My News 4 (Reno, NV) August 5:
"Americans in this day and age are now prescribed more medications than ever. And kids are finding them. According to statistics I obtained from the district, about 70 percent of teens get prescription pills easily, many of those pills are stolen from friends and relatives. Just ask the teens themselves... 'It's easy to get because all you have to do is -- if your parents aren't home -- get it from the medicine cabinet,' said 8th grader Chase Crowley... So what is the district doing about it? For starters, it's involving students in its own anti-pill message. Students produced and acted in this DVD for their peers. It educates students about the consequences of taking and mixing pills. From trouble breathing to vomiting to hospitalization. Video of Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson show the ultimate price of pill abuse. And also Included in the DVD are the distraught parents of a 15 year old son who died from a methadone overdose."
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Thursday, August 5, 2010
Mentoring program gives hope to children of inmates
Star Advertiser (Oahu, HI) August 5:
"Keiki o Ka Aina is trying to make things less difficult for children growing up with parents behind bars by using volunteers from the community to spend time doing activities with the kids... Mentoring Children of Incarcerated Parents has more than 150 4- to 16-year-olds and mentors across Oahu. A recent outing at the boxcar racing track in Kunia brought caregivers, mentors and the children together in a monthly activity for the children to meet other children who might be experiencing the similar feelings of loss and sadness."
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"Keiki o Ka Aina is trying to make things less difficult for children growing up with parents behind bars by using volunteers from the community to spend time doing activities with the kids... Mentoring Children of Incarcerated Parents has more than 150 4- to 16-year-olds and mentors across Oahu. A recent outing at the boxcar racing track in Kunia brought caregivers, mentors and the children together in a monthly activity for the children to meet other children who might be experiencing the similar feelings of loss and sadness."
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Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Booklet offers Wilton parents tips on teen substance abuse
The Hour (Wilton, CT) August 3:
"'This booklet is educational in nature and is for every parent and/or grandparent to hang onto,' said Fawcett. 'The booklet has a lot of good information in it, things that parents really can use.' Fawcett said that the Teen Booklet for Parents covers various topics on teens abusing alcohol and drugs including; why kids use and don't use, negative effects of substance abuse, signs and symptoms, parties on the social scene, beyond high school and legal consequences."
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"'This booklet is educational in nature and is for every parent and/or grandparent to hang onto,' said Fawcett. 'The booklet has a lot of good information in it, things that parents really can use.' Fawcett said that the Teen Booklet for Parents covers various topics on teens abusing alcohol and drugs including; why kids use and don't use, negative effects of substance abuse, signs and symptoms, parties on the social scene, beyond high school and legal consequences."
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New Findings Imply Exercise in Adolescence May Help Prevent Drug Abuse
ECN Magazine (Upton, NY) August 4:
"Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that daily physical exercise during adolescence decreases cocaine-seeking behavior in young adult rats. These results indicate that physical activity during adolescence may protect against cocaine abuse later in life. The researchers also found a gender disparity: In both exercising and sedentary animals, females exhibited more cocaine preference than males. The results will appear in the July 2010 issue of Behavioral Brain Research, now available online. 'This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse,' said lead author Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, a neuroscientist with Brookhaven Lab and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Laboratory of Neuroimaging. 'We want to see how manipulating exercise will impact susceptibility to drug abuse and addiction.'"
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"Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that daily physical exercise during adolescence decreases cocaine-seeking behavior in young adult rats. These results indicate that physical activity during adolescence may protect against cocaine abuse later in life. The researchers also found a gender disparity: In both exercising and sedentary animals, females exhibited more cocaine preference than males. The results will appear in the July 2010 issue of Behavioral Brain Research, now available online. 'This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse,' said lead author Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, a neuroscientist with Brookhaven Lab and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Laboratory of Neuroimaging. 'We want to see how manipulating exercise will impact susceptibility to drug abuse and addiction.'"
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U-M study: Pep talk to teens in the ER reduced violence, alcohol misuse
University of Michigan Health System (Ann Arbor, MI) August 3:
"A brief, motivational talk in the emergency room reduced by half the chances that teenagers would experience peer violence or problems due to drinking, according to a study published Aug. 4 in a theme issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association... 'The study tells us that technology can aid in assisting high-risk youth in busy clinical settings, as well as deliver important prevention messages,' says Cunningham who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School and associate professor of health behavior & health education at the U-M School of Public Health. 'Emergency staff are busy and not all hospitals have the resource of a social worker or therapist present at all times in the emergency department.'"
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"A brief, motivational talk in the emergency room reduced by half the chances that teenagers would experience peer violence or problems due to drinking, according to a study published Aug. 4 in a theme issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association... 'The study tells us that technology can aid in assisting high-risk youth in busy clinical settings, as well as deliver important prevention messages,' says Cunningham who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School and associate professor of health behavior & health education at the U-M School of Public Health. 'Emergency staff are busy and not all hospitals have the resource of a social worker or therapist present at all times in the emergency department.'"
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More substance abuse by immigrant children
UPI (Rockville, MD) August 4:
"Children of Hispanic-Americans adults born outside the United States have much higher levels than their parents of substance abuse, health officials say. A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration finds 37.2 percent of Hispanic-Americans who immigrated to the United States say they participated in binge drinking during the past month, while past-month binge drinking among U.S. born Hispanic-American adults is 57.7 percent."
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"Children of Hispanic-Americans adults born outside the United States have much higher levels than their parents of substance abuse, health officials say. A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration finds 37.2 percent of Hispanic-Americans who immigrated to the United States say they participated in binge drinking during the past month, while past-month binge drinking among U.S. born Hispanic-American adults is 57.7 percent."
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Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Cravings, Emotions Use Same Part of Brain
WebMD Health News (online) August 2:
"Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., wanted to evaluate what was going on in the brains of smokers when they were asked to perform a task designed to test how cravings are regulated, meaning whether patients refrained from what they knew wasn’t good for them or if they succumbed to the craving... Substance abuse is a major public health problem. In the United States, about 43 million Americans or 20% of U.S. adults smoke, and 8% of people age 12 and older have used an illicit drug in the previous month, according to the CDC. The results suggest that cravings involve neural dynamics parallel to those regulating emotions,the authors say."
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"Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., wanted to evaluate what was going on in the brains of smokers when they were asked to perform a task designed to test how cravings are regulated, meaning whether patients refrained from what they knew wasn’t good for them or if they succumbed to the craving... Substance abuse is a major public health problem. In the United States, about 43 million Americans or 20% of U.S. adults smoke, and 8% of people age 12 and older have used an illicit drug in the previous month, according to the CDC. The results suggest that cravings involve neural dynamics parallel to those regulating emotions,the authors say."
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