"Health & Medical News"

A $10-million grant to the Canadian Center on Substance Abuse will support a national campaign to discourage illicit-drug use among 10- to 24-year-olds, the Canwest News Service? reported Jan. 31.

Canada’s new Drug Prevention Strategy for Youth (PDF) aims to reduce youth drug-use rates, delay the onset of use, reduce drug-use frequency, and cut the use of multiple substances among those who do take drugs. It is part of the conservative government’s National Anti-Drug Strategy released in the fall and will include a two-year media campaign.

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A supporter of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently suggested that Barack Obama’s admitted youth drug use could be a liability if he came up against a Republican opponent in the general election, but it seems like only Clinton backers are making Obama’s past use of marijuana and cocaine an issue so far.

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The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) says that young people were exposed to about 6 percent fewer alcohol ads in 2006 than they were in 2001, with exposure to print ads on the wane but youth exposure to alcohol ads on TV rising, AdWeek reported Dec. 20.

The report,? ”Youth Exposure to Alcohol Advertising on Television and in National Magazines, 2001 to 2006,” found that a 50-percent decrease in youth exposure to alcohol ads in magazine was partially offset by a 30-percent increase in television ad viewing. Neilsen Media Research reported that spending on TV alcohol ads rose 19.8 percent between 2001 and 2006, to about $800 million annually.

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A study by a British market-research firm found that people in their 30s and 40s were more likely to admit drinking too much alcohol than those in their 20s, the BBC reported Dec. 20.

The YouGov survey found that one in three people ages 30-50 said that they had a night ruined by excessive drinking within the past year, and 44 percent said they still don’t make a habit of following moderate-drinking recommendations. The former finding may partly be explained by the fact that the body copes more poorly with alcohol consumption as it ages.

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Barack Obama said that his admitted use of marijuana and cocaine as a young man should not have any bearing on his fitness to lead the country as a middle-aged adult, the Des Moines Register reported Dec. 15.

“I can’t say how Americans think generally about it. I do think that the average American believes that what somebody does when they were a teenager 30 years ago is probably not relevant to how they are going to be performing as commander in chief and president of the United States,” Obama said. “I think people have pretty good judgment about that.”

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Youths and young adults who experienced a major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year are more likely to have also used alcohol or illicit drugs for the first time in the past year, according to a recent analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

Among youths ages 12 to 17 who had not previously used alcohol, those who had experienced a past year MDE were nearly twice as likely to have used alcohol for the first time in the past year as those who did not experience a MDE. Likewise, youths who experienced a MDE in the past year were more than twice as likely to initiate illicit drug use.

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Young adults who have recently battled depression are at increased risk of starting to smoke cigarettes or initiating alcohol and other drug use, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

SAMHSA, drawing on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, said that youths ages 18 to 25 who reported a major depressive episode in the past year were 60 percent more likely than their peers to have started smoking, 35 percent more likely to have started drinking, twice as likely to have begun misusing prescription pain medication, and twice as likely to have started using illicit drugs.

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Thousands of youths use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs for the first time each day in the United States, according to a recent analysis of data from the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

On an average day in the past year, 7,970 youths ages 12 to 17 drank alcohol for the first time and 4,082 smoked cigarettes.

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Police in Missouri and Arizona are field-testing a new handheld device that the manufacturer claims can detect traces of methamphetamine on clothing, skin, and other surfaces, USA Today reported Nov. 5.

The device, made by CDEX of Tucson, Ariz., uses ultraviolet light to detect traces of the drug as small as one microgram, according to CEO Malcolm Philips. The scanner can distinguish between illegal meth and pseudoephedrine, a chemically similar but legal component of cold medications.

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By Bob Curley

New Mexico’s chronic problems with alcohol were never more brutally clear than on Nov. 11, 2006, when a drunk driver speeding the wrong way down Interstate 25 slammed into a minivan, killing six members of a Las Vegas, N.M., family.

Dana Papst, 44, had been drinking on a US Airways flight and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.32 percent — four times the legal limit –? when the head-on collision occurred. The crash killed Paul Gonzales, 36; his wife, Renee Collins-Gonzales, 39; their daughters Jacqueline Gonzales, 11, and Selena Gonzales, 11; and Alisha Garcia, 17, who was Paul Gonzales’ stepdaughter.

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