Category: Illegal Drugs

The current study recruited teens in shopping malls across the United States, asking them to complete a web-based questionnaire on their use of substances including alcohol, tobacco, and both legal and illegal drugs. They were also asked whether they struggled with anxiety, felt a desire to be popular, sought out exciting activities, and what level of risk they associated with prescription drugs.

 

Legal drugs such as OxyContin now kill more people than heroin and cocaine combined. While awareness of the dangers of illegal drugs has increased, many teens are still ignorant of the significant physical danger posed by legally prescribed drugs, according to a new study.

 

On the whole, prescription drug use increased in direct proportion to psychological states such as anxiety, and use of other restricted substances such as alcohol. Under some conditions, however, prescription drug abuse accelerated exponentially, such as when the level of anxiety or desire to be popular was at its very highest.

 

"Teens need help before they reach these tipping points for prescription drug abuse. Adults spotting teens with very high levels of anxiety and at least moderate use of other restricted substances should realize that these are students with a high likelihood of prescription drug abuse. Male teens with a high need to be popular and teens in general appear to be at exceptional risk. Campaigns must target parents as well, since they clearly underestimate both the physical risks of prescription drugs and the likelihood that their children will abuse these drugs," conclude the authors.

 

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Story Source

1. This story is based on materials provided by American Marketing Association (AMA). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Referance

1. Richard Netemeyer, Scot Burton, Barbara Delaney, Gina Hijjawi. The Legal High: Factors Affecting Young Consumers' Risk Perceptions and Abuse of Prescription Drugs. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2014; 150114105810009 DOI: 10.1509/jppm.14.073

New research indicates that urban native American youth who follow American Indian traditional spiritual beliefs are less likely to use drugs and alcohol. Arizona State University social scientists will present their findings at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver, Colorado.

The study, "Spirituality and Religion: Intertwined Protective Factors for Substance Use Among Urban American Indian Youth," was recently published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. The authors are: Stephen Kulis, the study's principal investigator and ASU School of Social and Family Dynamics professor; David R. Hodge, ASU School of Social Work associate professor; Stephanie L. Ayers, ASU Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center associate director of research; Eddie F. Brown, ASU American Indian Studies professor and American Indian Policy Institute executive director; and Flavio F. Marsiglia, ASU School of Social Work professor.

"Most American Indians now live in cities rather than tribal communities. Our study is one of the few to address the role of spirituality and religion among urban Native youth, recognizing the unique histories of cultural integration that characterize today's urban American Indian communities and the complex belief systems and practices that sustain them in the urban landscape," Kulis said.

Among the general native American youth population, higher rates of substance (both drug and alcohol) abuse are reported than among their non-native American counterparts. They also are more likely to use heavier amounts, initiate substance use earlier, and have more severe consequences from substance use, according to past research.

Native Americans typically do not separate spirituality from other areas of their lives, making it a complex, cultural and intertwined aspect of their daily existence.

Researchers found that adherence to native American beliefs was the strongest predictor of anti-drug attitudes, norms, and expectations. Concerning substance use, aspects of spirituality and religion associated with lower levels of use were affiliation with the Native American Church and following Christian beliefs.

Data for the study were collected from native American students enrolled in five urban middle schools within a large southwestern city in 2009. The average age of the 123 respondents was 12.6 years old.

Most of the study respondents expressed strong anti-drug and alcohol beliefs, with the majority stating that they "definitely would not" use alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana if given an opportunity (55 percent) and that it was "definitely not okay" for students their age to use those substances.

Respondents also felt that their parents (78 percent) and grandparents (69 percent) would be "very angry" if they used drugs or alcohol and 51 percent stated they were "very sure" that they would reject any substance offers.

Also notable was that about half (53 percent) had resisted offers of drugs in the past 30 days.

Spirituality was reflected as an important aspect in students' lives. More than 80 percent of respondents said that spirituality held some importance to them and was part of their lives. Seventy-nine percent of the students felt it was "somewhat" or "very important" to follow traditional American Indian beliefs and about half felt it was important to follow Christian beliefs.

However, a general sense of spirituality that did not refer specifically to native American traditions, beliefs, or culture was not found to be a deterrent against substance use.

"Rituals and ceremonies have helped American Indian communities adapt to change, integrate elements of different tribes, infuse aspects of Western organized religions, and make them their own," according to the paper.

In addition, the paper states that possessing a feeling of belonging to traditions from both American Indian and Christian cultures may foster integration of the two worlds in which urban American Indian youth live.

New research indicates marijuana-like compounds called endocannabinoids alter genes and biological signals critical to the formation of a normal placenta during pregnancy and may contribute to pregnancy complications like preeclampsia.

A study in the Sept. 14 edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry offers new evidence that abnormal biological signaling by endocannabinoid lipid molecules produced by the body disrupts the movement of early embryonic cells important to a healthy pregnancy, in particular trophoblast cells that form the placenta. Abnormal placental function is common in preeclampsia — a medical condition of unknown cause that is a danger to mother and child.

The research — from scientists in the Division of Reproductive Sciences at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center — analyzed mouse preimplantation embryos mutated to alter endocannabinoid signaling. They found that either silencing or enhancing endocannabinoid signaling adversely affects trophoblast stem cell migration.

"The findings or our investigation raise concerns that exposure to cannabis products may adversely affect early embryo development that is then perpetuated later in pregnancy," said Sudhansu K. Dey, PhD., principal investigator on the study and division director. "Also, given that endocannabinoid signaling plays a key role in the central nervous system, it would be interesting in future studies to examine whether affected cell migration-related genes in early embryos also participate in neuronal cell migration during brain development."

Along with co-first authors Huirong Xie and Xiaofei Sun, Dey and other members of the research team studied mouse embryos that had not yet implanted inside the uterus of the mother. Previous research by Dey's laboratory has shown the timing of critical events in early pregnancy, including when and how well an embryo implants in the uterus, is vital to a healthy pregnancy and birth.

In the current study, researchers conducted DNA microarray analyses to determine how the expression levels of genes important to healthy embryo development were affected in embryos with abnormal endocannabinoid signaling.

In one group of embryos endocannabinoid signaling was silenced by deleting the gene Cnr1, which activates endocannabinoid signaling processes. A second group of mice was mutated to produce elevated endocannabinoid levels similar to that observed in wild type mice treated with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active psychotropic agent in cannabis. This was done by deleting the gene Faah, which breaks down molecules that activate endocannabinoid signaling.

In both groups, the expression of numerous genes known to be important to cell movement and embryo development was lower than in normal wild type mice. This included the development and migration of trophoblast stem cells. Trophoblast cells help anchor the conceptus with the uterus and also form much of the placenta, critical to establishment of maternal-fetal circulation and exchange of nutrients.

Researchers said mouse models developed for the current study (with silenced and elevated endocannabinoid signaling) may help advance more extensive studies on the causes of preeclampsia.

Among a long-range study cohort of more than 1,000 New Zealanders, individuals who started using cannabis in adolescence and used it for years afterward showed an average decline in IQ of 8 points when their age 13 and age 38 IQ tests were compared. Quitting pot did not appear to reverse the loss either, said lead researcher Madeline Meier, a post-doctoral researcher at Duke University. The results appear online Aug. 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The key variable in this is the age of onset for marijuana use and the brain's development, Meier said. Study subjects who didn't take up pot until they were adults with fully-formed brains did not show similar mental declines. Before age 18, however, the brain is still being organized and remodeled to become more efficient, she said, and may be more vulnerable to damage from drugs.

"Marijuana is not harmless, particularly for adolescents," said Meier, who produced this finding from the long term Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. The study has followed a group of 1,037 children born in 1972-73 in Dunedin, New Zealand from birth to age 38 and is led by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, psychologists who hold dual appointments at Duke and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London.

About 5 percent of the study group were considered marijuana-dependent, or were using more than once a week before age 18. A dependent user is one who keeps using despite significant health, social or family problems.

At age 38, all of the study participants were given a battery of psychological tests to assess memory, processing speed, reasoning and visual processing. The people who used pot persistently as teens scored significantly worse on most of the tests. Friends and relatives routinely interviewed as part of the study were more likely to report that the persistent cannabis users had attention and memory problems such as losing focus and forgetting to do tasks.

The decline in IQ among persistent cannabis users could not be explained by alcohol or other drug use or by having less education, Moffitt said.

While 8 IQ points may not sound like a lot on a scale where 100 is the mean, a loss from an IQ of 100 to 92 represents a drop from being in the 50th percentile to being in the 29th, Meier said. Higher IQ correlates with higher education and income, better health and a longer life, she said. "Somebody who loses 8 IQ points as an adolescent may be disadvantaged compared to their same-age peers for years to come," Meier said.

Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychologist who was not involved in the research, said this study is among the first to distinguish between cognitive problems the person might have had before taking up marijuana, and those that were apparently caused by the drug. This is consistent with what has been found in animal studies, Steinberg added, but it has been difficult to measure in humans.

Animal studies involving nicotine, alcohol and cocaine have shown that chronic exposures before the brain is fully developed can lead to more dependence and long-term changes in the brain. "This study points to adolescence as a time of heightened vulnerability," Steinberg said. "The findings are pretty clear that it is not simply chronic use that causes deficits, but chronic use with adolescent onset."

What isn't possible to know from this study is what a safer age for persistent use might be, or what dosage level causes the damage, Meier said. After many years of decline among US teens, daily marijuana use has been seen to increase slightly in the last few years, she added. Last year, for the first time, US teens were more likely to be smoking pot than tobacco.

"The simple message is that substance use is not healthy for kids," Avshalom Caspi said via email from London. "That's true for tobacco, alcohol, and apparently for cannabis."

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Journal Reference:

1. Madeline H. Meier, Avshalom Caspi, Antony Ambler, HonaLee Harrington, Renate Houts, Richard S. E. Keefe, Kay McDonald, Aimee Ward, Richie Poulton, and Terrie E. Moffitt. Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1206820109

A study published in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that diverted medical marijuana use among adolescents receiving treatment for substance abuse is very common.

A new risk management plan from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to help clinicians properly prescribe drugs with addiction potential aims to help reduce the growing epidemic of opioid abuse in the United States. With deaths associated with these drugs, often sold illegally, now reaching toward 14,000 each year — including the fatal shootings of two Philadelphia teenagers last week in a house where police found large quantities of Percocet and morphine, prescription drug pads, and more than $100,000 in cash — the authors of a Viewpoint piece in the new issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association say the new plan represents a promising opportunity to cut the amount of addictive prescription drugs in circulation for sale and abuse.

 Just over two percent of teens in rural schools who have ever tried alcohol, marijuana or other drugs report they have also traded sex for these substances, according to University of British Columbia research published August 1 in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. This is the first study to track this issue among rural students.

NewsPsychology (July 16, 2012) — U of S researchers have discovered the chemical pathway that Cannabis sativa uses to create bioactive compounds called cannabinoids, paving the way for the development of marijuana varieties to produce pharmaceuticals or cannabinoid-free industrial hemp. The research appears online in the July 16 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

U of S adjunct professor of biology Jon Page explains that the pathway is an unusual one, involving a specialized version of one enzyme, called hexanoyl-CoA synthetase, and another enzyme, called olivetolic acid cyclase (OAC), that has never before been seen in plants.

“What cannabis has done is take a rare fatty acid with a simple, six-carbon chain and use it as a building block to make something chemically complex and pharmacologically active,” Page says.

Page led the research with PhD student Steve Gagne, who discovered OAC, and postdoctoral researcher Jake Stout, who discovered hexanoyl-CoA synthetase (reported earlier this year in The Plant Journal).

Cannabis has been cultivated for thousands of years for food, fibre, medicine and as a psychoactive drug. Cannabinoids such as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, are produced on the flowers of the female plant in tiny hair-like structures called trichomes, the plant’s own “chemical factories.” The researchers used genomic analysis of isolated trichome cells to produce a catalog of the genes involved in cannabinoid production.

Page and his colleagues have already used the new enzymes to coax yeast to produce olivetolic acid, a key metabolic intermediate on the biochemical pathway that leads to cannabinoids.

“Now that we know the pathway, we could develop ways to produce cannabinoids with yeast or other microorganisms, which could be a valuable alternative to chemical synthesis for producing cannabinoids for the pharmaceutical industry,” Page says.

There are more than 100 known cannabinoids, only a few of which have been explored for their possible medicinal uses. THC is the main psychoactive cannabinoid, responsible for the “high” sought by recreational users, as well as medicinal effects such as pain relief, nausea suppression and appetite stimulation. More than 19,000 patients in Canada are authorized to legally use marijuana to benefit from these effects, and many others use cannabinoid-containing drugs via prescription. Another important cannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD) has anti-anxiety and neuro-protective properties.

Page explains that knowledge of the cannabinoid-making pathway could also make matters easier for Canadian farmers. Plant breeders can now look for cannabis strains that lack key parts of the cannabinoid-making pathway, which would allow for zero-THC varieties (current Canadian regulations call for no more than 0.3 per cent THC for industrial hemp, compared to 15 per cent or higher in the more potent marijuana varieties).

Although hemp cultivation in Canada dates back to the 1600s in Quebec, today industrial hemp is a niche crop, grown mostly on the Prairies. Its popularity fluctuates considerably, with about 15,700 hectares (39,000 acres) grown in 2011 according to statistics from Health Canada, which regulates the crop.

While hemp is well-known as a fibre crop for everything from textiles, rope and paper, it is more often grown in Canada for its seed. Hemp seed, which is high in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, is marketed for its healthy qualities. It is used in everything from lactose-free hemp milk, breakfast cereals, snack foods and protein supplements for athletes. Hemp oil is also used in cosmetic skin care products.

Funding for this research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Genome Canada PhytoMetaSyn project, Genome Prairie, Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture and the National Research Council.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Saskatchewan, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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