CNN: Colorado's Pot Boom

Is Heroin Use on the Rise in America?

WebMD/HealthDay News: Kids Poisoned by Medical Marijuana, Study Finds. Children helping themselves to drug-laced cookies, brownies.

Legalizing marijuana may have unintended consequences. Since medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado, more than a dozen young children have been unintentionally poisoned with the drug, researchers report.

About half the cases resulted from kids eating marijuana-laced cookies, brownies, sodas or candy. In many cases, the marijuana came from their grandparents' stash, the investigators said.

"We are seeing increases in exposure to marijuana in young pediatric patients, and they have more severe symptoms than we typically associate with marijuana," said lead researcher Dr. George Sam Wang, a medical toxicology fellow at the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver.

But doctors aren't familiar with marijuana poisoning in children, so unless the parents are forthcoming it can take time and tests to diagnose the problem, Wang said. Symptoms of marijuana poisoning in children include sleepiness and balance problems while walking.

"We hadn't seen these exposures before the big boom of the medical marijuana industry," Wang said.

The active chemical in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, is in higher than normal concentrations in medical marijuana, and often is sold in baked goods, soft drinks and candies, the researchers said in the study, which was published online May 27 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

"We are seeing more symptoms because some of these products have very high amounts of marijuana in them," Wang said. "You get such a high dose on such a small child, the symptoms are more severe."

As with many similar poisonings, treatment is limited to supportive care and waiting until the marijuana clears the system, he said.

Children recover quickly in most cases, Wang said. "They don't need more than a day or two of hospitalization," he said. "There were no deaths or lasting side effects."

This report stems from one Denver hospital, and Wang said he doesn't know how extensive the problem is elsewhere. Colorado adults are allowed to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana or six marijuana plants, according to the study. And Denver issued more than 300 sales tax licenses for marijuana dispensaries in 2010.

For the study, Wang's team compared the number of children treated in the emergency room for marijuana poisoning before and after the law was enacted in October 2009.

In all, almost 1,400 children under 12 were evaluated for accidental poisonings in this one hospital -- 790 before Sept. 30, 2009, and 588 after that.

After decriminalization, 14 children -- mostly boys and some as young as 8 months -- were found to have ingested marijuana. Eight had consumed medical marijuana, and seven ate marijuana in foods. Two were admitted to the intensive care unit.

Before Sept. 30, 2009, none of those possible poisonings was attributed to marijuana, the researchers found.

There may be more unreported cases, the study authors said. "Because of a perceived stigma associated with medical marijuana, families may be reluctant to report its use to health care providers," they wrote in the study.

"Similar to many accidental medicinal pediatric exposures, the source of the marijuana in most cases was the grandparents, who may not have been available during data collection," the researchers added.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana. Colorado and Washington also have legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

In late 2009, the U.S. Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors not to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers if they complied with state laws, the researchers said.

To prevent harm to children, Wang advises treating marijuana like any other drug and keeping it out of their reach, particularly if it's in a tempting form like cookies.

Some poison-control experts also are pushing for marijuana to come in tamper-proof packages as a way of keeping children away from it.

The ongoing debate about legalizing marijuana should include discussion of the potential consequences to children, said the researchers and other medical experts.

"There is a lot of information that may not be entirely accurate about how benign marijuana is," said Dr. Sharon Levy, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, who wrote an accompanying journal editorial.

Source:  www.children.webmd.com

High Rates of Cannabis Use in People with Mental Illnesses

By Mark Cowen, Senior medwireNews Reporter - 12 April 2013

Compr Psychiatry 2013; Advance online publication

medwireNews: People with mental illnesses have a significantly higher prevalence of cannabis use and cannabis use disorders (CUDs) than mentally healthy individuals, researchers report.

"Extrapolating our results to the general population, we estimate that persons with a diagnosable primary mental illness constitute almost 75% of all cannabis users, with a particularly high prevalence of more frequent cannabis use and CUDs in this population," say Shaul Lev-Ran (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and team.

The prevalence of cannabis use and CUDs (cannabis abuse or dependence as defined by DSM-IV criteria) was particularly increased among patients with certain personality disorders (PDs) and bipolar I disorder.

The researchers studied data on 43,070 individuals, aged 18 years and older, who participated in the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

Of the respondents, 12,659 had experienced mood, anxiety, personality, or substance abuse disorders (SUDs) in the previous 12 months.

The researchers found that the prevalence of weekly cannabis use, less than weekly cannabis use, and CUDs over the past 12 months among individuals with mental health disorders was 4.4%, 5.4% and 4.0%, respectively, compared with corresponding rates of 0.6%, 1.1% and 0.4% among those without mental illnesses.

Weekly cannabis use and CUD rates were highest among individuals with antisocial PD (13.4 and 12.0%, respectively), dependent PD (10.5 and 14.2%, respectively), histrionic PD (9.9 and 9.8%, respectively), and bipolar I disorder (9.6 and 9.4%, respectively).

Overall, 72.2% of all individuals who used cannabis and 81.8% of those with CUDs had a mental illness.

After accounting for sociodemographic variables, the team found that respondents with a mental illness were a significant 5.2 times more likely to have used cannabis in the past 12 months than those without a mental illness. This increased risk remained significant after further adjustment for any non-cannabis SUD, at an odds ratio of 2.5.

In addition, individuals with a mental illness were 8.0 times more likely to have CUDs than mentally healthy individuals, after adjustment for sociodemographic variables. And this increased risk also remained significant after further adjustment for non-cannabis SUDs, at an odds ratio of 3.2.

Lev-Ran et al conclude in Comprehensive Psychiatry: "Our findings emphasize the importance of proper screening for frequent cannabis use and CUDs particularly among individuals with mental illness, and focusing prevention and treatment efforts on the mentally ill."

medwireNews (www.medwirenews.com) is an independent clinical news service provided by Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd; 2013

Free abstract

Every mass shooting over last 20 years has one thing in common...prescription drugs

On to the list of mass shooters and the stark link to psychotropic drugs.

• Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to the public.

• Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

• Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

• Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

• Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

• Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

• Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

• Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.

• A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.

• Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.

• Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

• TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

• Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.

• James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

• Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania

• Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California

• Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

• Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

• Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic's file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

• Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.

• Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.

• Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.

• Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.

• Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family's Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.

• Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara's parents said ".... the damn doctor wouldn't take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil...")

• Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002, (Gareth's father could not accept his son's death and killed himself.)

• Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family's detached garage.

• Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.

• Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.

• Woody __, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.

• A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.

• Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and "other drugs for the conditions."

• Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.

• Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

• Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.

• Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.

• Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.

Missing from list... 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds....

• What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21...... killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az?

• What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24..... killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado?

• What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or?

• What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct?

Source:   www.ssristories.com 

Natural News

New Monitoring the Future Survey Indicates Marijuana Use Is Increasing Among Teens

FOR RELEASE
CONTACT: media@drugfreecalifornia.org  909.457.4229

Rancho Cucamonga, CA - December 20th, 2012: New Monitoring the Future Survey Indicates Marijuana Use Is Increasing Among Teens

"Coalition for a Drug Free California is alarmed at youth marijuana use not only in California, but around the nation. We have reached an epidemic and there is no end in sight. Elected leaders are failing our children and our communities. States that allow for so-called 'medical-pot' are seeing explosive numbers. The pro-drug legalization lobby poured millions of dollars into pro-marijuana campaigns in Colorado and Washington that now outright permit marijuana use, sale and cultivation. The impact of such reckless campaigns endangers America's most vulnerable; our children. Forget the fiscal cliff -- the bigger problem is the cliff today's children are walking towards," said Dr. Paul Chabot, President of the Coalition for a Drug Free California www.drugfreecalifornia.org

By the numbers: 

• Youth perception of the dangers of marijuana has fallen to the lowest level on record, a new study says. Researchers warn that already high use of pot will increase as states move to legalize.

• The annual survey found that only 41.7 percent of eighth graders believe that occasional use of marijuana is harmful, while 66.9 percent regard it as dangerous when used regularly. Both rates are the lowest since 1991, when the government first began tracking this age group.

• Youth perception of marijuana risks diminished even more as they got older. 20.6 percent of 12th graders believe occasional use of marijuana is harmful while 44.1 percent believed that its regular use was detrimental, the lowest rate since 1979.

• The government-sponsored study said teens' dwindling concerns about the dangers of marijuana, despite the risks, "can signal future increases in use."

• Those who used cannabis heavily in their teens and into their adulthood showed a significant drop in IQ between the ages of 13 and 38, according to the studies.

• Marijuana use among teenagers remained stuck at high levels in 2012.  6.5 percent of 12th graders smoked marijuana daily, up from 5.1 percent in 2007. 23 percent of the high-school seniors said they smoked the drug in the month prior to the survey. 36.4 percent used it in the past year and 45.2 percent said they had tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime.

• Daily marijuana use by 10th graders rose dramatically from 2.8 percent to 3.5 percent, and for eighth-grade students it edged up from 0.8 percent to 1.1 percent.

According to a release from Drug Free America Foundation, “This report shows that marijuana use has increased among youth and that the attitudes about marijuana’s harmfulness has significantly decreased, which clearly demonstrates what we have known for years - when the perception of the harms of drugs decreases, use rises,” said Calvina Fay, Executive Director of Drug Free America Foundation and Save Our Society From Drugs. “Over the years, the ruse that marijuana is a medicine has created a false sense that this addictive, dangerous drug is not harmful, but in fact helpful. Now, this year, two states have legalized marijuana use for any purpose. Unless we aggressively push-back against all marijuana legalization efforts, I am very concerned this negative trend of increased marijuana use will continue!  Perhaps it’s time to withhold federal funds from states that fail to uphold our nation’s drug laws,” Fay added.

Download the government's report here:

http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/

Teen Drug Abuse: National Survey Results, September 2012

By Janel Spencer -  The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASAColumbia) released their findings this month from the 17th annual 2012 National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse (XVII: Teens). According to the findings, 2012 is the sixth year in a row that 60 percent or more of high school teens reported that their schools are drug-infected.

“This year teens in our focus groups talked freely about the extent of drinking and drug use among their high school classmates, not only after school, but during the school day, smoking marijuana in the school cafeteria and attending classes while high on alcohol and drugs,” Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Founder and Chairman Emeritus of CASAColumbia said in a statement.

Nearly nine out of 10 high school students answered that they knew classmates who were drugging, drinking or smoking during the school day. Fifty-two percent reported a known place on or near the school grounds where students go to use substances. 44 percent of the students knew of another student who sold drugs at their school, and of those who did:

• 91 percent knew someone who sold marijuana

• 24 percent knew someone who sold prescription drugs

• 9 percent knew someone who sold cocaine, and

• 7 percent knew someone who sold ecstasy.

More than a third of high school students said that it was easy or fairly easy for students to drink, use drugs or smoke during the school day without getting caught. Additionally, the survey results expose that every six in 10 high schools and one in three middle schools are drug-infected.

“What many parents fail to appreciate is that tobacco, alcohol and drug use are pervasive and relentless fixtures in the teen world,” Califano said. He explained that although much of teen exposure to drugs happens at school and with friends, parents need to be aware that it also occurs at home through television and the Internet.

With the boom of social media, last year the survey included for the first time questions about whether or not teens had seen pictures of other kids getting drunk, passed out or using drugs on social networking sites. The findings from last year showed a correlation between the teens who were seeing these kinds of pictures and their likelier use of alcohol and marijuana. The study calls this “Digital Peer Pressure.” Seventy-five percent of the teens this year said that seeing pictures of kids partying on social networking sites encourages others teens to want to party as well, and 45 percent had seen pictures like this. Survey results found that those who had seen the pictures were:

• Four times more likely to have used marijuana (25 percent vs. 6 percent)

• More than three times likelier to have used alcohol (43 percent vs. 13 percent), and

• Nearly three times likelier to have used tobacco (16 percent vs. 6 percent)

The report also found that the drug-infestation gap between private schools and public schools is closing. Sixty-one percent of students at public high schools compared to 54 percent of students at private high schools said that their school was drug-infected.

This year, more kids are using illegal drugs (marijuana, acid, ecstacy, cocaine, meth and heroin) than are abusing prescription drugs or over-the-counter medicines. Also, high school students are now more likely to use marijuana than to smoke cigarettes (24 percent have tried marijuana versus only 15 percent who have tried tobacco). Other studies have turned out similar results. According to a report published earlier this year by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, American teens are less likely than European teens to use cigarettes and alcohol, but are more likely to use illicit drugs.

"One of the reasons that smoking and drinking rates among adolescents are so much lower here [in America] than in Europe is that both behaviors have been declining and have reached historically low levels in the U.S. over the 37-year life of the Monitoring the Future study," reported the social psychologist Lloyd Johnston, who was involved with the European-American survey and is principal investigator for Monitoring the Future, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "But even in the earlier years of the European surveys, drinking and smoking by American adolescents was quite low by comparison. Use of illicit drugs is quite a different matter."

U.S. students, in fact, tend to have among the highest rates of drug use out of all of the countries. According the study, the United Statesranks third out of the 37 countries surveyed on the proportion of students using marijuana in the last 30 days (18 percent). American students also reported the highest level of availability of marijuana of all the countries and they associated the least risk with use.

The risks, however, may be greater than most teens realize. According to findings from a new study by Duke University researcher reported this Monday at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, teens dependent on marijuana risk a long-term drop in their IQ.

Young people "don't think it's risky," explained Staci Gruber, a researcher at the Harvard-affiliated MacLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. told the Huffington Post in an interview. However, the idea that marijuana harms the adolescent brain, Gruber explained, is something they believe is very likely.

“We have often said that the most important finding of twenty years of intensive research is this: A child who gets through age 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol, or using drugs is virtually certain never to do so,” Califano urged in his statement about the CASAColumbia national survey results. “It is unconscionable that states, cities and counties-and their elected governors, mayors, and commissioners-that require parents to send their children to school, continue year after year to allow those schools to be drug infected."

Janel Spencer is a writer and content editor for 360 Education Solutions

Source:  http://www.360-edu.com/news/teen-drug-abuse-national-survey-results.htm

It is Time We Publicly Acknowledge the Connection Between Drugs and Violence

Colorado Amendment 64 and Washington State Initiative 502, Set to Become the Nation’s Crash Test Dummies

Every morning, one of the first things I do is turn on the radio to listen to the news.  Since I like straight forward beat reporting, I usually turn my dial to CBS.  But for the last couple of weeks I have been getting poor reception and so I switched over to KABC. 

Last Tuesday, Geraldo Rivera was on and the question he posed to his listeners was “is the country going to hell in a hand basket with marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington State?”  Many listeners called in on Geraldo’s show who were quite concerned about pot becoming legal in more states, something Geraldo didn’t seem to mind.  The truth is however, legalized marijuana should concern us all. 

If the attitude of marijuana legalization enthusiasts is any indication, many who understand the behavior of drug abuse, will agree that it is time we send the message to curb their enthusiasm.  Clue number one would be that they picked Washington State to legalize recreational use.  They knew it was an election year and the pot vote had gained enough strength to become its own voting block.  They also knew that the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy used to be Seattle’s police chief.  After the measure passed and became legal under state law, enthusiasts gathered under the Seattle Space Needle and lit up, even though outdoor use was not permitted under Initiative 502.  In their mind they probably think they pulled quite the coup and if we take a closer look, there is a storm brewing within the marijuana movement and if we don’t start to pay closer attention to it, we may have to learn some very tough lessons the hard way. 

During the campaign, the White House stayed silent and very few elected leaders were willing to publicly oppose marijuana legalization measures.  No one at ONDCP or the Obama Administration so much as even publicly acknowledged the letter sent by nine former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration urging opposition to legalization.  The Drug Lobby Americans for Safe Access launched an effort to gather 1 million votes to unseat President Obama, and yet, even to this day, all we hear is the White House’s position on legalization of marijuana for recreational use remains “un-CHANGEd”!  Unchanged?  White House policy is “opposition to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use.”  Yet, their policy remains “unchanged” and two states have gone against White House policy and there is still no word from the White House, ONDCP or the Department of Justice?!  Apparently fighting for what is right is no longer worth it because being elected is more important, regardless of the social and public heath costs!

One could easily assume no drastic measures will be taken because the mid-term elections will be crucial for Democrats as well as Republicans and no one will want to rock the boat.  One could also assume that the electorate is well aware there is a new, (still unofficial) “Pot Party” forming, that is becoming an ever more growing threat to all parties.

If I had any advice for the White House or the electorate it would be, STOP THEM BEFORE THEY COMPLETELY DESTROY AMERICA!  We need to see some leadership and we need for our government to set policies they intend to enforce.  The war on drugs is not winnable without an exit strategy and at this time there is no foreseeable, workable strategy.  The silence of our leaders raises doubt about the confidence the people should have in them to take a position and stay with it.  But they should stand up and do what they were elected to do!  LEAD!

In the meantime, while our hands are tied with Colorado and Washington State, we should gather all the data we can from those states to show what the real HUMAN COSTS of legalization are.  Chances are, we’ll never know how many people are driving on our freeways and highways while stoned out of their mind.  We should let the numbers roll in, like they did in Alaska, where marijuana was legal and had to be re-criminalized because the situation was out of control.   We already learned our lesson in Alaska and we know there is no right or safe way to leave a person to his or her own devices with mind-altering substances.  Colorado and Washington State will be no different.