We are nearing the end of the school year, and it is just a matter of weeks before all the prom and graduation party planning comes to fruition. May is a big month for goodbyes as teens move on to the next phase of their lives. Sadly, it is also a big month for goodbyes as teens take unnecessary risks behind the wheel and at social gatherings -- no high school graduation should be remembered for the car, truck or motorcycle accident the night before that left one or more classmates dead.
Drunk driving is a familiar problem. Teens are feeling grown up; they want to sow their wild oats. But wine, beer and liquor have gotten harder to obtain, so kids turn elsewhere for their kicks.
The use of synthetic marijuana doesn't seem to have abated, in spite of the Drug Enforcement Agency's bans on the dangerous chemicals that give the products their kick. In spite of efforts to control the sale and distribution of so-called bath salts, emergency rooms and poison centers continue to report incidents involving teens in serious physical and psychological distress.
Nationwide data shows the number of calls to poison centers about bath salts increasing from 304 in 2010 to 20 times that in 2011. Synthetic marijuana reports more than doubled during the same timeframe.
The bath salts are sold over the counter at convenience stores and specialty shops and over the Internet. The packaging includes a warning that the product is not for human consumption, but the word is out that it's a legal high. Synthetic marijuana, too, is sold as a legal high -- the chemicals used to mimic marijuana highs aren't illegal.
Some of those chemicals have been banned by the DEA, though, to give the Food and Drug Administration time to collect enough data to add the chemicals to the list of controlled substances. The DEA bans expire in September and October -- so, then what?
We'll continue this in our next post.
Source: USAToday.com, "'Bath salt' poisonings rise as legislative ban tied up," Donna Leinwand Leger, April 12, 2012
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন