|
46.
Incidence
of air rage increasing; airline initiates crackdown By
Tom O'Connell Among
the topics featured in recent issues of The Journal of Addiction
and Mental Health, published in Toronto, are the following
thought-provoking stories: Cracking down on air rage: Spurred on by an international airline
industry report showing a 400 percent increase in the incidence of
air rage since 1995, Transport Canada is mounting a "ticket
insert" campaign featuring cartoons of inappropriate
behavior, such as smoking and drinking while on board, with red
bars cutting through the image...Starting this summer (1999),
anyone found guilty of committing an act of air rage will have a
criminal record and face fines of up to $5,000 or imprisonment. Television and eating disorders in Fiji: Since the widespread
introduction of television to Fiji in 1995, there has been a
five-fold increase in the symptoms of eating disorders among
teenage girls in that Pacific island nation. Sniffing out drugs in Alberta schools: In the public and Catholic
schools of St. Albert, trained police dogs will prowl the halls of
four schools sniffing for drugs. If illicit substances are
discovered in a locker, the student found responsible will be
expelled from school, but will be offered counseling and the
chance to finish school through long-distance learning. World Health Organization calls for tougher cigarette regulation:
The director general of WHO, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, urged the
world's food and drug regulators to ensure public health and
safety standards by rationalizing rules that govern all forms of
nicotine consumption. "A cigarette is a euphemism for a
cleverly crafted product that delivers just the right amount of
nicotine to keep its user addicted for life before killing the
person," she added. Ethnic and gender differences in adolescent drug use: In a study of
2,622 African-American, Mexican-American, and European-American
seventh graders, U.S. researchers reported that Mexican-Americans
received more offers and consumed more drugs; European-Americans
were more likely to be offered drugs by an acquaintance, at a home
of a friend or on the street; and African-Americans were more
likely to be offered drugs from dating partners, parents and in
parks. Binge drinking among college students: Researchers in the University
of New Mexico examined the drinking patterns of 2,710 college
students at a large Southwestern U.S. university from 1994 to 1996
inclusive. They discovered that 80 percent of respondents at each
interval were current drinkers, while one-third of the students at
each time period reported binge drinking behaviors. Binge drinking
(defined as consuming four or more drinks at one occasion for
women, five for men) is a behavior known to be associated with
such harms as property damage, missed classes, unplanned and
unsafe sexual activities, and increased rates of drinking and
driving.
(The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse) Prenatal alcohol consumption and child size: At age 10, those
children who had prenatal exposure to alcohol were significantly
smaller (in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed) in each
of the categories studied than were those who were not exposed to
alcohol. From these results, they concluded that prenatal alcohol
exposure can have a long-term effect on child growth.
(Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research) Weight control for smokers: Early weight control interventions are
crucial for smokers who want to quit....The Lung Health Study,
which followed 5,887 smokers in the U.S. and Canada, found that 33
percent of smokers who quit gained more than 10 kilograms (a
kilogram equals about 2.2 pounds) in five years....Most of the
weight gain occurred in the first year after quitting, but some
gain continued to occur until year five. The publisher of The Journal is the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, and the web address there is journal@camh.net. |
|
- Back - |