Controlled Substances – PossibleThreat Articles

Turning wood into pharmaceutical ingredients

October 23, 2019 0 Comments Controlled Substances, Diseases and Conditions, Environmental Science, Hazardous Waste, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacology, Recycling and Waste, Water

Production of hazardous waste during drug manufacturing is a serious concern for the pharmaceutical industry. Typically, large amounts of flammable solvents are used during these processes, which usually require several steps to make structurally complex drugs. Researchers now report a method to produce pharmaceutically relevant compounds in just two or three steps, with water as the only waste product, using renewable woodchips as starting material.

News Science

Mapping international drug use through the world's largest wastewater study

October 23, 2019 0 Comments Addiction, Controlled Substances, Crystal Meth, Environmental Policy, Geography, Illegal Drugs, Ocean Policy, Oceanography, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacology, Transportation Issues, Travel and Recreation

A seven-year project monitoring illicit drug use in 37 countries via wastewater samples shows that cocaine use was skyrocketing in Europe in 2017 and Australia had a serious problem with methamphetamine.

News Science

Closures affect 1 in 8 pharmacies in the US

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Controlled Substances, Disaster Plan, Health Policy, Land Management, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacology, Poverty and Learning, Urbanization

Despite an overall increase in the number of pharmacies in the U.S. from 2009 to 2015, one in eight pharmacies, or 9,654, had closed during this period. Independent pharmacies in both urban and rural areas were three times more likely to close than chain pharmacies.

News Science

A rat's brain, on and off methamphetamine

October 16, 2019 0 Comments Addiction, Biochemistry, Birth Defects, Controlled Substances, Crystal Meth, Fitness, Illegal Drugs

Drug addiction is a vicious cycle of reward and withdrawal. Chronic users often relapse because of the unpleasant physical and psychological symptoms they experience when they stop taking the drug. Now, researchers report metabolic changes in the brains of rats during methamphetamine self-administration and withdrawal that could help identify biomarkers and treatments for addiction.

News Science

Potential therapy to treat detrimental effects of marijuana

October 15, 2019 0 Comments Behavioral Science, Biology, Birth Defects, Controlled Substances, Disorders and Syndromes, Illegal Drugs, Marijuana, mice, Pregnancy and Childbirth

A new study using a preclinical animal model suggests that prenatal exposure to THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, makes the brain's dopamine neurons (an integral component of the reward system) hyperactive and increases sensitivity to the behavioral effects of THC during pre-adolescence.

News Science

New addiction treatments hold promise for stemming the opioid crisis

October 8, 2019 0 Comments Addiction, Behavior, Controlled Substances, Diseases and Conditions, Illegal Drugs, Mental Health Research, Opium, Pain Control

Concerns over the opioid epidemic have sparked a strong scientific interest in why some people become addicted while others don't. Now, researchers are proposing novel treatment strategies that could help prevent abuse of opioids and other substances.

News Science

Just add water: Chemists suggest a fix for insoluble drugs

October 3, 2019 0 Comments Chemistry, Controlled Substances, HIV and AIDS, Inorganic Chemistry, Nature of Water, Organic Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacology

Stable metal organic frameworks are prized for their ability to capture carbon dioxide or harvest atmospheric water, but researchers have developed a use for unstable metal organic frameworks: as a system for drug delivery.

News Science

One third of patients with severe asthma are taking harmful doses of oral steroids

October 2, 2019 0 Comments Allergy, Asthma, Birth Control, Controlled Substances, Dentistry, Diseases and Conditions, Patient Education and Counseling, Today's Healthcare

A third of patients with severe asthma are taking harmful doses of oral steroids, according to a study of several thousand people in The Netherlands.

News Science

Cannabis study reveals how CBD offsets the psychiatric side-effects of THC

October 1, 2019 0 Comments Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's Research, Animal Learning and Intelligence, Behavioral Science, Colon Cancer, Controlled Substances, Extreme Survival, Illegal Drugs, Marijuana

Researchers have shown for the first time the molecular mechanisms at work that cause cannabidiol, or CBD, to block the psychiatric side-effects caused by tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis.

News Science

Molecular basis of vision revealed

September 30, 2019 0 Comments Controlled Substances, Diseases and Conditions, Elder Care, Eye Care, Genes, Healthy Aging, Human Biology, Pharmacology

Researchers have solved the three-dimensional structure of a protein complex involved in vertebrate vision at atomic resolution, a finding that has broad implications for our understanding of biological signaling processes and the design of over a third of the drugs on the market today.

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