No more nicotine patches for Alberta inmates: they're smoking them!

[Bluebear]

Nicotine patches will be banned from Alberta jails after inmates were found using the substance to make hazardous makeshift cigarettes -- rolled with paper ripped from bibles. The ban stems from a complaint filed last April to the Occupational Health and Safety by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE).

Employees at Alberta correctional facilities had complained that inmates were abusing the patches by finding ways to smoke the nicotine. They are known to scrape the nicotine from the patches and then mix it with dried tea, toilet paper, fruit peels, or pencil shavings....

"This is a real victory for our members, and the government deserves congratulations for acting decisively once it was clear our members concerns about the health impacts of inmates smoking patches had been scientifically established," said AUPE President Doug Knight.

The ban goes into partial effect on March 2. Inmates who are legitimately using the patch will be given a grace period to complete their treatment.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070223/nicotine_patches_070223/20070223?hub=Canada

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Companion article:

Scientists have suspected for years that nicotine is as addictive as cocaine and heroin. But they haven't known exactly why. Now researchers from the U.S. National Institute of Drug Abuse have identified chemical changes in the brains of smokers and found they're similar to the kinds of chemical changes seen in laboratory animals exposed to cocaine, heroin and other addictive drugs.

Roy Wise and his colleagues obtained tissue samples from a brain bank with complete health histories of people who agreed to donate their brains after death. They were able to compare the tissue of smokers and non-smokers....

But what Wise says was disturbing was how persistent the changes in the smokers' brains were. "We're talking about smokers who in some cases hadn't smoked for perhaps years," he points out, "and so we were a little surprised to see that the changes lasted that long, that the brain hadn't fully recovered from the experience in the sense of going back to the way it was before the person started smoking."

Wise says these findings indicate that once a person becomes addicted to a drug, their brain structure actually changes. And they remain more vulnerable to the effects of that drug for many years, even after they stop taking it. Their results are published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2007-02-23-voa15.cfm

[ellisonz]

1. I'm with the prisoners on this one...

Now excuse me while I lit up this nicotine patch cigarette(?).

:headbang:

[DRoseDARs]

4. So you approve of the misuse and abuse of prescription and/or OTC drugs?

Because that's what the inmates were doing. :shrug:

[tblue]

2. Oh man, where there's a will there's a way. Is there such thing as a pot patch?

[chknltl]

3. Smokin' sermon, indeed!

:eyes: