Posts Tagged ‘Addiction’

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! At least that’s how the song goes. The reality is often something short of wonderful. For many, the holidays mean stress. First there’s the financial pressure to buy gifts and spend, spend, spend. Add in the general busyness of the season and all that emphasis on time […]

Experimentation has always been popular, especially among youth who have turned to household substances, cleaning products, prescription medications and even horse tranquilizers when looking for the next cheap, powerful high. Adventure seekers and bored young people have sampled everything from bath salts and misappropriated painkillers to gas fumes, canned air and hand sanitizer, turning themselves […]

In April 2014, a mother in South Carolina was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of homicide by child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and unlawful conduct toward a child. Her real crime was allegedly passing on morphine to her baby through breast milk. When the infant died in November 2010 at just six […]

Doctors should be more aware than anyone of the dangers of certain medications and the many ways that abusing them can be harmful. Despite all their knowledge on how to get and stay healthy, MDs and other healthcare providers are not immune from addiction and drug abuse. A recent news report of a doctor and […]

In an ironic twist, there was once concern that Bitcoin would be used to buy illegal drugs but now legal currency is being used to buy a drug called Bitcoin. This hot new brand of ecstasy pills is named after the peer-to-peer payment system introduced in 2009. Bitcoin in Europe This variant of MDMA is […]

Adderall

Adderall use isn’t just skyrocketing among kids, a growing number of adults are using the ADHD drug for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. While children still make up the biggest group taking Adderall, the number of kids on Adderall rose 18 percent between 2008 and 2012, compared to a 53 percent jump among adults, according to Express Scripts’ […]

We’ve all seen people who take tanning too far, but does this sun-worshipping behavior constitute an addiction? A new study suggests ritual tanning could become abuse on the same level as alcoholism. A standard testing tool used to identify a “substance-related disorder” (SRD) or problem drinking was applied to the tanning practices of college students, […]

Cops moved swiftly to make arrests following the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in Manhattan, believed to be caused by a heroin overdose. Four people were The arrests were made following a raid that yielded 350 glassine-type bags of what is believed to be heroin. taken into custody in connection with the drugs found […]

We’ve all heard the warnings, the cautionary tales of people in legitimate pain being prescribed a medication to help, which ultimately ends up becoming a bigger health problem than the one it was meant to treat. The dangers of long-term use of prescription painkillers like Vicodin or Percocet have been covered extensively by the media, […]

As recreational marijuana use becomes legal in several states and the push continues for expanded legalization, law enforcement has a new issue to deal with: spotting impaired drivers. As drunk driving has gained awareness and public service announcements to warn against driving while alcohol impaired have become the norm, the breathalyzer has become the standard […]