Sober Sky

New Pain Medication with No Addictive Properties

The addiction treatment community has wrestled for years fighting addictions and pain. Programs have developed different approaches to treating those with chronic pain issues. It is a difficult and a delicate issue that concerns many in the medical and addiction treatment industry. How to properly detoxify a patient and treat the underline pain that the individual is suffering from can be very tricky. The patient will present for drug treatment with the desire to be removed from pain medications, however the fear from the patient of the pain that will present as soon as medications are removed from the body becomes a barrier for the individual seeking treatment. It is a double edge sword and if not properly done, can create unnecessary pain for the patient.

 

A powerful new painkiller, which was developed on the basis of the research conducted at Stony Brook University and with no apparent side effects or addictive qualities, may now be only a year or two from the consumer market.

 

"This offers a major paradigm shift in the control of pain," declares Dr. Simon Halegoua, Professor of Neurobiology & Behavior at Stony Brook who in the 1990s, teamed up with fellow Stony Brook professors Dr. Gail Mandel and Dr. Paul Brehm to identify a novel sodium ion channel involved in the transmission of pain. They predicted that a drug aimed at blocking this channel, PN1/Nav 1.7, would control pain. PN1 (Peripheral Neuron 1), is uniquely expressed in peripheral nerves such as those involved in pain transduction.

 

When a patient is given an opiate like morphine, pain signals are still transmitted from sensory nerves to the central nervous system. Morphine action throughout the brain reduces and alters pain perception, but it also impairs judgment and results in drug dependence," explains Halegoua, also director of the Center for Nervous System Disorders at Stony Brook University. "With drugs targeting the PN1/Nav1.7 sodium ion channel, the pain signals would not be transmitted, even by the sensory nerves. And since the central nervous system is taken out of the equation, there would be no side effects and no addictive qualities."

 

The potential for such drugs is enormous -- the reduction or elimination of pain for patients with cancer, arthritis, migraine headaches, muscle pain, pain from burns, and pain from other debilitating diseases.

 

He notes that drugs in both oral and topical ointment forms, based on the research he conducted in a basement laboratory at Stony Brook with Mandel, a molecular biologist, and Brehm, an electro physiologist, are currently in Phase II clinical trials in England and Canada.

The Research Foundation of the State University of New York is the holder of the various patents originating from the work of the Stony Brook researchers. Icagen Inc., now in partnership with Pfizer, holds the exclusive license to these patents and has announced their own drug has now entered Phase I clinical trials in the U.S.

 

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by Sober Sky) from materials provided by Stony Brook University.

 

 

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Officials fear bath salts becoming the next big drug menace

By Sheila Byrd

FULTON, MISS. - When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.

Law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts, with their complex chemical names, are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale. Some say their effects can be as powerful as those of methamphetamine.

From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.

Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, a rapid heart rate and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. In addition to bath salts, the chemicals can be found in plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren't necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.

Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar measure is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals.

In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote to one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the bath salts.

"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there."

While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on bath salts there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.

The stimulants are not regulated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, but are facing federal scrutiny. Law officers say some of the substances are being shipped from Europe, but origins are still unclear.

Gary Boggs, an executive assistant at the DEA, said there is a lengthy process to restrict these types of designer chemicals, including reviewing the abuse data. But it's a process that can take years.

Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana's poison control center, said he thinks state bans on the chemicals can be effective. He said calls about the salts have dropped sharply since Louisiana banned their sale in January.

Ryan said cathinone, the parent substance of the drugs, comes from a plant grown in Africa and is regulated. He said that MDPV and mephedrone are made in a lab and that they are not regulated because they are not marketed for human consumption. The stimulants affect neurotransmitters in the brain, he said.

The drugs cause "intense cravings," he said. "They'll binge on it three or four days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want to do it again and again."

Ryan said at least 25 states have received calls about exposure, including Nevada and California. He said Louisiana leads with the greatest number of cases at 165, or 48 percent of the U.S. total, followed by Florida with at least 38 calls to its poison center.

Rick Gellar, medical director for the California Poison Control System, said the first call about the substances came in Oct. 5, and a handful of calls have followed since. But he warned: "The only way this won't become a problem in California is if federal regulatory agencies get ahead of the curve. This is a brand-new thing."

In the Midwest, the Missouri Poison Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis received at least 12 calls in the first two weeks of January about teenagers and young adults abusing such chemicals, said Julie Weber, the center's director. The center received eight calls about the powders all of last year.

Richard Sanders, a general practitioner working in Covington, La., said his son, Dickie, snorted some of the bath salts and endured three days of intermittent delirium. Dickie Sanders cut his throat but missed major arteries. As he continued to have visions, his physician father tried to calm him. But the elder Sanders said that as he slept, his son went into another room and shot himself.

"If you could see the contortions on his face. It just made him crazy," Sanders said. He added that the coroner's office confirmed that the chemicals were detected in his son's blood and urine.

Sanders warns that the bath salts are far more dangerous than some of their names imply.

"I think everybody is taking this extremely lightly. As much as we outlawed it in Louisiana, all these kids cross over to Mississippi and buy whatever they want," he said.

A small packet of the chemicals typically costs as little as $20.

In northern Mississippi's Itawamba County, Sheriff Chris Dickinson said his office has handled about 30 encounters with bath-salts users in the past two months alone. He said the problem grew last year in his rural area after a Mississippi law began restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in making methamphetamine.

Dickinson said most of the bath-salts users there have been meth addicts and can be dangerous when using them.

"We had a deputy injured a week ago. They were fighting with a guy who thought they were two devils. That's what makes this drug so dangerous," he said.

But Dickinson said the chemicals are legal, leaving him no choice but to slap users just with a charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

Kentucky state lawmaker John Tilley said he's moving to block the drug's sale there, preparing a bill for consideration when his legislature convenes shortly. Angry that the powders can be bought legally, he said: "If my 12-year-old can go in a store and buy it, that concerns me."

- Associated Press

To get help for problems with drugs contact Summer Sky Treatment Center at 1-888-857-8857

 

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Study: Newer Antipsychotic Drugs Are Overused

Researchers Say Many Doctors Prescribe Drugs Despite Lack of Evidence of Effectiveness

By Brenda Goodman
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

Jan. 7, 2011 -- Many people taking powerful psychiatric medicationsthat increase their risk of weight gain and diabetes are prescribed those drugs when there’s little evidence that they will get any benefit from them, a new study shows.

What’s more, experts say that even when these drugs, which are known as atypical antipsychotics, are prescribed as recommended, they may not be safer or more effective than the less expensive, older medications that they’ve apparently replaced.

“Atypical agents were once thought to be safer and possibly more effective,” says study researcher G. Caleb Alexander, MD, an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. “And what we’ve learned over time is that they are not safer, and in the settings where there’s the best scientific evidence, they are no more effective.”

How Drugs Developed for Schizophrenia Became Used as Antidepressants

The first generation of drugs to treat serious mental illnesses like schizophreniawere introduced in the late 1950s and 1960s, but those drugs often had disfiguring and painful neurologic side effects like muscle spasms and tremors and caused involuntary movements like facial grimacing.

In 1989, the first of a newer generation of atypical antipsychotic drugs, Clozaril, was introduced with the promise of being more effective than its predecessors, with fewer side effects. Other medications in the class soon followed, including Abilify, Geodon, Invega, Risperdal, Saphris, Seroquel, and Zyprexa.

“Since there were all these new drugs, and it costs 700 to 800 million to bring a drug to market, drug companies needed to make that money back,” says Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University, who was not involved in the study. “These drugs were marketed aggressively.”

The study, which was published online in the journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, documents what Lieberman and others believe were the effects of that marketing.

Researchers found that the number of office visits in which a doctor documented a patient’s use of atypical antipsychotics more than doubled since the mid-1990s -- climbing from 6.2 million in 1995 to 14.3 million by 2008, making them the top-selling pharmaceutical drug class.

Over time, the way doctors prescribed those drugs changed, too, with doctors becoming more likely to prescribe these powerful medications for conditions in which they had not been rigorously studied or FDA approved, such as anxiety,depression, attention deficit disorder, and for aggression and agitation in dementia patients.

In adults, for example, the use of any antipsychotic medication -- old or new -- remained relatively stable from 1995 to 2001. But from 2001 to 2006 use of the medications doubled, the study showed, indicating that doctors were becoming quicker to turn to these powerful drugs.

In children, the use of the drugs skyrocketed, increasing 800% from 1995 to 2005.

“Time and time again what we see is medications that are prematurely adopted in populations that have little or nothing to gain, and this study is yet another example of how both doctors and patients may overenthusiastically or prematurely adopt medicines beyond the evidence base,” Alexander says.

Atypical Antipsychotics Become a Target of Lawsuits

In many cases, government regulators felt that pharmaceutical companies promoting these drugs broke the law by encouraging doctors to prescribe them “off-label.” Off-label drugs are those prescribed by doctors for purposes not approved by the FDA.

According to a report released in December 2010 by the consumer watchdog Public Citizen, some of the largest drug company settlements with the federal government in the last two decades were for the unlawful promotion of atypical antipsychotic drugs.

In 2010, for example, the drug company AstraZeneca paid $520 million to settle allegations by the federal government that it engaged in unlawful promotion of its drug Seroquel, which is the top-selling atypical antipsychotic.

AstraZeneca Responds

AstraZeneca offered the following written response to the findings of the new study:

“AstraZeneca believes that Seroquel is a safe and effective medication when used as recommended in the prescribing information and offers clinicians, patients and their loved ones an important treatment option.

Doctors need a range of options as they seek an appropriate treatment for individual patients, because they recognize a one-size-fits-all approach to treating all people with mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is not possible. Doctors consider the needs of individual patients and the array of treatments that are available, including prescription medicines. Doctors are trained to carefully make these choices.

The company has worked diligently with the FDA to ensure that the safety profile of Seroquel is reflected appropriately in the prescribing information so that health care professionals can weigh the risk and benefit of Seroquel when making treatment decisions.

It is AstraZeneca’s policy to promote our medicines and to conduct interactions with healthcare professionals in compliance with the laws and regulations that govern the healthcare community in the United States. We train AstraZeneca employees to follow our compliance policies.”

Putting the Brakes on Inappropriate Use

Experts feel the overuse of these medications will need to be addressed on several fronts.

“There are several strategies that can be used to achieve more rational use of these and other psychotropic medicines, including patient and physician education, FDA empowerment, and denial of payments by public and private payers for uses that lack sufficient scientific evidence,” Alexander says.

Lieberman said more comparative effectiveness studies would help doctors better understand when drugs in the atypical antipsychotic class were superior to each other or to older drugs, and that would better inform prescribing practices.

“It’s a bit like going to the supermarket and trying to buy laundry detergent: This one has enzymes; this one has brighteners.” he says. “But we don’t really know how the drugs compare to each other.”

Many felt that the solution should not include preventing doctors from being able to prescribe drugs off-label.

“Off-label prescribing is an important component of practice,” Lieberman says. “The reason is that it really takes a lot of money for a drug company to jump through all the hoops to get an FDA indication. There may be good evidence that a drug is effective in a given condition, but the company doesn’t see enough of a market there to get it approved.”

But he admits that many doctors may be using too free a hand with the prescription pad.

“On the other hand, you don’t want to be promiscuous and abuse that privilege,” he says.

 

Novel Vaccine That Produces Strong Immunity Against Cocaine High Poised To Move Quickly Into Human Trials

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Researchers from The Scripps Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, and Cornell University have produced a long-lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a unique vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine. 

In their study, published January 4, 2011, in the advanced online edition ofMolecular Therapy, the researchers say this novel strategy might be the first to offer cocaine addicts a fairly simple way to break and reverse their habit. The approach could also be useful in treating other addictions, such as to nicotine, heroin, and methamphetamine. 

"Our very dramatic data shows that we can protect mice against the effects of cocaine, and we think this approach could be very promising in fighting addiction in humans," says the study's lead investigator, Ronald G. Crystal, chairman and professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. 

"The vaccine suppresses the stimulant effects of the drug," said Scripps Research Professor Kim Janda, a co-author of the paper and a pioneer in the field of developing vaccines against addictive drugs such as cocaine. "Unlike other types of treatment, a vaccine such as this one does not interfere with the neurological targets of the drug, but instead blocks cocaine from ever reaching the brain in the first place." 

In the new study, the vaccine effect lasted for at least 13 weeks, the longest time point evaluated in such an approach. Since the vaccine likely will not require multiple expensive infusions, the researchers hope that it can move quickly into human trials.

Clinically, this sort of therapy could be given to people in treatment programs to aid in their recovery. And, like most other types of treatment, it will only be useful for those who want the help. 

"This vaccine would be most applicable for addicts who are who are interested in getting off the drug," said Janda, the Eli R. Callaway Jr. Chair in Chemistry and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. "In essence we view such vaccines as 'immuno-helpers' for treating substance abuse, and, in the case at hand, it might prove to be extremely useful for crack addicts whose relapse rate is exceedingly high." 

The Drug 

According to the latest statistics available from National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in 2008 5.3 million Americans age 12 and older had abused cocaine in any form and 1.1 million had abused crack at least once in the year prior to being surveyed. 

Cocaine, derived from the leaf of the Erythroxylaceae coca plant, is a highly potent drug that, as a salt, is either snorted or dissolved in water and injected directly into the bloodstream. The salt is also often neutralized to make an insoluble "free-base" form that is smoked. 

Once ingested in the bloodstream, the drug crosses the blood - brain barrier and accumulates rapidly in the brain. "The brain levels rise very rapidly once cocaine is taken into the system," said Janda. 

 Cocaine Drug Rehab http://www.summersky.us 

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Family files claim over teen's death after a rave

By Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times

January 3, 2011

The parents of 15-year-old Sasha Rodriguez, who died of an ecstasy overdose after attending a rave, have filed a claim against the management of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The parents are seeking $5 million in damages from the Coliseum Commission.

The claim, filed Dec. 23 with both the city and county of Los Angeles, is a necessary step before suing in court. The claim says the commission, a joint state, city and county board, did not fulfill its "duties and was negligent in creating and/or allowing others to create a dangerous condition of public property" during the two-day Electric Daisy Carnival rave at the Coliseum in June.

Sasha Rodriguez, a high school student and drill team member from Atwater Village, was able to get into the event despite the 16-and-over age requirement advertised by Los Angeles-based Insomniac Events, the producer of the rave. Those under 16 needed a parent or guardian to attend, according to the event's website. Sasha attended with friends; her parents have said they did not know she was going to a rave.

She died days after falling into a coma after attending the rave.

The Coliseum "knew, or should have known, that the rave would attract, promote, encourage, facilitate and enable widespread illegal and illicit activity, including but not limited to the possession, sale and consumption of illicit drugs," the claim says.

The Coliseum Commission also "knew, or should have known, that the rave would attract minors under the age of majority … yet it failed to enforce such minimum age requirement," the claim said.

Patrick Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum, said in an e-mail Thursday that he was out of the office and unaware of the claim, and so was unable to comment.

In November, in a controversial vote, the commission lifted its moratorium on raves — all-night dance parties featuring electronic music. A month later, it voted to require rave promoters to come before the panel at least 60 days in advance of an event for approval.

"We're going to limit whatever abuses take place," Commissioner David Israel said at the December meeting.

The Electric Daisy Carnival rave, which drew 185,000 people over two days, resulted in 120 people being taken to local hospitals, mostly for drug intoxication. Coliseum managers said there were no major problems at subsequent raves Aug. 21 and Oct. 23, which attracted 6,000 and 22,000 people, respectively. A New Year's Eve rave, Together as One, at the Sports Arena resulted in 25 arrests and 17 hospitalizations.

All three raves that took place after the June event had been scheduled before the rave moratorium enacted after the teen's death.

The L.A. Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena relies on raves for 28% of its revenue, according to a consultant report filed to the commission in July.

Commissioners said they were not driven by the bottom line when they voted to continue holding raves at the public facility. Some expressed worry that raves would be forced into unregulated "back alleys" if no longer allowed at the Coliseum or Sports Arena.

Israel said commissioners weighed both public safety and free-speech concerns, and said recommendations from the county Department of Public Health would be enacted to ensure safety and reduce risk at future events. Among the recommendations: strictly enforcing an 18-and-over age limit, adding security and drug searches, and hiring medical staff to work at the raves.

Another publicly owned facility took a different approach. The state-run Cow Palace in Daly City, south of San Francisco, banned raves in November, citing numerous drug and alcohol overdoses at recent events, including two deaths following a rave in May.

On Dec. 22, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill to ban raves at publicly owned venues. Ma cited a study that found many teenagers attending raves use "club drugs" such as ecstasy, GHB, methamphetamine and LSD.

Rave promoters denounced the legislation as heavy-handed.

Steven Archer, a lawyer representing Sasha's parents, Grace Rodriguez and Leonard Contreras, said the claim does not seek any injunction that would ask a judge to stop raves at the facility.

"However, one of the collateral results of a successful lawsuit may be a change in policy of the Coliseum Commission to further control or limit raves," Archer said. "It's not our goal to limit them … but when the Coliseum Commission is called upon to pay monetary damages to this family for what happened to their daughter, maybe by hitting them in the pocketbook, the Coliseum Commission will have its eyes opened."

ron.lin@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

 

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Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King charged with DUI in Florida

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Former Tampa Bay Buccaneersquarterback Shaun King has been charged with driving under the influence in Florida.

Hillsborough County jail records show that King refused to take a blood alcohol test when sheriff's deputies stopped him at 2:12 a.m. Sunday.

He posted $500 bond and was released.

King played seven NFL seasons with the Buccaneers andArizona Cardinals. He recently was hired as a football analyst for Bright House Sports Network.

The 33-year-old lives in St. Petersburg. A message left at a phone number listed for his address was not immediately returned.

A spokesman for Bright House Networks would not comment on the arrest but said King was a part-time employee, not full time.

Do you suffer from a Alcohol Problem? Call Summer Sky Treatment Center a place that has restored more than 10,000 patients to sane sober lifestyle. Many Texas Drug Rehabs exist, but one facility stands out over the rest and that is Summer Sky. 

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Texas Considers Ignition Interlock Laws

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Several DWI laws are being proposed in this year's Texas Legislative Session.

 

One law would require first-time offenders to use an Ignition Interlock System.

 

It comes with a breathalyzer that won't allow the driver start up if he or she blows over the limit.

 

Texas Mothers Against Drunk Drivers are fighting for ignition interlock laws.

 

They're hoping the law will be used as punishment under the deffered ajudication bill, which gives first time DWI offenders probation instead of jail time.

 

MADD is also proposing sobriety checkpoints in Texas. The road blocks are already being used in 41 other states to check for drunk drivers.

Need Addiction Treatment? Visit Summer Sky Treatment Center for a compressive Texas Drug Rehab that has helped over 10,000 patients find freedom from addiction.

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Children of Alcoholics Likely to become Obese!

Washington (SmartAboutHealth) – According to a new study, children of alcoholics are more likely to face and suffer from obesity than kids who are not born into a family with a history of alcoholism.

The study was carried out by researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and focused on seeing if there was a link between having a family history of alcohol abuse or alcoholism, and obesity.

Researchers analyzed data that came from two different surveys that involves alcoholism.

The surveys were conducted through the 1990s as well as through the 2000s and involved over 75,000 people in total.

Researchers found that those who had a family history of alcoholism were far more likely to be obese than those who did not.

The belief is that this is due to the fact that the addiction may be passed odwn in the family.

The only difference is that the new entrants into these families are becoming addicted to junk food more than they are addicted to alcohol.

As the years went by in the study, they found that the more recent adults with a family history of alcoholism were more likely to suffer from obesity than those from the early 1990s.

The family history of alcoholism and obesity are more directly linked now because the food that is available today has more calories and more fat than the food some years ago.

Still, the addictive nature between these foods and the brain is similar to the addiction that is seen from alcohol.

The study has been published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

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Alcoholics May Stop at One Drink With Lundbeck Pill but what about the second drink,third and so on?

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Alcoholics may stop one drink with new pill. What about the second drink? In Europe a new medication is being used to help the fight of alcoholism. For many years the search for a pharmacological treatment answer in the fight against alcoholism has been sought. The drug, nalmefene from H. Lundbeck A/S in Valby, Denmark, blocks brain signals that make activities such as sex and drinking feel good. Should trials succeed, the medicine may win clearance in Europe as early as 2012, becoming the first new alcoholism treatment approved there in more than 15 years.

Most of the current medications are geared to fighting relapse once a person stops using alcohol. The focus of the new drug promises an attack of the problem from a different angle. The individual continues to drink while using this medication. Currently the method of abstinent is required for most people to become free from alcohol.

This new method of treatment raises many questions on it's effectiveness to stop alcoholism. The addiction treatment communities are champions for new tools, medications, tecniques and approaches to the treatment of alcoholism. However, much concern exist when you hear of the magic pill cure to fight alcoholism. It does not take long for the addiction professionals and the treatment and recovery community to get cynical about the idea of giving a pill and continued drinking.  

New ideas are always evaluated and researched in the addiction treatment industry. So while we watch this new approach to medication and alcoholics develop I hope more people will focus on the education of alcoholism.  

By Scott Kelley LCDC

More information on article found at business week.

via www.businessweek.com

DEA takes Temporary Control over K2 and other chemicals!

DEA Moves to Emergency Control Synthetic Marijuana
Agency Will Study Whether To Permanently Control Five Substances 

NOV 24 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is using its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control five chemicals(JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol) used to make “fake pot” products.  Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled. 

Source: http://www.justice.gov     

 

A Notice of Intent to Temporarily Control was published in the Federal Register today to alert the public to this action. After no fewer than 30 days, DEA will publish in the Federal Register a Final Rule to Temporarily Control these chemicals for at least 12 months with the possibility of a six-month extension. They will be designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no medical usage.

Over the past year, smokable herbal blends marketed as being “legal” and providing a marijuana-like high, have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults.  These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops and over the Internet.  These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process.  Brands such as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn” are labeled as incense to mask their intended purpose. 

Since 2009, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding these products.  Fifteen states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals.  The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to emergency schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent public health crisis while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSAare being conducted.