America, we need to wake up! A prescription written on a pad by a doctor does not equal safe. When prescribed responsibly, taken as directed and kept out of reach of children, painkillers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds — any pill — can be a godsend to the people who need those drugs to live day-to-day. But all too often, those tablets intended for one particular patient get into the hands, the mouths, the bloodstreams of those just looking to get high.

In my new book, “iWant,” I talk about my addiction to alcohol. Before I got sober, I would occasionally take a Valium with a glass of wine. Alcohol was my main vice. I wasn’t a pill addict, but I did pop a few. Want to know how I got them? Well it wasn’t from a doctor. I got them from friends. That’s how it works….

So how do we even start to cure this epidemic? First and foremost we need to stop expecting to get a pill for every ache and pain we complain to our doctors about. Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky pointed out recently on my show, “Issues,” that, “The medicines we have today are miraculous. They are spectacularly effective. Thank goodness we have these substances. Only because there’s a dark side to this, we have to become less dependent on them and seek them less.”

Click here to read the whole piece. It’s eye opening and thought-provoking.

Mahmoud ElSohly says marijuana’s potency will continue to rise before tailing off in the next five years.

The average potency of marijuana, which has risen steadily for three decades, has exceeded 10 percent for the first time, the U.S. government will report on Thursday.

Scientists working for the government predict that potency, as measured by the drug’s concentration of the psychoactive ingredient THC, will continue to rise.

At the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project, where thousands of samples of seized marijuana are tested every year, project director Mahmoud ElSohly said some samples have THC levels exceeding 30 percent.

Average THC concentrations will continue to climb before leveling off at 15 percent or 16 percent in five to 10 years, ElSohly predicted.

The stronger marijuana is of particular concern because high concentrations of THC have the opposite effect of low concentrations, officials say.

In addition, while experienced marijuana users may limit their intake of potent marijuana, young and inexperienced users may not moderate their intake and possibly suffer from dysphoria, paranoia, irritability and other negative effects.

Potent marijuana also poses significant risk to the developing adolescent brain, said Edward Jurith, acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. 

Increasing potency is leading to higher admissions to emergency rooms and drug treatment programs, officials say.

The average THC for tested marijuana during 2008 was 10.1 percent, according to the government, compared to 1983 when it was reportedly under 4 percent.

read full article…

Wesleyan Resources:

• Online Marijuana Assessment

If you do use and are wondering how your use stacks up, take the online marijuana assessment to get personalized feedback and advice on how to reduce or eliminate your use.  

You will be asked to enter your Wesleyan email and password to access the site; however, your data is in no way linked to your name. All data is aggregated and offers compete anonymity for you.

Do-it-all Beta lecture series chair Tim Devane ‘09 writes:

Tomorrow night at 8 pm we are hosting Charles Barber as a speaker. Mr. Barber is formerly a visiting writing professor at Wes as well as an author and lecturer on psychiatry at Yale.

He is also the author of Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, a book that takes a serious, critical look at the volume of anti-depressant use and prescription on the United States.

Mr. Barber will speak at Beta at 8 pm on Monday Nov. 17 about his groundbreaking book and its relation to anti-depressant use on college campuses.

This is the last lecture in the Beta Fall Lecture Series.

Date: Monday, Nov. 17
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Beta (corner of Church and High)

If you are interested in learning more about how marijuana use may impact your health, how your use compares with other college students, and more, check it out. It takes less than 10 minutes to complete and gives personalized feedback based on the information you enter. 

Take the online marijuana assessment here. 

Be aware that you will be asked to provide your Wesleyan email and password to access the site, but your information is no way linked with your results. We ask for it simply to maintain our licensing agreement. Your results are anonymous and confidential.

A new study finds that the use of water pipes may be on the rise among college students. Some believe that smoking tobacco this way is less dangerous than smoking cigarettes —which is not the case, the researchers say.

The study, which appears in the May issue of The Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at water-pipe use among students at Virginia Commonwealth University. It found that of more than 700 students surveyed, more than 40 percent reported having used a water pipe in the previous year.

The pipes, often called hookahs or shishas, are perhaps best known in the Middle East and are used to smoke flavored and sweetened tobacco. The tobacco is heated over charcoal, and then is cooled as it passes through a bowl of water and is inhaled from a hose.

Despite the belief of some students, water pipes may expose users to more toxic materials than cigarettes. Each puff has as much as 100 times the smoke as a puff from a cigarette, the study said. And smokers are also inhaling fumes from the charcoal.

“There is every reason to believe that this adds to the problem,” said the lead author of the study, Thomas Eissenberg.

Most of the smoking takes place in water-pipe cafes, and one reason they are becoming more popular, the study said, is that unlike bars, they are open to students.

Water-pipe users were most likely to be men, many of whom told the researchers they thought it made them look cool.

or view it here.

 People can be forgiven for wondering what difference it makes how we kill microorganisms. After all, soap or bleach kills bacteria, and so does penicillin. So why does it matter exactly how you kill them?

It does matter, and the reason for the consequences of killing bacteria with penicillin or killing them with Ivory has to do with evolution. Furthermore, I suspect that part of the confusion in the mind of the public lies in the use of euphemisms like “develop” and “change through time,” rather than what we really mean, which is evolve.

Bacteria don’t “develop” resistance, as if it were a muscle nurtured by going to a microbial gym. read full article…

Check out information about Infection Control at Wes.

Teenagers who use marijuana put themselves at higher risks for serious mental health problems, including worsening depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and suicide, according to a new White House report.

The report said more teens use marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined.

The goal is to “correct the blind spot we’ve had in our society that’s caused more young people to suffer,” Director of National Drug Control Policy John Walters said.

“The short message is: Marijuana’s not safe.”

Although the report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy notes that use of the drug among teenagers has dropped by 25 percent in the past seven years, it emphasizes that more teens use marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined.

That use can have serious consequences, according to the report. Teenagers who smoke marijuana to self-medicate can compound their depression, the report said.

read full article…
view video on report…

One in four Americans shares prescription drugs with others — and opens a Pandora’s box of risk.

This suggestion of widespread drug sharing comes from a pilot study in which researchers interviewed 700 people in 10 U.S. cities. It’s the first study to take a broad look at what people say about “loaning” and “borrowing” prescription medications.

About 23% of the people interviewed loaned medicines, and about 27% borrowed them, find Richard C. Goldsworthy, PhD, of Academic Edge Inc. and colleagues.

“Whether this sharing is beneficial or detrimental depends on what is shared and for what reason,” Goldsworthy tells WebMD. “But we found a lot of situations where sharing can be detrimental — in ways we don’t always think about.”

read full article…

Wesleyan students…What observations, if any, have you made about prescription drug sharing on campus? Is it problematic or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.