TOP-SHELF spirits are defying a stagnant alcohol market and the downturn in discretionary spending as drinkers increasingly drown their economic sorrows in some of Scotland’s finest.
Via www.theaustralian.com.au

Not sure this is the most responsible headline really:
“Man Eats Cocaine From Brother’s Butt, Dies”
A South Carolina man’s brother died after police said he was forced to eat cocaine hidden in his brother’s backside.
Both brothers were taken into custody on allegations they had drugs in their car.
But police told Charleston, S.C., TV station WCIV there were additional drugs hidden in 23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell’s backside. Officers said Deangelo Mitchell convinced his brother, 20-year-old Wayne Mitchell, to swallow the ounce of cocaine to hide the evidence. He died soon afterward.

Via www.wyff4.com

Why does alcohol make your head spin? The Chicago Tribune has the answer:
In time for New Years: an explanation of the effect alcohol has on one’s inner ear.
Via www.chicagotribune.com

Hundreds of thousands of German senior citizens are dependent on drugs or alcohol and authorities worry the number is only increasing.
Via www.thelocal.de

BOISE, Idaho – An anti-alcohol crusader has asked all 105 Idaho legislators to swear off alcohol during the 2012 legislative session.
Via www.therepublic.com

Drug users who inject methamphetamine had an 80 percent greater risk of attempting suicide than users of other drugs, U.S. and Canadian researchers say.Lead author Brandon Marshall — a postdoctoral fellow at the Mailman School of Public Health in New York and research coordinator for the Urban Health Research Initiative in British Colombia — and colleagues said the causal pathway between injecting methamphetamine and suicidal behavior requires further investigation, but it likely involves a combination of neurobiological, social, and structural mechanisms.”Compared to other injection drug users, it is possible that methamphetamine users are more isolated and have poorer social support systems,” Marshall said in a statement. “The high rate of attempted suicide observed in this study suggests that suicide prevention efforts should be an integral part of substance abuse treatment programs.”Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/12/28/Injected-meth-linked-to-suicide-attempts/UPI-37961325051273/#ixzz1hojmz2WK
Via www.upi.com

Starting Sunday, California will become the first state to try to curb the abuse of over-the-counter cold medicines containing a powerful cough suppressant by requiring consumers to show proof they’re over age 18.The ingredient is dextromethorphan, or DXM, and it’s found in popular medications such as Robitussin-DM, Mucinex-DM, Delsym, Coricidin and NyQuil.

Via www.sfgate.com

The scale of heroin addiction in Scotland’s remote islands has been exposed after a court case which ended with a man being jailed for supplying drugs to a teenage friend who died after she suffered an overdose.Megan Chapman appeared to have shaken off her addiction to heroin and the 17-year-old was about to begin a dream job at a stables near her home in Lerwick, the main town of Shetland. But she died at the home of a local addict and friend, Christopher Leask, after a fatal dose of the drug.Megan’s death stunned Shetland. The islanders were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: despite Shetland’s prosperity, its remoteness from Britain’s cities and low crime, heroin had taken a grip, couriered in by drug gangs from Liverpool and Glasgow. And it exposed surging rates of heroin abuse among under-25s. Leask, 34, was jailed yesterday for nearly two years. The judge, Sheriff Graeme Napier, said he struggled to understand Leask’s behaviour. “You invited the girl round for dinner and in preparation you went out to buy a bag of heroin where others would’ve bought a bottle of wine.”
Via www.guardian.co.uk

U.S. authorities are building a politically explosive case that Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, finances itself through a vast drug-smuggling network that links a Lebanese bank, a violent Mexican cartel, and U.S. cocaine users.Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged Ayman Joumaa, an accused Lebanese drug kingpin and Hezbollah financier, of smuggling tons of U.S.-bound cocaine and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars with the Zetas cartel of Mexico.The indictment in Virginia results from a continuing investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration targeting Hezbollah, which has a bloody history of terror attacks against the United States and Israel.
Via www.theatlanticwire.com

The large supermarkets are being reminded that they have just 100 days to go before displays of cigarettes and cigars are banned in England.
Via www.bbc.co.uk