Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

March 31, 2012

Thousands of Marijuana Plants Found in South West Washington

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 5:42 AM

Washington law enforcement found thousands of marijuana plants worth millions of dollars on August 22nd. The team which includes Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, the US Forest and Washington State Patrol’s marijuana eradication team successfully removed around 25,000 marijuana plants from the mountain area of Columbia county.

According to the officials, the seize has been stated as the biggest grow eradicated this year in Washington State. They are estimating that these plants will worth $25million on the streets.

The next bust was taken place in Tucannon Valley in the Columbia county, where two suspects armed with hand guns were arrested and were charged under the possession of firearms and manufacturing of marijuana. Around 2300 plants are found in the bust with an estimated street value of $2.3 million.

The third incident happened in Robinette Mountain in Columbia County on July 26th. Even though there are no suspects found around 6,800 plants were removed, which accounts for $6.8 million.

Not only these there are many cases which are found related to these marijuana possession and trafficking. The number of the smugglers are increasing with the increase in the drug use among different group of people. Either directly or indirectly these people only drag some innocent people for small drug possessions offering them huge amount of money. Strict laws implemented even for small drug possession seems to be helpful.

Alcohol Consumption Declined in UK, Far Lower than 2004

Filed under: Health — Tags: — Winson @ 3:03 AM

The latest annual addition of British Beer and Pub Association’s, published that the alcohol consumption in UK for the year 2010, remained lower than it was six years ago, with the consumption continuing to flat line.

The report showed the statistics of UK alcohol consumption, where there was a small 0.6% rise in alcohol consumption per head in 2010. The drinking levels are still 11% lower than they were in 2004. It also showed that the UK ranks below the European average in terms of consumption.

However, other reports are quite contrary to the above report. They are raising the concerns about the UK’s approach to the industry. Britons are still paying high taxes on alcohol when compared with the neighboring countries. British alcohol taxes are now the second highest in the Europe on beer and wine, and 4th highest on spirits.

Also UK stats are eight times higher than France and 11 times higher than Germany. Apart from these the resources also found that the alcohol consumption per head is lower than that of 2004.

According to the experts, the rise in the percentage of taxes is due to the 35% rise in the beer taxes in the past three years.

They also added saying that the number of people who are drinking above health guidelines has been falling from many years and the industry is also investing reasonable amount of funds for conducting anti-drinking campaigns, to create awareness among the drinkers about the harmful effects of alcohol consumption.

May 31, 2011

Use of Tobacco Among Americans in 2009

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: , — Winson @ 9:38 AM

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) includes use of tobacco products, including cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff, cigars, and pipe tobacco. Cigarette use is defined as smoking tobacco, whereas, chewing tobacco and snuff are combined as smokeless tobacco.

69.7 million Americans aged 12 or older were current users of a tobacco product in 2009 according to the survey. 58.7 million persons were current cigarette smokers, 13.3 million smoked cigars, 8.6 million used smokeless tobacco and 2.1 million smoked tobacco in pipes. The rate of current use of any tobacco product among persons aged 12 or older remained steady from 2008 to 2009.

Adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest rate of current use of a tobacco products in 2009 and the 35.8 percent of adults used cigarettes, 11.4 percent used cigars, 6.1 percent used smokeless tobacco, and 1.7 percent used pipe tobacco.

Among persons aged 12 or older, males are higher than the females who used tobacco. Males also had higher rates of past month use than females of each specific tobacco product which includes cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco. Among youths aged 12 to 17, the rate of current cigarette smoking in 2009 was slightly higher for males than for females.

In 2009, current cigarette smoking was more common among unemployed adults aged 18 or older than among adults who were working full time or part time. Among adults aged 18 or older, current cigarette use in 2009 was reported by 35.4 percent of those who had not completed high school, 30.0 percent of high school graduates who did not attend college, 25.4 percent of persons with some college, and 13.1 percent of college graduates.

May 30, 2011

Illicit Drug Use Among Americans in 2009

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 9:41 AM

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) included 9 categories of illicit drugs which includes use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants and the non medical use of prescription type pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives. In this survey, hashish is included with marijuana, and crack is considered as a form of cocaine. LSD, PCP, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, and ecstasy are included under hallucinogens. Inhalants includes nitrous oxide, amyl nitrite, cleaning fluids, gasoline, spray paint, other aerosol sprays, and glue.

In United States an estimated 21.8 million Americans aged 12 or older were current users of illicit drugs in 2009. It means that 8.7 percent of the population aged 12 or older are users of illicit drugs. This rate was higher than the rate in 2008.

In 2009, marijuana was the most commonly abused illicit drug and was used by 76.6 percent of current illicit drug users. 42 percent of the illicit drug users abused drugs other than marijuana. Current use of other drugs but not marijuana was reported by 23.4 percent of illicit drug users, and 18.6 percent used both marijuana and other drugs. The estimated number and percentage of persons aged 12 or older who used cocaine in the past month in 2009 were similar to those in 2008. Hallucinogens were used in the past month by 1.3 million persons aged 12 or older in 2009, including 760,000 who had used Ecstasy.

Number of the non medical users of psycho therapeutic drugs in 2009 were higher than in 2008. Statistically significant increases in the percentage using stimulants and sedatives contributed to this increase. Number of non medical users of stimulants increased from 904,000 in 2008 to 1.3 million in 2009. The number of past month methamphetamine users increased from 314,000 in 2008 to 502,000 in 2009. Rates for any psycho therapeutic drug use in 2009 were similar to those in 2007.

November 18, 2010

Facts about Drug Abuse and Addiction

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 7:36 AM

Drugs are the chemicals, which have susceptible impact on neuro-chemical balance of human brain that effects feelings and actions of an individual. Abusing drugs often or regularly leads to addiction. Although there is no particular age limit for drug addiction, earlier abuse causes more serious drug addiction.

Reasons for addiction
Every abuser has a different reason for drug abuse or addiction. Mostly to escape from problems, people abuse drugs, and become addicted. Many factors influence the individuals like social environment, person’s biology, and age. Family, friends, life style of individual contribute to drug abuse. Critical stages of life along with genetic, and environmental factors also affect drug addiction susceptibility.

Effects of addiction
Complications of drug addiction are very high and it is like a disease that affects brain, and total functioning of the body. Brain’s communication system is affected with the chemicals present in drugs as they disrupt the process of information flow to nerve cells. Short and long term effects are seen in the abuse due to drug addiction.

  • Short term: The chemicals present in the drugs will blow into the brain’s communication system. These chemicals can disturb the functioning of the “reward circuit” of the brain. Many short-term consequences are observed in abuser’s health and avoiding drug abuse can help in overcoming the short-term consequences. Sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, running nose, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, depression, headache, dizziness, effects on memory and respiratory problems etc are found with short term drug addiction.
  • Long term: Serious long-term effects are found with drug abuse and addiction changes brain chemical system and circuit. These effects can lead from mild itching to coma and to death of the drug abuser. This addiction facilitates the user in experiencing uncontrollable cravings particularly when they see place or person associated with drug. High drug addiction can lead for infectious diseases, breathing related diseases, veins, or nervous collapse, and abuser can even die in minutes in certain situations.

The above addressed information about reasons and effects of drug abuse and addiction can be useful in preventing drug abuse. Prevention programs and educating the people about effects can be helpful in preventing drug abuse and addiction in society. If it is not controlled at right time, these drugs can become masters of abuser’s life. The consequences of addiction of drug can be overwhelming to both the user and to the user’s family members.

Source: DrugAlcoholTest.com

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