A National Survey on Drug Use and Health will be released today, stating that about 20 Milion people used illicit drugs during the past month.
Drug use increased among those 50-59 years old as more baby boomers joined that age group. Previously, their drug use rose from 4.3 percent in 2006 to 5 percent in 2007.
According to John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, “Baby boomers have much higher rates of self-destructive behaviors than any other age group from which we have statistics.”
About 20% of young adults acknowledged illicit drug use within the previous month last year, a rate that has held steady. However cocaine use declined by 25% and meth by 33%. Cocaine and methamphetamine use declined last year mainly due to dwindling supplies which lead to higher costs and less potency.
Across the board, the overall use of illicit drugs showed little change.
Video highlights just a few of the “ugly” parts of addiction-needle infections, withdrawal, self-multilation, etc. Background songs bring up Lortabs, Percoset, Oxys, Cocaine and more.
Music: Urban, rap and country. Length: 5 minutes.
Review: Watch It!
In the “No Real Surprise” Category, the United States has the highest levels of cocaine and cannabis use. This news accoding to a survey of 17 countries.
My question is how do you survey a country?
“OK, next! Ireland-How much did you drink last week?” “Are you sure it was just a few beers?”
The results were based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and was released on June 30, 2008 in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.
Colombian cocaine production edged down last year despite an increase in crops used to make the drug, showing that law enforcement efforts have reduced the efficiency of the business, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
U.N. investigators said the output in the world biggest cocaine-producing country was 600 tonnes in 2007, down 2 percent from the year before.
Planting of coca bushes used to make cocaine meanwhile rose to 99,000 hectares in 2007, up 27 percent from 2006.
Farmers are quickly replanting in more remote areas after the government sprays herbicides on their coca fields, part of a multibillion-dollar U.S.-backed program. A record 538,700 acres (218,000 hectares) of coca were eradicated last year.
“What’s happening is that the efficiency of production is going down,” said Aldo Lale-Demoz, representative in Colombia for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
“After each eradication, farmers immediately replant somewhere else,” he said. “That takes time. They go further inside forests. They go further afield from their homes. They will not tend those plots as well as they did before, so the productivity of those secondary lots is much lower.”
Productivity increased in 2003 through 2005, according to U.N. figures, as traffickers responded to the spraying by looking for ways to produce more cocaine per hectare of coca.
“If efficiency moved down last year it was only after several years of it moving up,” said John Walsh, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America.
“Unfortunately, net production of cocaine in Colombia remains stable and high.”
Colombian police say they are cracking down on access to chemicals used to make cocaine in secret jungle laboratories, another factor reducing production efficiency.
Crime is down in this Andean country under President Alvaro Uribe, a White House ally who was re-elected by a landslide in 2006 and remains popular in part for spurring economic growth.
The U.N. report nonetheless calls the sharp increase in coca cultivation “a serious and worrisome reversal” of previous declines in areas covered by the illegal crops.
The United Nations had reported a drop from 166,000 hectares of Colombian coca cultivation in 2000 to about half that amount in 2006.
Cocaine output in the Andean region, including Peru and Bolivia, rose 1 percent last year to 994 tonnes. Bolivian production alone shot 11 percent higher to 104 tonnes while coca cultivation regionwide rose 16 percent to 181,600 hectares, the U.N. report said.
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source: Reuters
The mystery surrounding the fatal cocaine overdose of a baby boy has only deepened since he was pronounced dead two months ago.
J.C. Luna died at 14-months-old.
The parents continue to plead for answers, and justice. As of now, no answers have been found-especially regarding how the child came to have cocaine in his body.
In October of last year J.C.’s mom dropped off her son in good condition with a babysitter.
But 20 minutes later, the sitter called the mother back, telling her that J.C. was sick.
“He was purple,” she said. “He was slurring his speech and he was foaming at the mouth.”
Courtesy
J.C. Luna
J.C. initially survived the overdose, but he suffered too much internal damage internally.
Cleburne police tested Gallegos, Luna, the babysitter and their homes for cocaine. The results came back negative.
These are the last images of J.C. in a hospice, where Gallegos and Luna were allowed to visit.
“The only thing that I want and that I ask is for justice, justice because my baby died like this,” Gallegos said.
The family has since moved to Fort Worth, but the case is still an active Cleburne homicide investigation. Police said they believe someone gave J.C. the drugs before he was dropped off at with the babysitter. Exactly when, how and why are all still a mystery.
