Free Republic

Whether they thought he was a revolutionary scribe of the counterculture or a depraved glorifier of illegal drugs, Hunter S. Thompson had people talking in Nebraska Monday. Many of his admirers were surprised by news of the author's suicide Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colo. Like the university student planning a beer-fueled memorial viewing of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" to honor of one of his favorite authors. And the senator's staffer who believes American literature has lost a true against-the-grain voice. "I don't know if there will ever be another Hunter," said W. Don Nelson, state director...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Promoting condoms has failed to stem the spread of AIDS and may have increased promiscuity, the Roman Catholic Church in South Africa says, sparking criticism from AIDS activists. Cardinal Wilfred Napier said there was simply no evidence that promoting condoms had worked, citing the fact that as a contraceptive, they come with a failure rate which implies they probably do not always stop HIV transmission. "Can you show me one example where condoms have stopped the spread of AIDS?," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "If you look at South Africa, millions have been spent...

LONDON, December 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study published in the current issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry has revealed that 43% of gays, lesbians and bisexuals have a mental disorder. The study carried out by the Imperial College in London surveyed 1285 respondents from these groups. Mental problems included anxiety, sleep disturbance, panic attacks, depressive moods or thoughts, problems with memory or concentration and compulsive behaviour or obsessive thoughts. The researchers noted that there is a dearth of research into the mental health of gay men, lesbians and bisexual men and women in the UK. The study found...

(Reuters) - Afghanistan's opium cultivation jumped 64 percent to a record 324,000 acres this year and drug exports now account for more than 60 percent of the economy. This year Afghanistan has established a double record: the highest drug cultivation in the country's history, and the largest in the world. Afghanistan now accounts for 87 percent of global heroin production, which has a worldwide market value of $30 billion.

An appellate court says it will ask justices to take up Rush Limbaugh's medical-privacy case. Rush Limbaugh's case may be headed to the Florida Supreme Court. The Fourth District Court of Appeal refused to reconsider its Oct. 6 ruling that Palm Beach County prosecutors were within their rights when they seized Limbaugh's medical records using a search warrant. Instead of rehearing the case, the appellate court said Wednesday it will ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case. The state's highest court can either hear the case or pass on it. The conservative talk show radio host has...

In February 1999, Dr. Frank Fisher, a general practitioner in Shasta County, Calif., was arrested by agents from the California state attorney general's office and charged with drug trafficking and murder. The arrest was based on records indicating that Dr. Fisher had been prescribing high doses of narcotic pain relievers to his patients, five of whom died. He lost his home and his medical practice and served five months in jail before it was discovered that the patients had died from accidents or from medical illnesses, not from the narcotics he prescribed. All charges were dropped last year, and Dr....

Former Astro Ken Caminiti dead Associated Press NEW YORK -- Ken Caminiti, the 1996 National League MVP who admitted using steroids during his major league career, has died at age 41. Caminiti died of a heart attack in the Bronx, said his agent-lawyer Rick Licht. The city medical examiner's office said an autopsy would be performed Monday, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

GEORGE W Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, a new book claims. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14609301&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=bush--took-cocaine-at-camp-david--name_page.html His wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth. Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.

SAUDI youths are playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette with new illegal drugs now being sold on the streets. To maximize profits, drug dealers in the Kingdom cut their drugs with baby powder or talc, captagon or powdered glucose, which has been common in the West for decades. But in recent months Saudi Arabia s medical community has seen an alarming increase in drug overdoses because some users of methamphetamine or speed and other drugs have unwittingly been taking barbiturates, a lethal combination. Four of my friends were killed during four months, said A.H., who is 40 years old...

As far back as the 1970’s, shortly after the feminist movement was launched, it was estimated that as many as 30 million American women were taking tranquilizers. That was almost half of the female population at the time. In 1975 alone, more than 103 million prescriptions for tranquilizers were written. By the 1980’s, prescription levels had spiked again. Women throughout Europe and North America were prescribed about twice as many psychotropic drugs as were men. Many of these drugs were taken long-term. In the case of the “minor tranquilizers” (technically, benzodiazepines such as Librium, Valium, Mogadon, and Ativan), continued use...

Parenting a second generation Drug use, mental health problems often force grandparents to step in By Ilene Olson rep3@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - Terry Kenny's days have been full since the children came. She spends much of her time doing laundry, feeding the baby, picking up toys, reading stories, trying to keep up with the kids and driving them to and from school and appointments. That was something she expected when her own children were small. But it came as a big surprise the second time around, when she and her husband Tim became the foster parents...

DARE drug program could be dropped without proof of effectiveness BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Drug abuse prevention programs such as DARE could be on their way out of Alabama classrooms if they can't prove that they are effective, drug treatment experts said. Federal, state and local governments have poured millions of dollars over the last decade into Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, a program that puts police into elementary school classrooms to encourage students not to use drugs. But federal and state spending on DARE - whose license tags reading "DARE to keep kids off drugs" often are...

Bush Policy To Target Prescription Drugs Tracking patients' use key part of new anti-drug effort WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's national anti-drug strategy will for the first time target the use of pain relievers, sedatives and stimulants for nonmedical purposes, a problem that has exploded in the last decade. A key part of the strategy being released Monday involves government efforts to help states develop monitoring systems to track a patient's use of prescription medicine. The monitoring programs flag cases that indicate a pattern of abuse, such as "doctor shopping," where a patient gets prescriptions for drugs from multiple physicians....

  Krischer: Limbaugh probe hurt by state By John Pacenti, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Friday, January 30, 2004 WEST PALM BEACH -- State Attorney Barry Krischer on Thursday accused Attorney General Charlie Crist's office of trying to impede the Rush Limbaugh prescription fraud investigation for political reasons. Krischer expected Crist's office to file the state's response to Limbaugh's appeal of a decision to unseal the commentator's medical records in the prescription fraud case. Crist's office pulled out of the appeal one hour before a Jan. 12 deadline imposed by the appeals court, said Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for Krischer's...

The Justice Department has quietly ended a program to measure criminals' use of drugs and forecast new drug epidemics, citing budget cuts by Congress. The program, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, or ADAM, tests newly arrested criminals entering jail for narcotics violations in 35 cities. Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d, in the Reagan administration, started it in 1986. Law enforcement officials and criminal justice experts criticized ending the program, saying it was a useful tool in the battle against crime and drugs and was widely credited for tracking the rise and fall of the crack epidemic and detecting the...

The old failures of new and improved anti-drug education I’m at the February 2001 Teens at the Table conference, a feel-good event sponsored by a coalition of Los Angeles youth organizations and high schools. It’s designed to boost self-esteem and teach teenagers how to make smart decisions. In one of the sessions, a group of students is about to learn how easy it is to stay off drugs. It doesn’t require anything as lame as red ribbons or "Just Say No" chants. It just takes knowing what constitutes a healthy decision -- one that is all your own -- coupled...

Teen Drug Abuse Declines Across Wide Front; Eleven Percent Reduction Exceeds President's Two-Year Goal 12/19/03 11:36:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk and Health Reporter Contact: Tom Riley of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, 202-395-6618; Blair Gately of National Institute on Drug Abuse, 301-443-6245 WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, today released results of the 2003 Monitoring the Future survey, showing an 11 percent decline in drug use by 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students over the past...

While seeing relatives in Port Limon, Costa Rica in 1999, I stepped into my great aunt's house after a late-morning stroll. "What's for lunch?" I asked. "Liver and onions," she triumphantly announced. Trying to offend neither my dad's sister nor my visiting grandmother, I sat down and ate an oily serving of fried, seasoned organ meat. I soon smilingly accepted a second helping. Calmly, I ignored the bellyaching of my inner food critic who feared that something so greasy could not be so healthy. The GOP Congress seems equally resigned to grit its collective teeth and swallow a massive Medicare...

Overview of Prescription Drug Abuse & The Oxycodone Problem in Florida August 2001 Background The abuse of pharmaceuticals has not received as much publicity as the abuse of club drugs and other illegal drugs, but it is a significant and growing problem in the United States. According to the National Drug Control Strategy 2001 Annual Report, there were approximately 2.8 billion prescriptions written in 1999, with approximately 457 million for controlled substances. This is an increase (55 percent) from 1998 in which 254 million prescriptions for controlled substances were written.The National Drug Threat Assessment 2001 reported that law enforcement agencies...

In defense of Rush Limbaugh Posted: October 3, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com The sharks are circling. They sense blood in the water. And their prey is, perhaps, the biggest fish of all – Rush Limbaugh – a man who single-handedly has changed the political culture of America for the better over the last 15 years. They've got Rush in their sights on two fronts: Over what they characterize as a racially insensitive, if not downright racist, comment he made in his new gig as a football commentator for ESPN; and Over allegations that he abused pain-killing drugs...

CONTROLLING THE SUBSTANCES Doctors' group blasts administration Claims White House punishing physicians for misdeeds of patients Posted: October 2, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Jon Dougherty © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A physicians' advocacy group is blasting the Bush administration for its pledge to prosecute physicians even if their patients are responsible for the abuse of pain medications they've been prescribed. "Physicians are being threatened, impoverished, delicensed and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain," said Kathryn Serkes, a spokeswoman for the Tucson, Arizona-based American Association of Physicians and Surgeons. In a Monday press conference at the...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030915.wsame0915/BNStory/National/ Globe Poll: Vancouver has just opened a safe-injection site for heroin users. Do you think these so-called shooting galleries are a good idea? Yes No http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030915.wsame0915/BNStory/National/

<p>WASHINGTON -- An estimated 22 million people in the U.S. seriously abused alcohol, drugs or both last year, but only a fraction received treatment, the government said Friday.</p> <p>In addition, nearly 20 million people were current users of illegal drugs, with such use highest among young adults, the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found. Current users are those who said they had used an illegal drug within the past month.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A redesigned survey of who uses and abuses drugs in the United States has found millions of "missed" users and addicts, with an estimated 22 million Americans suffering from alcohol or drug abuse. The study, released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Friday, finds that 19.5 million Americans used illicit drugs in 2002. This works out to 8.3 percent of the population age 12 or older. Last year's survey found that 15.9 million Americans used an illegal drug in 2001 -- but SAMHSA stressed that the latest survey used new methods and turned...

Nora Volkow was born three years after Stalin died, and 16 years after the Soviet dictator sent a student with an ice ax to kill her great-grandfather. Her grandmother committed suicide, and her grandfather was shot to death in a Stalinist prison. She grew up in Mexico City knowing that her family was both steeped in greatness and marked by tragedy. Today, Volkow is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and one of the United States' leading experts on the science of drug addiction. "I've studied alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana and more recently obesity. There's a...

Camera's first catch gets felony drug charge As Marcus D. Jackson smoked dope in a blue Chevy Caprice, he had no idea anyone was watching, police say. But about a block away, officers were monitoring his every move on a surveillance camera set up at Augusta and Pulaski to target crimes both serious and minor that bring down the neighborhood's quality of life. When they swooped in and arrested Jackson, the officers allegedly found $20 worth of pot and Ecstasy, a so-called "club drug," valued at $60. The 1:30 a.m. Saturday bust was the first one for Operation Disruption, which...

Monica Almeida/The New York Times Skid Row in Los Angeles is home to thousands of people felled by mental diseases, drugs and bad luck. Some make it out, only to return. LOS ANGELES, July 13 — The eastern quarter of downtown Los Angeles is a cattle pen, an outdoor outhouse, a human calamity. It is the largest concentration of homelessness in the country. Thousands of people in the 50 blocks known as Skid Row live on the sidewalks in tents and cardboard condominiums. Thousands more sleep on mission cots, in the back seats of automobiles and in flophouses. Those who...

<p>FORT WORTH, Texas — The son of a homeless man who died after becoming lodged in a windshield when he was hit by a car testified Wednesday that his father was "very, very loving."</p> <p>"He was very hardworking and was very friendly, although he didn't have many friends," said Brandon Biggs, 20.</p>

Social-services advocates pooh-pooh the idea of promoting marriage among the poor. New research demolishes their arguments. Social-services advocates usually make two arguments against the idea of promoting marriage among poor single-parent families. First, they charge, poor urban communities, where such families disproportionately reside, suffer from a chronic shortage of “marriageable” males—the men are usually young, feckless, and hostile to the idea of marriage. Even those who are potential “husband” material in such communities are chronically unemployed, making so little money that they wouldn’t raise the economic status of the mothers of their children even if they were to marry them....

Tehran, April 27, IRNA -- An expert working with the State Welfare Organization on Saturday warned against the prevalence of the ecstasy abuse and polydrug consumption in Iran. Atekeh Tehrani who is working in the drug abuse department of the State Welfare Organization told IRNA that the polydrug consumption is growing in Iran. She said some addicts are abusing several kinds of illicit drugs including lsd, heroin, opium and its derivatives. She added that the young abusers are tending now to consume heroin instead of other narcotics due to the heroin low prices and easy access to the opiate. She...

POPE WARNS OF "A TRUE CONSPIRACY AGAINST LIFE AND FAMILY" Says Bishops are "the first ones called to be untiring teachers of the Gospel of life" VATICAN, March 31, 2003 - Pope John Paul II addressed the Bishops of Indonesia Saturday during their 'ad limina' visit to Rome. Addressing life and family issues, the Pope said, "A true 'conspiracy against life' and the family is appearing in many forms: abortion, sexual permissiveness, pornography, drug abuse and pressures to adopt morally unacceptable methods of population control." The Pope then challenged the Bishops saying, "Notwithstanding the difficulties involved in countering these tendencies...

WINNIPEG - The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday imposed a 3.94 per cent tariff against Canadian wheat exports, a much lower duty than Canadian trade officials expected. The preliminary duties are the result of a U.S. Commerce Department trade law investigation into Canadian exports of durum wheat and hard red spring wheat into U.S. markets. American trade officials and American farmers allege Canada unfairly subsidizes the exports by undercutting the price of U.S. wheat. In its decision, the Commerce Department says a preliminary investigation shows material damage to farmers from the Canadian imports. The Canadian Wheat Board controls the sale...

Context  Previous studies have reported that early initiation of cannabis (marijuana) use is a significant risk factor for other drug use and drug-related problems.Objective  To examine whether the association between early cannabis use and subsequent progression to use of other drugs and drug abuse/dependence persists after controlling for genetic and shared environmental influences.Design  Cross-sectional survey conducted in 1996-2000 among an Australian national volunteer sample of 311 young adult (median age, 30 years) monozygotic and dizygotic same-sex twin pairs discordant for early cannabis use (before age 17 years).Main Outcome Measures  Self-reported subsequent nonmedical use of prescription sedatives, hallucinogens, cocaine/other stimulants, and opioids; abuse or dependence...

<p>Jones has a distinct blue-gray skin color, the result of taking too much of an anti-bacterial form of pure silver.</p> <p>GREAT FALLS, Montana (AP) -- Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate has turned blue from drinking a silver solution that he believed would protect him from disease.</p>

Teens charged after pot field foundBY PATRICK CORCORAN STAFF WRITER The chance arrest of seven area teenagers in southwestern Palatine Township last week led to the revelation of more than 4,500 marijuana plants growing in a forest preserve that had been under the surveillance of the Cook County Forest Preserve police for several months. Larry Whigham, special assistant to Cook County Board President John Stroger, estimated the value of the plants — which were growing in the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve near Ela and Algonquin roads and neighborhoods in Hoffman Estates and Inverness — at more than $3 million. While...

At the Virtua Health emergency room in Camden, a 22-year-old carried in from a concert at the Tweeter Center screams and curses at a nurse trying, gently, to help him sober up. Just a few hours later, in a separate incident, Camden police arrest another 22-year-old concertgoer for allegedly kicking and punching an unconscious man. By the time the night is over, drunk and high people will overwhelm the emergency rooms at Virtua-West Jersey Hospital, Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center, and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. Police will arrest or issue citations to 32 people on charges ranging from aggravated...

Filed at 4:21 p.m. ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock guitarist Robbin Crosby, a founding member of the 1980s heavy-metal ``hair'' band Ratt, has died after an eight-year battle with AIDS, according to the group's official Web site. He was 42. Crosby, who went public with his illness in a radio interview last July, saying he had contracted the disease through heroin use, died on Thursday. The band's Web site (http://www.therattpack.com) carried a photograph of the guitarist performing in concert beneath the words, ``In Memory of Robbin Crosby.'' The site's ``forum'' section posted dozens of messages of condolences from grieving...

WASHINGTON, May 14 — So much for those flashy TV ads intended to inspire American kids to stay off drugs. The new U.S. drug czar, John P. Walters, says the government’s antidrug advertising of recent years has failed. Worse, he fears it even may have inspired some youngsters to experiment with marijuana. “THIS CAMPAIGN ISN’T reducing drug use,” said Mr. Walters, who became head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy earlier this year. Mr. Walters was openly critical of the ads even before taking office, and argued that the advertising effort was in dire need of an...