Employee Drug Use Up -- Testing Down

WASHINGTON, DC (INC.com) July 23, 2007 -- Illicit drug use and alcohol abuse in the workplace is more prevalent than employers may think, with one in 12 full-time U.S. workers admitting that they have used illegal substances in the past month, new research shows.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an annual average of approximately 9.4 million illicit drug users and 10.1 million heavy alcohol users held full-time jobs from 2002 to 2004. In the survey, the definition of illegal drug use included marijuana, and heavy alcohol use was defined as drinking five or more drinks on one occasion at least five times in the past 30 days.

The recent numbers for employee drug use are up slightly from government survey data a decade ago -- the current usage rate is 8.2 percent, compared to 7.7 percent in 1997. "Employees who use drugs miss work more often, are less healthy, and are more prone to harming themselves and others in the workplace," John Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement.

The industries where employees reported the highest rates of illicit drug use were food service, at 17.8 percent, and construction, at 15.1 percent. Similarly, heavy alcohol use was highest among construction, mining, excavation, and drilling workers, at 17.8 percent, and among maintenance and repair workers, it was 14.7 percent, the survey found.

Yet, despite the statistics, research shows little is being done by employers to address the problem of substance abuse in the workplace. In a separate survey of 1,000 human-resources professionals, more than two-thirds of respondents consider substance abuse one of the most serious issues they face in their company, however, only 22 percent said their company is proactively dealing with it, according to the Hazelden Foundation, a non-profit addiction recovery organization based in Center City, Minnesota.

Only 30 percent of the full-time workforce surveyed reported that their current employer conducted random drug testing. Not surprisingly, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey also found that current drug users were more likely to work for employers who did not conduct drug or alcohol testing. Almost a third of the respondents said they would not take a job if they knew they would be tested.

Ecstasy Can Cause Brain Damage, Even After First Use

CHICAGO (Bloomberg) November 27, 2006 -- Getting high just a few times using the drug known as ecstasy is enough to damage cells and reduce blood flow to the brain, possibly permanently, a study says.

Low doses of the drug were linked to subtle changes in the architecture of brain cells 18 months after first use, according to research presented today at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago. First-time users also showed a decrease in verbal memory.

Ecstasy, a stimulant that can cause hallucinations, is an illegal drug often found at nightclubs or all-night dance parties, called raves. While extensive use has already been shown to harm neurons in the brain, causing depression, anxiety and memory loss, this is the first study to identify the risk of brain damage among those who have taken only a few doses.

``We don't know if it's reversible or permanent,'' said Maartje de Win, a radiology resident at the University of Amsterdam, in a telephone interview today. ``People should know there might be some consequences for them even after incidental use.''

More than 11 million Americans say they have tried ecstasy at least once, according to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. A 2005 survey found that 2.8 percent of eighth graders and 5.4 percent of 12th graders in the U.S. have tried the drug, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said.

De Win and her colleagues first took brain scans of 188 young adults with an average age of 22 who weren't ecstasy users, yet met certain criteria for being at risk for trying the drug in the near future. After 18 months, the researchers reexamined 59 people who had each taken an average of six tablets of ecstasy and 56 people who hadn't tried the drug.

Adverse Effects

When ecstasy, known chemically as MDMA or 3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine, first became popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, part of the draw for young people was that many were under the impression that the drug wasn't addictive and could be used at parties or on the weekends without any adverse effects, de Win said.

De Win said she was surprised that 64 of the 188 young people selected for the study chose to try ecstasy on their own, even after researchers warned them about the potential risks in their initial examinations. Five of the youth declined to participate in the follow-up tests.

Meth Labs Move to Mexico

GUADALAJARA (LA TIMES) November 26, 2006 — The methamphetamine laboratories that once plagued California's hinterlands and powered a national explosion of drug abuse have been replaced by an increasing supply from Mexico, U.S. law enforcement officials say.

The boom in Mexican methamphetamine production stems from successful efforts in the U.S. to control the sale of chemicals used to produce the drug, including the cold medicine pseudoephedrine.

Drug traffickers, some of them ex-convicts and fugitives from the United States, including a former chemistry professor from Idaho arrested last month, authorities say, have resettled in Mexico because of the easy access to pseudoephedrine and other chemicals.

The largest share of the chemicals is believed to be shipped to Mexico from factories in China and India and routed through Hong Kong. China has emerged as the top concern for U.S. authorities.

Like traffic in heroin and cocaine, the methamphetamine economy has become a global phenomenon. So too is the battle to control what most U.S. law enforcement authorities consider the country's greatest drug threat.

The trend began surfacing about two years ago as a crackdown on the bulk distribution of ingredients cut off producers from supplies in the U.S. and, later, Canada.

Authorities now estimate that 80% of the methamphetamine on U.S. streets is controlled by Mexican drug traffickers, with most of the supply smuggled in from Mexico. Methamphetamine seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border jumped 50% from 2003 through 2005, from 4,030 to 6,063 pounds.

The number of labs discovered by Mexican authorities nearly tripled from 2002 to 2005, from 13 to 37, and methamphetamine seizures more than doubled, to 2,169 pounds, during the same period. U.S. authorities believe the numbers are a fraction of actual activity, as signs of an extensive production infrastructure have surfaced in the last year or so.

Among those signs: Mexico's importation of cold medicines jumped suddenly in recent years, from 92,000 tons in 2002 to 150,000 tons in 2005. Though recently imposed restrictions have cut legal imports by about half this year, U.S. authorities believe significant amounts are still being smuggled through corruption-ridden Mexican ports.

More illegal drug usage reported by ages 50-59

By Kevin Freking, Associated Press  |  September 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Some mothers and fathers might want to take a lesson from their children: Just say no.

The government reported yesterday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It is the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for the group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Illicit drug use among young teenagers declined for a third consecutive year, from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

The annual survey on drug use and health involves interviews of about 67,500 people. It provides an important snapshot of how many Americans drink, smoke, and use drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

Overall, drug use remained relatively unchanged among Americans age 12 and older in 2005. About 19.7 million Americans reported they had used an illicit drug in the past month, which represented a rise from 7.9 percent to 8.1 percent. Among the 18 to 25 group, drug use rose from 19.4 percent to 20.1 percent.

David Murray of the Office of National Drug Control Policy said the peak of drug use among youth in the United States occurred in the late 1970s.

Major Bust In Bad Heroin Supply

CHICAGO, IL (Chicago Tribune) June 5, 2006 -- A clandestine laboratory in Mexico capable of producing millions of doses of the potent, sometimes lethal, drug fentanyl has been shut down, the U.S. drug czar announced Monday in Chicago, but not before it may have contaminated supplies of street drugs here and across the country.

Heroin mixed with the powerful painkiller has been blamed for hundreds of deaths across the U.S. in the last year, including at least 60 in Chicago. The synthetic narcotic is being added to heroin to give a more powerful high to users, authorities have said. Some users have sought the combination and others may not have known what they were buying.

Just over the weekend in Cook County, there were 13 fatal overdoses that now are being investigated for connections to fentanyl, the county's chief medical examiner said Monday.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said it is too soon to know if the Mexican lab was the biggest source of the illicit drug, which has killed people in eight states.

But authorities believe it may have been running long enough to push a major amount of fentanyl, used legally for pain management, into the illegal drug market, he said.

"In effect, to be quite clear, the drug traffickers have substantially poisoned the drug supply in the United States," Walters said.

"These are already dangerous substances, but obviously we're now seeing in more places the effects of this incredibly powerful drug in levels that are causing deaths."

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported the lab was located May 21 by Mexican authorities in Toluca, north of the capital. The Mexican attorney general's office reported authorities found a climate-controlled room in the company's space in an industrial park, with tools and precursor chemicals used in the making of the drug.

Federal investigators said five Mexican nationals were arrested, including a man acting as the chemist for the group.

Investigators are working to determine how much fentanyl could have been made at the production site before it was discovered. And agents are seeking records on the site that might provide clues as to its production capacity and distribution channels, they said.

Deaths have been reported in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

Testing is under way to find a common chemical signature in samples from those states that might link them to the Mexican lab, Walters said, confirming the fears of some that crime networks will move heavily into fentanyl production.

Investigators said they are working to determine if Chicago street gangs are moving the drug locally. Walters said no clear national picture had emerged that would explain which criminal networks are transporting fentanyl around the country.

Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue said blood from 13 victims of fatal overdoses in the county over the weekend would be tested for fentanyl. The drug is among the most powerful illicit substances seen on Chicago's streets, he said. The narcotic, originally produced as a surgical anesthetic, shuts down the respiratory system, he said.

Among those suspected of overdosing over the weekend was Herman Elmore, 31, who died at the home of a family he was staying with in the 7400 block of South Morgan Street.

Vicky Love, who described herself as Elmore's godmother, said he was in and out of the house early Sunday, and then came in and said he was sleepy at about 3 p.m.

"I told him to sit down and take a nap," Love said. Several hours later children in the house tried to wake Elmore from a chair, but he was not breathing.

Donoghue said it would take weeks for testing to determine whether fentanyl was in Elmore's system. Love said she did not know Elmore to be a drug user, and said she doesn't know why anyone would try heroin now.

"They know [fentanyl] is out there, so why go out here and purchase it when it's all over the news?" she said.

Eddy Borrayo, director of substance-abuse services at the Pilsen-Little Village Mental Health Center, said many addicts do look for fentanyl-laced heroin.

"If someone is getting a good high, such as with fentanyl, then addicts will go out and say, 'Where can I get some?'" he said. "That's what keeps them going. They're trying to find something else that gives them their first high.

"The potency is the issue," he said. "If a dope dealer says, 'I've got the good stuff,' that means it'll knock [the addict] out. It might make the addict feel tranquil and go to sleep. That's what they want. It's a pseudo-suicide, if you want to call it that."

Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, said there could be a number of illegal sources for the drug, including other laboratories. Some of it has been stolen from medical facilities where it is often used in a patch for cancer patients and others with severe pain, Courtney said.

On June 14, Chicago police and the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago will meet with law enforcement representatives from other states in hopes of finding patterns in how the drug is distributed.

Drug czar Walters said fentanyl also would become a focus of his office's new U.S. Synthetic Drug Control Strategy, which will target precursor materials entering the country.

Walters, speaking after a news conference in Chicago that introduced a new ad campaign to keep Hispanics from experimenting with crystal methamphetamine, said for now he could only urge users not to go looking for fentanyl.

At a treatment clinic in the mental health center, Borrayo said he was not optimistic most addicts would listen to official pleas to stay away from fentanyl. In his experience, he said, dealers will often give out free samples of a new mixture to see if they have a winning formula, and users will be in line waiting for it.

"The [dealers] will try to test it out to see if it's that good," he said. "Then they'll increase their price."

Tribune staff reporter Hugh Dellios contributed to this report.
 

New Law Bans Pure DXM

SPRINGFIELD, IL (The News Gazette) May 26, 2006 -- A new law makes it illegal to sell or purchase pure dextromethorphan, a cough suppressant that led to the deaths of a 22-year-old Illinois State University student and a 17-year-old from rural Hindsboro.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed HB 4300 into law on Wednesday, and it will take effect on Jan. 1, 2007.

Dextromethorphan, or DXM, is found in more than 140 over-the-counter medicines, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center. It is safe in the recommended doses, but can be extremely dangerous in large quantities.

Overdosing on DXM can produce nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, dizziness, confusion, poor coordination, rapid heart rate and hallucinations. In some cases, it can cause inability to talk or move one's limbs, coma, and ultimately, even death.

While some teens are overdosing on cough syrup or cold pills in an attempt to get high, a growing number of abusers are purchasing DXM in pure form over the Internet, or downloading instructions on how to distill pure DXM out of over-the-counter products.

"The idea that kids can go online and easily get their hands on a dangerous drug is appalling," Blagojevich said in a written release. "This law helps put to stop that, and that's why I'm signing it."

The new law bans the sale or purchase of pure form DXM, without restricting sales or use of over-the-counter medicines containing the drug. Anyone caught in possession of pure form DXM will face a Class 4 felony charge and one to three years in prison. Sale or possession with intent to sell will be a Class 2 felony, punishable by three to seven years in prison.

State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, was the sponsor of the bill, which passed unanimously in the House and Senate this spring.

"This has no effect whatsoever on over-the-counter medications," he said. "We were very careful to draft this legislation in a way that doesn't affect what's available to the average consumer. That's really not the problem we're seeing out there."

The measure was prompted by the deaths of ISU student Jonathan Frary in 2003 and 17-year-old Eric Richardson of rural Hindsboro in 2004. Both overdosed on pure form DXM that was reportedly ordered over the Internet.

According to state Sen. Dale Risinger, R-Peoria, at least three other U.S. deaths have been attributed to DXM overdoses, but Illinois is the first state to enact legislation to address the problem.

Bills to ban DXM sales to minors were recently introduced in Texas, California and North Dakota, but none became law.

Fentanyl Deaths Reach 10 in two months

A new choice in drug abuse

Teens turn to prescriptions

By Tracy Jan and Lisa Wangsness

ARLINGTON, MA (The Boston Globe) January 29, 2006 -- As school systems step up monitoring students for alcohol abuse, police and health officials say more teenagers are getting high on prescription drugs like the anti-anxiety pill Klonopin, which family members said an Arlington teen took before killing himself last week.

The drug, distributed in tablets known by young people as K-pins, is harder to detect than alcohol and perceived to be safer than street drugs like heroin and cocaine. Klonopin is widely available in families' medicine cabinets and can be purchased online through offshore pharmacies for between $2 and $5 a dose, doctors said.

''Faculty in schools across the region have been very effective at cracking down on alcohol. To counter that, the kids now have gone to using Klonopin as the drug of choice," said Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan, who plans to talk to area police chiefs about the drug at an upcoming meeting.

Teenagers are experimenting with Klonopin and Vicodin even before they try traditional gateway drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, said Dr. John Knight, director of the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Children's Hospital.

The suicide of popular Arlington High School senior Cameron O'Connor and the subsequent arrest of two of his schoolmates for selling prescription drugs, including Klonopin, have renewed the call for random drug testing in some communities and more parent education about benzodiazepines, the class of drugs to which Klonopin and Xanax belong, in addition to opiates such as OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin.

While some principals and superintendents said they are unaware of Klonopin use among students, several Belmont students told parents last Thursday in an annual drug and alcohol forum that classmates are abusing prescription drugs, said Jonathan Landman, the principal of Belmont High.

''That's one theme that a number of us noticed which none of us noted in last year's panel," said Landman, adding that students did not name specific drugs. ''We need to learn what we can about it and figure out if there's something educational we can do."

In Arlington, O'Connor's death has prompted school officials to consider using drug-sniffing dogs to check lockers and testing students for drugs, a rare move among Massachusetts schools. Herb Levine, former Salem superintendent whose son, Joel, was addicted to OxyContin for three years, said yesterday that every school system in the state should consider randomly testing middle and high school students for drugs.

''It would give parents something to rely on," said Levine, who also spent 19 years as a high school principal. ''So many parents have no clue. If anybody should have known, I should have known. But still, for quite some time, my wife and I were fooled by our son when he was addicted."

Doctors noted, though, that standard drug tests used by schools often do not screen for prescription drugs.

New Bedford middle and high schools will start randomly testing students for drugs in March, said Carl Alves, coordinator of the city's drug-free student assistance program. The tests, for which parents voluntarily sign up their children, would screen for prescription drugs including benzodiazepines, he said.

''A lot of families in the suburbs have good medical care and will oftentimes have these drugs in their medicine cabinets," Alves said. ''With kids, availability and ease of use are two key factors when kids are using drugs. Klonopin doesn't smell, but you can still be high on it. And if there is a network of people selling these things, it's easy access."

Teenagers compared the high on Klonopin to being drunk, police said. When the drug is abused, it can be dangerous -- and when mixed with alcohol, it can be deadly, said Dr. Michael W. Shannon, chief of emergency medicine at Children's Hospital.

''People describe it as a very mellow high," Shannon said. ''If you mix it with something like alcohol, it makes you very inebriated. . . . It impairs judgment."

Shannon said he did not want to draw conclusions about the O'Connor case, but he said that particularly when combined with alcohol, ''it makes people do things they would otherwise not likely do, including take their lives."

O'Connor first tried Klonopin two months ago after a school semi-formal, said Joe Boike, O'Connor's uncle and a sergeant with the State Police. Boike and O'Connor's two brothers told the Globe that the 17-year-old was not depressed and said they believe Klonopin drove him to suicide. Police said they believe O'Connor took Klonopin before he died, but toxicology results are not back yet.

Shelley Rosenstock, spokeswoman for the Swiss-based Roche Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Klonopin, said she was not aware of teenagers abusing the drug and said the drug is safe when users consult their doctors.

A senior at Arlington High, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said prescription drug abuse seems to be on the rise at his school and others. He said most of the students he knows who take ''K-pins" buy them from students who have been prescribed the drug or who have access to someone else's prescription.

He believes the reason prescription drug abuse is popular is because there is little for teenagers to do in Arlington. Kids get sick of going to the movies or out to dinner, he said.

Potent Mexican Meth Floods In as States Curb Domestic Variety

DES MOINES, IOWA  January 18, 2006 (The New York Times) -- In the seven months since Iowa passed a law restricting the sale of cold medicines used to make methamphetamine, seizures of homemade methamphetamine laboratories have dropped to just 20 a month from 120. People once terrified about the neighbor's house blowing up now walk up to the state's drug policy director, Marvin Van Haaften, at his local Wal-Mart to thank him for making them safer.

But Mr. Van Haaften, like officials in other states with similar restrictions, is now worried about a new problem: the drop in home-cooked methamphetamine has been met by a new flood of crystal methamphetamine coming largely from Mexico.

Sometimes called ice, crystal methamphetamine is far purer, and therefore even more highly addictive, than powdered home-cooked methamphetamine, a change that health officials say has led to greater risk of overdose. And because crystal methamphetamine costs more, the police say thefts are increasing, as people who once cooked at home now have to buy it.

The University of Iowa Burn Center, which in 2004 spent $2.8 million treating people whose skin had been scorched off by the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine at home, says it now sees hardly any cases of that sort. Drug treatment centers, on the other hand, say they are treating just as many or more methamphetamine addicts.

And although child welfare officials say they are removing fewer children from homes where parents are cooking the drug, the number of children being removed from homes where parents are using it has more than made up the difference.

"It's killing us, this Mexican ice," said Mr. Van Haaften, a former sheriff. "I'm not sure we can control it as well as we can the meth labs in your community."

The influx of the more potent drug shows the fierce hold of methamphetamine, which has devastated many towns once far removed from violent crime or drugs. As Congress prepares to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine ingredient that is used to make methamphetamine, officials here and in other states that have recently imposed similar restrictions caution that they fall far short of a solution.

"You can't legislate away demand," said Betty Oldenkamp, secretary of human services in South Dakota, where the governor this month proposed tightening a law that last year restricted customers to two packs of pseudoephedrine per store. "The law enforcement aspects are tremendously important, but we also have to do something to address the demand."

Here, officials boast that their law restricting pseudoephedrine, which took effect in May, has been faster than any other state's in reducing methamphetamine laboratories. Still, when Mr. Van Haaften, director of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy, surveyed the local police, 74 percent said that the law had not changed demand, and 61 percent said supply had remained steady or increased.

In a survey of treatment professionals, 92 percent said they had seen as many or more methamphetamine addicts; the state treated 6,000 in 2005 and expects to treat more than 7,000 this year, based on current trends. Some health officials said abuse among women, typically the biggest users of methamphetamine, was rising particularly fast.

While seizures of powdered methamphetamine declined to 4,572 in 2005 from 6,488 in 2001, seizures of crystal methamphetamine increased, to 2,025 from one.

Federal drug agents tend to describe ice as methamphetamine that is at least 90 percent pure. Officials here say much of their crystal methamphetamine is less pure - "dirty ice," they call it. But either is far more potent than homemade powdered methamphetamine; a "good cook" yields a drug that is about 42 percent pure, but around 25 percent is more common. And in the first four months after the law took effect here, average purity went to 80 percent from 47 percent.

Other states have seen the same.

"The Mexican drug cartels were right there to feed that demand," said Tom Cunningham, the drug task force coordinator for the district attorneys council for Oklahoma, the first state to put pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters, in 2004. "They have always supplied marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. When we took away the local meth lab, they simply added methamphetamine to the truck."

A methamphetamine cook could make an ounce for $50 on a stovetop or in a lab in a car; that same amount now costs $800 to $1,500 on the street, the police say.

"Our burglaries have just skyrocketed," said Jerry Furness, who represents Buchanan County, 150 miles northeast of Des Moines, on the Iowa drug task force. "The state asks how the decrease in meth labs has reduced danger to citizens, and it has, as far as potential explosions. But we've had a lot of burglaries where the occupants are home at the time, and that's probably more of a risk. So it's kind of evening out."

When the state surveyed the children in state protection in southeastern Iowa four months after the law took effect, it found that 49 percent were taken from parents who had been using methamphetamine, the same percentage as two years earlier, even as police said they were removing fewer children from homes with laboratories.

Some law enforcement officials say that addicts may find the crystal form more desirable. "If they don't have to mess with precursor chemicals, it's actually a bit easier on them, and safer," said Kevin Glaser, a drug task force supervisor for the state highway patrol in Missouri, which last year led the nation in methamphetamine lab seizures.

But the switch has also increased the risks. "People are overdosing; they're not expecting it to do this much," said Darcy Jensen, director of Prairie View Prevention Services in South Dakota. "They don't realize that that fourth of a gram they're used to using is double or triple in potency."

Federal officials say there are 1.4 million methamphetamine addicts in the United States, concentrated in the West, where the drug began to take hold in the late 1980's, and the Midwest and South, where it moved in the mid- and late 1990's.

Drug enforcement officials have always said that 80 percent of the nation's supply comes from so-called super labs, those able to make 10 pounds or more. But in some counties here, officials say that all the methamphetamine came from mom-and-pop labs that made the drug by cooking pseudoephedrine with toxic farm and household chemicals.

Law enforcement focused on the laboratories because they were so destructive: the police found children who had drunk lye thinking it was water, or went without food as parents went through the long binge-and-sleep cycles of using. Laboratories in homes, motels, abandoned farm buildings or cars frequently exploded, or dumped their toxic chemicals into drains or soil. Small police departments spent much of their time attending to contaminated sites.

More than 30 states have restricted pseudoephedrine in some way. Nine have put it behind pharmacy counters, and Oregon now requires a prescription to obtain it.

Addicts and cookers have proved to be skilled at getting around the restrictions; as one state imposes a law, bordering states see an increase in laboratories. Oklahoma recently linked its pharmacies by a computer database to track sales after discovering that cooks were going county-to-county buying from several pharmacies a day.

Iowa's law passed unanimously. As in other states, officials say the number of laboratories had already begun to decline, most likely because cooks feared they would be caught because there was so much public attention on the problem.

The law resulted in a decline of at least 80 percent. Police found 138 laboratories from June to December, down from 673 for the same period the year before. The state had hit a high of 1,500 lab busts in 2004, but with the law, had 731 for 2005, and expects just 257 this year. Law enforcement says the costs of policing and cleaning up labs will drop to $528,000 next year from $2.6 million in 2004.

But here and in many of the states with recent pseudoephedrine restrictions, frustration with the stubborn rate of addiction has moved the discussion from enforcement to treatment and demand reduction.

That discussion, officials say, will be much tougher.

After listening to Mr. Van Haaften's report on the effects of the law this week, State Representative Clel Baudler, a former state trooper who now heads the public safety committee for the Iowa General Assembly, charged his committee to come back to the next meeting with strategies to reduce demand.

"My fear is, when I ask what they think we should do, they'll say 'I don't know,' " Mr. Baudler said in an interview afterward. "We've increased penalties, we've increased prison time, we're still not getting in front of it."

Officials say they never advertised the law as one that would reduce methamphetamine addiction. Still, they are surprised at how the drug has hung on.

"Things that are highly destructive, including diseases, tend to be self-limiting," said Arthur Schut, president of the Mid-Eastern Council on Chemical Abuse in Iowa City, and a member of the state's drug policy advisory council. "This has been devastating. It's remarkable how quickly people are damaged by it."

Mr. Van Haaften, too, knows that it was too much to hope that the law would reduce demand. Still, he says, "I had a little hope."

"I knew of the addictive nature, but in my heart, I believed people didn't want to deal with dealers," he said. "They have guns, it's dangerous, if you make your own it's safer. I hoped for a dip, but the availability did not allow that to happen."

Study Finds Heroin Doesn't Hook with One Hit

MELBOURNE, Australia (Melbourne Age) November 8, 2005 -- British researchers say a recent study debunks the theory that heroin users can get hooked on the drug after taking the drug just one or two times.

University of Plymouth researchers led by Ross Coomber said that their study of 72 heroin users showed that "some people took five years, some people took six months" to get addicted, Coomber said. But, he added, "Regardless of the length of time that any of these people took, none of them were instantly addicted."

"The reality is that addiction is a very complex interaction of social circumstances, personality and context in which people are using as well as the drug," Coomber said.

Even people who used heroin regularly -- up to three times weekly -- took an average of nine months to become daily users, the study found.

Coomber presented his findings at the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs conference in Melbourne, Australia, this week.
 

Methamphetamine Addiction Rate Climbs

Washington, DC (Join Together.org) The recently released 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that the percentage of the nation's estimated 600,000 monthly meth users who met the criteria for dependence rose from 27.5 percent (164,000) in 2002 to 59.3 percent (346,000) in 2004. Methamphetamine use rates have not increased in recent years, but more meth users are dependent on the drug, according to research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

"Methamphetamine is undeniably a uniquely destructive drug," said SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie. "While rates of use have remained relatively stable over the past few years, these new findings show that an increasing proportion of methamphetamine users are developing problems of drug abuse and dependence and are in need of treatment."

New users of methamphetamine also remained steady at about 318,000 in 2004, SAMHSA said.

Peyote Not Harmful to American Indians

BOSTON (AP) November 3, 2005 -- A study of the effects of peyote on American Indians found no evidence that the hallucinogenic cactus caused brain damage or psychological problems among people who used it frequently in religious ceremonies.

In fact, researchers from Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital found that members of the Native American Church performed better on some psychological tests than other Navajos who did not regularly use peyote.

A 1994 federal law allows roughly 300,000 members of the Native American Church to use peyote as a religious sacrament. The five-year study set out to find scientific proof for the Navajos' belief that the substance, which contains the hallucinogen mescaline, is not hazardous to their health even when used frequently.

The study was conducted among Navajos in the Southwest by McLean psychiatrist John Halpern. It compared test results for 60 church members who have used peyote at least 100 times against those for 79 Navajos who do not regularly use peyote and 36 tribe members with a history of alcohol abuse but minimal peyote use.

Those who had abused alcohol fared worse on the tests than the church members, according to the study.

Church members believe peyote offers them spiritual and physical healing, but the researchers could not say with any certainty that peyote's pharmacological effects were responsible for their test results.

``It's hard to know how much of it is the sense of community they get (from the religion) and how much of it is the actual experience of using the medication itself,'' said Harrison Pope, the study's senior author and director of the biological psychology laboratory at the hospital near Boston.

The researchers argue that their findings should offer ``reassurance'' to the 10,000 Native American Church members serving in the military who were barred from using peyote before new guidelines were adopted in 1997.

``We find no evidence that a history of peyote use would compromise the psychological or cognitive abilities of these individuals,'' they wrote in their paper published in the Nov. 4 issue of Biological Psychiatry.

The researchers note that their study draws a clear distinction between illicit and religious use of peyote. They did not rule out the possibility that other hallucinogens, such as LSD, may be harmful.

``In comparison to LSD, mescaline is described as more sensual and perceptual and less altering of thought and sense of self,'' they wrote, adding that peyote does not seem to produce ``flashbacks'' the same way that LSD apparently does.

The project was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A NIDA spokeswoman would not comment on the study.

Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor who was not involved in the research, said the study lends scientific weight to a long-held belief that peyote is not harmful.

``The thing that excites me most about the paper is that the study was actually done,'' he said. ``The U.S. government - and NIDA, in particular - has been rather balky about allowing studies of psychedelic drugs of any kind.''

Children Exposed to Meth Can Be Helped, Expert Says

Des Monies, Iowa (Ottawa Sun) October 24, 2005 -- Children exposed to alcohol in utero often suffer permanent brain damage, but those exposed to methamphetamine or cocaine can recover without lasting ill-effects, according to a leading expert on meth-exposed children.

The Ottawa Sun reported Oct. 24 that child-welfare officials in states like Iowa are encountering thousands of children each year with drugs in their systems.

Rizwan Shah, M.D., a pediatrician at Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines, said he sees up to six meth-exposed children daily. Shah said methamphetamine use during pregnancy will have the same effects on the fetus as on the mother -- including diminished ability to learn new skills and interact with the outside world.

"The brain has to be able to develop appropriate responses and not get overwhelmed and stressed out," Shah said. "And methamphetamine babies do show deficiencies in their ability to accommodate those changes that arise as a part of their social interaction and their body functions, like sleeping and eating."

But these impairments need not be permanent. "Alcohol is the only drug that can cause mental retardation in a child," Shah said. "Fetal alcohol syndrome babies, 80 percent of them are mentally retarded. Neither crack cocaine nor methamphetamine cause mental retardation."

Cough Syrup Abuse Cases High in Houston

HOUSTON, TX (AP) August 16, 2005-- Houston has become known nationally as the "City of Syrup" because the abuse of codeine-fortified cough syrup among the city's youth is so widespread, a local researcher says.

The reputation is reflected in a trial that begins Tuesday of six pharmacists charged with illegally dispensing the highly addictive prescription cough syrup codeine with promethazine.

About 30 percent of the teenagers in the Houston area have used the syrup at least once, said Ron Peters, a professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

The figures from Peter's 2004 study top his 2003 study, which showed 25 percent of teenagers at six alternative schools in Harris County had used the drug at least once. Peters did not name the schools.

"Anything over 4 percent in the last 30 days is a major drug problem," Peters said.

Troy Jefferson, who heads a drug treatment center for children and adolescents at Riverside General Hospital in Houston, said those figures may be too conservative.

Jefferson said that, out of more than 5,000 teens treated at the clinic in the past seven years, as many as 35 percent had tried prescription cough syrup more than once.

Jury selection begins today in the retrial of pharmacists John David Wiley III, 40, and Anthony Dwayne Essett, 38, co-owners of I-10 East Pharmaceutical Services; Otukayode Adeleke Otufale, 44, owner of Med Stop Pharmacy; Isaac Simeon Achobe, 50, owner of American Choice Pharmacy; and Chicha Kazembe Combs, 29, and Andre Dion Brown, 37, co-owners of Mason Road Pharmacy in Katy.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered the retrial after a jury in May was unable to reach a verdict.

The six are charged in a 170-count indictment of illegally dispensing thousands of gallons of the cough syrup and thousands of tablets of hydrocodone, a synthetic narcotic used as a painkiller. They also are charged with conspiracy and money laundering.

Rap music developed by a Houston record producer D.J. Screw reportedly promotes the drug known on the street as "syrup, lean, purple, syzurp, drank or purple jelly."

The producer, whose real name was Robert Earl Davis Jr., developed a slowed-down form of rap called "screwed." He died in 2000 of an overdose of the drug.

Peters said screwed music and the abuse of the cough syrup has spread nationwide and into Canada. The popularity has given Houston nicknames such as "City of Syrup and City of Lean," he said.

"Now, Houston is setting the trend for the drug culture and it is being spread through rap," he said. "This is something that is a major problem throughout the United States."