Nutritional Deficiency and Drug Use

The impact of drug use on nutrition is one of the adverse side effects that fails to get a mention in standard drug warning lists. With drugs so widely and commonly used in modern healthcare practice, we have become familiar with the fact that drug use has adverse side effects. We accept that when we use a drug to achieve a primary purpose, such as pain relief, that there is always a number of adverse “side...

Tiger Moms and Infant Drugs

At the beginning of this year, Amy Chua published a book, the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – a non-fiction autobiography that rigorously exposed a strict and disciplinarian style of parenting, as practiced by Amy Chua on her daughters. The book drew widespread criticism of Amy Chua’s parenting style – some denouncing it as barbaric and cruel. Yet, beneath the surface of a mother – daughter...

The World’s Youngest Drug Users

UNODC reports an estimated 172 -250 million drug users in the world with between 18 and 38 million addicted,in 2009. As drug abuse and dependence increases, so the age at which drugs are first used by children continues to drop. Afghanistan is said to have the lowest ages for children starting drug use in the world. In a 2006 report by the Daily Mail, Britain’s youngest recorded heroin addict was given heroin...

Grow Your Own Drugs

A book by James Wong with the intriguing title “Grow Your Own Drugs” might lead people to think that he offers advice on how to grow bud in your backyard. It is to be hoped that people who get the book to read up about drug cultivation will read enough to become inspired by James Wong’s “take” on plants – to reconsider synthetic drug use - with a view to permanently disposing of...

Heavy Metal, Depression and Drugs

A study by researchers from the University of Montreal, published in the 2001 Journal of Youth and Adolescence deals with the subject of heavy metal music, youth depression, drugs and suicide. The study probes the characteristics of youth who prefer heavy metal to other kinds of music, who worship heavy metal music and use this music for vicarious release. Findings were that youth of both sexes who preferred heavy...