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Studies

• Studies

  Cannabis Use Causes Memory Loss

  06.03.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  According to new research from Australia, long term Cannabis use causes “significant” damage to the areas of the brain that control memory and emotion.
  Using brain scans, the researchers were able to determine that parts of the brain were actually shrinking in the long term cannabis users they were studying.
  More here.
  Technorati Tags: marihuana, drugs, pot, canibis

• North America, Studies, Treatment

  Are you my type?

  12.06.07 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  This may be the newest pick up line in a bar since “What’s your sign?” The reply might be something like “I don’t know what type are you?”
  Thanks to the good people at the NIH (National institutes of health) this answer couldn’t come at a better time. With the holidays approaching and the office parties [...]

• Europe, People, Studies

  Alcoholics beware

  08.23.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  As if you don’t have enough problems already you’re about to get another one. Yes that’s right Liver disease, pancreatitus, jail, loss of life, loved ones well of course I could go on and on. Be it a DUI or the myriad of other potential issues drinking to excess and on a regular or even daily basis may cause, you’re about to get tested by anyone who may have the authority to do so to see just how much you’ve had in the past few weeks.

• Studies, Treatment

  Party animals

  12.27.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t more validity to concepts such as karmic retribution and reincarnation than some of us may believe. The whole reward and punishment dogma pertaining to personal behavior good and bad is the basis for more than one belief system around the world. How much value an individual gives to this cycle is often supposedly a determiner of how you’ll spend your next existence and unless you come to terms with this, and start getting with the existential program you’re doomed to repeat the same futile cycle over and over.

  The real questions are “Where are you?” “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going?” Far be it for me to know about anyone else, least of all myself, but there are moments where I feel like I get a small but fleeting glimpse that gives me small but undoubtedly valuable insight to these answers, enough anyway to allow me to connect some of the dots to this mortal coil.

• Kids and Drugs, Studies

  Flying solo

  12.15.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  The question of “Do you drink or smoke while you’re alone?” is one of the traits that merit the response of “Then you may have a problem or habit” if you happen to answer that question with a “Yes”. It’s a guarantee that almost any self assessment will, if you respond with a “Yes” to this question, indicate your behavior is more than likely not only unhealthy but problematic.

  Rationalizing this behavior will get you nowhere. Sitting having a smoke while driving alone in traffic, or drinking by yourself in a crowded bar will not exempt you from your addiction, given those standards. Nor should you be. A significant study recently drew the conclusion that at very early stages of experimenting with substances such as alcohol and tobacco teenagers who engage in substance abuse alone, as opposed to socially (at parties or with a group) run a much greater risk of experiencing significant consequences legally and scholastically in the long term scheme of life. Strangely enough, these solo users were not social outcasts trying to fit in with their usage, they were in fact not only social, but also far more focused on their usage unlike the other kids where usage is more like a by product of socializing.

• North America, Studies

  The “Crackberry”?

  08.30.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  There were a couple of articles last week on Foxnews.com about the supposedly addictive nature of the wireless handheld device, the Blackberry, which has been dubbed by some as the “Crackberry”.

  “BlackBerry ‘Addicts’ Argue Devices Have Changed Lives” belied the device’s nickname – “infamously addictive” according to a write-up at Wikipedia “because of the ability to read e-mail that is received in realtime, anywhere” – and the description of its users as yet another group of “addicts”, by citing a study by the executive recruitment firm Korn/Ferry International that found three-quarters of 2,000 executives interviewed worldwide “said they believe mobile communication devices primarily enhance their work/life balance rather than impede it.”

• Kids and Drugs, Studies

  OTC stands for “Over The Counter”? Maybe it’s more like “Other Toxic Compounds”

  08.25.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  One would think that with all the educational initiatives out there to keep kids up to snuff on the dangers of alcohol abuse and illicit drug usage that maybe we as adults and parents might actually make some decent headway from time to time. Alas it looks to be a frustrating exercise in futility more often than not. Every week a new study or survey seems to come out illustrating just how successful we are at succeeding or failing our young people regarding dangerous behaviors.

  This week the study that caught my eye was about some research that found almost one in ten kids have resorted to using over the counter medications to get high. When I say resorted I’m assuming that booze and drugs are readily available to youngsters and that maybe either they’ve become bored with the usual weed/beer/pill type of buzz or aren’t getting enough of an allowance to afford the usual list of popular substances. Maybe it’s just my suburban surroundings and knowing what upscale things kids nowadays need in order to be part of the status quo, but the lack of disposable income just doesn’t cut it as an explanation for me.

• Kids and Drugs, North America, Studies

  Parents the “anti drug”? Not as likely as you think.

  08.18.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  Parents being the “anti drug” has been a multi media campaign here in the US for some time now. It runs on the theory that the more involved you are in your children lives and the more you coax them into communicating with you, as parents, the less likely they are to experiment and try illicit drugs, smoke, or drink alcohol. While on the surface this seems to be a most logical assumption a recent study shows that first parents need to get clued into what their children’s reality is first before they can make any difference at all.

• North America, Studies

  Ketamine to treat depression?

  08.09.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  While ketamine might be more well known for either its illicit use as a recreational drug (“Special K”) or as a general dissociative anaesthetic on animals and occasionally humans, researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have recently conducted a study into its utility as a possible treatment for depression. And as the results just published in the medical journal Archives of General Psychiatry have shown, a low dose of ketamine administered to depression sufferers found symptom relief in a matter of hours.

  Scientists from the NIMH conducted the study on 18 men and women who were suffering from depression and had previously undergone at least two unsuccessful treatments. In addition, none of them had any substance abuse problems and hadn’t used any drugs for at least a two-week period leading up to the start of the study.

• Legislation, North America, Reviews, Studies, War on Drugs

  A review of “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America”

  08.06.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been reading through Cato Institute analyst Radley Balko’s new paper, “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America“, on the ever increasing use of heavily armed SWAT teams against non-violent drug suspects.

  Now that I’ve had a more detailed read I do have one criticism, but overall I am sticking with my initial impression of Overkill, namely that

  “I agree with the thrust of what he is saying, namely that paramilitary tactics are only applicable to extraordinary, violent crimes in civil society – such as hostage-taking and bank robberies – as well as battlegrounds overseas.

  Thanks to federal funding, encouragement and support, the militarisation of drug prosecutions is not only unnecessarily endangering and adding turmoil to the lives of countless citizens but is in many cases counter-productive in its aims of preventing violence.”

  The thing that struck me the most about the paper is not just the way in which innocent lives were cruelly disrupted and trampled upon, but the cold, casual and even deliberate disregard the police in question had for their victims; it was as if they were seen as enemy soldiers on a foreign battleground. Most people instinctively apologise for bumping into someone on the street, but certain law enforcement officers couldn’t even bring themselves to offer a similar, nominal, apology – let alone a more substantial one – for inflicting on what is for some people the most traumatic moment of their lives.

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• Your War on Drugs
• 11 Reasons Taking Meth is a Bad Idea (A Pictorial Guide)
• Cannabis Use Causes Memory Loss
• Are you my type?
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