An archive of recent news articles on the topic of alcohol and drugs.
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Boozing teens just 'mimicking their elders'
17th February 2011
Teenagers drinking large amounts are the victims of New Zealand's heavy drinking culture and are simply mimicking their elders, according to Doug Sellman, director of the National Addiction Centre and professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Otago University. "Drunkeness is viewed as a perfectly normal mental state for both young and older people to be in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in New Zealand," he said. "If you're not drunk, you can't possibly be having a good time." Teens were not the only ones to have this attitude to drink-driving. "Young people mimic older people. The heavy-drinking culture in New Zealand is primarily a problem of people over the age of 20, not under 20. Young people are much more the victims of the heavy-drinking culture than they are the cause."
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Smoking harms mental health but quitters arrest decline, study finds
17th February 2011
SMOKING accelerates mental decline and damages parts of the brain linked to dementia, an Australian study has found. But there is good news for long-term smokers: quitting reverses the harmful effects on the brain. The study assessed brain function using standard performance tests, matching the results to brain scans in 229 elderly smokers who were trying to give up and 98 non-smokers. The research, repeated at six-monthly intervals for two years, was the first in the world to track changes in smokers' mental performance over a lengthy period.
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Trial gives low nicotine-cigarettes to quitters
16th February 2011
Smokers have been offered what may be the dream way to quit - a low-nicotine cigarette to suck on, plus gum, a patch or a lozenge containing more nicotine. The theory is that separating the ritual of smoking from the main addictive chemical in tobacco smoke may help break the "psychological addiction" and boost the chances of quitting. Auckland University researchers have tested the quit-smoking potential of low-nicotine cigarettes among 1400 heavily dependent smokers recruited through the Quitline. They say earlier trials have indicated that low-nicotine cigarettes may help people to quit the habit, but these studies had limitations, such as having too few participants to produce reliable results.
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Call for cigarette display ban this year
16th February 2011
ble cigarette advertising displays will go within nine months following tobacco law changes, if public health officials get their way.
The Smokefree Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill, which passed its first reading in December proposes banning all point-of-sale tobacco displays and allowing infringement notices to be issued when tobacco is sold to people aged under 18.
It also proposes the measures come into force six months after the bill becomes law, with a two-year transition period so that shops can be modified.
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P lab children's drug levels on par with adults
15th February 2011
Children found in P labs are likely to be inhaling and absorbing the same levels of methamphetamine as adult drug users, new research shows. Scientists at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research testing hair samples taken from children found in the labs were shocked to find almost 90 per cent tested positive for the drug. ESR toxicologist and lead researcher Dr Tom Bassindale said eighty-nine percent of the tests came back positive, with samples showing the children had been exposed to methamphetamine for a much longer period of time than previously thought. "We often analysed 6 months of hair growth and detected methamphetamine in all of that hair," he said.
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Smuggler swallows $600k worth of P
15th February 2011
A woman who swallowed up to $600,000 worth of pure methamphetamine in an attempt to smuggle it into New Zealand has been arrested at Auckland airport. Customs officers said the woman was carrying 570g of crystal methamphetamine inside her body in 40 pellets when she arrived last week. The woman, a South African national, was targeted as a potential drug smuggler by customs officers. When they searched her a body scan revealed 40 latex pellets in her body.
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Drunk young women 'sexual attack targets'
10th February 2011
Young women found grossly drunk and alone on Christchurch streets are "easy prey for sexual predators", say police. Chris Haines, St John ambulance regional operations manager for the north of the South Island, said it was common on weekends to find two or three women isolated and semi-conscious on footpaths, behind malls or on buses. "I have been out and about myself on a Saturday night a couple of times recently, and I was quite disturbed by the fact there are young women who are heavily intoxicated and their friends simply abandon them," he said.
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Pill popping pilot fights for job
10th February 2011
A pilot sacked by Pacific Blue denies offering to supply LSD to an old school friend, an employment hearing has heard. The pilot's private life came under the spotlight in an Employment Relations Authority hearing in Christchurch yesterday. The man, whose name is suppressed, is seeking reinstatement to his $93,000 a year job at Pacific Blue. The airline sacked him in May last year after a spa party on June 10, 2009 at the pilot's house attended by three female Pacific Blue cabin attendants. One was found unconscious outside the party and then hospitalised. At the party, alcohol was available and the pilot, who was on call at the time, handed out herbal pills called Red Alert.
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Support for smokefree 'Golden Mile' in Wellington - study
9th February 2011
More than fifty per cent of Wellingtonians believe the city's "Golden Mile" of shopping streets should be smokefree, an Otago University study has found. Researchers found people walking along Courtney Place, Manners Mall and Street, Willis Street and Lambton Quay would come across an average seven smokers every 10 minutes, public health researcher Associate Professor Nick Wilson said. "This means that non-smokers are coming into contact with second-hand smoke on a regular basis, and raises the question whether New Zealand should follow other jurisdictions in making busy shopping areas smokefree," Mr Wilson said.
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Drug plots on DOC land
9th February 2011
Cannabis growers are using remote Department of Conservation (DOC) land on the West Coast, police say. Detective Sergeant Brett Greer said police had noticed cannabis plots had become more widespread in the region. Greer said the availability of remote, native bush made the West Coast a popular site, with many growers planting crops on DOC land. Different strains that could grow in harsh areas were also being planted, he said.
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