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The Bangkok Post carried an article on December 9th (already removed from their servers, but available here) describing how young Muslims are able to get around the ban on alcohol by using a traditional medicinal herb.

“As Thais rejoice over the 4×100 SEA Games gold medal in the women’s relay event, police are fretting over the 4×100 formula, a drugs cocktail popular in the deep South.”

“The illegal mixture is made by brewing kratom leaves (mitragyna speciosa) in hot water and then mixing the dark green juice with a soft drink, cough syrup and tranquilisers. The popular cocktail has been named “4 times 100″. The origin of the name is unclear, but it likely came from its four ingredients.”

“Police say Pattani’s Khok Pho district is the centre of the kratom juice supply. It is adjacent to Songkhla’s Saba Yoi district, particularly Ban Node, where kratom trees flourish naturally along many waterways. The district police station is making an average five raids per month, rounding up at least 10 offenders each time. But the raids have failed to discourage users because the penalty under the Narcotics Control Act is too lenient. Since a kratom leaf is only a category 5 narcotic, the maximum jail sentence under the act is only one year. Pol Lt-Col Panya Karawanan said in many cases the court gave suspended sentences because the offenders were in their teens. Police now use section 12 of the Medicines Act, which interprets the making of the cocktail as production of an unlicensed medicine, because it has cough syrup as an ingredient. This offence carries a maximum five years in jail.”

“Since Islam prohibits drinking alcohol, many Muslim teenagers are turning to 4×100 to get high,” Pol Lt-Col Panya said. “Many insurgent suspects admit they drank 4×100 before carrying out their missions of destruction.”

At the end of the article a local hospital director comments that extensive use of Kratom can lead to addiction, convulsions and paranoia. He indicated that serious crime doesn’t seem to come from its use, except for illegally felling trees.

If you are interested in learning more about Kratom, Wikipedia has an article available here.

The Times of London has an article on the flexibility of Afghanistan’s poppy farmers:

“Where opium poppies used to colour the plains of northern Afghanistan, towering cannabis plants now sway in the wind, filling the air with their pungent odour. Farmers in Balkh province were banned from cultivating opium last year and have switched to another cash crop, a rich source of income that is still tolerated by the authorities. Balkh’s burgeoning hashish industry does not pay farmers quite as much as the heroin factories used to for good-quality opium. But the rich black cannabis resin produced around the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif still pays about four times the price of cotton or wheat. It is highly prized by Afghan usersand is exported in large quantities to Pakistan and Europe.”

Mmm, from “hard” to “soft” drugs — progress?

The BBC news service reports on research from Italy linking women’s smoking with a certain type of acne. Sounds wonderful.

The International Herald Tribune has an article on the fear of creating problems by using morphine where medically indicated: “Like millions of others in the world’s poorest countries, she is fated to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs, one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source - the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine.”

The New York Times reports:

“Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday. The report is likely to touch off renewed debate about the United States’ $600 million counternarcotics program in Afghanistan, which has been hampered by security challenges and endemic corruption within the Afghan government.”

The article does note that in non-Taliban controlled areas in the north, opium production did decrease.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the cultural distinction that is made in Bolivia between the Coca plant and its use in plant form (chewing it, etc.) and its use to produce cocaine. The farmers would like to grow more Coca, but apparently have little interest in cocaine.

“Bolivian President Evo Morales, who took office in January 2006, rose to prominence as a leader of the country’s coca producers. He has proclaimed a goal of “zero cocaine” while simultaneously exalting coca production as a linchpin of Bolivia’s social and economic identity. He favors the “industrialization” of coca for products as varied as tea, medicines and toothpaste, and is pushing to abolish international bans on export of coca products. From Morales’ viewpoint, coca is a resource to be exploited, like natural gas or minerals. He and his supporters draw a clear dividing line: The good guys are the poor cocaleros, or coca growers; the bad guys are those who use the substance to produce and transport cocaine.”

According to the State of New Mexico, US Airways has failed to initiate a safe drinking program on its flights to New Mexico as required by state law. US Ariways has also been cited in two cases; in once of which a passenger had to much to drink on a US Airways flight last November, got in a car and killed himself and five other people. The article can be found in The Arizona Republic.

The Globe and Mail is carrying a story on alcohol and rhematoid arthritis: “More good news for drinkers –regularly drinking may halve the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, scientists say.

New research presented at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology on Friday indicated that drinking at least three units of alcohol a week had clear protective effects and that 10 units brought more protection still.

One unit is roughly equivalent to a glass of wine or a small beer.

Previous studies have indicated that alcohol may also have a beneficial role in heart disease, stroke, some forms of cancer and perhaps Alzheimer’s.

Henrik Kallberg of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said his research showed consuming three or more units was associated with a 50-per-cent drop in the risk in developing rheumatoid arthritis.” . . .

You might want to think about alternatives, such as Rose Hips. The BBC Health Desk offers an alternative: “Rose-hip ‘remedy’ for arthritis”.

$49 - $67k per MONTH? For drug and alcohol rehab?!

The New York Times takes a look: “GOSSIP columns noted breathlessly this month that Lindsay Lohan, cocooned in high-class rehab in Malibu after crashing her Mercedes on Sunset Boulevard, had stepped off the premises to go to the gym. ”

“Was she breaking the rules? Were the rules bent to suit her? Either way, the idea that she might soon win her battle with substance abuse seemed, given the evidence, unduly optimistic. Not yet 21, she is halfway through a second stint in rehab.”

“But optimism, it turns out, is one of the main things offered at rehabilitation centers like Promises, the luxurious Malibu retreat for patients suffering from alcohol and substance abuse where Ms. Lohan now lives. ”

“Much harder to come by is evidence that these programs work. The quiet truth in the upper-crust rehabilitation industry is that $49,000 a month may buy lots of things — including views of the Pacific, massage therapy and blue-ribbon chefs. But whether it buys sobriety is very uncertain.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “in 1999, Washington launched “Plan Colombia,” with the promise that the anti-drug program would halve Colombian cocaine production. ”

“The law of unintended consequences rules in this drug war. Plan Colombia has not delivered. ”

“U.S. crop dusters have sprayed an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island. U.S. taxpayers have forked over some $4.7 billion. Yet cocaine is abundant and cheap on the streets of America. As Ken Dermota wrote in the July/August issue of the Atlantic, the price of a gram of cocaine in Los Angeles fell from $50 to $100 per gram in 1999 to $30-$50 in 2005. Prices are down in New York, Seattle and Atlanta. White House Drug Czar John Walters recently admitted that street cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006. ”

“Demand isn’t the issue. Demand remains steady. Supply is the issue: Growers produce far more cocaine than the world consumes.” . . .