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A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming

Retailers in the Tampa district of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco scored high in an April survey about selling alcoholic drinks to people under 21.

The survey measured compliance rate with the law banning alcohol sales to people under the age of 21. The Tampa district, which includes Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk, Hernando, Hardee, Desoto and Highlands counties, had a 93 percent compliance rate. Of the 13 districts in Florida, only two others – West Palm Beach and Fort Myers – had higher compliance rates.

In April, ABT agents did 824 alcohol compliance checks and determined an overall compliance rate of 86 percent.

Businesses that sell alcohol to people under 21 face up to a $1,000 fine and a seven-day license suspension for the first offense. Individuals who sell or give alcohol to minors face a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

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I have my own little world, but it’s okay – they know me here. ~Author Unknown

A pain management specialist in Kansas testified this week that he met with a local physician accusing of running a “pill mill” that resulted in dozens of deaths in 2004. Graves Owen told jurors that he met with Stephen Schneider and his staff for about an hour in December of 2004. Owen voiced his concerns about the high number of fast-acting drugs being prescribed from Schneider’s clinic in Haysville, Kansas.

Owen said he advised Schneider that painkillers would lead to addiction. Owen tried to educate Schneider about recognizing the symptoms of addiction and treatment options. A later review of the records from the clinic indicated that Schneider did not take his advice.

Schneider and his wife, Linda, are charged with health care fraud, money laundering and unlawfully prescribing drugs in a scheme that prosecutors believe led to 68 deaths.

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A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist. ~Franklin P. Jones

Patients with chronic pain and addiction to prescription painkillers are at risk of receiving inadequate care. This is according to experts meeting this week at the American Pain Society 29th Annual Scientific Meeting in Baltimore.

“People with an active or past history of addiction may still require pain relief, and this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use these medications to treat them,” said session moderator Seddon Savage, M.D., from Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire. “It means that we must do so with awareness.”

Dr. Savage believes that it is important not to lump together all opioid misuse.

“Problems with medication adherence are widespread and can happen for a variety of reasons,” Savage said.

Dr. Savage said ambiguous or multiple instructions can confuse patients. Cognitive challenges can also make it difficult for people to take medications correctly. Elderly patients who are disabled, those with a traumatic brain injury or psychiatric distress may have trouble following instructions.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse analysis of data includes 274 patients with chronic pain issues. Investigators treated opioid addiction patients with buprenorphine and naloxone. The researchers wanted to know whether adding drug counseling to standard medical therapy would improve the result.

It was reported that most patients first started taking opioids to treat pain, and not to get high. Although some patients continued taking the drugs for pain, most continued to take the drugs inappropriately to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

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The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones. ~Gabirol

Cocaine toxicity due to drug overdose results in more than half a million visits to the emergency room each year. Despite this statistic, there is no Food and Drug Administration approved pharmacotherapy specifically designed to treat cocaine toxicity. Physicians and nurses are limited to treating only the immediate life-threatening symptoms of patients, while poisonous levels of cocaine and its metabolic break-down products linger and continue to damage the cardiovascular system, liver and brain.

Researchers have now developed and tested a modified enzyme that can metabolize cocaine into inactive products nearly 1,000 times faster than the human body does regularly. This engineered enzyme – CocE, may be perfect for clinical use.

The difficulty in making a therapy for cocaine toxicity is due to the drugs complex action mechanism. Cocaine can block multiple targets in the brain and body, which accounts for the cardiovascular and anesthetic effects, as well as its addictive pull. Many of the metabolites of cocaine formed by the body (such as norcocaine and cocaethylene) have similar and often stronger effects than the drug itself.

Researchers believe that the best strategy to treating cocaine toxicity from overdose is to directly eliminate the drug. Remy L. Brim and colleagues at the University of Michigan, in collaboration with Columbia University and the University of Kentucky, have been researching the potential of cocaine esterase (CocE) to block cocaine toxicity by eliminating cocaine. CocE is an enzyme that can metabolize cocaine more rapidly than the body, thus reducing the damage from toxicity.

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May the devil chase you every day of your life and never catch you. ~Irish Toast

Pharmaceutical robberies have quadrupled since 2006. Thieves are stealing huge quantities of prescription drugs for resale on the black market. Some stolen pills end up of U.S. pharmacy shelves with fake labels and lot numbers.

The march robbery of an Eli Lilly & Co. warehouse in Connecticut was of $75 million in drugs. It is the largest pharmaceutical robbery in history. The thieves cut a hole in the roof and entered the building on ropes. They stole drugs like Prozac and Cymbalta.

“The people that target the pharmaceutical industry are an organized criminal element,” said Charles Forsaith, director of supply chain security for Purdue Pharma. Forsaith leads a coalition of drug companies, distributors and law enforcement officials who have been working to prevent thefts like this since 2006.

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There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. ~Ansel Adams

According to Dr. Drew Pinsky, people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol experience some kind of consequence due to their addiction. Despite these negative results – like a divorce, health issue, or job loss – these people still cannot stop abusing their substance of choice.

Pinsky said that all addictions share a common biology.

“Addictions are all a distortion of the brain’s rewards system, in such a way that it distorts the brain’s fundamental motivational systems,” said Pinsky. “So the usual motivations: working, loving your family, eating and sleeping, maintaining your health, those things that are usually coloring our brain’s activity become submerged and the single motivation emerges, which is ‘Use the drug.’ Literally, the brain’s biology confuses the message of the drug with the message of survivial itself.”

Severe addiction is becoming common in society today, according to Pinsky. Being addicted to just one substance is rare.

“It’s relatively rare these days to see the straight-up alcoholic, they’re always addicted to pills, other substances.”

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little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of ignorance is just as bad. ~Bob Edwards

A former police chief in Vermont was sentenced to six months in jail this past week.

Michael Lowe, the former chief of police in Vergennes, Vermont had a car crash last year that exposed his drug problem. Lowe pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of drugs, improperly obtaining prescription medication and neglect of duty after a 2009 accident where his police car hit a parked car. Lowe has since successfully completed a drug treatment program.

Judge Courtland Corsones sentenced Lowe to one and a half to three years in jail, all except six months of that sentence is suspended.

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Hate cages all the good things about you. ~Terri Guillemets

The fascination of celebrity combined with the problems of addiction makes for interesting news. Most celebrities, however, want to deal with their problems in private. The Promises Treatment Center in Malibu, California provides residential treatment for drug and alcohol addiction for many famous stars.

“We jealously guard the privacy of our clients,” said Dr. David Sack, the chief operating officer. “We want to ensure that they have the time and the opportunity to get better from their addictions without intrusions so we work very hard to make sure that we don’t have our clients on TV or used in the media in any way.”

Paparazzi photographers try continually for a photo, that will pay a large amount of money, of a star undergoing treatment at the center. Despite this, PTC is like a relaxed home with no locks on the doors – the clients can leave at any time.

Celebrity patients are given no preferential treatment. They must participate in group therapy and help with the cooking and the laundry.

Sack believes that being a celebrity has, in many ways, for many celebrities, fueled their addiction in a different way than for the ordinary person.

“We think that success creates new pressures and demands on people that add to their anxiety and make them more susceptible to alcohol and other drugs. Being a celebrity, where your privacy is invaded, where you don’t have the quiet time and downtime that everybody needs, adds to that problem. Highly creative people are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder and substance abuse and alcohol addiction.”

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Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. ~Elbert Hubbard

A new research study at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California – Los Angeles has found that more than a third of drinkers older than 60 consume excessive amounts of alcohol or amounts that are potentially dangerous in combination with certain diseases or medications.

Research data from 3,308 patients from clinics in the Santa Barbara area indicated that an equal amount of people were at risk from alcohol use in combination with comorbidities or medication as from alcohol use alone. The study is published in the current online edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. It also found that at-risk drinking was associated with being younger, white and less educated.

“Compared to the U.S. Census population over age 60, the sample studied was more likely to be white, married, well-educated and high income,” said lead study author Andrew Barnes, a researcher in the UCLA School of Public Health’s department of health services. “However, the adjusted associations of patient demographics with at-risk drinking found in our research should be more generalizable than the descriptive data published previously.”

The Comorbidity Alcohol Risk Evaluation Tool (CARET) was used to assess at-risk drinking. The CARET categorizes older people as at risk if they have at least one of these drinking behaviors – they have more than two drinks on most days; they consume one to two drinks on most days and have certain conditions, like gout, hepatitis or nauses; they consume one to two drinks on most days and take medications like antidepressants or sedatives.

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