Posts Tagged Drug Facts

National Drug Facts Week Scheduled

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Prevention, Drug Facts on August 17th, 2010

On Monday, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announced the launching of the National Drug Facts Week, according to a feature on the website of the National Institutes of Health. National Drug Facts Week will serve as a way to bring teenagers and scientific experts together in order to talk about drug abuse. It is an expansion of the online Drug Facts Day previously conducted by NIDA.

National Drug Facts WeekNIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow was quoted in the feature: “What we learned through our annual Web chat is that teens have many questions about drug use and are eager for objective, factual answers, so we wanted to build a series of events where teens could ask scientists their questions directly.”

National Drug Facts Week will encourage the conduct of community-based question and answer events participated in by teenagers and scientists. Schools, community groups, hospitals and various youth-oriented clubs can serve as the sponsors of these events. Those interested in organizing such events can ask NIDA for an online toolkit that will provide teenagers and their sponsoring organizations information regarding: “how to create an event, how to publicize the event, how to find a scientific expert and where to find scientific information on drugs.”

This new awareness week is supported by the following federal agencies: the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in HHS, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at NIH, the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the U.S. Department of Transportation, The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance in the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Guard, part of the U.S. Department of Defense.

National Drug Facts week will begin on November 8.

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Common Questions Asked in Drug Facts Fun Day

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Facts on November 4th, 2009

Transcripts of past Drug Facts Chat Day have been made available for other students, especially for those whose schools have not registered in time to get access codes and for those who may have missed seeing the answers to their questions.

Common questions asked during the Drug Facts Chat Day last year include the following:

What is the deadliest drug?
What are the worst effects of weed?
Can you die from using marijuana?
Does smoking affect your sex life?
Can weight loss pills have a harmful effect?
What’s the most commonly used drug in high school?
When were drugs invented?
How can drugs affect pregnancy?

There are also questions that may or may not be related to drugs, but still merit answers from NIDA scientists, like:

Who would win in a fight — Chuck Norris or a T-Rex?
How many questions do you get each minute?
If I ask a stupid question, will you answer it???
How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck was on drugs?
Would you vote for Obama?

This year’s Drug Facts Chat Day promises to be more fun, informative and helpful to the participating students, teachers and scientists.

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Drug Facts Chat Day on November 10!

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Facts on November 4th, 2009

It’s the third annual Drug Facts Chat Day on November 10, and students, teachers and scientists are getting ready for another round of interesting conversations on drug abuse.

Drug Facts Chat DayDrug Facts Chat Day, an activity sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), provides students and teachers an opportunity to get answers to their drug-related questions from experts in the field of drug abuse. The students create their user names (not necessarily their real names), view the live chat and send their questions for the NIDA scientists to answer.

Schools need to register to get an access code, which can be used by the students during the chat to log-in, submit questions and view answers. To make the chats extra fun, there will also be featured factoids and quizzes about drug abuse and addiction.

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Beware of Brownies: They may be laced with Drugs

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Treatment, Drug Addiction, Drug Facts, Drug Rehabilitation, Drug Testing on September 10th, 2009

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I was just going through some interesting news and happened to read one of them which I think is worth sharing. It happened on 7th April in Los Angeles. According to reports, a pre-school teacher bought brownies from a street vendor who claimed that he was selling the sweet treats as a means of raising funds for the church. Each brownie was wrapped in plastic wrappers.

The teacher bought the brownies for $ 1.50 each and took the sweets to her workplace for her colleagues to share. During the break hours five teachers ate one brownie each while the sixth one took a bite and spit it out complaining that it had an “unusual taste”. The teachers fell ill after sometime complaining of dizziness and “tingling of the face, forehead, arms and hands”, according to reports submitted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lady who had bought the brownies did not have any but her son ate one before she brought them to school. Some of the people who had had the brownie later reported that the food had a “medicine like aftertaste or smell.” But the people who were affected had an entire brownie. 

The pre-school director contacted the pastor to verify the genuineness of such a fundraising program. She was informed that there was no such fundraiser.

The pastor informed the police who in turn called the public health department. An investigation of the matter revealed the fact that the teachers had unknowingly taken brownies laced with pot. Two of the teachers required medical care at an urgent-care center one of whom was a breast feeding mother.

The lesson to be learned from this incident is that drug pushers are always trying out various innovative ways to trap people into their network. It is your responsibility to be cautious and save yourself from their influence. So be on the guard.

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Dirty Money: Traces of Cocaine on 90% of US Dollar Bills

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Treatment, Drug Facts, Drug Testing on August 25th, 2009

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The next time you deal with paper currency, be aware of the fact that a large percentage of U.S. bills contain traits of cocaine. Yuegang Zuo, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, conducted a research which revealed that 90% of the bills circulated in the U.S. are contaminated with cocaine.

This startling information is a confirmation of the findings of previous studies on the issue. In 1985 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration study showed that a third to a half of all the randomly tested currency in a Federal District Bank had traces of cocaine. In another study, more than 135 bills were tested in seven cities of the country and all except four, were contaminated. Cocaine binds in the green dye in the bill.

Zuo said that the contamination was 100% in cities like Detroit, Boston, Orlando and Los Angeles, 85% in Toronto, 77% in Salt Lake City, Utah, 75% in Brasilia and 20% in Tokyo and Beijing. He also found that $5, $10, $20 and $50 had greater chances of contamination. 

The quantity of contamination could vary between a nanogram (one-billionth of a gram) to milligram. Thus it actually does not pose any health risk. But those who have to handle an extremely large number of bills everyday – in bank tellers or soft rooms of casinos- repeatedly inhale cocaine involuntarily and has a chance of being positive on a drug test report.

Money gets contaminated if a cocaine user snorts with it and also during drug deals. But not all money gets infected that way. In powdered form cocaine is extremely fine. So when a dirty bill is processed or sorted through the machines, traces of the drug are easily passed on to the other bills in the same batch. Thus bills also get infected through ATMs, counting machines in banks and casinos. Whatever be it, the fact remains that the initial contamination was through the drug users and dealers.

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