She Provided 70 Clean Urine Samples, Yet Her Girls Were Taken From Her at Birth Because of Controversial Hair Test The last time Christine Rupert saw her daughters was in a dingy church basement in Kitchener, surrounded by awkward and emotional reunions between other parents and their kids. It was September 2008. Molly, an 18month-old with fine brown hair and wide eyes, sat as if glued to her mom's lap. Emily, 6 months, mainly snoozed in her car seat. [continues 2905 words]
Hundreds of Families Have Moved to Colorado in Hopes of Healing Their Sick Children - Kids Conventional Medicine Has Failed. They'Re Turning to a Liquid Form of Marijuana That Has Helped Some, but Not All. This Is the Story of 12-Year-Old Preston and His Mother, Ana. Ana Watson looks across the living room of the Colorado Springs house that still doesn't feel quite like home and sees her son, Preston, sitting stiffly on a brand-new couch. His eyelids flutter, struggling against the seizures that have quaked through his brain every day since he was 3 months old. [continues 4308 words]
Regarding 'Science wins:' Al Byrne uses the work of Melanie Dreher to support his view that marijuana is harmless, indeed even helpful, to pregnant women and their babies. Unfortunately, this work is only one work carried out on a very small sample of 33 users and 27 non-users in the early 1980s. Although this work is important, subsequent studies have disproved much of her work. In addition, today's marijuana is not your mother's marijuana. It is a much more potent form. [continues 257 words]
One drug-dependent baby is born every hour in the USA, researchers say. They are the tiniest victims of the nation's opioid epidemic, born into agony -- trembling, sweating and crying inconsolably from the pain of drug withdrawal. And as their numbers soar, doctors, health officials and drug-control professionals are pushing to screen all pregnant women for substance abuse. "When a child's first days in this world are in agony, that certainly should be a concern to all of us," said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. "We need to do all we can to prevent this." [continues 598 words]
A definitive 20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe. Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found. The paper by Professor Wayne Hall, a drugs advisor to the World Health Organisation, builds a compelling case against those who deny the devastation cannabis wreaks on the brain. Professor Hall found: One in six teenagers who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it, [continues 1173 words]
For the past two weeks, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has traveled across Alaska, hosting hearings on the ballot initiatives Alaskans will vote on in November. One of those has been Ballot Measure 2, which would legalize recreational marijuana in Alaska for those 21 and older and regulate it in a manner similar to that of alcohol. The hearings are intended to give people a chance to ask questions of state officials and to voice their concerns. For a crowd of about 70 people at Anchorage's Dena'ina Center Tuesday night, questions to state officials were few, but concerns -- and accusations -- about the campaigns were many. [continues 755 words]
At a time when heroin use and prescription drug abuse have reached epidemic levels, local health care providers are stepping up to the plate to help one targeted group: pregnant women. On Wednesday, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, along with several local insurers, announced the launch of what it called the "first-of its kind" outpatient recovery center in the country for pregnant women addicted to opiates - heroin and Vicodin, Oxycontin, hydrocodone and other highly addictive painkillers. And West Penn medical officials said a similar program is in the works. [continues 530 words]
It's Confusing and Unfair to Deny Sativex Spray to Those Plagued by Muscle Spasms I've read with utter frustration news reports over the past week about plans to make Sativex - an oral cannabis-based spray - available on the NHS in Wales but not in other parts of Britain. Cannabis grown for medical use on a farm at a secret location south east of London Sativex is licensed for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) to alleviate muscle spasms and stiffness, and I'm one of a few thousand people in England who could significantly benefit from taking it; I have secondary progressive MS, experience excruciating muscle spasms and cannot tolerate any other muscle relaxant treatments. [continues 818 words]
The opioid and heroin epidemic has eclipsed the crack cocaine problem of the 1980s as a public health crisis and, as a result, the number of babies being born to opiate-addicted mothers is increasing at an alarming rate, including in the Toledo area. Government and health-care officials are struggling with how to manage the care of the drug-dependent babies. Their numbers are increasing each year and the costs of care are skyrocketing and straining the resources of hospitals in some Ohio counties, health officials say. [continues 1842 words]
Pain Pill Epidemic Doubled Number of Tampa Bay Patients on Methadone in Just 4 Years TAMPA - The lobby starts filling up before dawn in the nondescript office building on Columbus Drive. Young adults, middle-aged, men, women, some poor, some not, some employed, some not, they wait patiently in the dark and as the sun breaks over the horizon and the June day heats up. Amidst their varying demographics, they share a few notable characteristics. They're addicts. They want to break the habit. [continues 1278 words]
Supervision lax at facility where mom killed girl: judge A lack of supervision at a Winnipeg transitional shelter helped lead to the death of a baby girl who was killed by her mother, a provincial judge has found. Nicole Redhead suffocated her daughter, Jaylene, at the Native Women's Transition Centre, where alcohol and recreational drugs were used liberally. The Awasis agency of Child and Family Services, which had returned the baby to Redhead even though they knew the mother had a history of severe crack addiction, had a mistaken belief about the level of supervision at NWTC, Judge Larry Allen found. [continues 723 words]
State Legislature, Health Organizations Tackling Addiction Issue. BUTLER COUNTY - More babies are being born dependent on illegal drugs each year in Ohio. Babies suffering from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome - defined as a group of problems a baby experiences when withdrawing from exposure to narcotics - has increased six-fold from 2004 to 2011, according to the Ohio Department of Health. The number has risen from 14 per 10,000 live births to now 88 per 10,000 live births. "It's an epidemic that's sorely under-resourced right now," said Michele Stokes, clinical director of women's and perioperative services at Mercy Health Fairfield Hospital. [continues 1407 words]
That's A Qualifying Symptom For 90% Of Patients. They Also Skew Young And Male. Oregon retiree Ernest AlexA-ander damaged spinal discs decades ago when a chair colA-lapsed and he landed on his tailA-bone. Now he treats his chronic back pain with a homemade conA-coction of coconut oil and low A-grade marijuana. He tried prescription drugs, but needed large doses, he says. 'I was hurting a lot of the time, and when I wasn't hurting, I was all doped up. I didn't like either.'' Alexander, 64, is not alone. Pain is the engine that drives medical marijuana. [continues 994 words]
Southwest Florida hospitals have seen a sharp increase in the number of babies born with drug dependencies, dashing last year's hope such cases might finally be leveling off here. The news comes as heroin and a powerful morphine derivative overtake pain pills such as oxycodone as opiates of choice among those receiving substance abuse treatment in Lee and Collier counties. Lee Memorial Health System hospitals treated 92 newborns for neonatal abstinence syndrome in 2013, a condition best described as babies born in significant pain pill, heroin and/or methadone withdrawal because of their mothers' drug use. [continues 788 words]
On Staten Island, Rising Tide of Heroin Takes Hold The obituaries have a certain sameness to them: full of praise and regret for lives cut short, marked by telltale details and omissions. The deaths occurred at home, or at a friend's house elsewhere on Staten Island. The mourned were often young and white, and although how they died was never mentioned, nearly everyone knew or suspected the cause. A 23-year-old man, a cello student in high school and the son of an elevator company vice president died in March. A former high school hockey player who delivered newspapers died in 2013 at 22. Another 23-year-old man who was working construction died at home in July 2012. Family members and autopsy reports revealed that they died from heroin or combinations of drugs including heroin. [continues 2562 words]
Simple Answer: Amid controversy, sometimes the basic facts of drug addiction get lost. The nation is watching Tennessee for new legislation that would allow women to be criminally charged if they use drugs during pregnancy that harm their newborns. State and national groups have asked Gov. Bill Haslam to veto the bill before Tuesday, saying criminalization isn't the right approach to stem the state's growing numbers of babies born dependent on drugs. This complicated epidemic raises many questions, yielding few simple answers. Here are a few: [continues 596 words]
Ayers' husband was killed by deputy during 2009 drug sting A widowed Hall County woman has been awarded more than $2 million by a federal jury in a wrongful death suit. Jurors on Thursday deemed $2.3 million in damages and expenses to Abigail Marilyn Ayers, wife of Jonathan Ayers, a Northeast Georgia pastor who was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy in September 2009. The trial began last week at the Federal Court in Gainesville. In causing Ayers' death, the defendant, Billy Shane Harrison, "intentionally committed acts that violated Jonathan Ayers' constitutional right not to be subjected to excessive or unreasonable force by a law enforcement officer," the jury determined by its verdict, according to court records. [continues 243 words]
On Jan. 1, Colorado began permitting the legal sale of marijuana. Even before that, the nation's news media had swung into action, arguing just about everything - marijuana is dangerous or not dangerous, a gateway drug or just a lot of smoke. Nothing I saw mentioned why I, for one, will not smoke marijuana. I'm afraid it would lead me back to cigarettes. Once I was addicted to cigarettes. (I suppose I still am.) Now the latest surgeon general's report shows that cigarette smoking is even worse for us than we once thought. To all the usual diseases - lung cancer and heart disease - can be added diabetes, colorectal and liver cancers and, irony of ironies, erectile dysfunction. The Marlboro Man needs some help. [continues 470 words]
On Jan. 1, Colorado began permitting the legal sale of marijuana. Even before that, the nation's news media had swung into action, arguing just about everything - marijuana is dangerous or not dangerous, a gateway drug or just a lot of smoke. Nothing I saw mentioned why I will not smoke marijuana. I'm afraid it would lead me back to cigarettes. Once I was addicted to cigarettes. (I suppose I still am.) I tried to quit numerous times - hypnotism, acupuncture, hypnotism again, willpower and shame and mortal shame - but nothing worked. I felt enslaved - sucking this poison into my body, soiling my lungs - and enraged at an industry that encouraged me as a youth to smoke and, despite all the health findings, continued to give me that wink: Smoke. Such sweet pleasure! [continues 552 words]
On Jan. 1, Colorado began permitting the legal sale of marijuana. Even before that, the nation's news media had swung into action, arguing just about everything - marijuana is dangerous or not dangerous, a gateway drug or just a lot of smoke. Nothing I saw mentioned why I, for one, will not smoke marijuana. I'm afraid it would lead me back to cigarettes. Once I was addicted to cigarettes. (I suppose I still am.) I tried to quit numerous times - hypnotism, acupuncture, hypnotism again, willpower and shame and mortal shame - but, for the longest time, nothing worked. [continues 626 words]
