It was surely not a coincidence that drug abuse declined during the Reagan years.
Dr.Herbert Kleber, interviewed on PBS's Frontline* told the truth.
"To diminish drug use, you need to de-glamorize and de-normalise drug use" in the manner of the Just Say No campaign, which "had a good effect in terms of decreasing initiation and use".
From l980 to 1991, marijuana use among high school seniors decreased from 33% to
12%, "an enormous decrease" according to Dr. Kleber. 21985-1986 turned out to be the high point of the cocaine epidemic".
Tragically, marijuana use increased rapidly again between l992 and l997 he added.
*(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/kleber.html)
The reason for the increase was because funding for prevention was cut - the
Government believing that the drug problem had been solved. It is essential that prevention funding and prevention messages continue even when there is a downturn in drug use. It will take more tha one generation to revert to the very low rates of illegal drug use in the 1950's. It is also interesting to note that research has shown that regular use of marijuana leads to the use of cocaine - thus prevention of marijuana use will also have a prevention of cocaine effect.
Showing posts with label cocaine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cocaine. Show all posts
Call to halt trade in cocaine 'cutting' agent
THE spiralling use of a dental anaesthetic by criminals to bulk-out cocaine deals has prompted talks between police and the government over a clampdown on its trade, The Scotsman has learned.
Several meetings have taken place between senior officers and civil servants on the supply of lidocaine, which generates tens of millions of pounds for crime gangs.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is understood to have lobbied the Westminster government to introduce legislation restricting the ability of drug dealers and middlemen to buy large amounts of Lidocaine from overseas.
Senior detectives from Scotland have also held talks with counterparts south of the Border and government officials over similar moves. Sources have told The Scotsman they are pushing ministers to introduce a licensing scheme that would force individuals importing large quantities of potential cutting agents to prove they are for legitimate use.
Also known as Lignocaine, the anaesthetic is used in liquid form by dentists and other medical practitioners. Government restrictions ensure that most lidocaine supplied within the UK ends up in legitimate hands. But it can also be freely purchased in powder form from dealers overseas, leading to the emergence of a black market.
Lidocaine - along with other commonly-used cocaine cutting agents such as benzocaine and phenacetin - are a huge money-spinner for the dealers.
Cocaine is between 80 and 90 per cent pure when it arrives in the UK, where a kilo will cost around £35,000. Sold on the street, a kilo is nominally worth about £50,000. Diluting it twice over with a cutting agent turns a £15,000 profit into a £100,000-plus reward for dealers.
A spokeswoman for SOCA said: "The use of cutting agents is at high, if not record, levels. They are often carcinogenic and, clearly, people are not getting what they've paid for. "You can import Lidocaine but it is illegal to import large quantities with the purpose of mixing it with cocaine."
A senior Scottish police source added: "The availability of these agents is a major concern. Although some are harmless in themselves they are generating massive amounts of money for organised drug-dealers."
Steven Ward, crime co-ordinator at the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said police were "taking all steps possible to disrupt the ability of organised-crime groups to traffic cocaine". As The Scotsman revealed yesterday, police are urging so-called recreational users to consider the social and human cost of producing and supplying cocaine - a change in tactics that reflects the growth in demand for the drug in recent years.
Tom Wood, chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, gave cautious support to the proposed restrictions. "This makes a lot of sense. But it has to be thought through - if you reduce the availability of benign substances, dealers may move to less inert cutting agents."
How added chemicals boost dealers' profits
LIDOCAINE, benzocaine, phenacetin and manitol have been identified as commonly used agents for cutting cocaine in the UK.
Phenacetin is principally used as an analgesic. Lidocaine and benzocaine are used as local anaesthetics. Manitol is used in the food industry as a sweetener. Phenacetin is believed to be carcinogenic and toxic to the kidneys, while the other three are harmless.
The cutting agents can be obtained easily and cheaply from overseas. Licences are only required if the chemicals are to be altered or re-packaged before selling on. Personal imports and use of these agents have been rising in the last 18-24 months.
Phenacetin is one of the most desired cutting agents because of its similarity in appearance to cocaine. Cocaine cut with phenacetin can thus be sold to buyers further down the supply chain as being of high purity.
Cocaine sold at street level has decreased in purity from 30-40 per cent to 20-30 per cent in the last two years, indicating a growth in the use of cutting agents after import into the UK.
Source: The Scotsman 15th May 2007
Several meetings have taken place between senior officers and civil servants on the supply of lidocaine, which generates tens of millions of pounds for crime gangs.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is understood to have lobbied the Westminster government to introduce legislation restricting the ability of drug dealers and middlemen to buy large amounts of Lidocaine from overseas.
Senior detectives from Scotland have also held talks with counterparts south of the Border and government officials over similar moves. Sources have told The Scotsman they are pushing ministers to introduce a licensing scheme that would force individuals importing large quantities of potential cutting agents to prove they are for legitimate use.
Also known as Lignocaine, the anaesthetic is used in liquid form by dentists and other medical practitioners. Government restrictions ensure that most lidocaine supplied within the UK ends up in legitimate hands. But it can also be freely purchased in powder form from dealers overseas, leading to the emergence of a black market.
Lidocaine - along with other commonly-used cocaine cutting agents such as benzocaine and phenacetin - are a huge money-spinner for the dealers.
Cocaine is between 80 and 90 per cent pure when it arrives in the UK, where a kilo will cost around £35,000. Sold on the street, a kilo is nominally worth about £50,000. Diluting it twice over with a cutting agent turns a £15,000 profit into a £100,000-plus reward for dealers.
A spokeswoman for SOCA said: "The use of cutting agents is at high, if not record, levels. They are often carcinogenic and, clearly, people are not getting what they've paid for. "You can import Lidocaine but it is illegal to import large quantities with the purpose of mixing it with cocaine."
A senior Scottish police source added: "The availability of these agents is a major concern. Although some are harmless in themselves they are generating massive amounts of money for organised drug-dealers."
Steven Ward, crime co-ordinator at the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said police were "taking all steps possible to disrupt the ability of organised-crime groups to traffic cocaine". As The Scotsman revealed yesterday, police are urging so-called recreational users to consider the social and human cost of producing and supplying cocaine - a change in tactics that reflects the growth in demand for the drug in recent years.
Tom Wood, chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, gave cautious support to the proposed restrictions. "This makes a lot of sense. But it has to be thought through - if you reduce the availability of benign substances, dealers may move to less inert cutting agents."
How added chemicals boost dealers' profits
LIDOCAINE, benzocaine, phenacetin and manitol have been identified as commonly used agents for cutting cocaine in the UK.
Phenacetin is principally used as an analgesic. Lidocaine and benzocaine are used as local anaesthetics. Manitol is used in the food industry as a sweetener. Phenacetin is believed to be carcinogenic and toxic to the kidneys, while the other three are harmless.
The cutting agents can be obtained easily and cheaply from overseas. Licences are only required if the chemicals are to be altered or re-packaged before selling on. Personal imports and use of these agents have been rising in the last 18-24 months.
Phenacetin is one of the most desired cutting agents because of its similarity in appearance to cocaine. Cocaine cut with phenacetin can thus be sold to buyers further down the supply chain as being of high purity.
Cocaine sold at street level has decreased in purity from 30-40 per cent to 20-30 per cent in the last two years, indicating a growth in the use of cutting agents after import into the UK.
Source: The Scotsman 15th May 2007
'Health disaster' fear as pupils turn to cocaine
Drug dealers are targeting schools and a "worrying number" of youngsters are trying cocaine, an expert warned yesterday. As a result, the country is heading for a health care disaster, Prof John Henry, the UK's leading expert on illicit drug use, told The Daily Telegraph. He predicted a dramatic rise in heart attacks, strokes and neurological problems among young people. He spoke as a new report said that almost one in five secondary school pupils in England, some as young as 11, took illegal drugs last year.
The number of children aged 11-15 dabbling in drugs was contributing to an increase in the number of adults addicted to Class A drugs such as cocaine, with massive knock-on costs for the NHS. Hospital admissions linked to illegal drugs have tripled in five years.
The report was published by The Information Centre for Health and Social Care, a Government-funded body. The number of pupils who told researchers that they had used drugs in the previous month had fallen slightly over a five-year period. But the report said that the numbers who took cocaine or ecstasy in the past year have not dropped and represent four per cent -- or around 140,000 children.
Around 17 per cent of pupils took some kind of illegal drug, rising to 29 per cent among 15-year-olds. Nearly one in five at secondary school were offered Class A drugs such as ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, and amphetamines.
The report, which also looked at adult drug-taking in England and Wales, found that the number of cannabis users was down, from 10 per cent to eight per cent, but cocaine was the second most common drug.
Those taking Class A drugs rose in the past eight years from 2.7 per cent to 3.4 per cent, about 1.4 million adults, mainly due to an increase in cocaine use. Prof Susan Paterson, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London, who works with coroners on heroin deaths in the capital, said: "Ten years ago we hardly saw cocaine. Now it is commonplace."
Prof Henry said: "If dealers can find a new audience they will go for it. It is very brutal, very aggressive. "If you have a large number of people trying cocaine, you will have more people addicted." Cocaine usage had peaked in the US but was still on the rise here "which means the worst is yet to come, we're going to see more severe addiction, more strokes and heart attacks in young people, and more of the other complications linked to its usage".
There were 171 deaths from cocaine in 2005, up from 19 in 1996, but the professor said the figure was a gross underestimate because many cocaine users died of heart attacks and strokes. Prof Henry said: "We did research into people with chest pain and we found that about 30 per cent of people coming into hospital under 40 had taken cocaine." Cocaine use has been boosted because it has become more socially acceptable and the supply is more plentiful. A gram wrap costs as little as £45 and experts fear its use will soar until it reaches a peak, as it did in the 1990s in the US, where there are now 25 million users and two million addicts. According to the report, three per cent of pupils who said they had taken drugs in the past month were just 11 or 12 years old.
In 2006, 17 per cent of boys had taken drugs in the past year and 10 per cent in the past month. The figures for girls were 16 per cent and eight per cent respectively. Meanwhile, the numbers of adults in hospital where drug use is a factor has risen nearly threefold in 10 years to 38,364, while drug treatment centres are overwhelmed, with 181,390 drug users visiting them last year - up 13 per cent in 12 months. Some 8,200 pupils in 290 schools completed questionnaires last autumn for the survey.
Source: Daily Telegraph April 2007
The number of children aged 11-15 dabbling in drugs was contributing to an increase in the number of adults addicted to Class A drugs such as cocaine, with massive knock-on costs for the NHS. Hospital admissions linked to illegal drugs have tripled in five years.
The report was published by The Information Centre for Health and Social Care, a Government-funded body. The number of pupils who told researchers that they had used drugs in the previous month had fallen slightly over a five-year period. But the report said that the numbers who took cocaine or ecstasy in the past year have not dropped and represent four per cent -- or around 140,000 children.
Around 17 per cent of pupils took some kind of illegal drug, rising to 29 per cent among 15-year-olds. Nearly one in five at secondary school were offered Class A drugs such as ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, and amphetamines.
The report, which also looked at adult drug-taking in England and Wales, found that the number of cannabis users was down, from 10 per cent to eight per cent, but cocaine was the second most common drug.
Those taking Class A drugs rose in the past eight years from 2.7 per cent to 3.4 per cent, about 1.4 million adults, mainly due to an increase in cocaine use. Prof Susan Paterson, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London, who works with coroners on heroin deaths in the capital, said: "Ten years ago we hardly saw cocaine. Now it is commonplace."
Prof Henry said: "If dealers can find a new audience they will go for it. It is very brutal, very aggressive. "If you have a large number of people trying cocaine, you will have more people addicted." Cocaine usage had peaked in the US but was still on the rise here "which means the worst is yet to come, we're going to see more severe addiction, more strokes and heart attacks in young people, and more of the other complications linked to its usage".
There were 171 deaths from cocaine in 2005, up from 19 in 1996, but the professor said the figure was a gross underestimate because many cocaine users died of heart attacks and strokes. Prof Henry said: "We did research into people with chest pain and we found that about 30 per cent of people coming into hospital under 40 had taken cocaine." Cocaine use has been boosted because it has become more socially acceptable and the supply is more plentiful. A gram wrap costs as little as £45 and experts fear its use will soar until it reaches a peak, as it did in the 1990s in the US, where there are now 25 million users and two million addicts. According to the report, three per cent of pupils who said they had taken drugs in the past month were just 11 or 12 years old.
In 2006, 17 per cent of boys had taken drugs in the past year and 10 per cent in the past month. The figures for girls were 16 per cent and eight per cent respectively. Meanwhile, the numbers of adults in hospital where drug use is a factor has risen nearly threefold in 10 years to 38,364, while drug treatment centres are overwhelmed, with 181,390 drug users visiting them last year - up 13 per cent in 12 months. Some 8,200 pupils in 290 schools completed questionnaires last autumn for the survey.
Source: Daily Telegraph April 2007
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