Teens Favor Painkillers, Alcohol and Marijuana Over Stimulants

Posted by Elizabeth Bernstein

Many teens are still abusing prescription painkillers, even as the use of stimulant drugs declined, according to an annual study of teen drug and alcohol use released today.

The 2008 Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan and sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the NIH, surveyed 8th, 10th and 12th graders about their habits regarding drugs and alcohol. This is the 34th year for the study.

Earlier this year, the WSJ reported that an increasing number of young people, dubbed “Generation Rx” by some drug experts, are abusing prescription drugs, especially narcotics such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Percoset. Sure enough, the 2008 MTF data show the rates of abuse of these prescription narcotics remain high, with little change in the past six years. (Click on graphic to enlarge chart of most abused drugs.)

Nearly 10% of high school seniors reported using Vicodin for non-medical purposes in the year before taking the survey, while 4.7% reported abusing OxyContin. Both drugs are opioid painkillers.

“It’s a very serious problem,” Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the Health Blog. “There’s a misconception that these drugs are safer than illicit substances because they are prescribed by doctors.”

Meanwhile, the levels of abuse of over-the-counter cough and cold medications varied by age. Their abuse remained fairly high among 10th graders, since first being tracked in 2006, but fell among 8th and 12th graders.

There was some good news in the survey: The use of some stimulants—amphetamines, methamphetamine, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine and crack—continued a gradual decline. In addition, cigarette smoking among teens is at its lowest rates since the survey started in 1975.

Teen alcohol use has declined since the mid-1990s, though the levels are still pretty high. The 2008 survey showed that the number of 8th and 12th graders who reported that they drank alcohol one or more times in the past year remained fairly steady at about 32% and about 66% respectively. The number of 10th graders who reported alcohol use in the past year fell 3.8% to 52.5%.

The study showed that marijuana use among teens, which has consistently declined since the mid-1990s, appears to have leveled off, with 10.9% of 8th graders, 23.9% of 10th graders and 32.4% of 12th graders reporting using it in the past year. Teen use of several other illicit drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and heroin remained steady.

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Beyond Guacamole: Work Avocado Into Your Daily Menu

By Steve Petusevsky
From Health magazine

Although sometimes maligned for its fat content, the creamy, heart-healthy avocado can play a very versatile—and nutritious—role in your diet. Here are a few facts about avocados.

Avocados are a fruit, not a vegetable, and have more potassium than bananas.

The Aztecs, among the earliest harvesters of the avocado, used it as a sexual stimulant.

Avocados are cholesterol-free but have 30 grams of fat, most of which is heart-healthy monounsaturated fat.

Hass avocados (the most common variety) are available year-round. They’re ripe when the skin is nearly black and the fruit yields to soft pressure.

Tip: In the bag
Contributing Editor Robin Miller, host of Food Network’s Quick Fix Meals With Robin Miller, offers this tip: To speed ripening, put avocados in a brown paper bag with an apple for a few days at room temperature. The apple releases ethylene gas, a ripening agent.

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‘Flintstones’ Car First to Combine Pedals, Solar, & Battery

Written by Alex Felsinger

Students at San Jose State University have created a new type of hybrid—or perhaps tribrid?—that makes use of human pedal-power, solar panels, and a strong battery. They’ve dubbed the car the ZEM, or Zero EMissions Vehicle, and say it could be mass-produced for a mere $4,000.

The vehicle gets moving with pedal power for the first 30 seconds until reaching 5 mph, when the battery kicks in to bring it to its top speed of 35 mph within another 30 seconds. The car, which requires two people to pedal, carries silicon batteries which can be charged by the four solar panels—three on the roof and one on the hood—or by AC outlet.

The car’s four batteries can run up to 40 miles, but don’t start getting in line yet. The target market will be large cities in Mexico, China, and India, where traffic would make pedal-power alone sufficient to get around most days. The team also hopes the United States Postal Service will replace their gas-powered neighborhood vehicles with their ZEM.

San Jose State won a $15,000 grant for the project in 2007 from the National I2P (Idea-to-Product) Competition for EPICS and Social Entrepreneurship at Princeton University in 2007. At that point, the prototype vehicle looked more like a go-cart.

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