as promotions and labelling. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote What we have to accept is that doing nothing is no longer a responsible option” Eric Appleby Alcohol Concern This was compared to the Scottish government's approach such as a minimum price per unit of alcohol. The group said: "We are at a potential tipping point in the UK in taking on the shameful, preventable loss of life caused by alcohol. "The potential prize of reversing this tragic toll of alcohol-related deaths is there for the taking." The Department of Health will publish its alcohol strategy for England later this year. Selling alcohol below cost price is to be banned in England and Wales from 6 April. However, ministers are expected to go further in the forthcoming strategy, recommending a higher minimum price for drink. The chief executive of Alcohol Concern, Eric Appleby, said: "What we have to accept is that doing nothing is no longer a responsible option for alcohol policy, and that trying to 'nudge' drinking culture through information and persuasion has proved to be little better than doing nothing. "We can see from the example of other countries that drinking patterns really can change, the challenge is there for the government to start the process now through the Alcohol Strategy." Henry Ashworth, chief executive of the Portman Group, which also represents UK drinks producers, said: "It is really important that we put this report in context. "The vast majority of people drink responsibly. Painting doomsday scenarios won't help reduce alcohol misuse and calling for Soviet Union style population controls cannot do anything but alienate the vast majority of people who already drink within Government guidelines. "We agree with the Prime Minister that strong partnerships are essential to tackle the minority who use alcohol recklessly and drinks producers are committed to supporting this approach." The public health minister, Anne Milton, said: "As the Prime Minister said earlier this week, we are determined to tackle the scandal of alcohol abuse. People that misuse alcohol endanger their own lives and those of others. "It costs the NHS £2.7 billion per year and in our forthcoming alcohol strategy we will set out our plans on how to deal with the wide range of problems and harms it causes."
U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-moon said Thursday that Afghanistan will never be stable unless it tackles its drug problem. He spoke at an international conference in Vienna. Ninety percent of the world's opium originates in Afghanistan's poppy fields -- and much of that is turned into heroin. CBS News contributor Willem Marx took a look at the problem. Beneath a notorious bridge in downtown Kabul, a human tragedy festers. For more than a year now, hundreds of heroin addicts have lived there -- an ancient opium den in a modern urban sewer. Thousands more drop in each day to buy, smoke and inject their daily fix. "How do you react when you see that level of misery?" Marx asked Jean-Luc Lemahieu, who heads the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime for Afghanistan. "Appalling, appalling," he said. "And even more appalling, it is happening just below and in front of us." Lemahieu said with ever more users injecting their drugs, there's a troubling new statistic. Around 1 in 14 of Afghanistan's drug users is now believed to be HIV positive. And with addicts sharing needles, that number is soaring. This is how an HIV epidemic brews. We watched as men reused bloody syringes again and again -- so many, that we had to walk carefully among the addicts for fear of treading on an errant needle. "Each day my life was getting worse and worse," said Abdulrahim Rejee, a former heroin user who crawled out of this despair a year ago. Today he lives with nine other recovering addicts in a shared home. Abdulrahim credits a pilot program involving methadone, a heroin substitute that requires no needles. It is widely viewed as the best defense against the spread of HIV here. "I feel my life has changed 100 percent," he said. "I have rejoined my family, and I feel very healthy." But methadone is available for just a fraction of Afghanistan's addicts -- Abdulrahim and 70 others. "We need to expand the delivery of that service to a lot more addicts than what we are able to do today," said Lemahieu. The only other option here is to go cold turkey at a detox clinic. Under the bridge one morning, Marx saw an addict collapse from an overdose. Abdulrahim jumped in to resuscitate the struggling man. "When I go to that bridge," Abdulrahim told Marx, "I want to help those people, that they can live like me." The man barely survived barely, But with limited care available, he lived only to shoot up another day. This misery persists, while a deadly virus continues to spread.
Britain’s war against opium production in Afghanistan is being lost, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, with outputs of the class-A drug soaring to record levels in the past decade despite western intervention.
DETECTIVES will quiz up tonine doctors they believe could have supplied Whitney Houston with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs. The superstar singer died in her hotel bath on Saturday after taking a host of powerful sedatives. And last night, sources claimed her drug taking had spiralled out of control in recent months, turning her into a virtual “zombie”. The 48-year-old had become a tortured recluse, regularly spending most of the day in bed before emerging in the evenings to party. Police are now anxious to find out how a recovering crack addict with a long history of drug and alcohol abuse was able to get hold of such a vast quantity of pills. A source said: “The only way Whitney could function was on a cocktail of different drugs – uppers, downers, sleeping pills, painkillers, a whole medicine cabinet. “She was living like a zombie – always on medication. The more she took, the more she needed. “With alcohol in the mix, this was a tragedy waiting to happen. But she needed quite a network to obtain drugs in that kind of number.” Officers will begin their probe at the infamous Mickey Fine pharmacy in Beverly Hills, where Michael Jackson got his prescription drugs. It’s believed at least some of Whitney’s medication was obtained there. Bottles of Lorazepam, Valium and Xanax were found in her suiteat the Beverly Hilton Hotel. All three are used to treat anxiety disorders, while Valium can also ease alcohol withdrawal symptoms and muscle spasms. It’s thought Whitney was also taking painkillers and sleeping pills. Police and the LA county coroner are working on the premise that a combination of drugs and alcohol caused the star to become heavily sedated or overdose – ultimately leading to her death. It’s also possible that she suffered a heart attack caused by an adverse reaction to her medication. An autopsy was performed on Sunday but officials said they wouldn’t have any definitive answers until drug tests are completed in several weeks. Another theory was that the singer took sedatives, fell asleep and drowned in the tub. Police say Whitney was found underwater and unconscious. But the coroner told her family there was not enough water in her lungs to conclude that she had drowned. Detectives are expected to treat the investigation the same way they handled Michael Jackson’s death. They discovered dozens of doctors were supplying the King of Pop with different prescription drugs. Jackson’s personal physician, Conrad Murray – who administered the fatal dose of hospital anaesthetic Propofol – was later found guilty of manslaughter. Yesterday, it emerged that Whitney had visited a doctor at a private clinic in Beverly Hills just two days before she died. US X Factor winner Melanie Amaro revealed that she bumped into Whitney at the surgery on Thursday. Whitney is also known to have visited other private clinics on February 7 and February 2 – and it’s possible that she visited other doctors as well. It’s thought police will also probe whether she used friends, staff or hangers-on to get prescriptions in their own names and then hand over the pills. Detectives are piecing together Whitney’s physical and emotional state before she died. She seemed to have slid back to the days when she and husband Bobby Brown regularly abused drugs and alcohol in week-long party binges. On Thursday night, Whitney looked wild-eyed and dishevelled as she left Hollywood’s Tru nightclub, where she joined revellers at a bash thrown by American singer Kelly Price. She had scratches on her wrist and blood running down a leg and witnesses say she reeked of booze, sweat and cigarettes. Whitney downed tequila at the party and went berserk when she saw her on-off toyboy lover, singer and actor Ray J, 31, talking to another girl. One witness said the former powerhouse vocalist who sold more than 170million albums worldwide seemed “wasted”. A music industry source said: “It looks as though Whitney had got to a stage where she was using Xanax like clockwork. “Mixed with alcohol, it is known to be a killer. It’s the same deadly combination that killed Heath Ledger.”
This is why the Provincial Region 2 has established the Transnational Crime Coordination Centre (TNCC) to deal directly with foreigners who come to Thailand to commit crimes. The existence of the centre has shed some light on how diverse the transnational gangs in Pattaya are and how their illegal businesses in this tourist centre have flourished. French nationals Nagim Hassainia, 33, and Samir Raihane, 41, who are suspects in a credit card fraud case, were arrested on Feb 2. The suspects were nabbed at a hotel in Pattaya after police found them withdrawing money from an ATM using forged credit cards containing information stolen from other countries. They sent 70% of the money back to their networks in France and took the rest of the money, the TNCC said. At least 10 members of the French gang are thought to be still on the loose. Some of them are responsible for stealing credit card information and ATM pins using a skimmer. Police seized 31 fake credit cards and 125,000 baht from the suspects. "This case could cause serious damage to Thailand's reputation," said Pol Lt Gen Panya Mamen, chief of the the Provincial Police Region 2. He said there were many foreign criminals on Pattaya's streets _ and one way to better deal with them was to improve the capacity of the TNCC, especially its ability to gather information and put it into the police database. "I have to admit there are a lot of foreign criminals who are tourists in disguise. Some are here to work with their Thai counterparts, while others act on their own," Pol Lt Gen Panya said. "Some are paedophiles. Others are criminals wanted by police in other countries yet come here pretending to be language teachers. All this makes Pattaya sound like a horrible city." Pol Lt Gen Panya hoped the Provincial Police Region 2 would achieve its goal of significantly decreasing the number of "unwanted visitors" in Pattaya within six months. The Provincial Police Region 2 is also stepping up efforts to strictly enforce the Immigration Act in which foreign suspects who are found to have criminal records or believed to be involved in a crime will have their visa nullified immediately and be extradited. These suspects will also be blacklisted by Thai immigration authorities. "They normally move around from Pattaya to Phuket, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and then return to Pattaya again. If we can pool information, it will become easier to track them," Pol Lt Gen Panya said. Different gangs committed different crimes, ranging from theft to murder, he said. Pol Lt Gen Panya said some French gangs were known to be involved with fake credit cards and ATM cards. He said some Colombian gangs were involved with theft, whereas some Taiwanese gangs were linked to call centre scams. Pol Lt Col Chitdecha Songhong and Pol Capt Prajakpong Suriya of the TNNC, who arrested members of a French gang, agreed that inter-agency cooperation was crucial to uprooting a transnational gang. Pol Capt Prajakpong said it was difficult to locate foreign suspects even if police had pictures of them because they were frequently on the move and it was not easy to find information about them. "Pattaya is a popular criminal base because it's a hub of tourists and expatriates and the city has a lot of diamond and gold shops," he said. "The city also has many unregistered or illegal residential services which allow those criminals to stay here and hide away from immigration authorities." The TNNC is working with embassy officials in Pattaya and local banks to keep an eye on foreigners who come to the city to commit crimes.
The founder and leader of glam rock group, ‘Loco Mia’, 46 year old Xavier Font, will sit on the accused bench in the Barcelona courts on Tuesday accused of trafficking in the drugs poppers and ecstasy.
The prosecutors’ office is calling for a seven year prison sentence and a 7,500 € fine for the artists and businessman.
Font remains the group’s representative although it now has other members, and announced the sale of the drugs on a webpage in which two mobile phone numbers were published. Clients who called, if they lived in Barcelona, could collect the drugs in one of Font’s two homes in the city, and if they lived elsewhere the drugs were sent by courier and paid for by bank transfer or on delivery.
The prosecutor says they have evidence he was carrying out this activity at least between January 26 and February 4, when the Guardia Civil carried out a search of Font’s home in Calle Fontanella in Barcelona.
110 bottles of poppers were found, along with 116 pink pills thought to be ecstasy. The sale of both drugs is prohibited in Spain.
Along with Font a 28 year old man, L.O.R.A. from El Salvador was arrested, and he faces the same charges.
Spanish police have arrested a man in Barcelona in connection to the Jan. 7 death of a Dartmouth College student Crispin Scott. Scott, who was to graduate from Dartmouth in 2013, was found dead in Barcelona, Spain, days after arriving in the city to participate in a study abroad program offered through Portland State University. Early autopsy reports indicated drug overdose was the cause of death, according to the Spanish newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya on Saturday. However, the final autopsy report revealed the amount and type of drugs, a powerful barbiturate, indicated his death was not the result of a night of partying as first suspected of the college student, though friends and family said he was a good student and athlete. The final autopsy results caused police to investigate the background of the landlord of the apartment Scott had been found in. The landlord had acted cold during the investigation, police had noted, according to El Periodico. Police learned the man, whose name has not been released, had been accused by a young man in 2009 of drugging and violating him. Police arrested and charged the landlord with murder on Wednesday, according to El Periodico. He is accused of giving Scott a drink containing a dissolved barbiturate. After police searched the man's home and another Barcelona apartment he frequented they found two dozen photos of young people, unconscious and in different states of dress and undress. Police believe he had photographed them after giving them a mixture of tranquilizers. Police believe these young people had been sexually assaulted by the man and that possibly this landlord is a serial rapist. Scott had just arrived in Barcelona to participate in a two-month Academy of Liberal and Beaux-Arts program sponsored by Portland State University when he was found dead.
Police requested that no details about the singer's autopsy be publicly released, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told reporters on Sunday afternoon. He said toxicology results would take weeks and the results were needed to determine how Houston died. Dr Winter declined to release any details about what investigators found in the room, but said coroner's officials were not ruling out any potential causes of death. He said there were no signs of trauma on Houston's body. Detective investigating the death of Whitney Houston on the eve of the Grammy Awards are pursuing a theory that she accidentally drowned in the bath in her luxury hotel suite after taking prescription drugs and drinking heavily over the previous two evenings.