BACKGROUND Deaths caused by drug abuse, in which the cause of death is intoxication, so-called overdose deaths, are regularly reported and studied. Other deaths related to drug abuse have been less frequently studied. We wished to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of unnatural deaths in persons in whom drugs were detected in blood samples taken at autopsy. MATERIAL AND METHOD A t...

Telomeres are protective chromosomal structures that play a key role in preserving genomic stability. Telomere length is known to be associated with ageing and age-related diseases. To study the impairment of telomeres induced by drug abuse, we conducted an association study in the Chinese Han population. Multivariate linear regression analyses were performed to evaluate the correlation of leuk...

Responsibility for many of the problems of intravenous drug abuse and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection lies with community care agencies, such as general practitioners, community psychiatric and district nurses and drug agencies. It is in general practice that this burden is most clearly observed, given that general practitioners are in charge of the day-to-day care of patients. In ...

There is emerging evidence that suggests emotional processes may be involved in the development of addiction, and that emotional alterations may compromise the effectiveness of treatment approaches in substance abuse. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of studies that have examined the experience of emotions in substance abusers, especially with regard to natural affective stimuli that are motivati...

A basic neuropsychological test battery was given to 64 adolescents (57 males and seven females; mean age = 15.5) divided in two groups: (1) drug-abusers ("experimental group," n = 26), and (2) non drug-abusers ("control group," n = 38). Psychoactive substances included marijuana, "crack," solvent inhalation, gasoline sniffing, and alcohol. The following tests were used: (1) language, (2) perce...

Moves to legalize marijuana highlight the urgency to investigate effects of chronic marijuana in the human brain. Here, we challenged 48 participants (24 controls and 24 marijuana abusers) with methylphenidate (MP), a drug that elevates extracellular dopamine (DA) as a surrogate for probing the reactivity of the brain to DA stimulation. We compared the subjective, cardiovascular, and brain DA r...

provided the original work is properly cited. CC A 50-year-old man awoke suddenly at 4:30 a.m., stood on his bed, and cried out, “I told you I could not sleep all night!” Thereafter, he tried to find an anesthesiologist to infuse him with the surgical anesthetic propofol because he was convinced it was the only cure for his insomnia. Finally, he died, 65 days later, from an overdose of propofol...

Comorbidity of substance abuse disorders (SUD) and psychiatric disorders is one of the most important areas of investigation in contemporary drug abuse treatment research. This study examined the impact of psychiatric comorbidity on the treatment of 182 adolescent drug abusers in a randomized clinical trial comparing family and individual cognitive-behavioral therapy. Three distinct groups of a...