We wrote in January about the fact that Spice, despite popular belief, was still legal according to federal law (see Spice Still Available? for the details). Individual states (18 at the last count) had made it illegal according to state law but the majority of people in America still had access to the synthetic marijuana product Spice. Some rejoiced, some were chagrined. In fact I took note of Spice products in local stores this past month. So shop owners were exercising their rights...

America's pain problem took on an additional dimension in a recent Center for Disease Control study.  The LA Times reported yesterday that this study (which you can read more about here) found that taking an opioid pain reliever can lead to a greater risk of certain birth defects.  This applies not only to pregnancy, but also slightly before pregnancy.  The drugs included in this study include Vicodin (hydrocodone), OxyContin (oxycodone), codeine and Tylenol-3 (which is a Tylenol...

Without question, cigarette smoking has negative consequences for your health and adds to health costs for both individuals and employers. Yet cigarettes are also a legal product that people can choose to use in all 50 states. For businesses, it is a vexing problem, and more and more businesses are choosing to screen for nicotine before they hire...much to the displeasure of current smokers. The NYTimes covered the situation yesterday. They note that some states have rejected smoker bans and...

We've been getting a lot of questions lately about "shotgun" hits of marijuana. People want to know if they will show up on a drug test. The short answer is yes. [caption id="attachment_883" align="alignright" width="225" caption="A marijuana plant."][/caption] First, what are shotgun hits of marijuana? A shotgun is when you inhale marijuana and then exhale it into someone else's mouth. If you are the one taking the second inhale, or in other words the person inhaling from someone else's mouth,...

A new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology set out to find if prolonged sitting was linked to cardiovascular diseases. Actually the doctors called the study "Screen-Based Entertainment Time, All-Cause Mortality, and Cardiovascular Events" where "screen based entertainment" is more commonly known as TV and or computer - leave it to doctors to come up with a title like that. After following 4,512 Scottish people from 2003 to 2007 and recording their screen viewing time and...

Remember the synthetic marijuana-like product Spice? Other than Four Loko, Spice was probably the drug story of the year, attracting the attention of media outlets, parents, and kids alike. In time it attracted the attention of the federal government as well, and the DEA in November said that it would take emergency measures to schedule the drug, or in other words to classify it as they do other drugs, and get it removed from the market. According to the DEA's release, the final rule on the...