All Posts Tagged With: "drugs"
Students aren’t getting the facts about marijuana
Research shows links to mental illness, lung capacity
Photo by Yeshe on Flickr
When sociologist and drug-policy expert Andy Hathaway surveyed one of his first-year classes at the University of Guelph last fall, 80 per cent of students reported experience with cannabis.
Hathaway cautions that it was only a small pilot study (around 100 responses), and it took place at Guelph, which is, let’s face it, “a bit granola.”
Still, that 80 per cent figure isn’t surprising.
When twelfth graders are asked if they’ve tried marijuana, roughly half say yes.
Provincial rates of lifetime usage now range from a low of 40 per cent of Albertan twelfth-graders to a high of 63 per cent of those in Nova Scotia, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. And that’s before university.
Smoking pot can’t be considered deviant anymore, says Hathaway. It’s simply the new normal.
A loosening of cultural attitudes, particularly in the media, helps explains the shift. “We had Cheech and Chong in the 1970s, but that was a very stereotypical portrayal,” says Hathaway. “Now we have shows like Weeds that show use of marijuana by very regular people—soccer moms and dads.”
But as attitudes toward marijuana soften, some campus health experts report that they’re more worried about students using the drug than ever. That’s because research increasingly shows links between marijuana and the number one health problem on Canadian campuses: mental illness.
Dr. Elizabeth Osuch, a psychiatrist who runs the First Episode Mood and Anxiety Program at a hospital in London, Ont., encounters mentally ill students who offer their own evidence of marijuana-related problems. “I hear the story frequently about how ‘I get paranoid when I smoke pot’, ‘I get anxious when I smoke pot’, or ‘I’ve been smoking pot a long time and now I’m depressed’,” she says.
That’s not surprising to Dr. Osuch. What’s surprising to her is how surprising that is to others.
“I’ve given talks across this community and when I talk about the effects of marijuana, it’s news to people,” she says, “unless I’m talking to a group of clinicians who interact with people in a medical or counselling setting. They know, because they’ve been seeing this for years.”
The best-established risk is that marijuana can trigger or exacerbate psychosis in a small number of people who are susceptible, based on their genes. To some, the link is not even debatable. “A number of prospective epidemiological studies put it beyond doubt that cannabis use increases the subsequent risk of schizophrenia,” wrote the authors of a 2007 review in Addictive Disorders.
Devastating as psychosis may be for those who experience it, diseases like schizophrenia only affect a small proportion of the population. But Dr. Osuch warns that marijuana may also be contributing to the most common health problems on Canadian campuses: depression and anxiety.
One study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in 2007 followed a group of 14 to 17-year-olds over a decade, checking up on their mental health and drug use along the way. They found that depression, bipolar disorder and, to a lesser extent, anxiety disorders, all coincided with previous cannabis use—and more use predicted more illness.
But that’s only the beginning. “I would predict that there will be more and more information out there in the coming years looking at the problematic effects of what’s no longer a ‘soft drug’,” says Dr. Osuch, who notes that there’s more Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in in marijuana today than ever.
Dr. Osuch is currently the lead researcher on one such study exploring the links to depression. She explains the theory behind that possible link: “Marijuana is very active on the neurocirciutry of reward processing. Anything that you do because you like doing it activates reward processing in the brain,” she says. “And if you slam that neurological system daily with a chemical [like THC], it becomes very difficult for the person to feel reward from doing normal things,” she adds.
Dr. Osuch is quick to point out that not everyone who smokes pot will have a problem. “But a significant percentage of them will,” she says, adding, “as long as you know what those percentages are, or a sense of what the risks are, you can make an intelligent decision.”
Right now, the students she meets when giving talks at the Western University in or London, Ont. high schools haven’t gotten the message. They perceive pot-smoking as low risk.
Part of the confusion is the conflicting messages young people get when they type “marijuana health effects” into Google. “What they’re getting is all kind of sites that say marijuana is great,” says Dr. Osuch, “what they aren’t getting is the scientific research.”
There are, of course, some well-funded and easy-to-find meassages about the risks online—those from the federal government. But Hathaway, the drug policy researcher at Guelph, says the federal government’s anti-drug messages aren’t trusted by youth, because they exaggerate the risk.
In one of the federal ads, called Fast Forward, a blonde boy refuses a puff on a joint after he envisions a life of violence and trouble with the law. In another ad, called Mirror, a girl in her bedroom ends up cutting her arm with a piece of glass after taking some unidentified drugs.
Such scare tactics cause teens to tune out drug messaging entirely, says Hathaway. “If you’re sending inaccurate messages about marijuana when they have enough experience to know this is basically propaganda, they’re going to have doubts about any message of that kind,” he explains.
Although Hathaway doesn’t advocate abstinence like Dr. Osuch, he does believe there’s room for better education about marijuana. “Effective social policy would account for the small minority who may run into trouble with drugs and be candidates for some kind of intervention,” says Hathaway.
The government might do better to educate youth about the dangers of smoking tobacco along with marijuana, for example, says Hathaway. Tobacco is known to reduce lung capacity and increase the risk of cancer. Meanwhile, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January showed that smoking two to three joints actually increases lung capacity.
But because the JAMA article portrays marijuana as less harmful, it’s unlikely to would make it into the government’s messaging. Once again, the science is unlikely to reach young Canadians.
And if there’s one thing Dr. Osuch and Prof. Hathaway agree on, it’s that young people need better access to the facts. That way, they can determine the risks for themselves—whatever they may be.
Ontario student dies after taking ecstasy
Follows accidental death of Calgary teen who took pills
Photo by USDEA
A 23-year-old University of Western Ontario student who attended a concert in Guelph on Nov. 23 died of an apparent reaction to ecstasy pills, reports the Guelph Mercury. The Sarnia, Ont. native was taken to a Guelph hospital at 2:30 a.m. and died of organ failure on Nov. 26 in Kitchener.
Last week, a 16-year-old in Calgary died after taking what appears to have been ecstasy.
The drug most commonly sold as ecstacy is MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), which floods users with euphoria and a sense of empathy. MDMA itself rarely causes sudden death. However, the brightly-coloured pills sold as ecstasy come from drug labs where they’re sometimes laced with more deadly drugs. U.K. Professor David Nutt published a study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in 2009 that suggested the risk of death from ecstasy use is similar to the risk of death from horseback riding.
Big drop in drug use among teens
Cigarette smoking plummets
Photo by austinanomic on Flickr
A survey administered to nearly 10,000 teens in Ontario shows big drops in the use of most drugs when compared to similar teens 12 years ago.
The Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey found an especially encouraging drop in the number of students who smoke cigarettes. In 1999, 28 per cent of students in grades seven to 12 said they smoked in the past year and 22 per cent smoked at least one cigarette daily. In 2011, only nine per cent said they smoked in the past year and only four per cent said they smoked daily. The rates are higher in northern Ontario, where eight per cent smoked daily in 2011.
Date rape drug shows up in Nanaimo, B.C.
Student may have been sexually assaulted and drugged
Photo by Robert S. Donovan on Flickr
Vancouver Island University is warning students via Twitter to guard their drinks. A woman who was sexually assaulted in Nanaimo recently may have been given the date-rape drug GHB.
Another young woman says her doctor confirmed she was given the drug in October. CTV Vancouver Island reports that the woman was found by a friend in a parkade around 3 a.m. after attending a nightclub. She had no recollection of the evening, but her friend says a stranger had shared her drink earlier that night.
V.I.U. has been using custom drink coasters to warn students about how easy it is for people to slip odourless and colourless GHB into their drinks, reports Canada.com.
Smarter people more likely to try drugs
“Likely mechanism is openness to experience”
A large British study has found that having a higher IQ at age five and/or 10 is correlated with an increased likelihood that a person will have tried certain recreational drugs by age 30.
For example, women who had scored in the top third on intelligence tests at age five were more than twice as likely to have tried cocaine or marijuana by age 30 than those in the bottom third.
The most intelligent male children were 50 per cent more likely to have tried amphetamines and 65 per cent more likely to have tried ecstasy (MDMA) by their thirtieth birthdays.
Researchers controlled for socioeconomic status. The study involved interviews with 7,900 people who were part of an 11,600-strong cohort of British people born in early April 1970 and IQ-tested five and 10 years later. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology & Public Health.
So why might smarter people try drugs when drug-taking is widely considered stupid? ”The likely mechanism is openness to experience,” lead author James White of Cardiff University told Time.com, explaining that researchers already know more intelligent people score higher on openness. He also posited that more intelligent people have more educated views of risks.
Another theory: White says the lack of subtlety in government anti-drug ads may have been unconvincing to smarter Brits. If that’s true, the researchers’ observations may apply to Canada too; our federal government’s anti-drug ads aren’t exactly praised for their subtlety.
Drug dealer blames student debt
Gets house arrest instead of jail
A student pleaded guilty in a North Bay, Ont. court—and received house arrest—after he was caught with a hefty load of marijuana in his car, an estimated $47,000 worth. Jameson Fletcher’s lawyer argued that his client, a Laurentian University commerce student, was selling drugs to help lessen his $40,000 school debt load, reports the North Bay Nugget. Fletcher was given a punishment of six months served in the community when it’s common to receive jail-time, said the deciding judge, Justice Jean-Gilles Lebel. Despite the light sentence, Lebel noted that many young people carry student debt and most manage to pay it down without committing crimes.
Teens doing dangerous things in cars
Startling findings in annual drug use report
Photo by eduard_orbitron on Flickr
The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse has released their annual report, which brings together surveys of drug use among teens from the various provinces. What’s most startling is the risky behaviours Grade 12 students are engaging in before driving. Depending on the province:
—up to 20 per cent report driving within an hour of having two or more drinks
—up to 38 per cent report being a passenger with a driver who was drinking
—up to 20 per cent report being a passenger with a driver who had “too much to drink”
—up to 21 per cent report driving within an hour of using cannabis
Clearly young people need to plan safer rides home.
There were also interesting, if less shocking, findings about teen drug and alcohol use in general. The study looked at students in grades seven, nine, 10 and 12 and found that the amount of teens who had drank alcohol at least once in their lifetimes ranged from 52 per cent of Albertan teens to 70 per cent of Newfoundland teens. Those figures climb as high as 90 per cent by twelfth grade.
College makes drug tests mandatory
Students fight back with class-action lawsuit
Photo courtesy of JosephAdams on Flickr
An American college, Linn State Technical in Missouri, implemented a mandatory drug testing program this month, claiming to be the first college in the U.S. to sample students’ urine.
“Drug screening is becoming an increasingly important part of the world of work,” the school wrote in a statement. If students refuse to urinate in a cup, they face possible expulsions.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday alleging the school has violated its students’ constitutional rights. Also on Wednesday, a Missouri federal judge granted the ACLU’s request for a restraining order to stop the school from analysing the urine specimens it collected or releasing any of the test results, an ACLU spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.
“Linn State Technical College…. has had no documented drug problems over the course of its 50-year history and no reason to suspect that the students subject to testing have been engaged in the use or abuse of illegal drugs,” says the statement of claim filed by the ACLU. “The mandatory, suspicionless drug testing required under the College’s new policy is a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Ordinarily, the Fourth Amendment prohibits such searches…”
Kent Brown, a lawyer representing the college told the Wall Street Journal: “Linn State Technical College takes seriously its responsibility to deliver quality technical education to Missouri students while exploring every available avenue to protect and prepare those students to compete effectively in occupations where pre-employment drug testing is quickly becoming the norm.”
Scientists develop date-rape drug detector
Have campus parties just gotten a little safer?
It’s a rule of thumb at any campus party: never leave your drink unattended. But two Israeli scientists say they have developed a new sensor that is 100 percent accurate at detecting date-rape drugs in drinks, potentially rendering the rule somewhat less compulsory.
According to AFP, Professor Fernando Patolsky and Doctor Michael Ioffe of Tel Aviv University’s school of chemistry have created a sensor that, when inserted into a drink, indicates the presence of GHB (gamma-hydrobuxybutyric acid) and ketamine, two of the most common date-rape drugs. The device has been tested on a variety of popular cocktails and soft drinks and has been able to detect the drugs in spiked drinks every time. The scientists are working to expand the sensor’s capabilities to include to detection of Rohypnol, another common date-rape drug.
The pair expects the final production of the device to akin to the size of a stir stick, potentially available for sale in the next year and a half.
UBC student died of cocaine-induced heart attack
Coroner concerned by head injuries during police custody
Photo courtesy of andronicusmax on Flickr
A University of British Columbia student died from a cocaine-induced heart attack three days after being released from police custody in Whistler on Feb. 23, 2010.
Silas Rogers, 20, was arrested for public intoxication during the Vancouver Winter Olympics after taking heroin, alcohol and snorting a crushed-up anti-anxiety medication. He was then taken to the local RCMP detachment, where he stayed for 11 hours. Following his release, he went to a friend’s house in Vancouver and continued to take drugs, including cocaine. He was found unconscious by friends a few hours after retiring to bed, during which time he experienced the deadly cocaine-induced heart attack, reports Metro News.
During his time in jail, recordings showed that Rogers struck his head eight times against the floor and the walls. The jail guards didn’t notice because the video monitor at their workstation was broken. Owen Court, the regional coroner, said in his report that although the falls were not the cause of death, he found it troubling that “an obviously intoxicated individual fell and struck his head numerous times while in police custody, yet received so little attention.”
Academic doping on the rise in Canada
More students using drugs to enhance academic performance
A story in the National Post suggests that illicit drug use to enhance their performance on exams and academic demands is on the rise among university students across Canada.
The article cites a random survey done at McGill University, which revealed that 5.4 per cent of 400 students had used a “study drug” to enhance their academic performance at least once. However, some estimates of drug use to increase student performance are even higher. According to the Post, “study drugs” are slowly becoming “entrenched on campuses” across Canada.
But do they actually work? Do the drugs help increase student performance on tests and assignments?
“It was definitely extremely helpful. I’ve never focused like that before in my life,” said a first-year student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. “I was able to sit in a chair for eight hours, concentrate on the work, brainstorm more effectively.”
Another student quoted in the article claims the use of drugs to improve academic performance is wide-spread among numerous schools, including the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo, Ontario.
The student claims the drugs come from other students who have a prescription for some of the commonly used drugs, including Adderall and Ritalin. A psychiatrist at the University of Toronto said that an estimated one in four of his university patients admit to sharing some of their prescription drugs to friends.
“I think it’s becoming a bigger difficulty in universities, particularly around entry to professional schools,” said Dr. Jain. “This is something that needs to be addressed, both in terms of university policy and in terms of physicians prescribing . . . These are not innocuous medications.”
Drug bust at Laurier
Student faces eviction from residence
A Wilfrid Laurier University student faces eviction from residence after after 45 grams of marijuana were discovered by police in his room. The 19 year-old male, who attends Laurier’s Brantford campus, is facing charges for possession and for trafficking, and is to appear in court in March. The student also faces sanctions from the university’s student code of conduct, which range from a warning, to suspension from residence, to outright eviction.
Ivy league drug dealers
Columbia students arrested as part of campus drug ring
New York police have put an end to a Columbia University drug ring after a five month investigation resulted in the arrests of five students, and three others, in connection with the case. The students distributed drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy, around the university and mostly at campus fraternity houses. The investigation involved undercover police purchases of $11,000 in illicit drugs, and was dubbed “Operation Ivy League.”
Med school needs to help students lay off Ritalin
Prescription-drug dependencies can have severe consequences later in life
Are the demands of medical school wearing some Quebec students out? Apparently so, and they’re using Ritalin to help them get through, according to a CBC story earlier this week.
The story quotes a few anonymous students from the University of Sherbrooke who say they take the drug without a prescription because exams are too tiring for them to concentrate on studying further. The practice is common, they say.
But school officials don’t seem to be all that concerned about the practice amongst their students.
“It’s not that dangerous to take Ritalin, and it’s not my concern. My concern would be if it proves that there is a real problem with Ritalin, which we’re not sure yet, because we don’t know how many [are taking it], if some are taking [it], the real concern is how to learn to deal with stress in a healthy way,” Pierre Cossette, Sherbrooke’s dean of medicine, told the CBC.
Okay, fair, dealing with stress in a healthy way is advisable, but what about the fact that a culture of drug dependency is developing at the University of Sherbrooke among people who don’t need to be taking Ritalin? The stress of being a doctor is not going to stop once the MD is in hand, so what’s the plan for educating responsible doctors?
Ritalin has documented effects that give people the ability to study longer, focus harder and more efficiently manipulate information in their minds. But this is a prescription drug. This is not like drinking a cup of coffee to help you stay up or popping an Advil to take away a headache. This is a regulated drug that also has documented long-term effects.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as their respective Canadian regulatory bodies, have issued strong cautions in the past 10 years that long-term use of ADHD drugs can cause dopamine imbalances—resulting in depression issues—heart problems and even cancer.
If students become dependent on drugs like Ritalin for their grades or, later in life, job performance, there are serious risks that await them in the long term. Students that are willing to venture down this path are taking a short cut that will prevent them from learning to perform without the help of dangerous drugs. That is inadvisable.
Perhaps the university should be looking at proactively adding healthy stress management lessons to their curriculum so they’re not sending new doctors out into the world who don’t know how to handle life when things get rough.
Related content: To drug or not to drug and Brain candy: can ritalin turn you into an A student?
Lies You Should Tell Your Parents
We lie to them because we love them
Since most of us are home from the summer from college (at least for a little while, anyway), we’re likely going to hear the following 3 questions a lot.
- So, how was school this year?
- Get into any trouble this year?
- So. Exactly how many drugs did you experiment with this year?
Obviously, telling Mom, Dad and Grandma about some stuff is OK. But the following items are things you might want to avoid when it’s your turn to talk at the dinner table. (I’m not condoning or encouraging any of the following acts. That’s for your peer-pressuring friends to do.) (I’m also not condoning or encouraging lying to your parents about everything. Just the things they don’t need to know.)
(Also, you may want to edit this list if your parents are any or all of the following: unbelievably understanding, hippies or convicted felons who continue to sell crack to support their heroin addiction.)
OK then. Here are some things you shouldn’t tell your parents when it comes to describing your year at college.
- Drug experimentation. Yes, maybe you found out your parents tried pot back in high school. It was, most likely, the ’70s. Not that pot is any more/less harmful than it was back in the day, but they’re still not going to be stoked that their baby angel got high once or twice (or, like, every Friday night for the past 4 months).
- Weekend dorm life. Living in a dorm can be fun. On weekends, there’s always a party going on somewhere and crazy stuff usually happens. But if Pops knew his little girl was surrounded by such tomfoolery (I love that word), he would not be pleased. He’d likely get you out of there and put you in your own apartment… Wait. On second thought. If he’s willing to pay your rent, better start tellin’ tales.
- Your diet. If Mom knew how many times you ate Wendy’s per week, she’d throw a fit. And then your Grandma would look at your epic ass, wince and shake her head in disappointment. (What? That’s only me. Oh. Well then.)
- How much you drink. What would college be without drinking? A purely educational environment… with rainbows and unicorns and chocolate-covered leprechauns ‘n junk. But if they knew how much vodka made its way into your system over the past academic year (“I swear to God, I have no idea how it got there!!”), they’d be shocked and dismayed. Plus, they might stop sending you money if they know it’s not going towards groceries, but actually to Smirnoff Ice.
- Hook-ups. No matter how far the hook-up itself went (or which gender it was with), your parents don’t need to know that stuff. And Grandma doesn’t either (unless she’s a weird kinky old lady… ew).
And, just so nobody pees themselves or anything, here are some things (in no particular order) you might want to fess up to:
- addictions (drugs, alcohol, porn, etc.)
- pregnancies (yours or one you caused)
- academic expulsion
- hit-and-runs
- murders
- manslaughter charges
- lawsuits (against you- they don’t need to know you’re suing your roommate for puking in your underwear drawer)
- getting sued for puking in your roommate’s underwear drawer
Any other things you might want to lie about not share with your family? Let me know!
- photo by Will Humes
UCalgary football player suspended for steroid use
Team’s head coach says positive drug test is a “slap in the face”
A University of Calgary Dinos football player has been suspended from competitive university athletics for two years after testing positive for steroid use.
Last March, linebacker Duncan McLean, 25, tested positive for Oxymetholone metabolites, a prohibited and very toxic anabolic steroid that has serious potential side effects according to the testing agency, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.
When informed of the test results in April, the Vernon, B.C. native waived his right to hearing and admitted to breaking the anti-doping rules followed by the Canadian Interuniversity Sport association. McLean’s football career is essentially over at the school, as he as already played for three years.
“The University of Calgary is unequivocally opposed to the use of banned substances by our student-athletes,” said Kevin Boyles, director of athletics for the university in yesterday’s press release.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy both at the UofC and in CIS,” he said. “We are fully supportive of the Canadian Anti-Doping Program and hope that this unfortunate situation sends a strong message throughout the league.”
Calgary Dinos football head coach Blake Nill says he wishes it didn’t take one of his athletes to test positive for an anabolic steroid to reinforce the league’s rules .
“This is the first one in 18 years for me. It’s tough,” Nill told The Canadian Press Wednesday, just hours after McLean was officially suspended.
“Our drug-testing is one of the best there is. Eventually, you’re going to get caught. If you try to take a performance-enhancer, you’re going to get caught. You see it all the time, but it’s unfortunate it happened in my program.”
Nill says he worries about the impact McLean’s suspension will have on the reputation of his school’s football program, although he has already phoned the families of incoming recruits to assure the parents that drug use isn’t a problem in his locker room.
“It’s still a shock when it happens,” Nill said. “Coaching at the university level is like adopting the athletes. It’s like I have 100 sons, I’m the surrogate father to 100 kids … I consider this sort of a slap-in-the-face type thing. I don’t feel responsible for it, but I’m disappointed it happened.”
- with files from The Canadian Press, photo courtesy of D’Arcy Norman
Grief counsellors at St.FX after student dies in fall
RCMP do not suspect foul play, investigate whether alcohol or drugs played a role
An autopsy was being conducted Monday on the body of a student who took a fatal fall from a residence window at St. Francis Xavier University.
Nicholas John Sheehan, 18, of Fredericton, a first-year student, tumbled from the fourth floor of Lane Hall on Sunday night. “It goes without saying that we’re saddened by what happened, the entire community on and off campus,” said university spokesman Kyler Bell.
Grief counsellors were made available to students who feel they need to talk about what happened.
“For at least the next few days we’ll be operating until late at night and then on call afterwards for any student who feels they need to speak to a professional,” Bell said.
RCMP Sgt. Mark Gallagher said they do not suspect foul play but the medical examiner was called in and toxicology tests done.
Police are trying to determine whether alcohol or drugs played a factor in the fall. It could be weeks before all the results are known. Gallagher said investigators planned to talk to family members and to other students to try to determine how it happened.
Police and paramedics responded to the call around 9 p.m. but the student was pronounced dead on site.
Bell said the university was trying to get back on track after the shock of what happened.
“I don’t like to use the words ‘routine’ or ‘as usual’ because, of course, it isn’t,” he said. “But classes have resumed and we’re operating . . . with minimal disruption.”
- The Canadian Press
