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Surgery patients on blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy could be at risk of choking to death, a study warns. Researchers in California looked at nearly 1 million Americans who had an endoscopy, which examines the upper digestive tract. They found that patients who underwent the procedure - which involves inserting a tube with a camera on the end down the throat while the patient is sedated- were 33 percent more likely to suffer aspiration pneumonia. This causes food, liquids, or saliva to get sucked into the airway, which could lead to choking and kills nearly 60,000 Americans a...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-d1ApBTFw Click the link. Nine minute video.

Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. ...]

  Smoking cannabis can lead to manic behaviour: Hyperactivity, aggression and delusion are all strongly linked with the drug, researchers warn  

The number of people driving under the influence of alcohol on U.S. roads continues to decline, but the number of drivers using marijuana and prescription drugs that can affect road safety is climbing, according to two studies released by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One study found that the number of inebriated drivers has declined by nearly one-third since 2007, but that same survey found a large increase in the number of drivers using marijuana or other illegal drugs. In the 2014 survey, nearly one in four drivers tested positive for at least one drug that...

One unexpected benefit of medical marijuana legislation appears to be a decrease in painkiller overdoses, perhaps because some chronic pain patients are turning to cannabis instead of powerful opioid drugs. In states with laws legalizing medical marijuana, new research shows there are nearly 25 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses. Opioid painkiller overdoses are a growing problem nationwide. More than 16,500 Americans died of opioid drug overdoses in 2010, and the numbers continue to rise. Although a casual relationship hasn’t been proven, there appears to be a significant association between marijuana legislation and a fall in overdose deaths. Researchers from...

Author Insights: Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Reduce Opioid Deaths BY BRIDGET M. KUEHN on AUGUST 26, 2014 Marcus A. Bachhuber, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues found that states that legalize marijuana experience lower rates of opioid deaths, on average, compared with states that don’t allow medical marijuana. Image: University of Pennsylvania Opioid-overdose deaths increased in states across the country between 1999 and 2010, but states that legalized medical marijuana saw less-steep increases than those without, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week. Growing use...

*The largest ever study of the effects of the main psychoactive component of cannabis suggests that it can cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals* To discover whether cannabis really does cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals, we carried out the largest ever study of the effects of THC (∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the drug’s principal psychoactive ingredient). We recruited 121 volunteers, all of whom had taken cannabis at least once before, and all of whom reported having experienced paranoid thoughts in the previous month (which is typical of half the population). None had been diagnosed with a mental illness. The volunteers were randomly chosen to...

Given the ubiquitous nature of shredded lettuce-(now suspected in the Taco Bell E Coli outbreak) - shouldn't we wonder why the outbreak hasn't affected other restaurants, etc. ?

Act as if you will. Act as if you are serious about attaining your dream. Walk, talk, and act enthusiastically, creating a single-minded attitude of success toward the results you desire. One of America's pioneering psychologists, William James, said that the greatest discovery is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind. What he advocated was that if you act as if you are what you want to be, then you will become that. This "act as if" principle is a powerful method of converting your consciousness from conditioned habits into specific positive behaviors that...