Category Archives: Drugs

27 April 2013 Last updated at 08:01 ET Police have issued a warning over drugs after a 19-year-old man was found dead at a flat in Essex. The man, from the Braintree area, was discovered at the property in Witham, Essex, early on Saturday. Two other men at the flat, believed to have taken the LSD type drug 2C-E, were taken to hospital. Det Ch Insp Anne Cameron said police believed the drug was produced by people with "no regard for the lives of their customers". She issued a warning that other potentially fatal drugs may be in circulation and should not be taken. The drug is in the form of a white crystal powder and can have a hallucinogenic effect. "We believe that one person has died and two others were taken ill because they have taken a drug that was poorly-produced by criminals," Ms Cameron said. A post-mortem examination and toxicology tests will be carried out later. The two other men, an 18-year-old from Braintree and a 21-year-old from Witham, were taken to Broomfield Hospital, but later released. Go here to read the rest: Teenager dies after taking drugs … Continue reading →

The growing use of synthetic drugs is threatening to shred the safety net offered to the city's most vulnerable residents at the CHUM shelter in downtown Duluth, the nonprofit agency's staff says. In the past year, CHUM staff members have caught more than 100 people smoking, snorting or injecting synthetic drugs on shelter property, even though clients know such activities mean automatic expulsion for at least two weeks. Shawn Carr, a support staffer at CHUM who oversees the shelter most nights, considers the growing use of synthetic drugs a stubborn obstacle. "It pulls us away from our primary mission, which is helping people," he said. "These days, we have to spend so much of our time policing." CHUM continues to enforce policies of zero tolerance when it comes to drugs, and that hard line has strained relationships at times, according to Carr. "Some people who I was very friendly with in the past now see me almost as the enemy," he said. Carr said that during one particularly tough week recently, the shelter kicked out 16 people for using synthetic drugs on its premises. Shelter resident Josh Mason, who moved to Duluth from Colorado, was surprised by the amount of … Continue reading →

Its easy to bash big pharma. Last year,11of the 12 cancer drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administrationwere priced above $100,000 a year. But life, even a few more months of it, comes at a price. Thats often the missing component in the debate over the exorbitant costs.Yesterday, more than 100 cancer specialists from around the worlddecried the high costs of a cancer drug called Gleevec usedto treatchronic myeloid leukemia, a deadly blood cancer. In the medical journal Blood, the doctors commentary noted that the costs were not only unsustainable but also immoral. Yet while on an individual scale, the cost of cancer drugs may seem astronomical, Americans also greatly value each year of life. Economists have put that number anywhere from $80,000 to $300,000. Frank R. Lichtenberg, a professor at Columbias Graduate School of Business, has studied the relationship of medical innovation to social value. The newer cancer drugs account for the largest portion of expenditure but also the greatest gains. Currently, Lichtenberg has a paper under review entitled, Has medical innovation reduced cancer mortality? The answer: yes. Drug innovation was the largest lifesaver, accounting for an 8.4% decrease in mortality rate from 2000-2009. His paper cites … Continue reading →

Latest Prevention & Wellness News FRIDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- A roadside breathalyzer test for marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs could be a step closer to reality, thanks to new research. Using a commercially available breath sampler, Swedish scientists were able to identify 12 substances in the breath of at least 40 patients who had taken drugs in the previous 24 hours and were recovering at a drug-addiction emergency clinic. The findings appear in the April 26 issue of the Journal of Breath Research. The study is the first to detect alprazolam (the active ingredient in Xanax and other anti-anxiety drugs) and benzoylecgonine (a cocaine byproduct) in exhaled breath, according to a journal news release. The study also confirmed previous findings that methadone, amphetamine, methamphetamine, cocaine, morphine, 6-acetylmorphine, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the active ingredient in marijuana), buprenorphine (a synthetic narcotic), diazepam (Valium is one brand) and oxazepam (a sedative) can be detected in a person's breath. "Considering the samples were taken 24 hours after the intake of drugs, we were surprised to find that there was still high detectability for most drugs," study author Olof Beck, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said in the news release. … Continue reading →

Surgeon Simulator 2013 Space Drugs Heart Transplant (FULL GAME) Setting up the world records for surgeon simulator 2013 This time it's a Heart Surgery in Space on Drugs! Post a response/comment if you beat my time! Elgato... By: Wintergore … Continue reading →

World Malaria Day: Fake Drugs in the Global Fight On April 25th, 2013, for World Malaria Day, the Pulitzer Center hosted a Google Hangout on fake drugs around the world. Pulitzer Center grantee Kathleen McLa... By: PulitzerCenter … Continue reading →

Justin Bieber -- Drugs Found in Tour Bus Raid! Drugs were allegedly found on Justin Bieber's tour bus when it was raided by Swedish police ... after an officer reported smelling weed. By: TMZ … Continue reading →

Drugs found on Justin Bieber's tour bus Police in Sweden say they found a small amount of narcotics after searching Justin Bieber's tour bus in Stockholm. Report by Rob Gillett. Like us on Facebook... By: itn … Continue reading →

An annual supply of Glivec (sold in the U.S. as Gleevec) wholesales for $76,740, much more than it cost a decade ago. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) A group of more than 120 cancer researchers and physicians took the unusual step this week of publishing a research paper taking aim at pharmaceutical prices they see as exorbitant and unjustifiable. Drug companies are profiteering, the doctors say, by charging whatever the market will bear for medications that patients literally can't live without. The paper, published online in the American Society of Hematology's medical journal Blood, analyzes and criticizes the cost of drugs used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a rare type of cancer that responds very well to drug therapy. The 10-year survival rate for CML patients now tops 80% for those who receive targeted drugs -- but the annual price tag for the treatment is usually in the six-figure range. Those prices bear little relation to what the drugs actually cost to develop and produce, the doctors say. As an example, they zero in on the case of imatinib, a drug sold by Novartis (NVS) as Gleevec (in the U.S.) or Glivec (in most international markets). Gleevec is the kind of … Continue reading →

(CBS News) Treating cancer is expensive. On Thursday, some of the world's top cancer specialists took an extraordinary step on behalf of their patients. They demanded that drug companies roll back their prices. Cody Anderson says he has a co-pay of $5,000 a month for bills associated with treating a form of leukemia called CML. "I was not on their approved list," said Anderson. "And so, they said they would only pay 50 percent of that. That left me with a $5,000-a-month co-pay," he said." Medicare chemo patients are feeling sequester's sting Dementia costs U.S. up to $215 billion per year, study finds Big Pharma loses key ruling over cancer drug patent The unprecedented attack on drug prices comes from more than 100 oncologists. They say the prices for cancer drugs are "unsustainable" and may be harming patients. "Today, most of the FDA-approved drugs come at the price of over $100,000," said Dr. Hagop Kantajarian of MD Anderson Cancer Center, the principal author of the commentary, "which makes it almost impossible for patients to afford them." One of the drugs Anderson took was Gleevec, made by Novartis. Until Gleevac was introduced in 2001, there was no highly effective drug for … Continue reading →