The end of cheap food
FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.
That is why this year’s price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun—maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it—is at or near a peak in nominal terms. The Economist’s food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years (see article). That is because “agflation” is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.
But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America’s reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America’s (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV’s fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world’s overall grain stocks.
Dearer food has the capacity to do enormous good and enormous harm. It will hurt urban consumers, especially in poor countries, by increasing the price of what is already the most expensive item in their household budgets. It will benefit farmers and agricultural communities by increasing the rewards of their labour; in many poor rural places it will boost the most important source of jobs and economic growth.
Although the cost of food is determined by fundamental patterns of demand and supply, the balance between good and ill also depends in part on governments. If politicians do nothing, or the wrong things, the world faces more misery, especially among the urban poor. If they get policy right, they can help increase the wealth of the poorest nations, aid the rural poor, rescue farming from subsidies and neglect—and minimise the harm to the slum-dwellers and landless labourers. So far, the auguries look gloomy.
In the trough
That, at least, is the lesson of half a century of food policy. Whatever the supposed threat—the lack of food security, rural poverty, environmental stewardship—the world seems to have only one solution: government intervention. Most of the subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty. Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land. Even a vast subsidy cannot reverse that.
With agflation, policy has reached a new level of self-parody. Take America’s supposedly verdant ethanol subsidies. It is not just that they are supporting a relatively dirty version of ethanol (far better to import Brazil’s sugar-based liquor); they are also offsetting older grain subsidies that lowered prices by encouraging overproduction. Intervention multiplies like lies. Now countries such as Russia and Venezuela have imposed price controls—an aid to consumers—to offset America’s aid to ethanol producers. Meanwhile, high grain prices are persuading people to clear forests to plant more maize.
Dearer food is a chance to break this dizzying cycle. Higher market prices make it possible to reduce subsidies without hurting incomes. A farm bill is now going through America’s Congress. The European Union has promised a root-and-branch review (not yet reform) of its farm-support scheme. The reforms of the past few decades have, in fact, grappled with the rich world’s farm programmes—but only timidly. Now comes the chance for politicians to show that they are serious when they say they want to put agriculture right.
Cutting rich-world subsidies and trade barriers would help taxpayers; it could revive the stalled Doha round of world trade talks, boosting the world economy; and, most important, it would directly help many of the world’s poor. In terms of economic policy, it is hard to think of a greater good.
Where government help is really needed
Three-quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas. The depressed world prices created by farm policies over the past few decades have had a devastating effect. There has been a long-term fall in investment in farming and the things that sustain it, such as irrigation. The share of public spending going to agriculture in developing countries has fallen by half since 1980. Poor countries that used to export food now import it.
Reducing subsidies in the West would help reverse this. The World Bank reckons that if you free up agricultural trade, the prices of things poor countries specialise in (like cotton) would rise and developing countries would capture the gains by increasing exports. And because farming accounts for two-thirds of jobs in the poorest countries, it is the most important contributor to the early stages of economic growth. According to the World Bank, the really poor get three times as much extra income from an increase in farm productivity as from the same gain in industry or services. In the long term, thriving farms and open markets provide a secure food supply.
However, there is an obvious catch—and one that justifies government help. High prices have a mixed impact on poverty: they hurt anyone who loses more from dear food than he gains from a higher income. And that means over a billion urban consumers (and some landless labourers), many of whom are politically influential in poor countries. Given the speed of this year’s food-price rises, governments in emerging markets have no alternative but to try to soften the blow.
Where they can, these governments should subsidise the incomes of the poor, rather than food itself, because that minimises price distortions. Where food subsidies are unavoidable, they should be temporary and targeted on the poor. So far, most government interventions in the poor world have failed these tests: politicians who seem to think cheap food part of the natural order of things have slapped on price controls and export restraints, which hurt farmers and will almost certainly fail.
Over the past few years, a sense has grown that the rich are hogging the world’s wealth. In poor countries, widening income inequality takes the form of a gap between city and country: incomes have been rising faster for urban dwellers than for rural ones. If handled properly, dearer food is a once-in-a-generation chance to narrow income disparities and to wean rich farmers from subsidies and help poor ones. The ultimate reward, though, is not merely theirs: it is to make the world richer and fairer.
by economist
Avoid these Common Condom Mistakes
For being such an inexpensive item, condoms pack a powerful punch. They protect its users against many sexually transmitted diseases as well as guarding against pregnancy. In the heat of the moment, however, many couples do not stop during foreplay and pull out the condom instructions from the box to ensure they are using the condoms properly. So, for those condom users who are not currently engaged in sexual activity, here is a brief rundown of some condom no-no’s for you to peruse.
• A very good friend of mine met her husband in college and she recalled the first time they were about to have sex. Being a responsible man, he pulled the condom he kept in his wallet out as they were about to leap from third base and slide into home. He opened up the condom wrapper and the package was empty. The condom had expired years earlier and had disintegrated into a powder. Lesson learned? Never use condoms that have expired (they may no longer exist, as in this case) as they become weaker with age and more prone to breakage.
• If you are planning a night of unbridled passion and plan to have sex at least four times, pack at least four condoms. Add to that number any other kind of sex you plan to have, including oral or anal. Never use the same condom multiple times. If, for instance, you are using a condom and have just engaged in oral sex and are planning on moving to vaginal sex, dispose of the used condom and start with a new condom before engaging in the vaginal sex. Along the same lines, if one single sex act is continuing beyond thirty minutes, it would be an excellent idea to put on a fresh condom to avoid the condom breaking.
• While double-bagging your groceries may be an excellent idea to avoid your groceries from spilling all over your back seat, you will want to avoid double-bagging your condoms. Use only one condom at a time. The extra friction caused by rubber rubbing against rubber is sure to result in breakage.
• Never expose your condoms to anything that could cause it to potentially tear, rip or break. Some things you will want to keep away from a condom include, but are not limited to, the following: hot cars on summer days, pointy fingernails, sharp teeth, scissors or box cutters, fresh stubble, chainsaws, etc, etc.
• Once the sexual act is complete and the man has ejaculated into the condom, never let the penis go flaccid inside or the condom is likely to leak or slip off exposing those same fluids you were trying to protect. Also, never pull out without holding firmly onto the condom at the base of the shaft. This will also prevent unnecessary leakage.
• As tempting as it may be to only wear the condom towards the end of the sexual activity right before ejaculation, resist the temptation. Never let genitalia touch before you are protected with a condom.
• When friction becomes a problem with condom use, turn to a water-based lubricant for aid. Never resort to using petroleum jelly, lotions or oils as these products can cause latex to weaken and break.
• Never put on a condom so tight that there is no space for the semen to accumulate after ejaculation. When rolling a condom on, be sure to leave an air-free space at the tip.
Reference: A condom is a device most commonly used during sexual intercourse. It is put on a man’s erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner. Condoms are used to prevent pregnancy and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs—such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV). Because condoms are waterproof, elastic, and durable, they are also used in a variety of secondary applications. These range from creating waterproof microphones to protecting rifle barrels from clogging.
Most condoms are made from latex, but some are made from other materials. A female condom is also available. As a method of contraception, male condoms have the advantage of being inexpensive, easy to use, having few side-effects, and of offering protection against sexually transmitted diseases. With proper knowledge and application technique—and use at every act of intercourse—users of male condoms experience a 2% per-year pregnancy rate.
Condoms have been used for over 500 years. In the early twentieth century, with the invention of disposible latex condoms, they became one of the most popular methods of contraception. While widely accepted in modern times, condoms have generated some controversy. Improper disposal of condoms contributes to litter problems, and the Roman Catholic Church generally opposes condom use.
Everything About Tea
Camellia sinensis is an evergreen plant and grows in tropical to sub-tropical climates. In addition to tropical climates (at least 50 inches of rainfall a year), it also prefers acidic soils. Many high quality tea plants grow at elevations up to 1500 meters (5,000 feet), as the plants grow more slowly and acquire a better flavor. Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes, and a plant will grow a new flush every seven to ten days during the growing season.
Tea plants will grow into a tree if left undisturbed, but cultivated plants are pruned to waist height for ease of plucking.
Two principal varieties are used, the small-leaved China plant (C. sinensis sinensis) and the large-leaved Assam plant (C. sinensis assamica).
History of Tea
Tea is so much a part of everyday life in Britain that we might never stop to think about how a unique plant from faraway China became the nation?s favourite drink. But the history of tea is fascinating, and in this section we can follow its story from the earliest times in Imperial China right up to its present place at the heart of British life.
Read about the exotic beginnings of tea ” the legends surrounding its origins as a drink, its popularity among the Chinese emperors, and the cultural significance of the Japanese tea ceremony. Discover how tea was brought to England by a seventeenth century queen, and how important the tea trade was to the British East India Company, one of the most powerful commercial organisations the world has ever seen. Learn how the phenomenal popularity of tea in the eighteenth century led to widespread smuggling and adulteration, and about the murderous lengths smugglers went to to protect their illegal trade. Read also about the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which sparked off the American Revolution, and how rivalry between the English and the American tea traders in the nineteenth century led to the excitement of the Clipper races. And trace the social history of tea in Britain, from the early debates about its health-giving properties, to the rise of the tea bag, via the great tradition of the London Tea Auction and the role of tea in boosting morale in the World Wars.
Tea Facts
- Drink your way to the top…
- 80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what’s going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
Big in India…
- Apart from tourism, tea is the biggest industrial activity in India.
A long time ago…
- Tea was created more than 5000 years ago in China.
The first book…
- The first book about tea was written by Lu Yu in 800 A.D
Arrived in Europe…
- Tea firstly appeared in Europe thanks to Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560.
How many cups a day…
- The number of recommended cups of tea to drink each day is 4, this gives you optimal benefit.
Bag it up…
- 96% of all cups of tea drunk daily in the UK are brewed from tea bags.
As you like it…
- 98% of people take their tea with milk, but only 30% take sugar in tea.
A cup of tea to keep the dentist away…
- Tea is a natural source of fluoride that can help protect against tooth decay and gum disease
And the doctor away…
- Tea has potential health maintainence benefits in cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention.
Good for you…
- Tea contains half the amount of caffeine found in coffee.
Everyone’s favourite…
- By the middle of the 18th Century tea had replaced ale and gin as the drink of the masses and had become Britain’s most popular beverage.
Tea break time…
- Tea breaks are a tradition that have been with us for approximately 200 years.
Everything brewed from the leaf of the tea plant is tea.
Everything else is something else!
We will use here the term tea for the “real” tea, otherwise mention the origin (herbal, fruit, Mate etc.)
All tea comes from the same plant. It was thought at one time that green and black teas were made from different plants. In fact it is only the different plucking and processing methods that produce the different types - green, black, oolong, white, yellow, Pu-erh or scented.
Many different varieties within each category result in hundreds of teas from all over the world.
The leaves are plucked as the new shoots or “flush” are beginning to grow (two leaves one bud). These tiny young shoots and their thin, unopened buds produce the most delicate and flavourful teas. Picked and processed by hand only these delicate young leaves go into the making of a premium tea.
Black tea is the most common tea in Europe. Although the first tea that came to Europe was green, black tea seems to be more suited for our taste and has displaced green tea almost completely.
The picked leaf undergoes a full fermentation process composed of six basic steps - withering, rolling, sorting, fermenting, firing (or drying) and grading.
1. Withering
The leaves are exposed to hot air for several hours in order to reduce their water content by 50% to 60%. This step starts to free up the enzyme responsible for oxidizing the leaf (fermentation). It also softens the leaves, preparing them to undergo subsequent operations without breaking. The leaves must not be broken or bruised (except for oolong).
2. Rolling - The leaves are rolled (by hand or mechanically) allowing the essential oils to spread and to impregnate the buds. The aroma of the tea depends on these essential oils.
3. Sorting - A calibrated screen is used to sort the tea. The smallest leaves go directly to the next stage, while the larger, tougher ones undergo a second rolling.
4. Fermentation - This entails the chemical reaction of the leaves and their components (polyphenols) with air, humidity and heat. This is a crucial moment, one in which the aroma, bite and colour of the tea (turns coppery red) are determined. If this step is stopped too soon the tea is greenish and can have a metallic after-taste; if it is fermented too much it becomes sweetish and loses both quality and aroma.
5. Firing - The characteristics of the tea become fixed at this stage (colour of the leave turns black). Drying the leaves in the oven stops the fermentation process. If the leaves are not dried enough (if more than 12% humidity remains), the tea may be attacked by mould. If they are dried too much (if less than 2% to 3% humidity remain) the result is a tea without aroma since the aroma-carrying elements remain largely insoluble.
6. Grading - The leaves are separated by size or grade. This operation also cools and aerates the leaves.
Once this process is complete 100 kg of fresh leaves will have yielded 20 -25kg of black tea.
Soluble tea is a black tea that has undergone the usual production steps but that is dried even further and reduced to powder. This type of tea has the advantage of being easier to crate and ship for export. It is also ideal for the two tea innovations of the 20th century: iced tea and the tea bag.
Green tea is often referred to as “unfermented” tea.
- Firing - The leaves are placed for 20 to 30 seconds in large iron basins heated to about 100° Celsius. This operation destroys the enzyme that causes fermentation. The leaves then remain green. In Japan this process is accomplished by exposing the leaves to steam.
- Rolling - As for black tea the smaller and more tightly rolled the leaf the more robust the tea as more components are released.
- Drying - This allows some evaporation of the water contained in the leaves to prevent mould.
- Sorting - This is the step where the grades are separated out. Just as for black tea the process uses sieves or screens of different calibers (see our range here) .
Oolong means “black dragon” and is generally referred to as “semi-fermented” tea.
It is produced only in China and Taiwan in similar way as black tea (withering, rolling, fermentation, firing). The difference is that the leaves are wilted in direct sunlight and then shaken in bamboo baskets to lightly bruise the edges.
In the next step only the bruised edges are fermented the core of the leaf is still green hence half fermented.
Oolongs are always whole leaf teas, never broken by rolling.
They have a distinctive peachy flavour (Wu Yi Yan Cha Oolong).
White tea is produced on a very limited scale in China and Sri Lanka.
The new buds are plucked before they open and allowed to dry. The curled-up buds have a silvery appearance and produce a very pale, straw-coloured tea with a fine, aromatic and mild character (unfermented).
This used to be the tea for the Chinese Emperor. It is said that only white dressed virgins were allowed the pluck the buds with their mouth in the early morning to keep the tea as pure as possible (White Bud).
Yellow tea is only produced in China, often made from the leaves of wild growing tea bushes.
In the past monkeys were trained to pluck the leaves because they often grow in inaccessible terrain.
It is best placed between green and Oolong tea.
The making of yellow tea is similar to green tea (unfermented). After firing and rolling the leaves are stored in small piles in a room with a constant humidity for about two hours. During this procedure the leaves get their yellow colour.
The range of sorts is very limited and there are only small quantities available.
The aroma of Yellow tea is famous, with hints of chocolate and coffee (Huan Chan Mao Feng).
Pu-erh tea is originally from South-China (Yunnan). The production is different to this of black or green tea.
- A basic tea is produced (Qing Mao). The freshly plucked leaves are wilted, then slightly roasted, rolled, shaped (to bring it into leaf form again), dried, rolled, shaped and dried again.
It is fermented with water (which includes certain necessary bacteria) over a period of 40-50 days.
- The little piles of tea have to be turned and watered regulary and the right mix of temperature (under 60°C) and humidity is crucial.
- The fermentation is stopped by treating the tea with hot air (150°C) which also kills the bacteria.
Pu-erh is often sold in different forms (nests, squares, biscuit). Due to its unique manufacturing process Pu-erh tea posses a distinctive earthy flavour (Pu-Erh lemon).
Scented tea is created when the additional flavourings are mixed with the leaf at a final stage before the tea is packed. For Jasmine tea (the oldest existing scented tea, invented in China), whole jasmine blossoms are added to green, black or oolong tea. Fruit-flavoured teas are generally made by blending the fruits’ essential oils with tea (for example Earl Grey is black or green tea mixed with the oil of the Bergamot).
Apart from the classical teas the brewing of parts of a plant was and is practised all over the world. Here are some “non classical” teas:
Mate tea comes from South America. It was found in ancient Indian graves and has a long tradition there.
The leaves are plucked from the mate bush (Ilex paraguayensis St.- Hil.) and briefly heated for dehydration.
Afterwards the leaves are fermented for about 30- 45 days and finally dried.
The result is green mate with a slightly sweet-sour, smokey taste. A certain percentage is being roasted to a stronger, smokier taste (roasted mate).
Mate tea is very popular in Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay.
It contains 0.5-3% caffeine which has a coffee like effect due to the absence of tannic acid (unlike green and black tea).
In South America a little pumkin is filled half with mate leaves and then filled up with boiling water. The quite strong brew is sucked in through a tube. In Europe mate is brewed like other tea (max. 5min brewing time).
Rooibush tea is made from the leaf and bark of a South African bush (Aspalathus linearis, in Afrikaans: Rooibos).
The name “red bush” comes from the fact that the plant turns fire red in the seventh year and dies. It was discovered in the 19th century north of Capetown.
Rooibush is choped, fermented for 8-24 hours (turns into red-brown colour) and then dried.
The taste is fresh-fruity and there is no acid or caffein in Roibush tea. It’s alkaline nature and high percentage of vitamin C and vital minerals makes this tea an ideal drink for children, expectant women and it is perfect to drink at nighttime.
Most Roibush comes as scented tea (Roibush Applestrudel).
The brewing time is 5-10 minutes and it is made like normal tea.
Lapacho tea also comes from Sout America.
Lapacho is a tree (Tabebuia serratifolia, up to 20m with beautiful red blossoms) whose bark is used to brew tea (boil for 4-5 minutes, brew for another 15-20min.).
The list of essential, healthy ingredience is long. Lapacho is detoxicating, blocks inflamation and cancer growth, strenghtens the immune system and wound healing, lowers high blood pressure and fever and is used against depression.
Herbal tea is a infusion of one or multiple herbs and/or spices.
In the past they were mostly used as medicine. With the progress of medical science herbs fell into oblivion. Nowadays herbal infusions are re-discovered. They do not contain caffeine but minerals and vitamins instead. Best known are camomile, nettle and mint infusions (see our range here).
Fruit tea is made from fruits of all kind. The range of these teas is virtually unlimited. The basis is usually hibiscus, hawthorn and apple enriched with different fruits and flavours. They can be drunk hot and cold and at any time of the day.
WASHINGTON - After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It’s more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.
College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex — they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and “it feels good,” according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.
Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: “I was attracted to the person.”
Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.
“It’s refuted a lot of gender stereotypes … that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love,” said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study’s co-author. “That’s not what I came up with in my findings.”
Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, “the more we look, the more we find similarity,” said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn’t part of Meston’s study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.
Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women — ranging in age from 17 to 52 — to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from “It’s fun” which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to “I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease” which ranked on the bottom by women.
Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.
“None of the gender differences are all that great,” Meston said. “Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner.”
But this is among college students, when Meston conceded “hormones run rampant.” She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.
Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.
“Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added,” Meston said.
Why Humans Have Sex
Cindy M. Meston . David M. Buss
Abstract: Historically, the reasons people have sex have
been assumed to be few in number and simple in nature–to
reproduce, to experience pleasure, or to relieve sexual
tension. Several theoretical perspectives suggest that motives
for engaging in sexual intercourse may be larger in
number and psychologically complex in nature. Study 1
used a nomination procedure that identified 237 expressed
reasons for having sex, ranging from the mundane (e.g., ‘‘I
wanted to experience physical pleasure’’) to the spiritual
(e.g., ‘‘I wanted to get closer to God’’), from altruistic (e.g.,
‘‘I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself’’)
to vengeful (e.g., ‘‘I wanted to get back at my partner for
having cheated on me’’). Study 2 asked participants
(N = 1,549) to evaluate the degree to which each of the 237
reasons had led them to have sexual intercourse. Factor
analyses yielded four large factors and 13 subfactors,
producing a hierarchical taxonomy. The Physical reasons
subfactors included Stress Reduction, Pleasure, Physical
Desirability, and Experience Seeking. The Goal Attainment
subfactors included Resources, Social Status, Revenge, and
Utilitarian. The Emotional subfactors included Love and
Commitment and Expression. The three Insecurity subfactors
included Self-Esteem Boost, Duty/Pressure, and Mate
Guarding. Significant gender differences supported several
previously advanced theories. Individual differences in
expressed reasons for having sex were coherently linked
with personality traits and with individual differences in
sexual strategies. Discussion focused on the complexity of
sexual motivation and directions for future research.
For the full text look here: http://tinyurl.com/ypzwvr
Pills becoming the new marijuana.
The prescription drugs allegedly found in Al Gore III’s possession Wednesday are favorites among young people, according to drug abuse experts, who say prescription drugs may soon overtake street drugs in popularity.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if right now at this point in time, there are more kids abusing prescription drugs than abusing marijuana,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and president of CASA, the National Center on Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Gore was arrested on charges of possessing — in addition to marijuana — Vicodin, Xanax, Valium and Adderall.
According to a CASA report, between 1993 and 2005 the proportion of college students abusing Vicodin and other opiods went up 343 percent, about 240,000 individuals. The numbers increased 450 percent, or by 170,000 students, for tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium, and 93 percent, or 225,000 students, for stimulants, including Adderall.
Prescription drug abuse is particularly common among upper middle class students, according to Lisa Jack, a clinical psychologist at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“It just goes to show that where you’re from doesn’t matter,” Jack said.
And young people don’t have to go far to get these drugs. “Prescription drugs are very easy for kids to get,” Califano said. “They can get them from the Internet. They can get them from their parents’ medicine cabinets. They can get them from their friends.”
He said often students get them from friends who were prescribed these drugs legitimately.
“Kids sell them to each other,” Jack said. “Drug trading happens all the time.”
Experts say it’s particularly a problem with Adderall, a drug prescribed legitimately to millions of young people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
According to CASA, more than a third of children ages 11-18 in Wisconsin and Minnesota who’d been prescribed Adderall and other ADHD medications reported being approached to sell or trade their drugs.
And often they say yes, according to one Canadian study that found one out of four teens who’d been legitimately prescribed Ritalin gave or sold some of their drugs.
Another appeal to prescription drugs, besides the easy access, is that young people often perceive them as safer.
“They don’t have to go to the streets and deal with some guy they don’t know and get marijuana where they don’t know what’s in it,” Califano said. “Also, they see their parents using these drugs, so they seem safe.”
Jack said prescription drugs can be more challenging to treat than addiction to street drugs. “In traditional drug abuse, addicts can say, ‘I’ve been using meth or coke or pot,’ and an addiction specialist knows what to do,” she said. But with prescription drugs, “sometimes the kids don’t even know what they’ve been taking. They just pass the pills around.”
Part of the solution would be for drug makers to formulate their products so they’re harder to abuse, said Califano, adding that anti-drug campaigns also should focus more on prescription drug abuse.
Parents need to do their part as well, he said. “When I was a kid in Brooklyn, when parents had liquor, they locked up the liquor cabinet,” he said. “Maybe parents need to lock up the medicine cabinet.”
Scientists predict brave new world of brain pills
Can’t remember phone numbers, worried about an upcoming exam or desperately want to give up smoking? In future, the answer will be simple: just pop a pill.
The idea that an array of easily available and addiction-free drugs could be used to improve memory or increase intelligence is the stuff of science fiction dystopia - in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley created a whole planet under the spell of a pleasure drug called Soma.
But a new report by leading scientists in the fields of psychology and neuroscience argues that, very soon, there really will be a pill for every ill.
“It is possible that [advances] could usher in a new era of drug use without addiction,” said the report by Foresight, the government’s science-based thinktank.
“In a world that is increasingly non-stop and competitive, the individual’s use of such substances may move from the fringe to the norm.”
However, the report said the widespread adoption of new brain-enhancing drugs was not without risks and would raise “significant ethical, social and practical issues.”
Drugs that work on the brain are already common - many people can hardly begin their days without the mind-sharpening effects of caffeine or nicotine.
Launching the report yesterday, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, said that brain-enhancing drugs developed to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s were likely to find increased use among healthy people looking to improve their perception, memory, planning or judgment.
Ritalin, prescribed to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is sometimes used by healthy people to enhance their mental performance. Modafinil, a drug developed to treat narcolepsy, has been shown to reduce impulsiveness and help people focus on problems.
“It improves working memory - your ability to remember telephone numbers - it gives you an extra digit or two,” said Trevor Robbins, an experimental psychologist at Cambridge University and an author of the Foresight report.
“It also improves your planning when you’re doing complex, chess-like problems. It makes you more reflective about a problem: you take a bit longer but you get it right.”
Modafinil has already been used by the US military to keep soldiers awake and alert and some scientists are considering its usefulness in helping shift workers deal with erratic working hours. It has also been tested for cocaine users. “It produces some of the subjective effects of cocaine without the chronic dependence,” said Prof Robbins. Other drugs are being touted as “vaccinations” against substances such as nicotine, alcohol and cocaine. The treatment would work by causing the immune system to produce antibodies against the drug being abused - these antibodies would render the drug impotent when taken and prevent it from having any effect on the brain.
“How [the vaccinations are] used depends on clinical judgments,” said Prof Robbins. “Informed consent is important.”
But he cautioned against any plan to pre-vaccinate people against narcotics. “One would be very careful indeed about trying to sign one’s children up for such treatment,” he said. “That, to me, sounds reprehensible.”
In the long term, drugs that can delete painful memories could also be used routinely. “We are now looking 20-25 years ahead,” said Prof Robbins. “Very basic science is showing that it is possible to call up a memory, knock it on the head and produce selective amnesia.”
That has obvious uses for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but there is also the tantalising possibility that it could be used to treat harmful addictions.
“Drug addiction can be understood very much as an aberrant learning process,” said Prof Robbins.
“Many of these drugs hijack the learning processes of the brain and produce aberrant habits, which dominate behaviour.
“Clearly the possibility exists that you can call up a drugrelated memory and produce amnesia for it, thus removing craving for that particular drug.”
As drug research improves, the harmful effects of today’s recreational drugs could even be engineered out.
“It may be that one could design out the harmful effects of existing drugs,” said Professor Gerry Stimson of Imperial College. “So, alcohol analogues, drugs which produce similar effects to alcohol without some of the side-effects.”
Society must decide how to use the new drugs, the scientists said.
For example, if drugs to improve exam performance become widespread, schoolchildren might find themselves being tested for drugs before exams, they suggested.
“It’s a new twist on drug-testing,” said Prof Stimson. “Is it a fair advantage or an unfair advantage?”
On the menu: range of treatments
· Ritalin (methylphenidate) is used by a small number of students in an attempt to improve exam results and by business people to improve performance in the boardroom
· D-amphetamine also improves memory but only for people of a certain genetic make-up
· Rimonabant is used as an antidote to the intoxicant effects of cannabis and a treatment for heroin relapse. But it is sometimes also used to enhance the high produced by these drugs by reducing their side-effects
· Naltrexone is already used to treat chronic alcoholism and narcotic abuse. It works by blocking the pleasure receptors that are normally activated in the brain when people use the drugs
· Propranolol, a beta-blocker, is used to treat high blood pressure, angina, and abnormal heart rhythms. It is also used sometimes by snooker players to calm their nerves
· Modafinil, a stimulant developed to treat narcolepsy, has been used by soldiers to improve memory and judgment. It is also used in treatment of cocaine addiction
