Michael Rosenthal

(6/2018) The very word, drug, has multiple connotations. It might signify an FDA approved medication, well-tested and recommended by physicians, or it may signify an illegal item designed to give relief or pleasure, the worst of which is dangerous enough to sicken, disable, or kill you. In this article, I’d like to discuss some of the drug issues that surround us today.

When I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s new drugs were appearing due to advanced scientific research following World War II. I had a serious ear infection when I was a child, and the infection was eventually cleared with two weeks of penicillin. I was fortunate that the drug was available to me.

Then there are "recreational" drugs. I began my college teaching career as a chemistry professor at Bard College in 1965. It was an intense period, with student and faculty behavior stimulated by resistance to the Vietnam War. Not far from Bard in Millbrook, New York, was the home of the drug LSD. LSD is a hallucinogen drug, which was very popular in that period among young people, whose tendency to rebel against authority was greatly heightened. Add to that the extensive use of marijuana (one could get a contact high in the student union!), and the lesser use of cocaine and heroin, and it was a very strange time to start an academic career, being not much older than my students, and with many of them coming to class floating on a drug-induced cloud. The father of LSD, Timothy Leary, resided in Millbrook, New York, not far from the Bard campus, and I actually saw him once on an unofficial visit by him to "preach" to students.

So, the years pass, and new drugs come, with both wonderful medical drugs and the continued use of recreational drugs, some very dangerous. The most obvious drug topic at the moment is the opioid crisis. The opioid crisis is the rapid increase in the use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs beginning in the late 1990s and continuing to this time. Opioids are a diverse class of painkillers, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl. Fentanyl is especially dangerous, synthesized to resemble morphine and heroin. These drugs are effective when used properly to relieve pain, but have high risk of both physical and psychological addiction, and taken in high doses have a high rate of respiratory failure and death.

It is not just illegal drug use that causes death. Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths in 2016 came from legal prescription sources, over 64,000 Americans. Drug overdoses have become the leading cause of death of Americans under 50 years of age, with two-thirds of those deaths from opioids. In July 2017 opioid addiction was cited as "FDA’s biggest crisis" and President Trump concurred and declared the USA opioid crisis to be a "public health emergency."

There are many drugs that we routinely use that cause no harm and give relief, if used according to the guidance associated with them, both following orders on the label and taking the advice of the prescribing medical sources.

As we’ve written before there are accredited vitamin supplements as well as phony uses of vitamins. I have previously urged that one should look for "approved by the FDA" and to follow the advice of reliable medical sources in the use of these drugs. There is much money to be made in the drug manufacturing and drug sales business, so it is very important to follow the advice of reliable and trusted sources. There are drugs that won’t hurt you, but are useless, and there are drugs that are dangerous and can kill you. We need to be very careful when we choose a drug regimen. New drugs come on the market all the time. A newspaper story earlier this year discusses a new drug called kratom, an herbal supplement that is described as being safer than traditional opioids. Kratom is herbally derived from a leafy Southeast Asian tree. It surfaced in the United States about a decade ago, and an estimated 3 million to 5 million people use it! It is unregulated at this time, and is readily available.

There is not much research at this time on the drug. It has been used in Asian countries since the nineteenth century. It has opioid properties and some stimulant-like effects. It is taken for chronic pain, opioid withdrawal, and recreation. Minor effects include nausea, vomiting, and constipation. More severe effects may include respiratory depression, seizure, addiction, and psychosis, and it can lead to death by affecting heart rate, blood pressure and liver toxicity. From 2010 to 2015 kratom-related reports of poisoning rose ten-fold in the United States. It was being marketed as a dietary supplement in 2014, and then the FDA coordinated with other agencies to seize imported shipments. At least six states in the US have declared it illegal, and the United States Army has forbidden its use by soldiers. The FDA is becomingly increasingly involved, declaring in February 2018 that it should not be used for medical treatment or recreational use.

Coffee is another material that has had a variety of uses over the years, largely for recreational use but argued by some as a drink to relax you and make you feel better. Some have judged it as unhealthy. Recently Giuseppe Grosso, a nutritional epidemiologist in Italy, gathered together with his colleagues, 127 of the health effects studies of coffee, and summarized them. They found probable evidence coffee-drinking is associated with a decrease in many common cancers, from 2 percent to 20 percent. The review found that risk reduction of 5 percent for cardiovascular disease and around 30 percent for Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. And in general, a lower rate of death. They did conclude however that coffee intake carried with it an increased risk of miscarriage in pregnant women, due to caffeine accumulation in the fetus.

They concluded that earlier studies that found coffee was bad news for health, did not sort out smokers from non-smokers. Since many coffee drinkers smoke while they drink, they found, the two items need to be sorted out from one another in studies. How is coffee helpful to health? They found that coffee beans contain phytochemicals that have anti-oxidant and has anti-inflammatory properties. They also found that caffeine has specific effects on enzymes that regulate liver function, insulin, glucose metabolism, and DNA repair. All these properties could act favorably, they say, to fend off Parkinson’s, Type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. They suggest that the optimal consumption of coffee should be four to five cups daily.

In closing, let me recommend to you a newsletter entitled, Worst Pills, Best Pills News, edited by an M.D. and with professionally qualified contributors, that my wife discovered and that we have found to be a very reliable source of medication evaluation. Information about the monthly newsletter can be found at www.worstpills.org.

And congratulations to the State of California which will now require by law that all new homes install solar panels.

Michael is former chemistry professor at Mount. St. Marys

Read other articles by Michael Rosenthal