Greater brain risks from ecstasy use

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For a glimpse into real-world drug use, Australian researchers went to parties where people were using a drug known as ecstasy - and discovered that users' brains were at far more risk from the drug than anyone had suspected.

The researchers also found that ecstasy pills often contain a variety of other drugs.

"What's concerning is that most studies looking at toxicity in people or animals look at a single drug," said Dr. Thomas Newton, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who was not involved in this study.

"We have no idea what happens when you start mixing like this."

For this study, 56 people who had taken ecstasy at least five times in the past agreed to invite the researchers to house parties where they took ecstasy once again.

The researchers collected a sample of the pills and measured users' blood levels of MDMA - the chemical that's in ecstasy - every hour for 5 hours after people took the drug. At the end of the study, each user received AUS$200 (about US$205, or 128 GBP) for participating.

In some people, the amount of MDMA reached levels that cause injury or death in primates.

The researchers found that only half of the pills consisted entirely of MDMA. The other half also contained methamphetamine or chemicals related to MDMA: MDEA or MDA.

Some pills had no MDMA at all. The ones that did had amounts that ranged widely, from as low as 25 mg to ten times that amount.

"This highlights a significant public health concern, particularly regarding the existence of pills containing more than 200 mg of MDMA," the authors write in their report of the study, which is published in the journal Addiction.

Because the research was intended to capture a realistic snapshot of ecstasy use, the number of pills people took over the course of an evening varied as well. Most users ingested more than one pill; some people took as many as five.

"Taking multiple pills is likely to lead to very high blood concentration, which may be harmful," Dr. Rod Irvine, the lead author of the study, wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

That's because concentrations of MDMA in users' blood did not stop climbing during the 5 hours of sampling.

"We were surprised that the...concentrations continued to rise throughout the study," Irvine, a professor at the University of Adelaide, said. "The higher levels are approaching those that have been shown to be damaging to brain cells in animal models."

Three users had blood concentrations greater than 700 mg/L, which was poisonous to primates in laboratory studies. Another three users had concentrations very close to that level.

"Those are big numbers," Newton said of the blood concentrations.

Irvine said that most users continued to take more ecstasy throughout the night, even though their blood concentrations from the initial pill had not peaked.

The authors speculate that users might develop a tolerance to the drug while they're using it, making them feel less intoxicated even while their blood levels of the drug are increasing.

None of the users in the study suffered any immediate health problems from taking ecstasy.

According to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, ecstasy can interfere with heart rate and temperature regulation and can cause brain damage.

Seven of every 100 twelfth-graders say they have tried ecstasy.

Irvine said that collecting data at parties is a valuable way to get a sense of what people are actually exposing themselves to.

For instance, in 14 people the amount of MDMA in the blood reached levels that had never been studied in humans in the lab.

In laboratory studies, ethical considerations prevent researchers from testing such high doses in people, so the amounts they experiment with "do not reflect the range used naturally," Irvine wrote.

Regarding the information Irvine's team collected, Newton said, "It's very unique to pull that off."

The research was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Difference Between Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse

Alcoholism and alcohol abuse are the two typical types of human disorder that involves uncontrollable desire and intake of alcoholic drinks despite all its bad effects to the body. They are most commonly known as alcohol addicts and are mostly common to men.

The term Alcoholism was coined by a physician from Sweden, Magnus Huss, around 1849 and replaces the term Dipsomania or the craving and intense thirst of one person over alcohol. But during the 1980s, the committee from the World Health Organization did not agree on the use of the term for diagnostic purposes that is why they changed it to “alcohol dependence”.

Alcohol abuse is a diagnostic term that involves a person’s psychiatric disorder of repetitive use of any beverages with alcohol content. According to a certain psychiatry book, alcohol abuse can contribute to a person’s decision to commit suicide especially if the person is suffering from a great depression. Constant alcohol abuse may lead a person to another disorder known as alcohol dependency.

Alcoholism superseded the term dipsomania which means a strong desire and intense thirst of a person over alcoholic drinks. But around 1979, alcohol abuse superseded the term alcoholism due to the World Health Organization’s recommendation to change the term for specific reasons. Physical signs of a person suffering from alcoholism involve sexual dysfunction, epilepsy and deficiency of one’s nutrition. Alcohol abuse, on the other hand, shows signs like insomnia and irritability. Alcoholism prevented measures by the WHO involves increasing the age limit before someone is allowed to drink. Increasing the tax of alcoholic beverages can reduce alcohol abuse, too.

Just like any other kind of addiction in the medicine world, alcoholism and alcohol abuse are addictions over alcohol that can still be treated. Those who suffer with any of these types of alcohol addiction can either go for a rehabilitation program to ensure proper withdrawal and/or with the use of doctor-prescribed medicinal drugs for alcoholism and alcohol abuse.

In brief: • Alcoholism replaces the term dipsomania in the same way that alcohol abuse replaces the term alcoholism due to the recommendation of the experts in World Health Organization. • Alcoholism signs and symptoms includes but not limited to nutritional deficiency, sexual dysfunction and epilepsy while alcohol abuse includes insomnia and irritability.

In Drug Courts, Judges Practice Their Own Version of Justice - And "Treatment"

Drug courts must be standardized, they must be held accountable and they must not be our primary policy approach to drug use and addiction. 

In Glynyears of her life in a dark, unexamined corner of the American criminal justice system.

Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams, who runs the Glynn County drug court, thought she was running her drug court according to national standards. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) says she’s got it all wrong. Judge Williams’ drug court may be unique. But, according to a new report by the Drug Policy Alliance, drug courts across the country exhibit similar (though , one hopes, less extreme) problems.

How is it that Judge Williams is free to steal a decade of Ms. Dills’ life, wreak similar havoc in the lives of so many others and remain on the bench? The fact is that, in drug courts across the country, the judge is king – and doctor.

The NADCP works to educate judges and other court personnel about addiction, to urge drug courts to focus on people with a history of law-breaking that is linked to a drug problem (rather than people facing a first-time drug charge), and to emphasize that incarceration does not “treat” addiction. Like other industry groups, it also serves to promote drug courts through public relations campaigns and to secure increases in federal funding for the programs. The NADCP has no authority over the nation’s more than 2,000 drug courts and, as a spokesperson tells This American Life, the group is aware of at least 150 drug courts that do not operate according to the best practices it promotes.

The Drug Policy Alliance is concerned that the number of drug courts whose practices may actually increase the criminal justice involvement of people struggling with drugs – as well as of people who do not have a drug problem but are convicted of a drug law violation – may be far greater.

Drug courts are locally developed and locally run. In them, judges have near complete freedom to choose who to accept, what kind of treatment to mandate, who to incarcerate and for how long and when to deem a participant a “success” or “failure.” They lack national standards and, worse, are not accountable to any authority.

Despite the NADCP’s recommendation that drug courts focus on cases involving people who have lengthy criminal histories and who actually have a drug problem, for example, a national survey found that roughly half of drug courts exclude people on probation or parole or with another open criminal case, 49 percent actually exclude people with prior treatment history and almost 69 percent exclude those with both a drug and a mental health condition.1 Another national survey found that fully one-third of drug court participants do not have a drug problem.