Why Can’t Some People Give Up Cocaine?

Drug dependency is a recurrent but treatable kind of addiction. However, not all people who are drug dependent progress in the same way once they stop taking drugs. A new study shows that, in the case of cocaine, a high score on the so-called ‘scale of craving’, an antisocial personality type and previous heroin abuse … Read more

Teenagers Risk Kidney Failure in Drug Craze

Ketamine, a powerful tranquilliser used on horses, is being taken in growing number by young people in the UK, causing crippling health problems. Some addicts have needed to have their bladders removed and must now wear catheters. Other users have suffered serious kidney problems, breathing difficulties, addiction, bouts of unconsciousness and trouble with urinating. The … Read more

Overdose Deaths Involving Prescription Opioids Among Medicaid Enrollees

During 1999–2006, the number of poisoning deaths in the United States nearly doubled, from approximately 20,000 to 37,000, largely because of overdose deaths involving prescription opioid painkillers (1). This increase coincided with a nearly fourfold increase in the use of prescription opioids nationally (2). In Washington, in 2006, the rate of poisoning involving opioid painkillers … Read more