"drugs" news and stories

In this New York Times story about energy drinks and their relation to risky behavior behavior among adolescents, one commenter says something rather interesting about "gateway candy." In his opinion, the kids who like the crazy, ultra-hot, ultra-sour candy grow up to be the risk takers and drug addicts, while the sedate chocolate and caramel lovers become the solid citizens. He's kind of joking, but it's kind of true.

In fourth grade, my friend Alex and I would make pilgrimages to the Toot Sweets in Northgate Mall, where I discovered the painful pleasures of holding an Atomic Fireball in my mouth as long as I could, the cinnamon heat filling my sinus cavity and making my eyes water. Not long after I got heavy into Warheads, eating so many the inside of my mouth would peel and I wouldn't be able to eat for days. Then I'd do it all again a few months later. In middle school, my friends and I would actually snort Pixy Stix and Kool Aid powder at parties to get a "sugar high" (incredibly gross, doesn't work).

And yeah, I grew up to be a rock climbing, speeding ticket-getting, "oh, I'm not really worried about malaria" kind of risk taker.

So what about you - what were your favorite candies as kids, and do you think your choices predicted your adult personalities?

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Remember when students took apples to their teachers?

Yeah, me neither.

Whatever that whole thing was about, there's a new way for students to bribe their way to an A -- cookies, and not just a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies, but cookies laced with marijuana.

Apparently, a high school senior in Wilmington, North Carolina baked cookies made from dough that had been mixed with marijuana. The student's Spanish teacher ate one of the cookies, and claims to have hallucinated, experienced an increased heart rate, and higher blood pressure. The teacher might have been mistaken except that the student actually referred to the cookies as "weed cookies."

The student has been expelled from school.

So much for bribing the teacher for grades.

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In old movies and cartoons, it was common to see someone use a cake to smuggle a file, which they could use to break themselves out, into an inmate at the local prison. At the cartoon end, the file could be replaced with anything from dynamite to a jackhammer, as the characters didn't have to be particularly subtle to get themselves out of the slammer. Things have to be done more subtle for those who want to smuggle things into prisons in real life, but food can still play a roll. A prison guard at Leflore County jail in Mississippi was arrested after he was caught smuggling in money and marijuana in a large pile of mashed potatoes (That green stuff? Those are just chives...) in at lunch time, when an unidentified woman dropped them off for him. His undoing was a food preference issue, not being careless with the contraband itself. The thing that made investigators suspicious was that the officer said that he didn't eat potatoes and couldn't explain why he was getting such a large portion of them delivered to him at work.

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When it comes to chocolate, there are two types of people: cravers and noncravers. It is interesting to note this because, unlike the vast majority of foodstuffs, people feel very strongly about their love of chocolate and often seem to find it to be "incredible" that not everyone loves the stuff.

Those who crave it experience an unusual reaction just from looking at it. A new study shows that simply looking at chocolate can activate the pleasure centers in a brain of a chocolate-lover. In fact, the part of the brain that is involved in drug addiction, the ventral striatum, turned on in response to the images, though noncravers did not have any activity in this part of the brain. Not surprisingly, when the viewing was combined with a taste of chocolate, their reaction (within the pleasure centers of the brain) was very strong. Noncravers also did not report that tasting the chocolate was as pleasant as the cravers did.

No on yet seems to have any idea as to why some crave chocolate and others don't, but some scientists say that the results of this study, indicating a clear desire-reward reaction to chocolate, could help "people change their diets or control cravings" for chocolate and possibly other foods. But when it comes to chocolate, who would want to?

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As a general rule, when participating in some sort of illicit activity, it is best to do it in secret. This is why binge eaters keep boxes of cookies stashed in their cars and bedside tables, and drug users don't usually walk down the street offing to share with passers-by. Similarly, it is not a good idea to, say, put those drugs into burgers at the restaurant where you work - especially not if you are going to serve those burgers to police officers.

This was the lapse in judgment suffered by three Burger King employees in New Mexico. The officers noticed that something was amiss after a few bites of burger and used a field testing kit to determine the source of the problem. The trio was arrested for aggravated battery on an officer (a felony) and possession of marijuana.

There is also a video available that corresponds with the story, if you want to see more.

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