40. Insights on addiction from Canadian Journal

By Tom O'Connell

The Journal of the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto is an excellent source of information on what's happening in the world of addiction. Here are some insights from a recent issue:

* Students & drugs in Nova Scotia...a survey of nearly 4,000 junior high and high school students found 15 percent reporting at least two problems associated with drinking in the past year, and increases in tobacco, cannabis and stimulant use since the last survey in 1991. "The main problems linked to alcohol use included damaging things, self-injury, and not buying other things because of alcohol's cost."

* Coping with increases in adolescent substance abuse...Dr. Anthony Dekker reported to the American Society of Addiction Medicine conference in San Diego that numbers of U.S. teenagers using drugs "are gradually creeping up" in recent years. A survey of grade 8 and 10 students has shown the perceived harm of smoking cigarettes, drinking, or using drugs has decreased...He suggested that support from a responsible and available adult is "the key determinant of the prognosis for a substance-abusing youth." He asserted that success rests more with building functional family groups than in only treating those adolescents who become abusers.

* Students want drug info from an experienced person...British researchers found that adolescents preferred drug education from someone with personal experience. "In contrast, teachers were not seen as having the knowledge or experience to provide good drug education."

* Kids of smoking moms incur higher medical costs...The American Journal of Public Health reported that "children of smoking mothers incur health expenditures for respiratory illness at a rate more than 2.5 times that of children of non-smoking mothers."

* Alcoholics attracted to sweets...Researcher Dr. Alexey Kampov-Polevoy at University of North Carolina observes that alcoholics like sweets. His study found that 16 percent of non-alcoholics offered a soft drink twice as sweet as Coca-Cola preferred the strongest concentration. In the alcoholic group, 65 percent preferred the strongest, and a quarter asked for something even sweeter. He said it may be easier to advise a recovering alcoholic to eat sweet food instead of taking medications such as naltrexone. The AA publication Living Sober reports, "Many of us--even many who said they never liked sweets--have found that eating and drinking sweets allays the urge to drink."

* Genetics & alcoholism...The director of America's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Dr. Enoch Gordis, said that even when the genes which govern alcoholism are unraveled, the findings will not absolve someone with the gene from doing everything he or she can to not become addicted. Dr. Howard Edenberg, professor of biochemistry at Indiana University School of Medicine, said, "The fact that the risk is in part genetic does not mean it's inevitable."

* Alcohol globalization concerns....As multinational alcohol companies market  aggressively in developing countries, David Jernigan of the Marin Institute in California says such countries have few resources to deal with alcohol-related problems. Malaysia, for instance, offers treatment centers for drug addicts, but nothing for alcoholics.

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