‘Street Drugs – The New Addiction Industry’ is a long awaited and vital resource for those who cannot see through the thinly veiled ‘War FOR Drugs’ hiding in plain sight. Elaine Walters OAM is a veteran in the arena of drug education and a relentless advocate for best practice Demand Reduction and drug use exiting recovery. The truths reasserted in this work are an imperative for those who care about the well-being, safety, dignity and potential of our communities and their emerging families. And to remember the words of Aldous Huxley quoted in the book… “Facts do no cease to exist because they are ignored or eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.”
New Offering: Mental Health issues in the emerging generation is a growing and deeply concerning issue. Many factors and elements contribute to this growing public and personal health crisis, including emotional deficits, omissions and various traumas of abuse and neglect. However, one factor that has both a disturbing, and all too often irreversible impact on mental health and wellbeing, is the alcohol and other drug factor (AOD). As some ‘grown ups’ clamour for greater liberalization of drug laws and the egregious example to the emerging generation that brings, students often continue to look to these models as a cue, not merely from a poor behavioural choices aspect, but all too often the model of self-medication being passively and actively foisted on the developing child. All humans were designed for Reward and Exploration, but this pattern is so easily hijacked by Rebellion and Experimentation counterfeits, that often are unwittingly reinforced by inaccurate cultural memes, like… ‘all kids are gunna rebel, can’t do a thing about it!’ The United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) continues to promote prevention and demand reduction for not only children (up to 18 years of age) but those still in developing brain stage – 12 to 30 years of age) The World Health Organisations (W.H.O) Comprehensive Mental Health Plan 2013-2030also seeks to give young people the best chance to develop sound mental health frameworks, of which substance use has no place.
As part of the Dalgarno Institutes educational offerings (alongside our Humpty Dumpty Dilemma Resiliency Project) we have developed a number of key workshop/seminars on AOD and Mental Healthfor your teachers and students. Including…
Mental Health in a Bottle???
Which substance will help my ‘mental health’, Hmmm, let’s try…?
These workshops can be used at any time, but best deployed during,
Alcohol and other drug overdoses are a significant public health problem and a common cause of death among young adults. This study assessed whether alcohol use at age 15–16 years is a risk factor for alcohol or drug overdose, or poisoning requiring medical attention, by the age of 32–33 in a population-based Finnish cohort study
First alcohol intoxication at age ˜12, and high alcohol tolerance were associated with an increased risk of intentional overdose.
Comments: This cohort study suggests that specific alcohol use patterns in adolescence are associated with increased risk of alcohol and other drug-related overdose later in life. Overdose prevention efforts could include early identification and intervention during adolescence/young adulthood for people with early onset of alcohol consumption, frequent alcohol intoxication, and high alcohol tolerance.
Study: No More Than 6 Teaspoons of Added Sugar per Day
JAMA. Published online April 19, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.6285
Moderate-quality evidence has tied high intake of sugars, particularly those containing fructose, with a range of poor outcomes, such as obesity in children, coronary heart disease, and depression, according to an umbrella review of 73 meta-analyses that included 8601 studies, a majority of which were observational.
Low-quality evidence linked each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage per week with a 4% higher risk of gout. Each extra cup per day of a sugar-sweetened drink was associated with a 17% and a 4% higher risk of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality, respectively.
“[W]e recommend reducing the consumption of free sugars or added sugars to below 25 g/day,” the researchers wrote in The BMJ. That translates to about 6 teaspoons daily. The authors also advised limiting sugar-sweetened beverages to less than 1 a week.
Adding menthol flavoring to electronic cigarettes may damage your lungs more than regular e-cigarettes do, a new study reveals.
A number of studies have suggested that e-cigarette vapor can cause lung inflammation, oxidative stress, DNA damage and airway hyper-responsiveness that can trigger asthma, Benam said. Vaping these substances can cause lung damage that impairs lung function. Menthol, he added, is such a toxic substance.
The common mint flavoring helps deliver lots more toxic microparticles, compared with e-cigarette pods that don't contain menthol. It's those microparticles that damage lung function, researchers say. "Beware of additives in the e-cigarettes, if you vape, they can make you inhale more particles into your lungs. Don‘t assume that since menthol is a substance naturally found in mint plants and added to some food and beverages, it would be fine to inhale…Menthol flavoring leads to a significantly higher number of particle counts that one would take into their lungs by vaping them…E-cigarette aerosols are known to contain many harmful substances, such as nicotine and formaldehyde.”
Associate Professor Kambez Benam, Senior Researcher in the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine
