Abused substances
A 2012 DEA report revealed that in 2010, US pharmacies dispensed enough Vicodin to give 24 tablets of 5mg each to every single person in the country. The current epidemic in prescription drug abuse is partially to blame on Vicodin, since it’s the most widely prescribed drug in the country. Despite accounting for only 4.6 [...]
A new Hollywood memoir is due to hit bookstore shelves soon. In some ways it is the same song, different stanza as so many tales of dashed Hollywood dreams that have come before – that of a young actor brimming with talent and promise who gets caught up in a cyclone of drugs, sex and [...]
A report this summer based on the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) took a look at how drug use and treatment compares between city and rural settings. The TEDS used guidelines established by the National Center for Health Statistics in order to determine what constituted an urban versus a rural environment. The TEDS report noted [...]
There are a number of substances being sold and consumed in the club drug scene that are relatively unfamiliar to the general public. Included on this roster of the unknown is a drug called ketamine, an anesthetic commonly used on both animals and humans during surgical procedures. First synthesized in the 1960s, ketamine made its [...]
Drug use among the female population is a distinct problem with distinct risk factors, health concerns, and ramifications for the population as a whole. Studies have also shown that current drug prevention programs are largely tailored for young men, and more effective among the male population. As a result, it is worth considering female drug [...]
Celebrity drug abuse is a problem that has plagued the United States since the beginning of media and an issue that isn’t likely to go away soon, with the United States standing firmly as the leading country in drug use rates overall. However, one problem that could be solved is the way celebrity drug scandals affect the [...]
Licorice is the common term for Glycyrrhiza glabra, a plant species with a long history of use as a traditional medicine in Eastern and Western cultures. In modern medical practice, conditions that may benefit to some degree from the use of licorice preparations include indigestion, peptic ulcers, upper respiratory infections and eczema. Current evidence also [...]
The prospect of developing a chemical dependence to addictive prescription drugs is a serious deterrent for many individuals. Although very few patients develop dependencies and very few develop addictions to legally obtained medications, it is easy to wonder why strong medications with addictive potential are so readily prescribed. And when chemical dependencies do form, it [...]
Cocaine is the popular name for the illegal, addictive chemical ethylbenzoylecgonine (known in its powdered form as cocaine hydrochloride and in its modified, rocklike form as “crack”). When inhaled nasally, smoked, eaten or injected, it produces a form of central nervous stimulation that closely resembles the central nervous system effects of legal drugs known as [...]
PCP (phencyclidine) and ketamine are two drugs that belong to a class of substances called dissociative anesthetics. Drugs in this class get their name because they produce a sense of detachment from the self or social surroundings known as dissociation. While doctors and veterinarians use ketamine in limited circumstances, human use of PCP is prohibited [...]