"Health News - Medicine, Diet and Fitness"

California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that police need to return marijuana seized from medical users if drug charges against them have been dropped, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Nov. 30.

Police, prosecutors and local governments had argued that it would condone drug use, interfere with federal law enforcement, and possible expose police to prosecution on drug charges if they were forced to return seized marijuana. But the court cited California’s medical-marijuana law in ordering that seized marijuana be returned to its rightful owners.

“It is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws,” said Justice William Bedsworth. Medical marijuana supporter Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access called the ruling “a huge victory for patients in California.”

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By Alison Knopf

Physicians now have four different codes that can be used in 2008 for screening and brief intervention (SBI). These codes are a victory for the addiction field, and especially for the sponsors, with Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, leading the way.

Two of the codes are for privately insured patients (99408 and 99409), and two for Medicare patients (G0396 and G0397), and they have fees: for 15-30 minutes, Medicare will pay about $22, unadjusted for geographic location, and private payers who cover the services could pay even more; for more than 30 minutes, Medicare will pay $55 and private payers could pay more.

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The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of a Buddhist drug offender who sued the state of Hawaii after he was penalized for not attending an addiction treatment program based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Eugene Register-Guard reported Nov. 25.

Paroled offender Ricky Inouye was sent back to prison after dropping out of the treatment program, but successfully sued the state, saying his Constitutional rights were violated because the A.A. program was religious in nature.

In Oregon, cardiologist Patrick Bergin has filed a similar lawsuit against the state Board of Medical Examiners for forcing him to attend an A.A.-based treatment program. Lower courts ruled against him, but Bergin has appealed to the 9th Circuit, saying his First Amendment rights have been violated.

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Advocates for decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana in Massachusetts appear to have gathered enough resident signatures to move the legal initiative forward, the Boston Globe reported on Nov. 24.

Proponents had to gather at least 66,593 signatures by Nov. 21, equal to three percent of ballots cast in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Proponents for the initiative appear to have done so, said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. Still, city and town clerks have to certify the signatures, and the secretary of state’s office has to count them.

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November 2007 Advisory Panel Meeting To Consider Safety of These Glaxo Drugs As Well As Novartis’ Foradil

(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

An October 24, 2007 FDA staff report about Serevent (SUBJECT: 1-year Post-Pediatric Exclusivity Postmarketing Adverse Event Review) concluded that this inhaled beta-2 agonist asthma drugs as well as Advair “may have an unfavorable risk-benefit ratio” for children’s asthma.

The October 2007 FDA staff report was prepared in advance of a meeting of an advisory panel of pediatricians later this week being convened to consider the safety of Serevent and Advair (made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC), both of which contain the active ingredient salmeterol, as well as another asthma drug, Foradil (made by Novartis AG and marketed in the U.S. by Schering-Plough Corp.), which contains the active ingredient formoterol.

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Medical-marijuana supporters in Michigan say they have gathered more than enough signatures in a petition drive to get the issue on the ballot, the Detroit Free Press reported Nov. 21.

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care said it has submitted 496,000 signatures from registered voters to the state; only 304,000 are needed to get a medical-marijuana question before the state legislature. If lawmakers don’t act on the proposal — which would make medical use of the drug legal under state law — it would be placed on the 2008 ballot.

The state’s Democratic party has endorsed medical marijuana in theory, but a spokesperson for Senate Republican leader Mike Bishop said that there may not be much support for the proposal in the legislature.

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A Medical Journal Article Published In May 2007 Suggested This Emerging Drug Safety Issue; Why Was There A Six-Month Delay In Starting This FDA Investigation?

In mid-November 2007 the FDA sent an MedWatch Email Alert to inform the public about an emerging drug safety issue involving Maxipime (Cefepime), an injectable antibiotic that was approved by the FDA in 1996.

An antibiotic called D-cycloserine may have some application as an anti-craving medication for addiction treatment, according to researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Mice treated with the antibiotic were less likely to remain in an environment where they had come to expect a dose of cocaine, when compared to mice that received a placebo.

In addition to being used as an antibiotic, the drug has been shown to inhibit fear in animal tests and has been tested as a treatment of acrophobia (fear of heights) in humans.

“Since the association between drugs and the places where they are used can trigger craving and/or relapse in humans, a medication that could aid in the reduction or even extinction of such responses could be a powerful tool in the treatment of addiction,” said Carlos Bermeo, of Stony Brook University, a researcher on the Brookhaven project.

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States that allow managed-care programs to limit prescriptions and access to pharmacy networks are hindering the use of naltrexone for treating alcohol addiction, according to research from the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP).

Researchers Carolyn Heinrich of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Carolyn Hill of Georgetown University found that treatment providers were more likely to prescribe naltrexone in states where use of generic drugs is encouraged in Medicaid programs. In states where managed-care firms dictate prescription rules, however, naltrexone was less likely to be prescribed. Other barriers to naltrexone use were restricting use of Medicaid funds for addiction treatment and the use of restrictive preferred-drug lists for Medicaid patients.

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Young adults who have recently battled depression are at increased risk of starting to smoke cigarettes or initiating alcohol and other drug use, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Men’s health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

SAMHSA, drawing on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Men’s health, said that youths ages 18 to 25 who reported a major depressive episode in the past year were 60 percent more likely than their peers to have started smoking, 35 percent more likely to have started drinking, twice as likely to have begun misusing prescription pain medication, and twice as likely to have started using illicit drugs.

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