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. 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 encouraging wink: Smoke. Go ahead. Such sweet pleasure! [continues 582 words]
The Waiting List for the Cannabis Extract Includes About 30 Kids in Utah Whose Parents Hope to Import What They Consider an 'Herbal' Remedy. DENVER - Piper rolls back and forth across a large blanket on the living room floor, windmilling her arms and kicking her legs. "Who's a happy girl?" asks her mom, Annie Koozer, kneeling over the 2-year-old with a small, oil-filled syringe. Piper fusses as Annie squirts a tiny amount into the side of her mouth. [continues 2766 words]
A 24-Year Philadelphia Study Produces Unexpected Results. A Quarter-Century Philadelphia Study of Cocaine Exposure in the Womb and Its Effects Produces an Unexpected but Clear Result. Jaimee Drakewood hurried in from the rain, eager to get to her final appointment at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Ever since her birth 23 years ago, a team of researchers has been tracking every aspect of her development - gauging her progress as an infant, measuring her IQ as a prechooler, even peering into her adolescent brain using an MRI machine. [continues 1919 words]
Data never analyzed in ground breaking study to determine whether regular marijuana-smoking would make Canada's economy go to pot. In the winter of 1972, 20 young women took part in one of the weirdest scientific experiments in this country's history. For 98 days in a downtown Toronto hospital, their brains, hearts, kidneys, livers, blood and urine were rigorously tested and analyzed. A team of nurses kept around-the-clock records of their behaviour, which was logged at half-hour intervals. Were they sullen? Arguing? Laughing? Playing table tennis? [continues 6127 words]
Anne-Marie Cory and her partner spent the better part of a year looking for a dream home in Longmont that fit their budget. They had the property under contract when they discovered that a former occupant had been a methamphetamine smoker. Tests came back positive for the drug. "We didn't want to bring a baby into a house contaminated with meth," said Cory, who was pregnant at the time. Erik Nelson, then a real estate agent who had bought the home to fix up and sell, spent about $26,000 on meth testing, cleanup and then retesting to ensure it was safe for Cory to move in. [continues 1210 words]
In 2006, John Oswald had it all -- a lucrative job working on the Alberta pipeline, a big house and a loyal partner. In a matter of seconds, it was all ripped away from him. "A guy overpressurized a tank ... It was a really big tank, 400 barrels," Oswald, who now lives in Sudbury, said. "He blew the lid off of it. The lid hit me, it was 730 pounds ... it shattered my shoulder, it shattered my elbow, fractured my skull, fractured my C2 and C3 vertebrae. I was in the hospital for two years, pretty much." [continues 626 words]
Ruling for a Mother Whose Infant Tested Positive for Cocaine, It Said the Evidence Was Insufficient. Child protection workers did not prove that a Cape May County mother abused her infant even though the child tested positive for cocaine at birth, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Wednesday. The decision overturned two lower-court decisions in the 2007 case. Drug tests alone do not substantiate abuse and protection workers must show actual or imminent harm, the justices wrote. [continues 485 words]
About 10 Percent Of Pregnant Women Are Drug Abusers BARSTOW Barstow Community Hospital staff are trained to detect drug abuse among pregnant women, which is important since between 10 and 12 percent of mothers admitted have a drug addiction, with the most prevalent drug being methamphetamine, according to Obstetrics Nurse Lauren Stapp. "It's a significant concern because when we find mothers who have a drug dependency it has a major impact on the pregnancy," OB Director Susan Wooley said. "For instance, cocaine addiction causes premature delivery and it can affect the baby's development." [continues 381 words]
Pediatrics Group Raises Red Flag About Effect on Fetuses, Seeks Changes to Law Arizona pediatricians are concerned that the state's medical-marijuana law is being used to treat the ailments of pregnant women, potentially harming fetuses. Members of the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics want to stop the practice and point to one incident in which a mother in labor told hospital officials that she had received a medical-marijuana card during pregnancy and had been using the drug. [continues 1114 words]
Schizophrenia, psychosis are among associated ailments It is not surprising that Dan Rush would write an article favorable to pot ("Bill's passage would protect patient welfare," Aug. 13), but hopefully, the majority of students will see through the smoke and realize that the "medical marijuana" is a hoax to begin with and doomed to fail. To call it medicine, or the customers patients, is an affront to our collective intellect. To suggest that shuttering pot shops is depriving a 5-year-old child of medicine is blasphemous. [continues 440 words]
Medical Marijuana Is at the Center of Daisy Bram's Fight to Keep Her Kids The past year has been quite a whirlwind for Daisy Bram. The 31-year-old mother of two has had her home raided; she and her husband, Jayme Walsh, were arrested; and their children were ripped from her arms. The couple celebrated a small victory earlier this month in their battle against Butte County's Children's Services Division, but their fight is far from over. [continues 813 words]
Expectant mothers' use of opioids has risen dramatically and children suffer, doctors say The newborn babies are inconsolable, their frantic, high-pitched cries a telltale sign of a newborn in the throes of drug withdrawal. Canada's baby specialists are witnessing an alarming new phenomenon: growing numbers of infants being born dependent on prescription painkillers and other opioids. Rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, have doubled in Canada, the latest fallout of the rise in legitimate and illicit use of prescription opioids across the country. Most of NAS is due to opioids, drugs that include oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin and its successor, OxyNEO. [continues 954 words]
