Tag: News

Can Quitting Marijuana Improve Memory For Teens?

Impaired memory functions from marijuana use don’t have to be permanent.

New research on the impact of marijuana use among teenagers appears to corroborate other studies that suggest cannabis can be detrimental to the development of their brains.

However, the recent study also suggests that abstinence from marijuana use for 30 days or more may reverse its effect on memory, attention and the ability to retain new information.

The results of the research have raised additional questions about marijuana use and teenagers, including the possibility of permanent impairment if no abstinence is undertaken.

As Science News noted, studying marijuana use among this age group runs afoul of ethical issues—unlike adults, children can’t be asked to use a drug in order to study its effects. So the researchers—from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School—circumnavigated the problem by recruiting teenagers who reported using marijuana at least once a week to participate in their study.

Eighty-eight Boston-area teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 who reported weekly marijuana use were recruited, and 62 of them were offered money to stop using for a month. Payments increased as the month wore on, with some participants earning more than $500 for their abstinence.

Of the 62 that received payment, urine tests revealed that 55 of them were able to remain abstinent for the full 30 days. All 88 test subjects were also tested on levels of attention and memory; these included directional tests and the monitoring of number sequences, as well as retention of information.

The study results—which were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on October 30—found that while attention remained largely unchanged for the abstinent participants, they showed moderate improvement on memory tests, especially those that required them to remember lists of words. Those participants that continued to use marijuana during the test period showed no signs of improvement on these memory tests.

Neuropsychologist and study co-author Randi Schuster said that the test results showed that marijuana use can have a negative impact on how young people retain new information, but abstinence may play a role in reversing those effects. “From these data, we think that at least some of that impairment is not permanent,” she noted.

Response to the study results focused on the effect of marijuana use beyond the study time frame. “If somebody is using very heavily over a prolonged period of time, is there a point at which these functions may not recover?” asked clinical neuropsychologist April Thames of UCLA.

To answer these questions, Schuster and her fellow researchers plan additional, longer-term studies, including studying the effect on memory among 13- to 19-year-olds who abstain for a period of six months.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Anthony Scaramucci Thinks Trump Will Legalize Marijuana

During a recent interview, Scaramucci discussed how Trump may change his stance on legalization in the near future.

Anthony Scaramucci is predicting a greener future under the Trump administration.

Specifically, that is, he thinks the president will legalize marijuana during his last two years in office.

The former White House communications director offered his pro-pot prediction during a half-hour YouTube interview with Succeed.com founder Charles Peralo.

In the final minutes of the interview, which tackled everything from entrepreneurship to immigration to trade, Peralo lobbed a quick question about the odds of seeing Trump change his stance on marijuana legalization—and The Mooch responded without pause.

“I do. I think he’s going to legalize marijuana,” he said. “I think he’s waiting for after the midterms. I think he’s on the side of legalization. I think the attorney general probably wasn’t but I think the president is.”

The reference to stridently anti-marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the past tense prompted a follow-up. “He’s on his way out most likely?” Peralo asked.

“Yeah, I think he is,” Scaramucci responded. “Well I don’t wanna speak about that because anything happens in the Trump world.”

It’s not clear, as Marijuana Moment pointed out, whether Scaramucci’s prediction is based on gut feeling or insider knowledge—but he’s not the only politico highlighting the possibility of pot reform.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Fox Business that the president made a “solid commitment” to addressing pot legalization after the Nov. 6 elections.

“I have been talking to people inside the White House who know and inside the president’s entourage,” Rohrabacher told the TV network. “I have talked to them at length. I have been reassured that the president intends on keeping his campaign promise.”

The idea, Rohrabacher said, would be to greenlight medical marijuana on a federal level and leave individual states to decide on the legality of recreational pot.

“I would expect after the election we will sit down and we’ll start hammering out something that is specific and real,” the Congressman added.

To some, marijuana reform seems like a political necessity for the president. Conservative blog Hot Air predicted that any failure to approve pot could turn into a Democratic talking point against Trump in 2020.

“He could short-circuit that by getting out in front of the issue,” the website predicted. “Any other Republican president might expect blowback from seniors and evangelicals for making a move like that, but Trump isn’t ‘any other Republican president.’”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Opioid 10 Times Stonger Than Fentanyl Approved By FDA Amid Controversy

“It is certain that Dsuvia will worsen the opioid epidemic and kill people needlessly,” said one critical health expert.

Amid controversy and despite warnings from some in the medical community, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week green-lit a new opioid called Dsuvia, a drug estimated to be 10 times as strong as fentanyl.

The powerful painkiller is an under-the-tongue version of sufentanil, available in a pre-filled single-dose applicator, according to the federal agency. In theory, it would be used in hospitals, surgery centers and emergency departments.

Though it wouldn’t be available for take-home prescriptions, some worry that it will be diverted and abused—to deadly effect.

“It is certain that Dsuvia will worsen the opioid epidemic and kill people needlessly,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group said in a press release. “It will be taken by medical personnel and others for whom it has not been prescribed. And many of those will overdose and die.”

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb released a statement defending his agency’s decision, highlighting the drug’s potential for use in war in light of its specific packaging and formulation.

Because it is sublingual, the painkiller doesn’t necessitate venous access and doesn’t require that the patient be alert enough to swallow. That could make it incredibly useful in extreme emergency situations, such as on the battlefield—and that’s what drew the Department of Defense to take interest in the drug.

“This opioid formulation, along with Dsuvia’s unique delivery device, was a priority medical product for the Pentagon because it fills a specific and important, but limited, unmet medical need in treating our nation’s soldiers on the battlefield,” Gottlieb wrote.

Indeed, the Pentagon has poured millions of dollars in funding research by AcelRx, the drug company behind Dsuvia, according to the Washington Post.

Despite the assurances Gottlieb sought to offer, his agency generated controversy not just for its decision to approve the drug, but also for the way in which they did it.

The FDA advisory committee that recommended allowing the painkiller voted 10-3 in favor of the drug—even though committee chair Dr. Raeford Brown was out of town speaking at a medical conference, according to the Washington Post.

Brown condemned the decision, raising concerns about the efficacy data and the sponsor’s response to safety questions.

“Clearly the issue of the safety of the public is not important to the commissioner, despite his attempts to obfuscate and misdirect,” Brown wrote. “I will continue to hold the agency accountable for their response to the worst public health problem since the 1918 influenza epidemic.”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Slipknot’s Corey Taylor On Addiction: I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Now

Taylor reveals that it’s only been within the past year that he’s finally become a fan of who he is.

Slipknot’s Corey Taylor says there’s a lot about his own recovery and his new attitude towards it on his band’s new album and their Halloween single, “All Out Life.”

Taylor has spoken openly about his struggles with depression and having been the target of child abuse, and his coming to terms with the darkness he’s struggled with having changed his perspective not only on his life, but how he sees himself as well.

“I’m looking to the world through clearer eyes,” Taylor said on Beats1. “I’m also just starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces of my chapters that I’ve had to relinquish and let go of. I’ve said, ‘Look, if it wasn’t for all these dark things happening to me, I wouldn’t be the guy I am right now.’”

He says he’s also realizing his priorities have changed.

“This has made me deal with the fact that I am an addict. It’s made me deal with the fact that I’m in my 40s, I’ve got kids, and I need to take care of them. I’m dealing with all of these crazy things in my life that make me ‘me,’ and yet I should be embracing the fact that I’m alive,” he revealed. “I should be embracing the fact that I’m a father, I should be embracing the fact that I’m in two great bands.”

Taylor has in the past stood up to take on the role of a sober role model.

“It’s stronger to be that badass—to be the guy who sees it all, remembers it all, feels it all, and, at the end of the night, doesn’t need that quote-unquote party, you know. Because it’s hard in this industry; people are made to feel like they don’t belong, because they’re not a part of that. And it’s a shame,” he said in a past interview.

He’s lost a friend to the industry before—fellow Slipknot bass player Paul Gray in 2010. Gray died of a drug overdose caused by morphine and fentanyl.

It’s only recently that Taylor’s been able to forgive and learn to love himself.

“I was never a huge Corey Taylor fan, until maybe the last year or so,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘What? There’s a lot about me that’s really, really cool. I’ve luckily had a lot of great people around me to encourage that and go, ‘We’ve been saying that for years.’”

Slipknot’s newest album should be out next year, and the band is scheduled to headline Download Festival 2019. Their new single, “All Out Life,” debuted on Halloween.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Chris Cornell’s Family Sues His Doctor Over Singer’s Suicide

Vicky Cornell believes the doctor negligently prescribed her husband mood-altering drugs.

Chris Cornell shocked the rock world when he suddenly took his own life in May last year. Now his wife, Vicky Cornell, and their children are suing the doctor who prescribed Chris a slew of prescription drugs that Vicky believes led him to his death.

People obtained the lawsuit against Dr. Robert Koblin, which accuses him of “negligently and repeatedly [prescribing] mind-altering drugs and controlled substances,” including lorazepam and oxycodone.

Koblin is accused of failing to consider Chris’ history of drug abuse and not properly following up on how the medications he prescribed were affecting Chris, the suit alleges. The drugs “clouded [Cornell’s] judgment and caused him to engage in dangerous, impulsive behaviors that he was unable to control, which cost him his life.”

Chris was found dead at age 52, just hours after finishing a live performance with his band Audioslave. He had long struggled with substance abuse.

“I went from being a daily drug user at 13 to having bad drug experiences and quitting drugs by the time I was 14,” he told Rolling Stone in a 1994 interview.

At the time of his death, the late Soundgarden frontman had seven different drugs in his system, and although none of them were the actual cause of his death, Vicky believes an excess of anxiety drugs drove him to suicide.

“Approximately a year before he died, he was prescribed a benzodiazepine to help him sleep,” she said. “He had torn his shoulder. The pain in the shoulder was waking him up at night and it was keeping him up.”

There was no way he was suicidal, a family source believes. In the two weeks before his death, he delayed travel plans twice in order to avoid inclement weather. He even opted to drive a rental car for seven and a half hours instead of flying.

“Clearly someone who was so hesitant and fearful to fly in these situations valued their life,” the source said. “These are not indications of someone with no regard to their well-being.”

Following his death, Vicky said she found it hard not to blame herself. And, despite her husband being in a rock band, Chris was not another case of a hard rocker’s lifestyle catching up to him.

“My husband was the furthest thing from a rock star junkie. He just wasn’t,” she said. “He was the best husband, the greatest father. I lost my soulmate and the love of my life.”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
How Alcohol "Hijacks" Dopamine Pathways

Researchers explored how alcohol affects memories in a recent study.

While it’s long been known that alcohol affects the brain’s reward pathways, a new study has shed light on exactly how this happens and how it affects memories made while under the influence.

According to Inverse, Brown University researchers have proven that alcohol “affects a specific cell signaling pathway in the brains of fruit flies.”

The specific pathway is called “Notch,” Inverse reports, and is found in humans and most other multicellular organisms.

Karla Kaun, assistant professor of neuroscience at Brown University and the study’s corresponding author, tells Newsweek that the way alcohol affects signaling on the Notch pathway can affect associative memory, which can “drive addiction.”

“While you are drinking, you are forming memories for cues in your environment, like the feel of the glass or the bouquet of your wine, that become associated with the feeling of being intoxicated,” she said. “Our study provides genetic and biochemical evidence that fairly low doses of alcohol can activate a highly conserved cell-signaling pathway in the brain, leading to changes in expression of genes important for learning and memory.”

According to Inverse, the signaling of the Notch pathway plays a vital role in developing brains for embryos. But, until now, researchers say the impact of the Notch pathway in adults has been underestimated because the pathway could have to do with how alcohol affects dopamine, the neurotransmitter often connected with positive feelings and substance use disorder.

During the study, a group of fruit flies was trained to seek out alcohol. In that group, the activation of the Notch pathway affected the flies by changing a certain gene. While alcohol did not decrease, increase or activate the dopamine receptors, it did alter the “gene expression of the dopamine receptors that cells produced,” Inverse reports.

According to study authors, this change indicates that alcohol is “hijacking” how the dopamine pathways in the brain respond to “pleasure and reward.”

“If this works the same way in humans, one glass of wine is enough to activate the pathway, but it returns to normal within an hour,” Kaun told the Independent.

However, the more drinks consumed, the longer it takes to revert to normal.

“After three glasses, with an hour break in between, the pathway doesn’t return to normal after 24 hours,” Kaun added. “We think this persistence is likely what is changing the gene expression in memory circuits.”

Though not involved with the study, Peter Giese, a professor of neuroscience at King’s College London, tells the Independent that studies like this assist in developing a greater understanding of the brains in those battling substance use disorder, and, in turn, a greater chance of helping them.

“[This study] suggests that drug addiction persists because memory mechanisms were hijacked by drug exposure,” Giese told the Independent. “The study not only provides a model for understanding the persistence of drug addiction, it also identifies potential pharmacological targets for treating addiction.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 November 2018
Births Affected By Opioids Continue To Rise Among Rural Women

“More than 60% of rural moms with opioid use disorder give birth locally. These rural hospitals may have more limited capacity to care for them and their babies.”

The opioid epidemic has meant that more rural moms and babies are affected by drug abuse, often requiring specialized care at hospitals that are located far from home, according to a new study.

The study, published in the Journal of Rural Health, found that the numbers of mothers with opioid use disorder giving birth and infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome increased in rural hospitals, urban non-teaching hospitals and urban teaching hospitals.

Mothers who abuse opioids are at increased risks of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, including pre-term labor. At the same time, infants who are born dependent on opioids often have health issues that require a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit.

This is significant because as the rates of maternal opioid abuse and neonatal abstinence syndrome increase, rural hospitals with fewer resources can be overwhelmed, and urban teaching hospitals—often with the best resources—see more patients from far away.

“Some of these rural moms, especially those with clinical complications, give birth in urban, teaching hospitals, often far from home,” said Katy Kozhimannil, associate professor in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center. “Yet, our study findings show that more than 60% of rural moms with opioid use disorder give birth locally. These rural hospitals may have more limited capacity to care for them and their babies.”

The study found that many expectant moms with opioid use disorder are sent to urban teaching hospitals, suggesting that healthcare providers in rural settings have become adept at identifying patients with this condition and referring them to the appropriate level of care.

In fact, rural women who gave birth in urban teaching hospitals had the highest rate of maternal opioid use disorder, at 8.9 per 1,000 deliveries, since high-risk patients are often referred to this setting.

However, since many women still have high-risk opioid-affected births at rural hospitals, Kozhimannil says more resources need to be made available in that setting. At rural hospitals, the rate of moms with opioid use disorder is 4.3 per 1,000 deliveries.

“Recent policy and clinical efforts to address opioid-affected births have frequently focused on specialized capacity building within tertiary care settings, often urban teaching hospitals,” said Kozhimannil. “Yet, these results show that resources are also needed in rural hospitals that are caring for more and more opioid-affected moms and babies each year.”

View the original article at thefix.com

2 November 2018
One Washington County Is Treating The Opioid Crisis As A Natural Disaster

What if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system to mitigate the opioid epidemic?

In Snohomish County in Western Washington, officials are taking a unique approach to the opioid crisis by declaring it a life-threatening emergency, as if it were a natural disaster.

As overdose deaths are threatening more lives than hurricanes and mud slides, they say it makes practical sense. Ty Trenary, former police chief in Snohomish County, thought that his rural community was not affected by the drug crisis.

Trenary told NPR that at the time he thought, “This is Stanwood, and heroin is in big cities with homeless populations. It’s not in rural America.”

A new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed the truth: 48% of people said opioid addiction in their communities has worsened over the past five years.

After Chief Trenary toured the local jails, he realized the problem was enormous. He witnessed over half of the jail inmates withdrawing from heroin or other opioid drugs.

“It took becoming the sheriff to see the impacts inside the jail with heroin abuse, to see the impacts in the community across the entire county for me to realize that we had to change a lot about what we were doing,” Trenary told NPR.

The idea to go the natural disaster route was the brainchild of Shari Ireton, the director of communications for the sheriff’s office. In 2014, a massive landslide in Washington killed 43 people. As the communications director, Ireton was in charge of organizing the press for field trips to the worst areas of landslide damage.

“It was amazing to see Black Hawk helicopters flying with our helicopter and a fixed wing over the top of that,” she told NPR. “All in coordination with each other, all with the same objective, which is life safety.”

Ireton had a moment of inspiration: what if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system with everyone working together, across government agencies, to treat the opioid epidemic?

The county loved the idea, and a group was formed called the Multi-Agency Coordination group, or MAC group. The group follows FEMA’s emergency response playbook and is run out of a special emergency operations center.

MAC includes seven overarching goals, which include reducing opioid misuse and reducing damage to the community. The goals are dissembled to smaller, workable steps, such as distributing needle cleanup kits and training schoolteachers to recognize trauma and addiction.

MAC is too new to understand the scope of the group’s impact on the community just yet. Those being helped will surely feel that it is a positive direction for Washington and for addiction treatment.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 November 2018
Americans Are Drinking And Spending More On Alcohol

Researchers found that drinking increased in all subgroups of the population, and most steeply among women, the elderly and minorities.

Americans are spending more on alcohol than ever before and are also reporting higher rates of alcohol use disorder, all while beverage companies are increasing their budgets for alcohol advertising.

Surprisingly, more than a quarter of Americans don’t drink at all, according to a study reported by 24/7 Wall Street. However, the percentage of Americans who said they have imbibed during the last year has risen steadily, from 65.4% in 2001-2002 to 72.7% in 2012-2013, according to data from the American Medical Association.

The increase wasn’t just among social drinkers—high-risk drinking increased 30% over that period as well, while alcohol use disorder increased nearly 50%.

Researchers found that drinking increased in all subgroups of the population, and most steeply among women, the elderly and minorities. Authors noted the need for attention to problem drinking.

“Most important, the findings herein highlight the urgency of educating the public, policymakers, and health care professionals about high-risk drinking and AUD, destigmatizing these conditions and encouraging those who cannot reduce their alcohol consumption on their own, despite substantial harm to themselves and others, to seek treatment,” they wrote.

Research on spending indicates that rates might have continued to rise. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Surveys, Americans spent more on alcohol in 2017 than they did in 2016.

Overall, spending on alcohol has increased 56.6% since 1996, even though the price of booze has not increased substantially during that time. The increase in spending has been sharpest among baby boomers, while millennials spend the least on alcohol.

“Our findings suggest that older Americans increased their alcohol spending dramatically, which resonates with growing public health concerns pertaining to Baby Boomers and booze,” the authors wrote. “In a related finding, retired professionals spent 186% more money on alcohol. Conversely, those younger than 25 spent less in 2016 than in 1996, attesting to a trend in millennials choosing to live sober.”

With so much spending at play, it’s no wonder that alcohol advertising is a massive industry, especially when it comes to sports. Each year the top 30 alcohol brands spend $764.5 million on sports sponsorship, according to industry data.

Most of that spending is by beer brands, with Bud Light alone spending approximately $250 million per year, more than one-third of the money spent globally on alcoholic beverage sports sponsorship. Heineken spends $118.3 million on sponsorships, while Budweiser spends $84.4 million.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 November 2018
Warnings Featuring Diseased Body Parts Make Smokers Think Twice

A recent study aimed to find which features made picture warnings the most effective.

When it comes to the effectiveness of warnings on tobacco products, a picture is worth a thousand words—particularly if that picture features a diseased or damaged body part caused by smoking.

Those types of warnings are the most effective at getting smokers to try to quit, according to a study published this week in the journalTobacco Control. Previous research had shown that picture warnings are more of a deterrent than text-only warnings, like those currently used in the United States.

This most recent study aimed to find which features made picture warnings the most effective, and found that those with damaged or diseased body parts and testimonials encouraged the most people to try and quit smoking.

“Humans act in response to our emotions,” lead author Jazmyne Sutton told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “When we feel a negative emotion—fear, disgust, etc.—we want to avoid the source of that emotion.”

In 118 countries—including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—governments mandate that tobacco is sold in packaging that features pictures of cancerous growths, surgical holes in throats, amputations, gangrenous feet and other health ailments that can be caused by tobacco use.

“There has been tremendous progress internationally in implementing package health warnings, with many countries increasing warning size, more countries requiring picture warnings, and an increasing number of countries requiring multiple rounds of picture warnings,” wrote the authors of another recent report compiled by Canadian researchers. “The worldwide trend for larger, picture health warnings is growing and unstoppable, with many more countries in the process of developing such requirements.”

Those researchers found that larger warning labels—those that cover at least half of the packaging—are most effective. Timor-Leste, Nepal and Vanuatu had the largest warnings, which covered more than 85% of tobacco packaging.

In the United States, warning label requirements fall well behind many other countries, thanks in part to the still-powerful tobacco lobby. America had the smallest warning labels out of 206 countries reviewed by researchers.

In 2009, Congress passed a law requiring the use of warning labels with photos. However, the implementation of the law has been hindered by a lawsuit from tobacco manufacturers and retailers.

This fall, a court ruling ordered the FDA to speed up the process of implementing photo warnings. Proponents hope that this will help decrease the estimated 480,000 deaths caused by smoking each year, and reduce the number of Americans living with a smoking-related illness, currently estimated to be more than 16 million.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 November 2018