Alcohol: The Most Anti-Social Drug

This week's Lancet, the British medical journal, drives a silver spike into the heart of the undead myth that alcohol is the lubricant of sociability and good fellowship.  A systematic comparative ranking of 20 different addictive drugs found that alcohol is the most harmful drug, more harmful than heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamines.

The study, by an industry-independent panel of scientific experts, ranked drugs in terms of their harm to the user and their harm to others.

Heroin, crack, and methamphetamine scored higher than alcohol in harm to the user.  But alcohol's score on the scale of harm to others was double that of heroin and crack, the next leading chemicals, so that when the scores of harm to others and harm to self were combined, alcohol led the sordid parade of harmful consequences by nearly twenty points.

A key point in alcohol marketing is social bonding.  Alcohol is said to promote romantic linkups, male bonding, business networking, and general friendly togetherness.  It's sold as the antidote to the isolation, alienation, and competitiveness that make so many people feel lonely even in crowds.   The industry spends billions every year trying to persuade us that if we'd all drink together, we'd all be happy together.

Not so, found the panel of medical experts.  The group evaluated the harm each drug caused to others in terms of physical and psychological injury, crime, environmental damage, family adversities, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community.  The panel also ranked social harms such as the loss of tangibles and loss of relationships.

Alcohol led all other drugs in measure of injury to others, family adversities, economic cost, and harm to the community. In other words, the person under the influence of alcohol caused the most bloodshed, broken families, and other mayhem to economic and social life.

The Lancet study corroborates other, similar studies conducted by other scientists independent of the alcoholic beverage industry, and cited in the Lancet article.  This relatively recent group of studies moves beyond older research which looked at drug consequences more narrowly, in terms of a single factor, such as drug-related deaths.

The finding that alcohol is a more harmful drug in society than heroin and crack cocaine upsets some deep seated stereotypes.  We've been taught to identify the "drug problem" with hard drug users, and we've been led to believe that most of these are black and socially marginal.

This research says that society's drug problem is really first and foremost an alcohol problem, and that you'll find the most dangerous drug addicts among outwardly respectable middle class whites.

That isn't really news to those who have attended most any addiction recovery support group meeting.  How many stories of hospital visits, court dates, divorces, abandoned children, lost jobs, and other chaos do you need to hear before you realize that the slick TV ads for alcoholic beverages are lies?

Even in parts of the recovery subculture, the alcoholics have tended to turn up their noses at the heroin and crack addicts. This elitist bias underlies the segregation of the legacy support groups into separate alcohol and "narcotics" branches.  (Modern groups such as LifeRing include both alcohol and other drug users.)  Now science is turning this conceit upside down.

True, the heroin and crack users have nothing to be proud of.  But the drug that really tears apart the bonds of society doesn't come in a syringe or a pipe, it comes in a bottle.

[First published in hellowellness.in on Nov. 7 2010]

War of the drugged

From the Guardian (U.K.):

The army today admitted that cocaine was becoming the "drug of choice" for British service personnel.

Colonel John Donnelly, who has responsibility for army discipline, said a significant increase in drug taking by soldiers could be linked to stress induced by the demands of combat operations.

More on this topic.

Alcoholocaust

If you have illusions about the role of alcohol in creativity, read "Day of the Dead" by D.T. Max on p. 76 of the Dec. 17th issue of the New Yorker. It's a thumbnail bio of Malcom Lowry, author of "Under the Volcano" (1947), hailed as one of the top twelve English novels of all time; he was considered the heir of James Joyce. He died ten years afterward, after passing out from massive quantities of alcohol and barbiturates. He was 47.

The chronicle of his marriage and collaboration with Margerie Bonner is a tortuous, gruesome story of love, hate, help, hurt, rescue and revenge. Bonner, who edited and rewrote Lowry's texts daily, almost certainly contributed the discipline and warmth that raised "Under the Volcano" above the rambling, two-dimensional symbolism that was Lowry's best unassisted effort. He was consumed with rage at everything and everyone; his violent tirades drove all their friends away.

She tried for years to get him to cut down or stop his drinking, but ended up matching him bottle for bottle, and when he finally found a doctor who got him to take a break (using aversion therapy), she refused to stop, and dragged him down again.

Much of the article deals with the theory that she murdered him, for which many women acquaintances and critics applauded her. It's a thin case. British local authorities, who conducted the inquest, pinpointed asphyxiation by aspiration of vomit as the cause of death. That's not murder. But it hardly matters. Lowry was bent on death by alcohol sooner or later. During one of his few lucid moments, he described his own life as an "alcoholocaust."

If a movie is ever made of this marriage, it should be on a double bill with "Pollock," and made required viewing for young artists considering careers in alcoholism and addiction: don't go there.

Research: impulsive rats quicker to do cocaine

Rats who rank high in impulsivity -- the abstract doesn't make clear how that was measured -- are more likely to self-administer intravenous cocaine than their less impulsive peers, a group of scientists at Cambridge University has found. The study, led by Jeffrey W. Dalley, is significant because it found that the impulsive rats had a substandard set of dopamine receptors before being exposed to cocaine, thus supporting the hypothesis that dopamine receptor deficiency is a precondition, rather than a result, of chronic stimulant consumption. The study appears in the March 2 issue of Science. Abstract.

While the study sheds light on stimulant use, this model will not transfer so easily to other drug use profiles, particularly opiates and depressants such as alcohol.

UK: "Restricted" report urges Rx heroin

The government should consider providing free heroin to hard-core addicts through the National Health Service as a way to reduce crime, says a top-level report by the UK Home Office.

Marked "restricted" because of its controversial recommendations, the document was leaked to The Independent.

There is mounting evidence that trying to restrict the supply of drugs is impossible, says the document. Even if partially successful, supply restriction merely drives up the price of drugs and drives addicts to commit more crimes.

The report comes in a setting where cheap and potent Afghan heroin in unprecedented volume has been flooding into the UK from all ports of entry.

"There is a strong argument that prohibition has caused or created many of the problems associated with the use or misuse of drugs. One option for the future would be to regulate drugs differently, through either over-the-counter sales, licensed sales or doctor's prescription." Source.

For a historical review of similar policy recommendations, see the Transform Drug Policy web site.

Ban all booze ads, top UK doc says

London: A leading doctor says all advertising of alcohol must be banned in a bid to curb Britain's growing drink problem.

The comments by the head of the Royal College of Physicians come as latest data show alcohol-related deaths in the UK have doubled in the past 15 years.

Professor Ian Gilmore said the measure was necessary to protect children who were influenced by sporting heroes wearing branded clothing. -- More

Take alcoholic parents' kids away, Scot says

ALCOHOLIC parents should have their kids taken from them in the same way as heroin addicts, one of Scotland's top addiction experts has claimed.

Professor Neil McKeganey, a former government adviser, has accused social services of double standards when dealing with heroin and alcohol addiction.

The respected academic has said children of parents who refuse to give up drink are suffering neglect as serious as those of drug addicts.

McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, has warned the Scottish moralistic attitude to drugs means well-meaning social workers are failing thousands of Scots youngsters.

Social workers are often reluctant to remove children from the homes of alcoholics while the use of illegal drugs such as heroin is seen as far more serious. More.

Epidemic of child alcoholism in Britain

London: Children as young as 12 are being diagnosed as alcoholics amid growing concerns about binge-drinking in Britain, an investigation by The Independent on Sunday reveals today.

Record numbers of pre-teens and teenagers now require hospital treatment for drink-related disorders, the exclusive nationwide survey shows.

The findings prove there is a hidden epidemic of child alcoholism, resulting in thousands of youngsters being treated in hospital each year for alcohol poisoning, liver disease and drink-related psychiatric illnesses.

Doctors warn that conditions such as cirrhosis of the liver are now starting to appear in people who are still in their teens, prompting calls for special detoxification clinics to be set up around the country for teenage drinkers.

Dr Claire Casey, head of a new youth detox unit at the private Priory Group, said: "We have children presenting with all the adult symptoms of alcoholism. Some are so addicted that it is actually dangerous to get them to stop drinking straight away.''

New figures reveal that Britain's teenagers are drinking twice as much as they did a decade ago, with half of all 13-year-olds consuming more than 10 units a week. The amount being consumed by 11- to 13-year-olds has gone up almost threefold in the same period, with doctors citing the cultural shift towards 24-hour drinking.

They are also worried that the drinks industry is deliberately targeting the young, promoting alcopops - heavily sweetened, attractively packaged alcoholic drinks - and offering alcohol at historically low prices. Source.

NET for heroin gets boost in Scotland

Jack McConnell, Scotland's First Minister, has called for a radical shake-up in Scotland's drug rehabilitation policy after witnessing a controversial new heroin addiction treatment in action.

He said that Scotland must seek to abandon the methadone programme and look instead for new, drug-free methods of kicking heroin.

His comments came after he visited a trial of neuro-electric therapy (Net, promo photo from website), a drug-free addiction treatment, invented by a Scottish neurosurgeon, Dr Meg Patterson.

At the trial, Mr McConnell met six female heroin users who are undergoing a seven-day course of Net. The treatment involves a weak electric current being applied to the brain.

Laura, 28, a mother of two, has been a heroin user for seven years, but has failed to quit using methadone. She told the First Minister she had been "amazed" by how quickly her cravings for heroin had disappeared while undergoing Net.

Afterwards the First Minister spoke of his desire to see Net given a full clinical trial, with a view to making it available on the NHS.

He said, "I'm very keen that we find a way of progressing to a proper research proposal so that Net can be tested in the conditions that will meet the standards of the National Health Service.

"If this is successful, then this treatment could operate on a scale that can make a huge difference to people's lives." Source.

Even low levels of second-hand smoke cause heart risk

Even low-level indirect exposure to cigarette smoke is associated with a significant rise in heart disease risk in new research conducted by researchers from the U.K.'s University of Nottingham.

The study is the first to directly measure secondhand smoke exposure through levels of a nicotine byproduct in the blood. Previous studies have relied on participants' recall of exposure.

Compared with people in the study with no detectable exposures to nicotine, those with low- and high exposure levels also had significantly higher levels of two important markers of heart disease risk.

"These findings suggest that secondhand smoke exposure has a clinically important effect on susceptibility to heart disease, even at relatively low levels of exposure, and they highlight the importance of minimizing the public's exposure to secondhand smoke," researcher Andrea Venn, PhD, stated. Source.

Catch-22 for mandated treatment in UK

Britain's drugs problem should be treated predominantly as a medical rather than a criminal issue, says a major upcoming report by a group of law enforcement and medical authorities.

The report says that drug users are typically sent to treatment only after they have been caught for committing a crime, a time when they are frequently not ready for treatment and do not benefit from it. Meanwhile drug users who have not committed crimes but wish to have treatment for their addiction are unable to get it because the programs are full. Details.

UK soldiers snorting cocaine on video

GLASGOW, Scotland (UPI) -- The British military is conducting an internal investigation over video of troops in Scotland allegedly snorting cocaine in their Glasgow barracks.

The video was taken by a soldier in the Royal Regiment of Scotland with a cell phone, and given to The Daily Record newspaper, which contacted military authorities. Source.

Chinese herbs better than nicotine patches?

Darlington, UK: A patch containing Chinese herbs is more effective at helping smokers quit than the conventional nicotine patches, according to Dr Philip Cheung, former director of Durham University's Centre for Comparative Public Health. Dr. Cheung says the herbal treatment has helped six million Chinese quit, and works more quickly at less cost than the nicotine patches. Source.

Charity says spike in abortions due to drink binges

London: The family planning service Marie Stopes International said today that it performed a record number of UK abortions last month.

The charity carried out nearly 6,000 abortions at its nine centres across the UK in January, the highest number in its 32-year history. This was a rise of 13% on January last year.

The charity's UK director, Liz Davies, blamed the surge in abortions on excess drinking over the Christmas season. Source.

(Thanks, Owen P., for this item.)

UK: Labour MP Fiona Jones dead of alcoholism

London: Fiona Jones, until recently a rising star in the Labour Party mentioned as a possible cabinet minister, died from liver disease due to alcoholism last week. She was 49. Her husband, a local radio DJ, was quick to point to a culture of heavy drinking at the House of Commons and an extraordinary court battle over her election expenses as being to blame. Details.

Restore drink taxes to former levels, medical chief urges

Taxes on alcohol should be increased in order to protect public health, a leading medical expert has said.

Professor Ian Gilmore (photo), president of the Royal College of Physicians, said higher taxes were particularly needed on strong cider and other high strength drinks aimed at young people such as alcopops.

But he warned the alcohol industry operated a powerful lobby which argued against future tax hikes.

"We should try to return the cost of alcoholic beverages in real terms to what they were 20 years ago over a period of time."

Prof Gilmore said the issue of raising taxes on alcohol was an "uncomfortable" one for the Government.

"The Government is anxious about the nanny state, but I think the harm done by alcohol is such that nannying would be in order," he added. Source.

Heroin abundant, diamorphine scarce

Two leading members of the British Medical Association went public yesterday with the suggestion that Afghan poppy fields be used to make diamorphine, the potent painkiller used in surgery and with the terminally ill. While the streets of Europe and increasingly the U.S. show a plentiful supply of illegal Afghan heroin, over the past year a serious shortage of the legitimate medication has developed.

Dr Jonathan Fielden, a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care with the BMA, said: "Over the past year the availability of diamorphine has dramatically reduced. It has got to the stage where it is almost impossible in some hospitals to get hold of this drug for use outside very specific circumstances."

Unnamed authorities quoted by The Independent (London) claim that harvesting Afghan opium for legitimate medical uses would be impractical. Source. The most likely reason it would be impractical is that the opium fields are in the hands of the warlords who run the Kabul government under the protection of NATO forces. Heroin is much more lucrative than diamorphine.

Giant owl attacks drinkers

Middlesbrough, U.K.: A giant owl is terrorizing drinkers in this Yorkshire town.

It launches itself off high roofs and swoops on passers-by with talons outstretched.

Late-night revellers hurriedly take taxis to avoid falling “prey” to the eagle owl, which has a 5ft wingspan.

Craig Smith told how the bird swooped on him from behind as he ran through the station car park to catch a train from the Teesside town.

He recalled: “I heard a loud woo-woo noise and looked over my shoulder to see this creature with silver wings, claws stretched out.

“I ran as fast as I could on to the platform and it flew away.

“On Christmas Eve I saw it go for a man coming out of a pub and chase him down the street.” Source.

Hand gel promises to kill cigarette craving

Nicogel, a new product just introduced in the UK, is a gel that promises to eliminate cigarette cravings by rubbing a dab of it into the skin. The maker claims it contains only trace amounts of nicotine and works on aromatherapy principles. Website. The product is not sold as a medication and there have been no trials of its effectiveness or safety. Anti-smoking advocates are cool and underwhelmed. Details. User reports are still scanty.

Eton uses fingerprint ID system to stop binge drinking

Eton, the exclusive private high school attended by British princes William and Harry, has introduced a fingerprint ID system at its campus pub to prevent binge drinking. Students must swipe their fingers on a scanner; the computer then determines whether they are 16, whether their parents have deposited money into an account at the pub, and whether they have reached the two-drink limit.

The new system marks a major turnaround at the school, previously infamous for scenes of drunken, vomiting boys. Details.