About 7.5 million U.S. children age 18 and under lived with a parent who has experienced an alcohol use disorder in the past year, health officials said.The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said 6.1 million of those children live with two parents, with either one or both parents experiencing an alcohol use disorder in the past year. The remaining 1.4 million of the children live in a single-parent house with a parent who has experienced an alcohol use disorder in the past year, and of this group, 1.1 million lived in a single-mother household 300,000 lived in a single-father household.
Via www.upi.com

ADCA press release in full:

New Prescription Drugs Monitoring Model Opens Door to Target Alcohol Harm: The Federal Government initiative to crackdown on prescription painkiller abuse is to be applauded as the misuse of pharmaceutical drugs can result in dangerous and even fatal consequences, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA), Mr David Templeman, said today.

“ADCA recognises that prescription and over-the-counter medicines have made a significant and positive contribution to the health and wellbeing of Australians, but warns that nearly all medicines have the potential to cause harm,” Mr Templeman said.

“This new national electronic records system, effective from 1 July 2012, certainly provides doctors and pharmacists with a real-time tool that will deliver health and cost benefits to communities across Australia. Alcohol is our main drug of concern with severe health and economic consequences, much more than illicit and prescription drugs combined.”

Mr Templeman said that similar action should be taken in the alcohol environment as some people buy and use alcohol in the same way as those consumers who seek and use prescription addictive drugs.

“In fact, the introduction of the monitoring system could result in some people resorting to alcohol to self-medicate for pain relief,” Mr Templeman said.

“And the results from the excessive consumption of alcohol are similar with increases in violence, motor vehicle accidents and injury, and police recording an estimated 40 per cent of all people detained as being affected by alcohol,” Mr Templeman said.

“On average, some 1500 hospitalisations occur each week because of alcohol, and the cost to the Australian community from alcohol-related harm is estimated to be more than $36 billion a year.”

Mr Templeman said the recent fact the New South Wales Casino, Liquor, Gaming and Control Authority had approved major supermarket applications to expand their outlets, as well as not heeding objections from New South Wales Health that super-cheap alcohol would grow sales, was totally irresponsible.

“Organisations responsible for the licence approval process, as well as the alcohol industry, and all supermarket/ retail sales organisations need to consider ways to enhance the health and wellbeing of their customers,” Mr Templeman said.
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“ADCA is calling for a joined-up approach to be taken with Governments at all levels to immediately address Australia’s growing drinking culture,” Mr Templeman said.

“The answer could be to modify the prescription electronic records system and link it to sales check-out screens to monitor purchasing patterns, particularly in relation to low-priced alcohol beverages, and to ensure customers are not under the legal age limit?”

Spanish smokers, squeezed by higher taxes and a deepening recession, are increasingly relying on smugglers to feed their habit.
Illegal imports now account for 7 percent to 8 percent of Spanish cigarette sales, compared with almost nothing a year ago, according to the country’s tobacconists association. In southern provinces such as Cadiz, Seville and Malaga, the proportion is 20 percent.
“Smuggling and fake tobacco, which had been eradicated since 1993, came back strongly last year,” said Jaime Gil- Robles, corporate affairs director at Altadis, the Spanish unit of Imperial Tobacco Group Plc.
Smuggling, encouraged by a December 2010 increase in tobacco taxes and a ban on smoking in public places, has eroded both government coffers and company revenues. Spain, which has the European Union’s highest jobless rate, collected 14 percent less tobacco taxes in 2011 than a forecast of 9.05 billion euros ($12 billion), excluding value-added tax, according to Altadis.
Via www.bloomberg.com

OUTLAW motorcycle gangs are using social media to recruit drug mules, Australia’s top crime body has revealed.The Australian Crime Commission, investigating “high-risk” crime groups in South Australia, is monitoring a number of drug recruits groomed through websites such as Facebook and has alerted South Australian Police.Commission chief executive John Lawler told The Advertiser outlaw motorcycle gangs had used social networks to recruit associates and people to help with criminal activity, especially in illicit drug distribution.Recruiting people on social media to traffic drugs has been a problem across Asia for three years, particularly in the Philippines and Malaysia.In SA last year a man with no known history of drug crime was recruited online and later charged by police for possessing illegal chemicals.
Via www.heraldsun.com.au

Holcomb Behavioral Health Systems announced that the Committee on Prevention Education (COPE), an alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention support program, has extra funds available for drug and alcohol prevention activities.The funding is available for grassroots community groups (Act 211 groups, PTO’s, civic associations, community tasks forces, etc.), post-prom committees, and/or non-profit organizations to implement activities, educational programming, and school or community events that are specific to preventing youth substance use, and/or increasing community awareness of substance abuse issues.This community-based prevention program has supported a variety of activities including: family game nights, drug-free concerts and dances, high school after prom parties, town hall meetings, and evidence-based and parenting programs.
Via media.patch.com

The specter of a burned-out Baby Boomer using hard drugs way into middle age may conjure images of addiction, destruction and death.That certainly can be true, but it’s not the complete picture, at least according to a new study from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who found that people who occasionally use drugs like cocaine, amphetamines and opiates over the course of their lives are more common than anyone might suspect.“When you think of a drug user, you often think of someone strung-out, using every day, and in deep trouble, but national data shows that that’s not the most common thing you see,” says Dr. Stefan Kertesz, an associate professor in the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine. “The most common pattern is illicit drug use at lower levels.”In other words, these sporadic drug users are “dabblers,” says Kertesz, lead author of the study that followed more than 4,300 people from four cities recruited between the ages of 18 to 30 in 1985 and 1986 — and then tracked them for almost 20 years.He confirmed what he suspected from his experience in clinical care: that some perfectly functional middle-agers still turn to the drugs of their youth.
Via www.witn.com

Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires.They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media.A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University’s Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses “in the wild” outside a laboratory.
Via www.guardian.co.uk

Teenage drug use is a constant problem. Now more teens are turning to heroin.According to local drug counselors, they’re seeing more high schoolers using heroin because it’s cheaper and easier to get.For a long time, prescription drugs like Oxycodone and Oxycontin were popular because they were found in the medicine cabinet.But getting a prescription and high cost of the drug put a limit on where addicts could turn. The connection between oxycondone and heroin is opiate. A highly addictive substance used to relieve pain.”Easier to get if the youth don’t have somebody to get the pills. Somebody’s got to get it prescribed to them and have in their possession and be willing to sell it. Where heroin it’s just there to be sold on the streets,” explains drug counselor Penny Bell.
Via www.kndo.com

Health authorities have decided upon a cross-border strategy on a minimum price for alcohol.Health authorities have decided upon a cross-border strategy on a minimum price for alcohol.The proposals were outlined at the first formal North/South conference on alcohol misuse, held in Armagh on Thursday.Health Minister Edwin Poots was joined by the Irish Republic’s Health Minister Dr James Reilly and Minister of State for Health Roisin Shortall.They said they hoped to agree a minimum drink price before December 2012.
Via www.bbc.co.uk

You soon may be able to get a different kind of brew at your neighborhood Starbucks. The coffee company announced this week they will begin selling beer and wine at stores in Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California and the Pacific Northwest by the end of 2012.Starbucks has not yet identified the locations yet, however there will be four to six shops serving alcohol in the Atlanta area later this year. They will also serve premium food such as savory snacks, small plates and hot flatbreads.
Via peachtreecorners.patch.com