Stay Safe This Halloween
Halloween is a time when ghosts and goblins of all ages go out to play. Before your night turns dark and stormy, keep this in mind:
Stick with apple cider and soda or pop. Binge drinking alcohol can lead to lead to some very scary outcomes. Alcohol in any amount is dangerous for teens to drink because it can change the developing brain (which is why it is illegal). But binge drinking—five or more drinks for guys and four or more for girls—has the potential for more immediate terrors—it contributes to alcohol poisoning and car crashes. Need some stats?
In 2010, approximately 189,000 emergency rooms visits were for...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 30, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Be a Friend to Man’s Best Friend: Keep Marijuana Away from Your Dog
As more communities allow medical marijuana, or decriminalize illicit marijuana, veterinarians are seeing an alarming trend. More and more dogs are arriving in emergency animal hospitals with marijuana toxicosis, or marijuana poisoning.
A recent study in Colorado showed that 4 times as many dogs were treated for marijuana poisoning in 2010 than in 2005. Sadly, two dogs identified in that study died. Similarly, from 2008 to 2013, the Pet Poison Helpline—a poison control hotline for animals—has seen a 200% increase in calls related to pets eating marijuana.
Most times, dogs ingest marijuana accidentally by eating a marij...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 27, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
The Swiss Cheese Model of Addiction
Why doesn’t everyone who is exposed to drugs become addicted?
You can’t get addicted just from using a drug once. But some people who try drugs go on to take more and more, and become addicted as a result. Others don’t.
Scientists now know drug addiction is a disease and that there are lots of things that can contribute to your risk for getting that disease—what are called risk factors. These include your genes, what kind of neighborhood you live in, what kind of school you attend, and what kinds of people you hang around with. These same factors can also protect you from getting the disease.
But even though we kno...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 23, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
A Breath Test for Marijuana Is Around the Corner
You already know the dangers of using marijuana before driving: Marijuana seriously impairs your motor skills and clouds your perception and judgment, all of which you need to safely operate a car. That’s why it’s illegal to drive high. But lots of people don’t know this … or they know it, but figure it’s okay “just this one time.” Whatever the case, it’s breaking the law, just like driving after drinking alcohol.
Driving under the influence of marijuana is a big problem. A 2007 study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration found that 8.7 percent of people driving at night on a weekend ...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 20, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
It’s Time to Commit to Stopping the Spread of HIV
October 15th is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day. This year the organizers are using the slogan, “It’s time 'To End AIDS, Commit to Act'/ 'Para Acabar con el SIDA, Comprometete a Actuar.'
Why an HIV Awareness Day for Latinos?
Despite making up only 16% of the U.S. population, Hispanic/Latinos account for 21% of the 50,000 new HIV infections in this country every day. What does that mean in real numbers? It means that 1 in 36 Hispanic/Latino men and 1 in 106 Hispanic/Latina women will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.
Is HIV really MY problem?
Lots of people don’t think HIV/AIDS is a problem for the...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 15, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Award-Winning Teens Hope To Improve Lives Through Research
The winning projects of NIDA’s Addiction Science Award 2014, part of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, tackled emerging topics in addiction science. While their projects impressed the judges, it is the teens’ passion and desire to help improve lives that makes them winners.
First Place: Lily Wei Lee, a high school senior from New York, found that e-cigarettes left significant nicotine residue on glass, vinyl floors, wood, and other household surfaces—also known as third-hand exposure. Her study was recently published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Second Place: Aakash Jain, a hi...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 9, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Colorado’s Answer to Marijuana’s Makeover
Marijuana has long been seen as an “alternative” drug. It was illegal for everyone, and those who used it regularly were seen as “stoners” or “hippies” or “partiers” and were somehow different than “regular” people. There was a stereotype of people who used marijuana and most people didn’t think much about it.
And then came the rise of medical marijuana, and that began to change marijuana’s reputation. It was seen, by some, as medicine, and in some states people were able to get a prescription for it and use it to help them with specific health problems. Marijuana started to change its image. Now, a...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 6, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Stephen Strasburg’s Commitment To Quit Tobacco
Today, there are more former smokers than current smokers. But many of them didn’t say “I need to quit smoking” once or twice—it took several attempts. And for “dippers” (people that use chewing tobacco), it can be just as hard, if not harder. In fact, dip and chew contain more nicotine than cigarettes.
Tobacco addiction is drug addiction—and it’s very hard to stop.
Washington Nationals’ star Stephen Strasburg knows this struggle well. In June 2011, he vowed to quit after his mentor, Hall of Fame baseball player Tony Gwynn, was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer, which Gwynn believed was because of his ...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - October 2, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Colorado Uses Humor To Highlight Drugged Driving Laws
In states like Colorado where marijuana is legal for adults, some people may think that gives them a license to be high all the time. But they would be wrong. Just because the law allows adults the option to use marijuana, it does not mean that it is always legal for them to be high.
To break it down, in Colorado:
Marijuana Is Legal for Adults
And
Driving Is Legal for People With a License
But
Marijuana + Driving is Not Legal
And this is for a good reason.
Marijuana affects areas of the brain that control the body’s movements, balance, coordination, memory, and judgment—all things critical to your driving skills.
As...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 26, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Good Samaritan Laws Save Lives
On October 1, the state of Maryland will put into effect what’s called a “Good Samaritan Law,” which will protect a person from getting in trouble if they summon aid for someone else who is overdosing on drugs or alcohol. Twenty states and the District of Columbia now have such laws, and more states are considering them—because they save lives.
Many people who overdose on drugs die because the people they are with have also taken drugs and are afraid of getting caught—so they hesitate to dial 911.
Those friends may not just be acting selfishly—they may be unsure of how serious the problem is and, fearing lega...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 25, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Medicines or Poisons?—Why Cannabinoids Can Both Help and Hurt You
This is the final post of a 3-part series on the science of medical marijuana. Check out Part 1: What’s Wrong with “Medical Marijuana”? and Part 2: Making Medicine from Marijuana.
People who write about the health benefits of marijuana sometimes think it’s ironic that a plant containing compounds that could treat disease (like THC or CBD) is banned by the government for being unsafe. But in fact many effective, FDA-approved medicines are closely related to illegal, harmful drugs and are sometimes even made from the same sources.
That’s because there’s a fine (and sometimes fuzzy) line between chemicals that are...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 22, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Drug Overdoses Kill More Than Cars, Guns, and Falling—UPDATE
In June, we shared the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that tens of thousands died from drug use in 2010. In 2011, the number of drug overdose deaths continued to rise. To compare the data from 2010 to 2011, view the original post. You’ll see that in just one year there has been an increase of over 3,000 deaths—nearly 8%—between 2010 and 2011. More than half of those overdose deaths (55%) are related to prescription drug abuse, and of those, 74% (16,917) were due to opioids (prescription pain medications). (Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog)
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 18, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Making Medicine From Marijuana
This is the second post of a 3-part series on the science of medical marijuana. Check out Part 1: What’s Wrong With “Medical Marijuana”? and Part 3: Medicines or Poisons?—Why Cannabinoids Can Both Help and Hurt You.
What people usually mean by “medical marijuana” is use of an unprocessed (raw) plant to treat illness—or herbal medicine, in other words. Unprocessed means the leaves, stems, or seeds are just taken off the plant and used.
Before the 20th century, that’s mostly what medicine was.
But science has made a lot of progress in the last several decades, and generally it hasn’t looked back. It’s b...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 15, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
Drugged Driving—A New Twist on a Deadly Decision
Most people know that drinking and driving is incredibly dangerous. Its reputation as a major risk has been cemented through the preventable deaths of thousands of people and years of education and awareness efforts.
But it turns out—drugged driving is a major problem too. A recent study found that more high school seniors and college students that drove impaired or with an impaired driver were under the influence of marijuana, not alcohol.
The study also found that drugged drivers are more likely to have car accidents and traffic tickets or warnings. But it’s not just dents to your car or points on your license—for ...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 10, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
What’s Wrong With “Medical Marijuana”?
This is the first post of a 3-part series on the science of medical marijuana. Check out Part 2: Making Medicine From Marijuana, and Part 3: Medicines or Poisons?—Why Cannabinoids Can Both Help and Hurt You.
Before modern medical science, most medicines were raw herbs or herbal concoctions of one sort or another. They sometimes helped patients, but those benefits weren’t very powerful by today’s standards, and they often had a lot of unpredictable or even dangerous side effects. That’s because all plants contain hundreds or thousands of different chemicals. If you eat or smoke the leaves of any plant, you are put...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - September 8, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: The NIDA Blog Team Source Type: blogs
