Scared Smokeless

Will New Yorkers quit smoking if you frighten them?

If it looks grim, that’s because it’s meant to. And if you don’t like that one, the New York Health Department has several other yucky pictures you’re bound to dislike just as much.

That’s the idea, anyway. Whether or not it proves successful or even useful is another matter. Yesterday, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene rolled out its new series of revolting matchbooks designed to help undercut tobacco industry marketing schemes. By focusing awareness on the graphic presentation of smoking’s worst effects, the campaign hopes to highlight the ugly side of the public health equation and reinforce this message by associating cigarettes with pictorial representations of gum disease, blackened lungs, and throat cancer.

“The tobacco industry spends $13 billion dollars each year promoting smoking by showing glamorous, healthful images,” the Health Department’s Sarah B. Perl said in a press release. “The reality of smoking is ugly and devastating. We hope these images will encourage New Yorkers to get the help they need to quit.”

Health officials are keying off several similar campaigns conducted in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Thailand, and other countries. However, in those countries, the grisly images have been placed directly on cigarette packs, rather than on matchbooks. Cigarettes sold in Canada must have warning labels that occupy at least 50% of the principal display space on the pack.

While inconspicuous text boxes with dire warnings have been mandatory on cigarette packs and other nicotine products for more than forty years in the U.S., the current warnings have not been updated since 1984, according to New York health officials.

According to the September 22 New York Times, the matchbooks will be distributed for free in the neighborhoods that have so far proven the most resistant to public anti-smoking campaigns—the heavy-smoking neighborhoods of East Harlem, the South Bronx, and Brooklyn.

In the Times article by Sewell Chan, Dr. Susan D. Karabin of the American Academy of Periodontology said: “These images are accurate: Smoking interferes with healing, with the immune system, and if you have periodontal disease—a chronic, low-grade infection—it exacerbates it, and makes the body less able to deal with that infection.” The result, said Karabin, is that smokers lose more teeth than non-smokers do. She supported the new “Eating You Alive” matchbook campaign: “Unfortunately, I think it does take scare tactics to get people to stop smoking.”

Graphic credit: NYC Health

smoking nicotine

Cindy McCain’s Drug Addiction

She’s no Betty Ford.

In 1989, Cindy McCain had back surgery for ruptured disks. By her own admission, she became addicted to powerful painkillers—Vicodin and Percocet. Mrs. McCain spoke openly on television about her addiction, which had culminated in 1992 with an intervention staged by her parents. She told Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show” that she wanted to talk about the experience as often as possible, “because I don’t want anyone to wind up in the shoes that I did at the time.” She also penned a column about her addiction for Newsweek in 2001, and did an interview for Harper’s Bazaar.

As it turns out, however, Mrs. McCain’s openness about her addiction may have been the involuntary result of a yearlong DEA investigation into her drug use. Moreover, it is far from clear that addiction awareness and treatment are high on her list of First Lady priorities, should John McCain win in November.

Writing in the September 15 New Yorker, Ariel Levy says that the McCain campaign “has attempted to portray McCain’s past addiction to prescription painkillers and her public statements about it as a Betty Ford-style story of altruism and accountability.” However, in an investigation by the Washington Post into the circumstances surrounding Mrs. McCain’s 4-year bout with painkillers, reporter Kimberly Kindy writes: “Her misuse of painkillers prompted an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and local prosecutors that put her in legal jeopardy. A doctor with McCain’s medical charity who supplied her with prescriptions for the drugs lost his license and never practiced again. The charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team, eventually had to be closed in the wake of the controversy.”

The Washington Post probe, based in part on official county records in Phoenix, documented that Mrs. McCain obtained her drugs from her medical charity non-profit organization through the group’s medical director, who wrote prescriptions for her in the names of unsuspecting employees. The Phoenix New Times obtained excerpts from a journal kept by an employee of the American Voluntary Medical team. One such excerpt begins: “I do not know what Cindy is up to but it appears as though she is trying to use several doctors’ DEA #s so that she can acquire drugs for personal use....”

In 1993, the DEA began to take an interesting in Cindy McCain’s case. The DEA pursued the investigation for almost a year, during which Mrs. McCain hired John Down, the attorney who had defending her husband in the Keating 5 scandal. She faced several federal charges, including fraud and forgery, which could have resulted in a jail sentence of up to 20 years. According to the Post, “Down negotiated a deal with the U.S attorney’s office allowing McCain, as a first-time offender, to avoid charges and enter a diversion program that required community service, drug treatment, and reimbursement to the DEA for investigative costs.”

Mrs. McCain has not publically discussed the nature of the treatment she received as a result of the deal. The Washington Post article said that “the only public reference to treatment is her mention in the county investigator’s report of a one-week stay at the Meadows,” a treatment facility in Arizona.

First Lady Betty Ford went through a similar addictive ordeal with painkillers. From her biography at the National First Ladies’ Library:

“Her family became alarmed with Betty’s drinking and apparent addiction to pain pills. In 1978, just before her 60th birthday, they had an intervention. Thereafter, Betty Ford checked into the Long Beach Naval Hospital for treatment. The treatment was tough, but she later acknowledged that it probably saved her life.

“Betty’s experiences led her to create the Betty Ford Treatment Center in Rancho Mirage, California. From the start, Mrs. Ford was open with what she had gone through. The Center has become her greatest accomplishment. As the head of the Board, she continues to be actively involved in the Center.”

What Type of Drinker Are You?

U.K health officials classify problem drinkers.

In an effort to combat problem drinking with “social marketing techniques,” the British Department of Health has released a study purporting to break down heavy drinkers into 9 distinct personality types, according to the U.K. Guardian.

British Department of Health researchers performed the studies at the behest of the National Health Service, which says that alcohol-related illnesses cost England almost $5 billion each year. It was unclear what criteria were used to identify and define the nine types.

BBC news quoted Health Minister Dawn Primarolo on the findings: "This will be a tough one to crack. Research found many positive associations with alcohol among the general public - even more so among those drinking at higher-risk levels. For these people alcohol is embedded in their identity and lifestyle: so much so that challenging this behaviour results in high levels of defensiveness, rejection or even outright denial."

The idea behind the investigation is to identify the social and psychological characteristics of problem drinkers “in an attempt to devise more effective public health campaigns to encourage safer use of alcohol.”

THE NINE TYPES OF DRINKER

1) Depressed drinker:
Life in a state of crisis. Alcohol as self-medication, comforter. Any sex, all age groups.

2) De-stress drinker:
Stressful job and/or home life. Alcohol as relaxation, dividing line between work and personal life. Middle class men and women.

3) Re-bonding drinker:
People with a crammed calendar. Alcohol as “shared connector,” a means of keeping close to others.

4) Conformist drinker:
Traditonalist drinker. Alcohol as “me time,” the pub as second home, a sense of belonging. Typically middle-aged men in blue-collar or clerical jobs.

5) Community drinker:
Alcohol as social network, a sense of safety and security. Lower middle class men and women who drink in large social groups.

6) Boredom drinker:
Alcohol as stimulation, comfort in isolation. Often single moms or recent divorcees.

7) Macho drinker:
Alpha males, drinking as an assertion of masculinity, alcohol as a competition.

8) Hedonistic drinker:
Excessive drinking as an assertion of independence, freedom, release from inhibitions. Often single or divorced men or women, or older drinkers with grown children.

9) Border dependents:
Alcohol as a defense against the need to conform, and a general sense of malaise. Typically men for whom the pub is “home.”

The research was done as part of a renewed effort to to crack down on heavy drinkers. A pilot program will be undertaken over the coming months to target heavy drinkers. More than 900,000 households will be mailed information highlighting the link between drinking and conditions such as cancer and liver disease.


photo credit: http://www.ulv.edu

alcoholics anonymous

Alcohol and Medicine: When Drugs Interact

Is it okay if I drink with these pills?

We've all seen the warnings; the labels on prescription bottles telling us not to mix the pills with alcohol. The warnings tell us that alcohol may blunt or enhance or nullify the effect of the prescribed drugs.

But what's so bad about mixing alcohol with common medications? What, really, can go wrong? "Nausea and vomiting, headaches, drowsiness, fainting, or loss of coordination," according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). "It can also put you at risk for internal bleeding, heart problems, and difficulties breathing. In addition to these dangers, alcohol can make a medication less effective or even useless, or it may make the medication harmful or toxic to your body."

The NIAAA reminds consumers that certain medicines, such as cough syrup and laxatives, may contain up to 10 per cent alcohol to begin with. Moreover, older people are at particular risk, since the body breaks down alcohol more slowly with age. Woman are also at high risk for drug/alcohol interactions, since blood--alcohol levels are typically higher in women than in men after consuming the same amount of alcohol.

Finally, the NIAAA advises, "Timing is important. Alcohol and medicines can interact harmfully even if they are not taken at the same time."

Herewith, a partial listing of drug/alcohol reactions to watch out for, taken from the NIAAA's publication, "Harmful Interactions: Mixing Alcohol with Medicines."

Possible reactions with alcohol:

--Angina: Isordil, Nitroglycerin. Rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting.

--Anxiety and Epilepsy: Librium, Valium, Xanax, etc. Increased risk of overdose, difficulty breathing, impaired motor control, memory problems.

--Blood clots: Coumadin (Warfarin). Internal bleeding, strokes, heart attacks.

--Depression: Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, etc. Drowsiness, dizziness, increased risk of overdose.

--Diabetes: Glucophage, Orinase, etc. Abnormally low blood sugar, flushing reaction, nausea, vomiting.

--Arthritis: Celebrex, Naprosyn, Voltaren. Ulcers, stomach bleeding, liver problems.

--High blood pressure: Catapres, Cardura, Lopressor, etc. Dizziness, fainting, arrhythmia.

--High cholesterol: Crestor, Lipitor, Pravachol, etc. Liver damage.

--Infections: Acrodantin, Flagyl, Grisactin, Nizoral, Nydrazid, Seromycin, Tindamax: Rapid heartbeat, stomach pain, vomiting, flushing.

--Severe pain: Demerol, Percocet, Vicodin, etc. Drowsiness, dizziness, increased risk of overdose, difficulty breathing, impaired motor control.

--Sleep problems: Ambien, Lunesta, Sominex, etc. Dizziness, difficulty breathing, impaired motor control, memory problems.

--Enlarged prostate: Cardura, Flomax, etc. Dizziness, fainting.

And don't forget the herbals: Alcohol with Kava Kava may cause liver damage; alcohol with St. John's Wort risks dizziness and overdose. Chamomile, valerian and lavender will increase drowsiness when mixed with alcohol.

This post available at ArticlesBase.

[Guest Post] Conspiracy Theories on the Legalization of Marijuana

A humorous look at the pot wars.

From "WebPreneur" Sarah Scrafford comes this list of reasons not to legalize pot. As Scrafford writes, "this isn’t intended as a serious policy article (so no hate mail please!). Rather, its intended to be a chance for everyone to take a step back and laugh at some of the truly nuttiest conspiracy theories put forth from both sides of the aisle.... It is my hope that this regaining of perspective will allow people on both sides of the debate to recognize the extremes often taken and find a middle ground that in the end will serve all parties better."

The complete post can be found at Web Designs School Guide:

-- The legalization of Mary Jane will turn America’s youth into useless consumer hippies: Forget for a moment that the 2006 Monitoring the Future survey found that about two out of five seniors in high school have tried marijuana and still managed to get into Harvard and Rice. These suburbia dwellers want their three children protected from the other two.

--Legalization is just another way to quail the masses: Like the LSD and AIDS conspiracies of yesteryear, card carrying members of this covert plot think that legalizing Mary Jane would solely benefit the government. With everyone listening to reggae, there would be no time to exercise the first amendment.

--Legalization will help the terrorists win: If cannabis were made legal, the terror alert in America would rise to code ‘impending doom green’ according to these theorists. Islamic extremists have been pushing Mary Jane on otherwise responsible citizens in an effort to fund terrorist plots to take over free society. Keep in mind that these extremists have a diverse portfolio, and are also using oil, the media, and Google to supplement their incomes.

The legalization movement is an elaborate plot by pharmaceutical companies to get people addicted to drugs: The overall substance is classified by the government as a gateway drug, and may encourage people to use drugs to cure what ails them. Big companies like Pfizer and Merck & Co could benefit greatly from a society trained to use drugs to feel better.

Marijuana causes schizophrenia, and if legalized will render the masses mentally unstable: Hefty pdf documents coming from researchers in England and Australia have initially found that there might be a slight correlation between the use of marijuana and hearing voices. Experts cite that childhood use can be traced to as much as 14 per cent of psychotic episodes later in life, and suggests the legalization of marijuana would severely affect the health of generations to come. In the same articles though, stress is equally seen as a cause of schizophrenia. Commentators have largely written off these findings as anything from shoddy research to funding holes for lobbyist organizations.

Society as we know it will collapse, and anarchistic potheads will rule the world: The logic here is that once marijuana is legalized, it is only a matter of time before everything else becomes legal. Soon people will be knee deep in a plethora of mind-altering substances, and society will suffer. With everyone on an assumed perpetual high, things like traffic flow and social moirés will cease to have meaning. This classic slippery slope argument can be applied to anything, all with the eventual downfall of human society. Picture the ending scene from Planet of the Apes.

Photo Credit: blameitonthevoices.blogspot.com

U.K. Expands Production of Homegrown Opium

Meanwhile, British soldiers destroy poppy fields in Afghanistan.

The British government has been quietly recruiting growers for a program of licensed cultivation of poppies for morphine in an effort to stem shortages of the drug at the National Health Service.
This summer, various British newspapers have confirmed that more than 6,400 acres of cropland on a dozen different farms in Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire have been converted to opium production.

The result, according to the London Daily Mail, is "an increasingly visible crop in the British countryside." According to the London Times, the British government had been hoping to keep a low profile on the project, with the poppies being grown at undisclosed locations.

A spokesperson for Macfarlan Smith told the Times the effort was undertaken "to maintain the reliability of supply."

Meanwhile, British troops have sustained casualties in an attempt to combat the soaring opium harvest in Afghanistan, and the attendant violence and corruption. So far this year, British troops have destroyed more than 64,000 acres of poppies in the Afghan fields. The fact that the same crop being grown in Great Britain is also being systematically destroyed in Afghanistan has sparked discussions about buying opium directly from Afghan farmers. However, as the Times reports: "With the illegal Afghan crop providing 90 per cent of the heroin trade in Britain alone, the possibility of medical uses for it has never been viewed as practical or realistic."

The first trial programs to plant opium poppies with Home Office approval began in 2003. Macfarlan Smith, a drug concern located in Edinburgh, is the official processor. A spokesman for Macfarlan's parent company, Johnson Matthey, told the U.K. Herald that his company was "the only company processing poppies in this way in the U.K. The same crop is grown in Afghanistan, India and Turkey for illegitimate reasons."

"If you are interested in growing poppies," says Macfarlan Smith on its web site, "you must have free-draining soil, have a pH over seven and have an on-floor drying system." A farmer in Oxfordshire told the Daily Mail: "It is worthwhile from a farmer's point of view and it's an expanding market."

It is legal for anyone to grow opium poppies (papaver somniferum) without a license, but "the people who work to produce the drugs have to be licensed," a spokesperson for the Home Office said.

Photo Credit: deviantart.com

Drug for Cocaine Addicts Causes Weight Loss

Is Vigabatrin the next big diet pill?

The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory announced that obese rats lost weight on the experimental anti-cocaine drug vigabatrin, reinforcing the idea that certain forms of obesity--particularly binge eating--result from the same kinds of neurotransmitter disturbances that underlie vulnerability to addictive drugs like cocaine.

Amy DeMarco, lead author of the study, said in a press release from Brookhaven that the results "appear to demonstrate that vigabatrin induced satiety in these animals."

Earlier, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given Fast Track designation to vigabatrin, an anticonvulsant, for evaluation as an anti-craving drug for cocaine and methamphetamine addiction. If successful, it would be the first medication ever approved for the treatment of addiction to stimulants. The FDA has yet to approve the drug for use in the U.S., citing concerns about reports of retinal damage in patients overseas.

First synthesized as a drug treatment for epilepsy in 1974, vigabatrin increases brain levels of the neurotransmitter GABA, an inhibitory compound also implicated in alcoholism. According to a press release from Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a marketer of the drug under the trade name Sabril, “Sabril may block the euphoria associated with cocaine administration in humans and may suppress craving by increasing brain levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).” Increased brain levels of GABA, an inhibitory transmitter, result in higher levels of dopamine and serotonin. Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners is also testing a version of vigabatrin called CPP-109.

The weight loss study involved 50 genetically obese lab animals, and 50 normal animals. Each of the animals was given doses of vigabatrin or placebo for forty days. At the end of that period, the obese animals had lost 19 per cent of their body weight, while the non-obese animals lost from 12 to 20 per cent of their weight.

Brookhaven senior scientist Stephen Dewey, who did much of the early work on vigabatrin, said: "The fact that these results occurred in genetically obese animals offers hope that this drug could potentially treat severe obesity." In the lab press release, Dewey also observed that "This would appear to be true even if the obesity results from binge eating, as this disorder is characterized by eating patterns that are similar to drug-taking patterns in those with cocaine dependency."

Perhaps. But ten years ago, the research community was just as enthusiastic when a serotonin-boosting diet pill called Redux (dexfenfluramine) won full FDA approval in 1996. Redux was the first drug ever approved in the U.S. for the long-term treatment of obesity. But the euphoria didn’t last long. By the time Redux made the cover of Time, researchers were already rumbling about continued reports of high toxicity and hypertension in rat studies. Concerns about pulmonary hypertension arose, and in August, 1997, doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota reported serious heart valve abnormalities in 24 women taking the "phen-fen" combination.

A month later, at the FDA’s request, phen-fen and Redux were permanently pulled off the market.

Graphics Credit: SheKnows.com