tagged w/ Amphetamine
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by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
According to Robin Marty of Care2.org, today’s young whippersnappers are snorting bath salts and plant food to get their kicks. I knew I was getting old when I had to check the media to find out about the latest youth drug menace.
But, before you go and blow your allowance at the Body Shop or the garden center, keep in mind that “bath salt” and “plant food” are just euphemisms that web-based head shops use to sell these amphetamine-like drugs , according to a 2010 report by the UK Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The active ingredients of this legal high are mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV).
Despite what the media would have you believe, these designer drugs are not ingredients in common household products. You cannot get high on actual bath salts or plant food. Sorry. Gardeners, if you bought exotic imported “plant food” online, and it arrived in an impossibly tiny packet, don’t feed it to your plants.
Anti-choice black op linked to James O’Keefe
At least a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics across the country have recently been visited by a mysterious, self-proclaimed “sex trafficker” who was apparently part of a ruse to entrap clinic employees. Planned Parenthood reported these visits to the FBI.
In each case, the man reportedly asked to speak privately with a clinic worker, whereupon he asked for health advice regarding the underage, undocumented girls he was supposedly trying to traffic.
Jodi Jacobson reports at RH Reality Check:
[Prominent anti-choice blogger] Jill Stanek and other anti-choice operatives, including Lila Rose of Live Action Films are effectively claiming responsibility for sending pseudo “sex traffickers” into [Planned Parenthood] clinics, and also warn of “explosive evidence,” of which they of course present…..none. They appear to have no credible response to exposure of their efforts to perpetrate a hoax on Planned Parenthood.
As Jacobson points out, sex trafficking is a very real problem. And a sex trafficking hoax diverts time and resources that the authorities who could be hunting down real traffickers. She adds:
Victims of sex trafficking, after all, also need sexual health services because they are effectively being raped regularly and are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections and experience unintended pregnancies. Does this help them get treatment?
Lila Rose of Live Action Films is a former associate of right wing hoaxster James O’Keefe, who orchestrated a sting operation against the social justice group ACORN. O’Keefe was sentenced last year to three years’ probation for scamming his way into the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in January, 2010.
Sex, lies, and the classroom
To mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the National Radio Project presents a discussion of sex ed in American schools, federal funding for sex ed, and advocacy by interest groups and parents. Guests include Phyllida Burlingame of the ACLU and Gabriela Valle of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.
Hot coffee!
Remember the woman who sued McDonald’s after she spilled a hot cup of coffee in her lap? Corporate interests made Stella Liebeck into a national joke, even though she won her suit. Hot Coffee is a new documentary that tells the story behind the one-liners. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Ms. Liebeck’s daughter and son-in-law.
McDonald’s corporate manuals dictated that coffee be served at 187 degrees, in flimsy styrofoam cups. A home coffee maker usually keeps the brew between 142 to 162 degrees, and most people pour their Joe into something sturdier than a styrofoam cup. If you spill that coffee on yourself, you have 25 seconds to get it off before you suffer a 3rd degree burn. Whereas if you spill 187-degree coffee on yourself, you’ve got between 2 and 7 seconds.
Companies are expected to produce products that are safe for their intended use. McDonald’s was serving coffee to go, through drive-through windows, with cream and sugar in the bag. By implication, it should be safe to add cream and sugar to hot coffee in a car. In the pre-cup-holder era, millions of Americans were probably steadying their coffees between their legs to add cream and sugar every day. A responsible restaurant would not dispense superheated liquids in flimsy to-go cups. Indeed, McDonalds’ own records showed that 700 people had been scalded this way.
In 1992, the plaintiff was a passenger in a parked car, attempting to add cream and sugar to her coffee while steadying the cup between her knees. When she opened the lid, the cup collapsed inward, dousing her with scalding coffee. The 79-year-old woman sustained 3rd degree burns over 16% of her body. She needed skin grafts to repair the damage. Initially she only sued to recoup part of the cost of the skin grafts. But the judge who heard the case was so outraged by McDonald’s disregard for customer safety that he urged the jury to award punitive damages.
Another theme of Hot Coffee is how medical malpractice caps are forcing taxpayers to cover the medical costs of people who are injured by negligent health care providers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
According to Robin Marty of... more
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Amphetamine is a psycho-stimulant drug which was first synthesized in 1887 by Lazăr Edeleanu, a Romanian chemist.
No pharmacological use was found for amphetamine until 1929, when psycho-pharmacologist Gordon Alles, in search of an allergy drug remedy, re-synthesized and tested it on himself. He noted a “feeling of well being,” “palpitation,” and eventually a “sleepless night” in which his “mind seemed to race from one subject to another.”(1)
A few years later a new drug dubbed “Benzedrine”, based on Alles re-synthesized amphetamine compound, was released on the market by the Philadelphia firm Smith, Kline and French as a decongestant inhaler.
The company then began to look for more commercial outlets for amphetamine in a wide range of medical specialties. The use that stirred interest among neuro-psychiatrists was for therapy of common, milder depressions. Amphetamine represented the first of the anti-depressant drugs and its use soon spread to general practice. (2)
However, the use of amphetamine soon spread outside general practice. By early 1937, abuse of the drug was reported among mid-western college students, and amphetamine tablets were taking on a new identity as “pep pills” or “pepper-uppers.” Students were mostly taking amphetamine while studying for, or actually taking, exams.(3)
After decades of reported abuse, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limited amphetamine to prescription use in 1965, but non-medical use remained common. In 1971, amphetamine became a schedule II drug, under the Controlled Substances Act.
A schedule II drug is classified as one that has a high potential for abuse, severe physiological and psychological dependence, and has a currently-accepted medical use, such as d-amphetamine used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). (4)
More recently, many students have turned to a legal stimulant to aid their performance – the ‘energy drink’.....http://arch1design.com/blog/2010/12/15/amphetamine-energy-drinks-and-associated-problems/Amphetamine is a psycho-stimulant drug which was first synthesized in 1887 by Lazăr... more
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An EU member for six years, it has already flooded the continent with a deadly drug. The Czech Republic has become Europe’s largest producer of the amphetamine ‘crystal meth’.
All across Europe tens of thousands are taking methamphetamines in clubs; methamphetamines made in the Czech Republic, an EU member since 2004. According to surveys, out of every twenty doses of the drug consumed in Europe, nineteen are produced here.
Locals call it pervetin – otherwise known as methamphetamine or crystal meth. “We’ve had a tradition of methamphetamine production, but since we now have open borders with Europe, it has blown up. We are exporting it everywhere. It is our number one drug problem,” Jakub Frydrych, the head of the Anti-Drug Police, says.An EU member for six years, it has already flooded the continent with a deadly drug.... more
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Ecstasy is more likely to kill young, healthy people than other stimulants such as speed and crystal meth, a new study revealed today.
Researchers looked at stimulant-related deaths across the UK between 1997 and 2007.
They found that those who died after taking Ecstasy were younger and healthier than those who died after taking amphetamines.
This was despite the fact that Ecstasy is itself an amphetamine derivative.
The findings were described as 'a cause for concern' by the lead author of the study.
Professor Fabrizio Schifano of the University of Hertfordshire's School of Pharmacy said: 'These data seem to support the hypothesis that young individuals seem to suffer extreme consequences after excessive intake of Ecstasy.
'This is an issue of public health concern which deserves further studies.'
The study found that 832 people had died as a result of amphetamines and methylamphetamines over the 11 years in question while 605 deaths were Ecstasy-related.
Prof Schifano said it was not clear why those aged 16 to 24 were more susceptible to the effects of Ecstasy.
'Ecstasy and amphetamines are very much part of the same pharmacological group so when you compare deaths, you would expect there may have been the same mortality rates,' he said.
'But for some reason that we don't know, Ecstasy appears to be more toxic than the amphetamines classed as a group, especially in young people.
'This is worrying because most of the people taking Ecstasy are young.'
The figures came from the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths database and from the British Crime Survey.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246923/Ecstasy-likely-kill-young-people-speed-crystal-meth-study-finds.html#ixzz0dxwFy50ZEcstasy is more likely to kill young, healthy people than other stimulants such as... more
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As if the stoners and dopers weren't paranoid enough, the police may soon be able to detect whether or not you partake in one the five most popular recreational drugs: cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine, and methamphetamine.
The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva and a measurement chamber containing magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups.
After 90 seconds, the device delivers its verdict on a color-coded readout. That's a lot of fancy technology to tell you that the naked, toothless guy trying to escape from the ghosts chasing him is probably high as a kite, but Philips, the company behind the tester, hopes to have the device in Europe by the end of the year. If it is successful, I would imagine that a US launch would not be far behind.♦As if the stoners and dopers weren't paranoid enough, the police may soon be able... more
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This GOOD magazine's chart is a graphical representation of "what drugs local law enforcement officials said were posing the greatest dangers to their communities, when asked by the Department of Justice."
Click to see the full-size image.This GOOD magazine's chart is a graphical representation of "what drugs... more
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None of the researchers believe that stimulant maintenance is a panacea or that it will work for every cocaine or meth addict. But there is no medical treatment that works 100% of the time.
Trading one speed additction for another?None of the researchers believe that stimulant maintenance is a panacea or that it... more
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BZP is a common name for the synthetic drug N-benzylpiperazine, a stimulant that is approximately 10 to 20 times more potent than amphetamine. BZP tablets, especially those that also contain the hallucinogen TFMPP (1-(3-trifluoromethylphenyl)piperazine), often are sold as MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy) or promoted as an alternative to MDMA.
Finnish Customs seized more than 600 tablets containing BZP from a Russian man at Helsinki-Vantaa airport.BZP is a common name for the synthetic drug N-benzylpiperazine, a stimulant that is... more
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