Health

Marijuana addiction, abuse on the rise

Marijuana abuse and addiction have increased over the past decade, even though the percentage of people using it has remained roughly the same, a new study says.

The reason: It's not your parents' marijuana.

About 4 percent of Americans 18 and older say they smoked marijuana in the past year, the same as a decade ago, the study found. But a 25 percent increase in serious problems with marijuana from 1992 to 2002 is likely explained by a 66 percent increase in the potency of the drug, researchers from the National Institute of Drug Abuse report in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Marijuana today has nearly five times the level of THC, the drug's most active ingredient, than was in the drug in the 1970s, government figures suggest.

"People still have a naive approach to marijuana and think of it as a harmless substance," said Dr. William Compton, lead author of the new study and an epidemiologist with the National Institute of Drug Abuse, one of the National Institutes of Health. "It's not as innocent as they might expect."

WASHINGTON - Although they spend more on health care than patients in any other industrialized nation, Americans receive the right treatment less than 60 percent of the time, resulting in unnecessary pain, expense and even death, according to a study released Tuesday.

From preventive care such as flu shots to complicated surgery for heart conditions, patients are largely missing out on scientifically proven, life-saving care regardless of where they live or whether they have health insurance, Rand Corp. researchers found in their analysis of 7,000 adults in 12 representative communities.

Although the researchers had previously documented a widespread pattern of uneven or poor quality care, the new analysis found that cities with higher income levels, fewer uninsured residents or more world-renowned medical institutions fared no better than communities with fewer advantages.

"It is somewhat outrageous that we spend $1.4-trillion on health care and get it right only half the time," said Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health and a lead author of the study in Tuesday's Health Affairs journal. "We're just spending a lot of money on health care that is not getting us what we need."

Rand, a respected, nonpartisan research firm, has produced a series of influential studies on quality and cost issues in health care.

The journal packaged the study with a second one reinforcing the finding that although Americans spend pay far more per capita on medicine, their health is not noticeably better than in other countries.

SARS: China confirmed three SARS cases Tuesday, raising to nine the number of people known to be infected in the country's latest outbreak. All are linked to a Beijing research lab.

CANINE DIABETES: The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved Vetsulin, a brand of insulin derived from pigs that is the first canine diabetic treatment to win government approval. Veterinarians have long prescribed human insulin for diabetic dogs. But the FDA said it is less compatible with a dog's metabolic system.

EPHEDRA: A dietary supplements company has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration's ban on supplements containing ephedra.

The supplements were widely used for weight loss and bodybuilding, but have been linked to 155 deaths. Nutraceutical Corp. and its subsidiary Solaray claim in their lawsuit, filed Monday, that ephedra "has been safely consumed for millennia."

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