INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana approved a yearlong needleexchange program Thursday for a county at the center of an HIV outbreak that prompted a new state law allowing such programs. State health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams' approval for Scott County includes a public-health emergency declaration that will allow it to operate a needle exchange through May 24, 2016. The southeastern Indiana county has operated a temporary needle-exchange since early April under executive orders Gov. Mike Pence signed in response to the largest HIV outbreak in state history. [continues 128 words]
Imagine a drug company manufacturing and selling uncontrolled doses of its pharmaceuticals right in the owner's house. Imagine the owner bringing in a doctor on Saturdays and paying them to pass out prescriptions for his product to lines of customers. Both owner and doctor haul in large sums of cash in this tidy little arrangement. The quantity of drugs on hand violates state law, as do the sales themselves. Both the cash and drugs are crime magnets. Burglaries have become routine. The neighbors aren't happy. [continues 373 words]
INDIANAPOLIS - Hey dude, can we talk? Marijuana advocates who say pot is safer than alcohol want colleges to wade into a hazy debate over whether schools' tough pot penalties are actually worsening their drinking woes. They argue that stiff punishments for being caught in a campus dorm with pot steer students to booze and add to binge drinking, drunken brawls and other booze-soaked troubles. "You know, when you get high on marijuana you don't act violent - you just kind of sit there," said Mason Tvert, leader of a Denver-based group stoking the debate of pot vs. booze. [continues 715 words]
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's battle against methamphetamine use is expanding to its prison system, where inmates hooked on the powerful stimulant can now get help staying clean at a new unit devoted solely to treating meth addicts. A 204-bed meth-treatment wing at the Miami Correctional Facility, about 60 miles north of Indianapolis, opened yesterday as a pilot project. Gov. Mitch Daniels, who toured the wing, told inmates that he hopes it can be expanded to Indiana's other prisons. "You can't help but have hope that this thing just might work. It has to work for the people involved; it has to work for our state," he said. [continues 415 words]
Cocaine-addicted rats experience bursts of brain chemical activity just before seeking out their next fix, scientists report in a finding that could open a new avenue for treating human addicts. When the rats merely heard or saw cues associated with cocaine, their brains pumped out extra doses of the same reward-related chemical that helps produce the euphoria that human users feel. The rats' brain activity may explain the intense cravings human addicts experience when something reminds them of the drug. [continues 476 words]
Maria Welch, a 52-year-old Baker City, Ore., resident in July to remove most of her cancerous right lung, was in misery after doctors sent her home with some potent pain-killers. The drugs deadened some of the pain, but left her nauseous, hallucinatory and suffering from sleepless nights. "I felt like my body was asleep but my mind was awake. I just had to stop taking them because they didn't agree with me." Then a friend gave Welch two marijuana brownies. Though she had never tried illegal drugs, she was desperate for relief. [continues 915 words]
