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Some nights ago I sat in an emergency room while a 19-year-old heroin addict was brought in. It was after midnight, the witching hour, on a weekend when the zombies and ghosts of the city's party circuit begin drifting in dressed in their best clothes, escorted by police officers, clutching bloodied rags to their faces or lying on stretchers and always at their articulate best. The girl came from a wealthy background and was articulate enough to hurriedly assemble her story. An addict since her teenage years, she had been clean for a while and never used anything but heroin,...

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President Barack Obama’s love of golf hit a milestone today as he marked his 100th time on the links. His Father’s Day achievement was reached at the Beverly Country Club in his hometown, the windy city. Mark Knoller, CBS radio correspondent and chronicler of all things presidential, pointed out the quiet occasion to the traveling press. Like 15 of the 18 presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, Obama has used golf as a way to unwind outdoors, but away from the prying eyes of press and onlookers. And despite the fact that he had never golfed before taking office, his love of...

CINCINNATI — U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said Monday he agrees with President Barack Obama that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, but that "class warfare" and higher taxes won't solve the nation's economic problems. The Ohio Republican spoke to a business group luncheon at the University of Cincinnati less than two hours after Obama detailed a deficit reduction plan that includes higher taxes for wealthy Americans. "I understand that it's easy to go out there and talk about taxing billionaires," Boehner said, but he said "class warfare isn't leadership" and the big need is to get people...

video at link Obama on credit downgrade from Standard & Poor's: "It happened because Washington does not have the capacity to come together and get things done. It was a self-inflicted wound. That is why people are frustrated. Maybe you can hear it in my voice. That is why I am frustrated. Because you deserve better."

I know Charlie Sheen. I've never met him, and I don't wish to. But I know who he is and how he feels. He is no super-star and he is not unique. He is merely a typical addict/alcoholic.

TMZ has learned ... Lindsay Lohan will be charged with felony grand theft tomorrow. Sources connected with the case tell us ... the single count of felony grand theft will be filed at Airport Court in L.A. Wednesday morning. Lindsay will be arraigned at 1:30 PM. She must be present for the hearing. Lindsay will be charged with stealing a $2,500 necklace from an L.A. jewelry store.

Even before it was revealed that Bedell had shot two Pentagon guards and was a marijuana addict/psychotic, questions were being raised about how doctors in California were approving access to the drug. Left-wing California politicians have been talking about legalizing and taxing marijuana to save the state from bankruptcy. But thanks to the state's most notorious pothead, Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell, that vision may now go up in smoke. Bedell's easy access to "medical marijuana" in California is quickly becoming a scandal that threatens the well-funded movement to increase access to the weed by legalizing it statewide-and perhaps nationwide.

Gibbs: Obama has not fully kicked smoking habit By Jordan Fabian - 03/01/10 03:58 PM ET White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday acknowledged that President Barack Obama still "ocassionally falls of the wagon" when it comes to smoking cigarettes. Gibbs was asked about Obama's smoking at the daily press briefing after the president's medical report released Sunday said that he is using nicotine replacement therapy. "He is occassionally falls of the wagon when it comes to that," Gibbs said, adding that Obama "continues to chew nicotine gum." Obama's opponents and some in the press raised his cigarette smoking...

Barack Obama is still struggling to kick smoking, according to his first medical examination since becoming president. Obama is sensitive about his cigarette habit and tetchy with reporters who raise it. But after his 90-minute medical at the Navy hospital outside Washington yesterday morning, his doctors confirmed he had not yet managed to conquer the habit and suggested he "continue smoking cessation efforts". The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".

Immigrants from an obscure corner of Mexico are changing heroin use in many parts of America. Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar. Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths.

DENVER -- A surgery technician who infected three dozen people with hepatitis C and may have exposed thousands of others by switching used syringes with ones filled with a powerful painkiller says she got careless while at two Colorado hospitals and doesn't expect to be forgiven. Ahead of a hearing where she'll be sentenced to 20 years in prison, Kristen Diane Parker described for prosecutors how she slipped through a hospital's drug screening process and began stealing drugs as she coped with a heroin addiction. "I can't ask for forgiveness," a tearful Parker, 27, told Assistant U.S. Attorney Jaime Pena...

Needle exchanges prevented 32,000 HIV cases: reportBy Brendan Trembath for AM Updated 6 hours 30 minutes ago A new report has found needle and syringe exchange programs have directly prevented tens of thousands of cases of HIV and hepatitis C. There are nearly 1,000 sites around the country where clean needles and syringes are handed out to drug users. Researchers from the University of New South Wales, who authored the report, say it is also saving on health costs. For every $1 spent on needle and syringe exchange programs, state and federal governments save $4. In the heart of Sydney's...

The jobs are risky, but very lucrative for those willing to take the risks, and require no previous experience or special training. Almost anyone with a driver's license (or at least the ability to drive) can do this job. How did Obama do it? What People Who Don't Smoke Look Like A recent Senate vote brought tobacco under the regulation of the FDA. The effort, spearheaded by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in the Senate and Calif. Democrat Henry Waxman in the House (no doubt because of their medical expertise—Kennedy, for example, is considered the government's chief expert on alcohol consumption)....

A Queens woman was arrested by federal authorities after a JetBlue flight was forced to make an emergency landing because she allegedly lit and refused to extinguish a cigarette on the plane and punched a flight attendant in the face, according to KUSA.com. The plane was en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday when officials said passenger Christina Szele, 35, lit a cigarette in her seat and starting smoking, the Rocky Mountain News reported. Smoking is forbidden on all domestic flights, but the Rocky Mountain News reported that when a...

Senator Barack Obama, 46, was in “excellent health” at the time of his last examination more than a year ago and has no known medical problems that would affect his ability to serve as president, according to a letter by his physician released on Thursday. The undated letter was released less than a week after Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, released his medical records. blah, blah... The peskiest medical problem seems to be his multiple efforts to quit cigarette smoking, which he began at least two decades ago. Mr. Obama “has quit this practice on several...

She is 71 years old, a great-grandmother - hardly the type of person you would expect to see in Bronx Criminal Court to answer charges of buying two dime bags of pot. Yet at the appointed time today, Barbara Jackson will make her way to the courthouse, a colorectal cancer survivor ready to plead her case. "I smoke it to live," the feisty granny told the Daily News. "I don't think I should have been arrested." Jackson said she started smoking the green, leafy drug eight years ago - a year after being diagnosed with cancer - to restore her...

BERLIN - A thirsty German sold his 6-year-old step-daughter's pet beagle to the owner of a bar to pay for beer, the Bild newspaper reported on Friday. The unemployed man offered to take the dog for a walk and then stopped at a bar where he convinced the owner to buy the 3-year-old dog for $53 (40 euros). The man spent the proceeds quenching his thirst for beer. The bar owner has now returned the dog to its owner.

A biography of late Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley might be turned into a movie, reports Blabbermouth.net. A press release from Arts Publications indicated that Argentinean journalist Adriana Rubio has been contacted by Philadelphia-based filmmaker Eric Moyer about making a film version of her book, Layne Staley: Get Born Again. Moyer said in a statement, "I am determined to make this film about Layne Staley, not only to celebrate his life and talent, but to warn others through his compelling story that heroin will kill you...no matter who you are." Staley died in April of 2002 after struggling with...

The United States could be rife with Internet addicts as clinically ill as alcoholics, an unprecedented study released suggested. Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in Silicon Valley said their telephone survey indicated more than one of every eight US residents showed at least one sign of "problematic Internet use." The findings backed those of previous, less rigorous studies, according to Stanford. Most disturbing was the discovery that some people hid their Internet surfing, or went online to cure foul moods in ways that mirrored alcoholics using booze, according to the study's lead author, Elias Aboujaoude. "In a sense,...