“Our report shows that nearly a dozen medical studies about mental health and marijuana use show that teenagers who are depressed try to self medicate and take marijuana, and it makes the condition worse,” said Director Waters.
(Full Story)

(May 23, 2008) - Tammy Pasanella sobbed as she stood in front of a wall of television cameras and reporters on Friday and recalled how her son, Chandler Valley Christian High School football player Danny Pasanella, slipped into a prescription drug addiction and, ultimately, death.

It was a dramatic turnaround from the days just after her son died in September when, she said, she shunned the media because they were obsessively focusing on Danny's overdose death.

Now Tammy Pasanella is embracing the attention.

She and four other mothers helped launch an ad campaign Friday that will use TV, radio, billboard and print ads to warn other parents about the dangers of prescription drugs.

"The pain that we go through is unbearable and indescribable," Pasanella said at an afternoon news conference at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in downtown Phoenix. Her son overdosed on a combination of OxyContin, Vicodin, and heroin.
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(May 14, 2008) - BOSTON -- When she was in her 20s, Lauren Nugent had surgery after surgery. She was prescribed painkillers each time. But when her doctor told her she was better and could stop taking Vicodin and Percocet, Nugent said she couldn't.

"At one point, I was up to 25 pills a day," said Nugent.

She described herself as a hard-core addict.

"If I didn't take that pill at that time every day, my body couldn't handle it. I was at a doctor's office at least every 48 hours. I probably went to four doctors a week."

Lauren is what public health officials call a "doctor shopper," an addict who gets painkiller prescriptions from multiple doctors. The state calls the practice a public health threat that rivals street drugs like heroin.
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(May 8, 2008) In 2006, more Utahns died as a result of unintentional over-the-counter or prescription drug overdoses than died in motor vehicle crashes. The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) today unveiled a new education campaign meant to reduce the number of unintentional prescription pain medication overdoses in Utah by 15 percent by 2009.

Over the past few years, the Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) noticed an increasing trend in causes of death among Utah residents - overdoses of prescription painkillers. Officials did some research and determined many of the deaths were due to dosage mistakes or the fact the victims had combined the painkillers with other prescription drugs.
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(April 26, 2008) - Shaun Wade carries her picture in his wallet, a constant reminder of the danger of abusing the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin.

The photo shows him partying with his friend, Lise Trepanier, who he was convicted of killing by accidentally injecting her with a fatal dose of the opioid.

The Hamilton woman is one casualty of a drug that is more addictive and subject to abuse than first thought.
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(April 14, 2008) - KARACH: About 76% of university students in Karachi self-medicate, experts at the Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan University Karachi have found in a study - ‘Self-medication amongst University Students of Karachi: Prevalence, Knowledge and Attitudes’ – that appeared in the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association in its current issue.

....Self-medication is defined as obtaining and consuming drugs without the advice of a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment. This includes acquiring medicines without a prescription, resubmitting old prescriptions to purchase medicines, sharing medicines with relatives or members of one’s social circle or using leftover medicines stored at home
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Marijuana And Alcohol Taken Together Induced Widespread Nerve Cell Death In Brains Of Young Rats
Source: ScienceDaily

(Apr. 11, 2008) — Marijuana is among the most frequently used illicit drugs by women during their childbearing years and there is growing concern that marijuana abuse during pregnancy, either alone or in combination with other drugs, may have serious effects on fetal brain development. There is strong evidence that THC, the main psychoactive component of marijuana, crosses the placenta, that maternal marijuana abuse results in intrauterine growth retardation and that infants exposed to marijuana exhibit a temporary syndrome that includes lethargy and decreased muscle tone.
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