We’ve all heard the expression “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.” From the foundations of rock, there have been references to drug use and speculation that lyrics were referring to using drugs. Veiled (or not so veiled) references to drug use appear in songs by everyone from Jefferson Airplane and The Doors to The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Dave Matthews Band.

The most recent example in drug referencing comes from Madonna, who reportedly alluded to Ecstasy from stage at a recent festival, asking the crowd, “How many people in this crowd have seen Molly?” (a slang term for Ecstasy).

The question is, does talk about drugs in song or on stage lead to more widespread drug use by listeners? While there’s no concrete proof that drug references in music make listeners more likely to experiment, experts agree it has led to a broader acceptance of the subject. We’re no longer shocked when we hear references to illegal drugs in songs that are played on the radio. And if artists and hit bands can influence things like clothing choices and hairstyles, it’s not a great stretch to imagine that their casual use of drugs will influence impressionable listeners.

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If you or someone you love needs help with drug abuse, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

We all know meth is dangerous. Adults who are chronic users can even bear telltale signs like discolored skin and rotten or missing teeth. Then there are the locations where meth is manufactured. You hear stories on the news of busts happening in seemingly quiet rural or suburban neighborhoods, or worse, of explosions when the meth-making operation goes bad.

Often overlooked in all the talk about methamphetamine are the babies who are born addicted to this dangerous drug. Now, the first study to look at methamphetamine’s potential lasting effects on children whose mothers used it in pregnancy has been released, and it finds these kids are at a higher risk for behavior problems than other children.

The behavior issues — which can range from anxiety and depression to moodiness — may not be huge, but they have researchers worried. Since methamphetamine is a stimulant, similar to crack cocaine, meth babies are born showing similar signs of addiction as “crack babies,” which includes low birth weight, drowsiness and stress.

This study shows that this may be where the similarities end. Long-term studies on children of cocaine-using mothers have produced conflicting results when it comes to determining whether these kids have lasting behavior problems.

What is the possible difference attributed to? Some researchers suggest that since methamphetamine has stronger effects on the brain, it may be more likely to cause lasting effects in children. The study, published recently in Pediatrics, was funded by the National Institutes of Health with help from a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Current data suggests that more than 10 million Americans have used meth, with fewer than 1 percent of pregnant women using. More studies will need to be done to clarify and expand on the results, but considering meth’s epidemic status in the US, the drug will likely be a topic of interest to researchers for years to come.

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If you or someone you love needs help with drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Drugs are dangerous enough when we know exactly what’s in them, but what if the pills you’re buying aren’t what you think they are? Street drugs don’t come with a guarantee, and those manufacturing them have plenty of incentive to cut their expensive illegal substances with cheaper ingredients – despite the health risks these fillers may pose.

A Dallas rave club, Afterlife, was shut down recently after officials claimed drugs were being sold freely inside. During the hearing to determine if the club’s license would be permanently revoked, police officers testified about going undercover to buy Ecstasy (aka MDMA) inside the nightclub. One officer called the club “an open-air, free-for-all drug-trading den,” according to The Dallas Observer.

While the club owner flatly denied allegations that he’d knowingly allowed drugs to be sold at the club, officers talked about easily scoring a variety of pills in the club. These varieties of Ecstasy were later found to contain an assortment of additional substances as well. One pill, marketed to the undercover officer as “Molly,” was supposed to be pure MDMA, but when it was analyzed, it contained a substance the officer couldn’t identify.

The Dallas Observer found a local chemist, willing to speak on the condition of anonymity, who shed some light on the issue. According to the chemist, “the only thing that’s predictable about Ecstasy, really, is how unpredictable it is.” The percentage of actual MDMA found in each pill varies wildly. While it’s all sold as Ecstasy, those who indulge have no idea what they’re really putting in their mouths.

That’s the common with all drugs, though, isn’t it? Not exactly. That same chemist said that “compared to meth and cocaine, the purity of ecstasy is very low,” adding, “the pills we get are generally 5 to 10 percent pure.” (By contrast, cocaine is commonly 80-90 percent pure.) It’s even possible that something sold as Ecstasy could contain no MDMA at all.

So what exactly are those partygoers taking?

Often, it’s mixed with meth. In fact, the chemist interviewed guesses that 15 to 20 percent of Ecstasy tabs contain methamphetamine. While uncommon, some pills actually contain only meth. Ecstasy is also frequently cut with caffeine. When combined with meth, there’s a danger of overheating, even to the point of death. “The drug increases metabolism, body temperature, they’re dancing at these raves, they start overheating and they literally die from that,” according to The Observer’s chemist. It’s also become common to see designer drugs from Europe and Australia being sold as Ecstasy. The effects are similar, but these drugs may be cheaper or easier to make than MDMA.

Afterlife may be closed, but that’s just a drop of water in the ocean that is the problem of drug abuse.

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It’s been 30 years since we lost comedian John Belushi to a drug overdose involving cocaine and heroin. On the anniversary of his death, the comic’s good friend and co-star Dan Akroyd spoke out in an exclusive interview with Showbiz Tonight about what might have been.

Belushi died on March 5, 1982, at just 33 years old. Akroyd believes that if his friend had lived, he would be a Broadway director today.

“That would have been his destiny, because he was so intelligent and so well referenced there,” Akroyd said, adding, “He was more of an academic than the ‘Bluto’ image would have you believe.”

Akroyd also commented on Belushi’s addiction, insisting that during “the last summer of his life, not a powder nor a pill did he touch. Nothing. Just smoked a little bud. That was it. And wine and beer and food, you know.”

After that revelation, Akroyd made the odd prediction that “If he’d been a pothead, he’d be alive today ‘cause that doesn’t kill ya.”

It may be true that marijuana isn’t as deadly as cocaine or heroin, but for someone struggling with addiction, any substances can cause trouble or lead to relapse. We have no way to know if that’s what happened in John Belushi’s case, but it certainly didn’t help.

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While we wait for the official cause of death for Whitney Houston, her passing has sparked in odd debate over the issue of legalizing drugs. Brought up the very evening Houston died, aging recording artist Tony Bennett made a questionable connection to the deaths of several beloved stars and the legalization of drugs that left many scratching their heads.

Bennett told the audience at Clive Davis’ Beverly Hills pre-Grammy party, “First it was Michael Jackson, then it was Amy Winehouse, and now, the magnificent Whitney Houston. I’d like to have every gentleman and lady in this room commit themselves to get our government to legalize drugs — so they’ll have to get it through a doctor, not some gangsters who just sell it under the table.”

Um, what? Jackson died from medication administered by a doctor and Winehouse died from alcohol, which has been available legally in the U.S. since Prohibition ended in 1933. His references made the plea seem unrelated, and in light of Houston’s death being so fresh, it seemed at the very least, a bit insensitive.

While illegal drugs deaths are tragic and still all too frequent, it’s the number of drug deaths by legal means (i.e. prescription painkillers like Vicodin or Oxycontin) that is really on the rise in this country. With that in mind, Bennett might have been better off to warn his audience to commit themselves to staying clean rather than fighting to legalize drugs we know can kill – whether obtained from a street pusher or a legal source.

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While marijuana contains many of the same chemicals as tobacco smoke, researchers at UC San Francisco found that smoking marijuana on an occasional basis does not appear to significantly damage the lungs. The study, reported by the Los Angeles Times and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at 5,115 men and women in four US cities regarding their current and lifetime exposure to tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke and their lung function.

The study showed that lung function declined with increased exposure to tobacco smoke, but the same pattern was not seen with marijuana smoke. There was no evidence of lung function damage with smoking one joint a day for seven years, however, after 10 years, there was some decline in lung function as measured by the speed at which a person can blow out air.

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If you or someone you love needs help with an addiction to marijuana or other drugs, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

It’s a question often asked by those battling addiction as well as family and friends: Why do some people seem to have no problem saying “no” to drugs, while others can’t stop once they start?

It turns out that many addicts inherit a brain that has trouble just saying no to drugs. We’ve long known that there is some sort of genetic component to addiction, but new studies continue to discover more specifics. The latest research from the publication Science shows that cocaine addicts have abnormalities in areas of the brain involved in self-control, and these abnormalities appear to predate any drug abuse.

The study, done by a team at the University of Cambridge in the UK looked at 50 pairs of siblings. One member of each pair was a cocaine addict. The other had no history of drug abuse. Interestingly, brain scans showed that both siblings had brains unlike those of typical people, and fibers that connect the different parts of the brain were less efficient in both, researches explain.

The fibers in question connect areas involved in emotion with areas that tell us when to stop doing something. When these fibers aren’t working efficiently, it takes longer for a “stop” message to get through. The research team found that in various experiments both siblings took longer than a typical person to respond to a signal telling them to stop performing a task.

It’s the fact that siblings without drug problems also had impaired self-control that presents strong evidence that these brain abnormalities are inherited. It also raises the question how one sibling can manage this brain abnormality without using drugs while the other sibling can’t.

In reporting on studies like these, it’s always important to remind everyone that a predisposition to use drugs does not mean a person is predestined to use drugs. There is an element of choice for everyone, and no matter what traits you’ve inherited, it IS possible to say “no.”

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If you or someone you love needs help with drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

Reported drug shortages nearly tripled in 2010 from 2005, according to The Huffington Post, and more than 80 percent of the products in short supply are generic, according to the IMS Institute, which provides information services for the healthcare industry.

The current drug shortage in the US includes cancer and arthritis drugs, but in the case of ADHD meds like Ritalin and its generic equivalents, some are questioning whether growing abuse is at least in part to blame for the scarcity. Congress has been sufficiently concerned about shortages of ADHD drugs and has even written to two drug companies, in essence asking them to prove they’re not manipulating the market by slowing down manufacture of cheaper, generic drugs, The Huffington Post reported.

The shortage has left parents of ADHD sufferers scrambling for Ritalin or Adderall, drugs for which there is an extremely high demand. The popularity of these meds on college campuses as a study aid or party favor is no doubt contributing to the shortage, as is the increasing numbers of children, teens and even adults diagnosed with ADHD. The problem is these drugs are stimulants and controlled substances, so the Drug Enforcement Administration is involved, setting quotas on how much manufacturers can supply. Those numbers don’t necessarily increase in proportion to the number of prescriptions written.

The FDA’s website features a list of drugs currently in short supply, and some people are able to find alternatives by consulting with their physician, but that’s not possible for everyone. Still, the experts warn against ordering medication over the Internet because it is hard to ensure that you’re getting what you pay for.

The problem of supply and demand isn’t going to end anytime soon, but continuing to fight against abuse of prescription meds will help make it more likely that the medications are available for those who truly need them.

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In the movies and among many teens and college students, the perception is that pot is relatively harmless. It mellows you out and the worst side effect is a bad case of the munchies, right? Not according to a new study. An article published in the latest issue of the professional journal Archives of General Psychiatry shows a much scarier potential effect of marijuana. It turns out that a chemical called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), found in pot, increases the brain processes that can lead to symptoms of psychosis.

So what does that mean for the average person? Can smoking pot lead to psychosis? Are there are other possible health concerns uncovered by this new study?

Previous research has found that THC can induce symptoms of psychosis in healthy people and worsen psychotic symptoms in people already experiencing them. Long-term cannabis use is also associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia, the study suggests.

The study is groundbreaking in another way: Its findings are the first to use images of the brain to demonstrate that the reason symptoms of psychosis arise in marijuana users may be because THC interferes with the brain’s ability to distinguish between stimuli that are important, and those that aren’t, according to the study.

The study, led by Dr. Sagnik Bhattacharyya, a psychopharmacologist at King’s College in London, included 15 healthy men with minimal previous marijuana use. The researchers used functional MRI scans to observe the men’s brains after they took pills containing THC, cannabidiol or a placebo. The resulting images showed changes in the areas of the brain that are believed to be linked to symptoms of psychosis. Men taking THC had increased activity in the prefrontal cortex but lower activity in the region called the striatum, changes that the study says could be attributed to THC’s ability to alter the brain’s levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

While those in charge of the study don’t go to far as to say that prolonged marijuana use will make you psychotic, the findings are interesting and provide just one more argument for abstaining from pot use.

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If you or someone you love needs help with marijuana addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

While the health effects of hookahs, or water pipes, haven’t been studied as rigorously as cigarettes, the risks are becoming clearer as the pipes grow in popularity in the US. A major concern is that they can cause carbon monoxide poisoning, according to health officials.

Drawing the attention of young users, hookahs are viewed as a less dangerous way of using tobacco. Hookah bars, where many go to indulge, feature water pipes that are used to smoke a blend of tobacco, molasses and fruit called shisha. But researchers are finding that the water in the pipe does not filter all the harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke. In fact, the smoke inhaled in a typical one-hour hookah session can equal 100 cigarettes or more, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Even after it has been passed through water, the tobacco smoke in a hookah pipe contains high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

Poison Centers are reporting seeing hookah users with significant carbon monoxide poisoning, and regular hookah users may develop long-term health problems from increased carbon monoxide levels, including neurological damage. In severe cases, carbon monoxide poisoning can lead to a coma or death.

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If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction or drug abuse, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about addiction treatment, financing or insurance.