Drug suspect claims police busted him immediately after he walked out of hospital

A student claimed in court on Thursday that police arrested him shortly after he walked out of the Iranian Hospital where he was given a medication that contained drugs. Prosecutors accused the 32-year-old Omani student, S.I., with consuming different kinds of drugs and mind-affecting substances. “I did not consume drugs in Dubai… I did so in Oman,” argued S.I. when he defended himself before the Dubai Court of First Instance. According to the accusation sheet, the Prosecution charged S.I. with consuming morphine, codeine, hashish, nordazepam, oxazepam, timazepam and tramadol. “I was a drug addict… the last time I consumed hashish and morphine it was in Oman and I came here for a treatment to stop addiction. I came to Dubai by bus and went to the Iranian Hospital for treatment. Doctors gave me a medication that contained drugs. The minute I walked out of hospital, police arrested me,” the student told Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad. The suspect asked the court to dismiss the case for lack of crime jurisdiction. A verdict will be heard next Thursday.

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Aussie Edward Norman Myatt was 'unaware' of Bali drug penalties

AN Australian who appeared in a Bali court yesterday on drug charges claimed he consumed 10g of hashish himself and was not aware of the severe drug penalties handed out in Indonesia. Ballarat-born Edward Norman Myatt, 54, who appeared in the Denpasar District Court, is facing the death penalty after allegedly being caught trying to smuggle hashish and methamphetamine, or ice, into Bali.

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Smokers could one day be immunised against nicotine so they gain no pleasure from the habit, according to researchers in the US.

They have devised a vaccine that floods the body with an antibody to assault nicotine entering the body.

A study in mice, published in Science Translational Medicine, showed levels of the chemical in the brain were reduced by 85% after vaccination.

Years of research are still needed before it could be tested on people.

However, lead researcher Prof Ronald Crystal is convinced there will be benefits.

"As far as we can see, the best way to treat chronic nicotine addiction from smoking is to have these Pacman-like antibodies on patrol, clearing the blood as needed before nicotine can have any biological effect."

New approach

Other "smoking vaccines" have been developed that train the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine - it is the same method used to vaccinate against diseases. The challenge has been to produce enough antibodies to stop the drug entering the brain and delivering its pleasurable hit.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have used a completely different approach, a gene-therapy vaccine, which they say is more promising.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

If they start smoking again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit”

Prof Ronald CrystalWeill Cornell Medical College

A genetically modified virus containing the instructions for making nicotine antibodies is used to infect the liver. This turns the organ into a factory producing the antibodies.

The research team compared the amount of nicotine in the brains of normal mice with those that had been immunised. After being injected with nicotine, the vaccinated mice had nicotine levels 85% lower.

It is not known if this could be repeated in humans or if this level of reduction would be enough to help people quit.

Prof Crystal said that if such a vaccine could be developed then people "will know if they start smoking again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit".

He added: "We are very hopeful that this kind of vaccine strategy can finally help the millions of smokers who have tried to stop, exhausting all the methods on the market today, but find their nicotine addiction to be strong enough to overcome these current approaches."

'Impressive and intriguing'

There are also issues around the safety of gene therapy in humans that will need to be answered.

Professor of genetics at the University of Kent, Darren Griffin, said the findings were "impressive and intriguing with great potential" but cautioned there were still many issues which needed addressing.

He said the main issue "is whether the observed biochemical effects in lab mice genuinely translate to a reduced addiction in humans given that such addictions can be both physical and psychological".

Dr Simon Waddington, from University College London, said: "The technology underpinning gene therapy is improving all the time and it is encouraging to see these preliminary results that indicate it could be used to address nicotine addiction, which is damaging to the nation's health and a drain on the health service economy."

If such a vaccine was developed it could also raise ethical questions about vaccinating people, possibly in childhood, before they even started smoking.

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Coke and Pepsi contain tiny traces of alcohol, reveals French research

Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain minute traces of alcohol, scientific research published in France has revealed. The revelation will cause concern among those who chose the carbonated soft drink for religious, health or safety reasons. According to tests carried out by the Paris-based National Institute of Consumption (INC) more than half of leading colas contain the traces of alcohol. Can't beat the real thing: The revelation will cause concern among those who chose the carbonated soft drink for religious, health or safety reasons These include the brand leaders Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, while it is mainly only cheap supermarket versions of the drink which are alcohol-free. ‘60 Million Consumers’, the French magazine, publishes the results of the tests in its latest issue. They suggest that the alcohol levels are as low as 10mg in every litre, and this works out at around 0.001 per cent alcohol.

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A medical examiner has ruled that marijuana was the only drug in the system of the Florida man shot dead while "eating" another man's face.

Rudy Eugene and Ronald Poppo
Rudy Eugene and Ronald Poppo. Poppo survived the attack, but had one eye gouged out and may be blind in the other. Photograph: Reuters

A medical examiner has ruled that marijuana was the only drug in the system of the Florida man shot dead while "eating" another man's face.

The Miami-Dade County medical examiner released the results of toxicology tests on 31-year-old Rudy Eugene on Wednesday. The tests found marijuana in his system, but no other street drugs, alcohol or prescription drugs.

Eugene was shot dead by police as he chewed on Ronald Poppo's face beside a busy highway in full daylight. In the aftermath of the attack Eugene was widely reported to have ingested a drug known as "bath salts", spawning a wave of media interest in the substance.

However the lab tests appear to have rendered the hysteria redundant, after the medical examiner's department ruling out the most common components of bath salts. An outside forensic toxicology lab also confirmed the results.

"The department has ruled out the most common drugs found in 'bath salts'," a press release from the ME's office said.

"The laboratory has tested for but not detected any other street drugs, alcohol or prescription drugs, or any adulterants found in street drugs. This includes cocaine, LSD, amphetamines (ecstasy, meth and others), phencyclidine (PCP or "angel dust"), heroin, oxycodone, Xanax, synthetic marijuana ("spice"), and many other similar compounds."

The incident happened on 26 May when Eugene, who had a history of violence, stripped naked and ripped off some 80% of Poppo's face with his teeth.

CCTV footage showed Poppo, a 65-year-old homeless man, kicking his legs during the attack, suggesting he was conscious for at least part of the ordeal. Eugene was shot six times by police officers after ignoring orders to stop.

Poppo survived the attack, but had one eye gouged out and may be blind in the other, according to a WPTV report. He has undergone several surgeries and remains hospitalized.

After the attack there was much discussion of bath salts and the drugs effects, with reports that Miami police had linked bath salts to the attack, quoting experts who said Eugene was exhibiting "classic signs of someone high on the drug".

Armando Aguilar, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, said there were similarities between the attack on Poppo and other cases involving bath salts, telling ABC News that users "suddenly have super human strength" and "become violent and they are burning up from the inside".

Bath salts, a synthetic drug made in a lab, described as "like cocaine, meth, and speed" in the way they "work by stimulating the central nervous system", according to Forbes.

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Which countries have the highest rates of cannabis use


CANNABIS continues to be the world’s illicit drug of choice. There are between 119m and 224m users worldwide according to the UN’s latest World Drug Report published on June 26th. The Pacific island of Palau reports the highest rate: nearly a quarter of people aged 15 to 64 smoked pot in the past year. Italians and Americans also like to get high, with rates of 14.6% and 14.1% respectively. In Uruguay, where plans to legalise cannabis are being mooted, the rate is 5.6%. While consumption is stable or falling in much of the developed world, it is rising in parts of Asia and Africa. Production is harder to measure but, according to the report, cannabis cultivation in Afghanistan in 2010 was almost twice as lucrative as growing opium poppies.

 

 

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Russian medico says drug craze "probably all began" during Beatlemania.


The Beatles

THE Beatles were partly to blame for a global increase in popular experimentation with illicit drugs, Russia's chief alcohol and drug abuse specialist said.

Yevgeny Bryun, from Russia's Ministry of Health, said the famous British band's ubiquitous success and their open admission about using narcotics to inform their songwriting helped to promote drug use, The (London) Daily Telegraph reported.

"After The Beatles went to expand their consciousness in India ashrams, they introduced that idea - the changing of one's psychic state of mind using drugs - to the population," Bryun said at a Moscow press conference.

"When business understood that you could trade on that - on pleasure and goods associated with pleasure - that's probably where it all began."

The Beatles' Sir Paul McCartney reportedly admitted in 2004 that much of the band's music was influenced by drugs. Songs such asGot To Get You Into My Life, Day Tripper and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds are all said to reference illicit substances.

Russia has about five million drug addicts, a 60 percent increase from the year 2000, Ria Novosti reported.

Bryun said he was concerned that modern advertising is undermining medical efforts to curb the drug problem, saying it actively promote various pleasures, including drug use.

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The CDC reports that the relatively recent epidemic of opium-addiction is now America's fastest growing drug problem.

The source of most of these opiates is not the foreign cartels, traffickers and drug dealers depicted in Hollywood movies; it is pharmacies fulfilling prescriptions written by often well-meaning doctors for Vicodin, Oxycontin, Oxycodone, and other opoid pain relievers. According to the CDC, enough of these opiate-based drugs were prescribed last year to medicate every American adult with a dose of five mg of hydrocodone (Vicodin and others), taken every four hours, for a month, and have led to over 40,000 drug overdose deaths. Today there are more overdose deaths involving opoid analgesics than heroin and cocaine combined, and the public consumption of them costs health insurers approximately $72.5 billion annually. The urgent problem is the addiction of a vast number of patients whose pain but not their underlying causes are managed. While the consequences of this prescription-driven epidemic may be largely invisible to the general public, it is all too clear to doctors like myself who specialize in sports medicine, physiatry and the treatment of a range of painful conditions. Just recently a 71-year-old patient saw me for a painful swollen knee. One year previously she had undergone total knee replacement and after the post surgical discomfort had subsided, the knee pain began. She explained that her surgeon prescribed she continue her physical therapy, but the pain worsened. She went back to her surgeon, who then prescribed Oxycontin, an opiate pain reliever. When the initial dose did little to relieve the pain, she was told to increase her dose, and continued to do so over the next two months. By the time she sought my help, not only was still in pain, but she had become addicted to the medication. The problem, which not unusual in such cases, is that the opoid had partially masked the underlying problem. I had requested a knee MRI, which found chronic synovial inflammation of her knee, which is treatable with steroid injections. By judicially providing this treatment, the inflammation was relieved and pain was gone. But not the addiction. For that, she needed a 30 day in-patient rehabilitation center to safely detoxify her and help her reform her drug habit. I wish I could say that this case is atypical but unfortunately, it is not. Such addiction is becoming common. Part of the problem is doctors. Some busy surgeons find it more efficient to write a prescription that might work for the pain, than to spend time attempting to find its cause. Another part of the problem is patients. Many sufferers demand immediate pain relief, and, instead of fully following their doctor's advice, increase the dosage by seeking prescriptions from multiple doctors. Part of the problem is the government's failure to better police prescriptions. But whatever the causes of this epidemic, the results are tragic for the patients, especially since with rigorous evaluation many of the cause of the pain can be solved -- and without recourse to opiate drugs.

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Utah plastic surgeon is being sued by a former patient who claims that he tried to operate on her using a 'pickle fork' after her anesthetic wore off.

Jennifer Swalberg scheduled an abdominoplasty and liposuction procedure with the clinic that Joseph Edward Berg ran in Orem in May 2011.

The lawsuit states that Swalberg's work was not professional and during one follow-up appointment he administered steroids and a local anesthetic, left the room for an hour and then returned where he 'repeatedly stabbed (Swalberg's) insides with a 'pickle fork'.

Dean Zabriskie, (left), appears with his client, Joseph Berg at the 4th District Court, in Provo, Utah

Dean Zabriskie, (left), appears with his client, Joseph Berg at the 4th District Court, in Provo, Utah

The horrific recount of the patient's visit to Berg is part of the lawsuit filed last week which alleges he committed health care malpractice, battery, lack of informed consent and negligence reported the Salt Lake Tribune.

Dr. Berg is alleged to have performed surgery on Jennifer Swalberg using a pickle fork

Dr. Berg is alleged to have performed surgery on Jennifer Swalberg using a pickle fork

Ryan Springer, Swalberg's attorney, explained in the suit that 'Despite Dr. Berg's representations that he was an 'artist', Dr Berg left Jennifer with a series of jagged incision scars, lumps of hardened scar tissue; fat, skin and tissue necrosis from repeated steroid injections; and abnormal tissue distribution.'

According to Springer, the medical ordeal began when Swalberg visited Dr. Berg for cosmetic surgery after losing weight.

 

 During the first procedure, Dr. Berg removed 8.8 litres of fat, which the court documents describe as a 'large amount that significantly increased the risk of post-operative complications such as tissue necrosis and fluid accumulation.'

Instead of making a straightforward recovery, Swalberg alleges that she was told to wear compression garments, but was not informed 'regarding post-op drainage' said the Herald Extra

Filed last week, the lawsuit continues that Swalberg returned to Dr. Berg with pustulent wounds, 'draining blood and purulent fluid.'

Attending to Swalberg's complaint, Dr. Berg is accused of shoving gauze into her post-surgery wounds with his fingers and failing to take and record proper notes.

Paying Dr. Berg's Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Institute and Day Spa two more visits in June where she received similar treatment, Swalberg alleges that in August, she had been waiting for Swalberg for three hours when she heard a loud crash in the hallway.

Dr. Berg bows his head at the 4th District Court, in Provo, Utah

Dr. Berg bows his head at the 4th District Court, in Provo, Utah

'Jennifer opened the door to see what had happened,' the documents state, 'and she saw Dr. Berg splayed out across the floor, his eyes open and glazed.'

It was during another August visit that Dr. Berg is alleged to have used a non-surgical instrument to perform surgery on Swalberg.

Administering steroids and local anesthetic to the wounds which had not healed after three months, Dr.Berg is supposed to have left Swalberg along for an hour.

When he returned he cut open the Utah woman's scarring, even though the anesthetic had worn off.

Taking to the open flesh with a 'pickle fork', Dr. Berg told Swalberg that the repeated stabbing would loosen the scar tissue, the lawsuit states.

'It was excruciatingly painful, and (Swalberg) began bleeding profusely...Dr. Berg instructed (Swalberg) to hold a paper wrapper against the site to control the bleeding.'

These new wounds refused to heal and became odorous and filled with blood and pus alleges Swalberg through her lawyer Springer.

Phoning Dr.Berg for another appointment, his staff refused to schedule one and then eventually stopped answering the phone states Swalberg.

In November of 2011, Dr. Joseph Berg was arrested for tying his girlfriend Lucelia Schwartz to a dresser with medical tape

In November of 2011, Dr. Joseph Berg was arrested for tying his girlfriend Lucelia Schwartz to a dresser with medical tape

'The scarring is permanent both on the inside and outside,' said Springer.

'We just don't want this to happen to somebody else.

'We want to send a message that this is improper.'

Indeed, the allegations from Swalberg coincide with findings by the state Division of Professional and Occupational Licensing that Dr.Berg's staff saw him taking drugs and falling asleep while standing up during the summer of 2011.

The allegations also state the fact that as relevant that Dr. Berg was sentenced to six months in Jail in April for attacking and kidnapping his longtime girlfriend Lucelia Schwartz in November of 2011.

Dr. Berg's girlfriend Lucelia Schwartz speaks at the sentencing for her boyfriend in April

Dr. Berg's girlfriend Lucelia Schwartz speaks at the sentencing for her boyfriend in April

With no previous criminal history, prosecutors pressed for the most lenient sentence for Dr. Berg after he tied his girlfriend to a dresser at his home and phoned 911 in distress.

After he was arrested by police for the November 2011 attack, investigators discovered that he was abusing prescription drugs and his medical license was revoked.

An emergency order from the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing in December of 2011 heard that Berg had 29 prescriptions for himself, one for a controlled substance, and 21 for his live-in girlfriend, the order said. 

Of those, 20 were for a controlled substance. Drugs illegally in his possession included hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl patches. 

Defending his actions to the judge during his April sentencing he said that he suffered from A.D.D and depression and would now be battling prescription pill addiction for the rest of his life.

The lawsuit from Swalberg seeks special, general and punitive damages and will be asking for at least $300,000.



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A sex addicted former district attorney from Wisconsin said he was 'popping Xanax like it was a Pez dispenser'

A sex addicted former district attorney from Wisconsin said he was 'popping Xanax like it was a Pez dispenser' when he sent sleazy text messages to a vulnerable domestic abuse victim.

Ex-Calumet County District Attorney Kenneth Kratz sent Stephanie Van Groll, now 28, three dozen sexually-charged text messages over three days in October 2009, while he was prosecuting her abusive ex-boyfriend.

In the inappropriate texts, the 52-year-old asked her 'are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA... the riskier the better?'

Sex addict: Ken Kratz, pictured, admitted an addition to Xanax saw him send a barrage of inappropriate texts to a vulnerable abuse victim

Sex addict: Ken Kratz, pictured, admitted an addition to Xanax saw him send a barrage of inappropriate texts to a vulnerable abuse victim

In another message, he said: 'I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you'd be THE woman! R U that good?'

 

 

 

Ms Van Groll told Wisconsin police at the time that she felt pressured to have a relationship with Mr Kratz and feared that if she did not do so he would drop charges against her ex-boyfriend.

Mr Kratz is now waiting to hear whether he'll be stripped of his law license after pleading no contest to a charge of conflict of interest, two counts of sexual harassment and three counts of exhibiting an offensive personality at a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday.

Victim: Mr Kratz sent 30 sleazy texts trying to spark an affair with Stephanie Van Groll, pictured, while he was prosecuting her abusive ex-boyfriend

Victim: Mr Kratz sent 30 sleazy texts trying to spark an affair with Stephanie Van Groll, pictured, while he was prosecuting her abusive ex-boyfriend

In his testimony, the disgraced Mr Kratz told Wisconsin's Office of Lawyer Regulations he suffered narcissistic personality disorder and that the illness teamed with his prescription narcotics addiction triggered his sexual compulsion and the inappropriate behaviour, according to Fox News.

Xanax: Mr Kratz said he was 'popping Xanax like a Pez dispenser' in 2009

Xanax: Mr Kratz said he was 'popping Xanax like a Pez dispenser' in 2009

'It creates a recipe for apocalyptic bad decisions and that's exactly what happened,' he said. 

'All of your filters that you've developed are turned to the off position. It was the combination of the disorder and being dependent on prescription drugs.'

Mr Kratz, who resigned in 2010 shortly before proceedings to remove him from office were to begin, said he became addicted to Xanax and Ambien, which were respectively prescribed for anxiety and sleeping problems.

He recognised his dependency when he was being treated for sexual compulsion and suffered harsh withdrawal symptoms.

The charges against Mr Kratz also included allegations that he made crude, sexually explicit comments to a Calumet County social worker.

According to FDL Reporter, the former district attorney drew a comparison between sex addiction and eating disorders during his testimony.

Testimony: The sleazy former DA, pictured, may lose his law license
Vulnerable: Ms Van Groll, pictured, had been beaten by her ex-boyfriend

Testimony: The sleazy former DA, pictured left, may lose his law license after sending the inappropriate messages to Ms Van Groll, pictured right

Scars: Ms Van Groll, pictured, received messages including one saying 'I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you'd be THE woman!'

Scars: Ms Van Groll, pictured, received messages including one saying 'I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you'd be THE woman!'

He claimed both involved compulsion but unlike those with eating disorders society didn't believe those with sexual compulsions were ill and required treatment.

'They're perverts,' he said. 

The former district attorney said he didn't want his addictions to be viewed as an excuse but rather to answer the question, 'why would somebody so smart do something so stupid? (The texts) clearly shouldn't have happened.' 

Two of his former staff members at the Calumet County District Attorney’s Office and a former investigator with the Calumet County Sheriff’s Department testified for Mr Kratz but said they were shocked by his behaviour.

Mr Kratz didn't ask that his law license be spared. 'I'm going to surrender this fate to the referee and to the Supreme Court,' he said. 

The former district attorney, who claims his wife has left him since finding out about the text messages, will learn his fate on July 21. 

He is expected to lose his license for six months.




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Uruguay aims to legalize, oversee marijuana market

Uruguay's government unveiled a proposal on Wednesday to legalize and monitor the marijuana market, arguing that the drug is less harmful than the black market where it is trafficked. President Jose Mujica's leftist government will send a bill to Congress shortly on this as part of a package of measures to fight crime in the South American country. The government will also urge that marijuana sales be legalized worldwide, Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro said, adding the measure could discourage the use of so-called hard drugs. Marijuana consumption is already legal in Uruguay. "We want to fight against two different things: one is drug consumption and the other is drug trafficking. We think the ban on certain drugs is creating more problems in society than the drug itself," the minister told a news conference. "Homicides related to settling scores have increased and that's a clear sign that certain phenomena are appearing in Uruguay that didn't exist before," he said. The bill would legalize and set rules for the production and sale of marijuana but would not allow people to grow the plant for their own personal use. The government did not give details on how the new system would work.

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Coronation Street star Bruce Jones reveals how his battle against depression and drink has driven him to the brink of suicide

Fallen star: Coronation Street's Bruce Jones

Fallen Coronation Street star Bruce Jones has been low before, but this time he can’t see a way out.

He is fighting a losing battle against depression and drink, and in an emotional interview he reveals that he regularly thinks about killing himself.

The latest blow to the actor who became a household name as layabout Les Battersby comes tomorrow when he will go to court in a desperate attempt to stop his home being repossessed.

But the chances of Bruce, 59, convincing a judge he will be able to pay the mortgage are less than slim.

Because he claims he has just £14 to his name.

“I’m broke, I’m destitute and after the hearing, the likelihood is, I’m homeless,” said the star who once earned £200,000 a year and built a fortune once estimated at £4million.

“It’s all over for me. I’ve got nowhere to go now but the grave. That’s where I’ll end up. But do you know what? I don’t care because I can’t take it any more... I’m beat.

“I wake up some days and think, ‘This will be the day that I end it all, I’m ­going to take pills or throw myself under a train’ because I’ve had enough. I want some peace.

“I’m going to lose the house that meant everything to me. For 15 years it’s been a special place, the house I worked so hard for, the house I wanted to leave to the children when I die.”

Dad-of-four Bruce has been living at his holiday home in North Wales since he paid off some of his debts by selling the luxury £500,000 Cheshire home he once shared with wife Sandra, 61.

 

Bruce Jones with his Corrie wife JaniceTV drunk: Bruce Jones with his Corrie wife Janice
ITV
 

 

“I’m in a state where I don’t feel I can carry on. Everything I touch turns to s***,” he says.

“I ask God, ‘Why did you give me this life then take it all away from me?’

“I used to be famous for being on Coronation Street. Now I’m going to be living on the street. I made a documentary about homeless people a few years ago so I know what it’s all about.

“I genuinely don’t know where I’m going to be sleeping if I lose the court case. I can count my friends on two hands. My so-called pals disappeared when my money ran out.

“I wasn’t extravagant but I’ve given money to charity and friends. I’ve been kind but I never saw those people again once I’d lent them money.

“If people paid me back what they owed me I wouldn’t be in this situation. Now I’ve got five friends in Wales, one friend here and my agent. That’s it.

“People have had enough of me, they think I’m a just a pain in the a**e and I don’t blame them.”

Bruce has sunk so low it’s hard to see where he can go from here.

Since being sacked from his Corrie role in 2007, he’s struggled to find permanent work and has been locked in a booze-fuelled downward spiral.

Depressed and frustrated, at his worst he was drinking 15 pints a day.

“After I lost my job, nothing went right. I used to try to drink depression away. I was in suicide mode,” he said.

 

Bruce Jone sat outside the home he's going will loseDown and out: Bruce Jones outside the home he's going to lose
Sunday Mirror
 

 

“I planned to end it all so I phoned my mother and said goodbye. I cried down the phone to her but my wife heard me and got me to a ­doctor just in time.”

A friendly gregarious man, still loved by fans, he admits being aggressive and violent in drink. Long-suffering Sandra has spent years trying to help Bruce and keep their lives on track through his bouts of drunken aggression.

She has claimed he once strangled her until she pretended to pass out. In 2010 he got an 18-month suspended sentence for dangerous and drunken driving after grabbing the wheel of their car and threatening to kill them both.

After his court appearance he went into rehab. Doctors warned him any more drinking would kill him.

But just two weeks after leaving he was back in the pub. He claims he is now “cured” and able to drink in moderation, but when we meet in Manchester he looks gaunt and frail.

And the fact that he has chosen a bar for our interview says it all.

Sipping a pint of Guinness, he is at pains to point out that this is his first alcoholic drink of the day.

He desperately wants to put on a brave face, but when he talks about his ­family he bursts into tears again. After 28 years of marriage, it seems Sandra has had enough. She has left him and moved to Wolverhampton to try to find work and build a new life. “Everyone’s gone,” he says. “I wake up in the night and it’s just me, on my own.

 

Bruce Jones stands on Coronation StreetDown to six friends: Bruce stands on the Coronation Street set
Phil Noble
 

 

“I talk to Sandra on the phone every few days but we’re not together and I don’t think she’ll have me back.

“My children have all fallen out with me. We’ve ­argued when I’ve been drunk and I hope I can mend that... but when?

“All I’ve got left is my dog Max and when the house goes I’ll have to give him up.” He’s had the seven-year-old German Shepherd since he was an eight-week-old puppy.

“It will break my heart and Sandra’s, but I can’t afford to keep him.”

But he still finds money for beer. Rehab has failed to help him understand how alcoholism has affected his life.

“I wouldn’t say I was an alcoholic,” he says. “Everyone blames the drink but it was never that... it was depression. I’ve had depression since I was 10.” He says he is a social drinker, who has “one or two” then goes home. “I’m a different person,” he explains, “I used to spend all my time in the pub. Now I don’t.”

I’d love to believe him but his agent, who is with us, gently says to him: “You know you are alcohol dependent Bruce”.

 

Bruce Jones in Famous, Rich and Homeless TV showDocumentary: Bruce in Famous, Rich and Homeless
Planet Photos
 

 

And when I ask if he’s eating properly he looks away. “Sometimes,” he says, “Other days, when I don’t feel good, when I’m depressed, I won’t have ­anything, not even a cup of tea, all day. I don’t sleep. I’m awake until 4am then I’m up at 5am watching Heartbeat. I was in it once. Now I watch thinking, ‘I wish I could turn back the clock’.

“I stare at the TV and think I used to be on that thing, I should be on there.”

He lights another roll-up and says sadly: “My life’s getting darker. I don’t know how I’ve got this far.

“Who’s gonna care if I go? I wish I’d never become an actor, I wish I’d stayed a normal working-class man. Maybe I’d have my family and home. Acting was my dream... I was never in it for fame.

“People still remember me as Les, they still say hello and come over to have a photo and that’s great. I had 10 great years acting and I’m very grateful for that and all the chances I had.

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A New York woman, allegedly high on “bath salts”, was killed after police tasered her.

Onlookers photographed Pamela McCarthy, who was attacking her three-year-old son.

The 35-year-old went into cardiac arrest after a run in with state troopers outside her apartment in Munnsville on Tuesday. The police were called to the scene at 7.45pm with reports that McCarthy was punching and choking her toddler and trying to strangle her pit-bull. A neighbor then photographed her running towards her terrified son, who sought refuge with his father, Jason Williams.

McCarthy’s attack is just one in a spate of violent incidents reported across the United States involving the drugs “bath salts”, a synthetic drug, known as “the new LSD”.

Last month, Rudy Eugene, who was believed to be on “bath salts” chewed off homeless man, Ronald Poppo’s face, in Miami. In Louisiana, Carl Jacquneaux also bit off a piece of his neighbor’s cheek. Earlier this week a North Miami man stripped naked and exposed himself to a three-year-old girl while on the drug.

In fact these attacks, thought to be the blame of this legal drug, are becoming so prevalent that the media is now labeling them under the term “Zombie Apocalypse”.

A neighbor who witnessed McCarthy’s attack told NewsChannel 9 WSYR “She was... just running back and forth around the street and she got a hold of one of her dogs and she was rolling around on the ground with her legs wrapped around it - she was strangling the dog.”

Another said: 'She was definitely on something. Who does that?'

When the police arrived McCarthy was described as “violently combative” and growled at the police, and even tried to bite one of the officers.

State trooper Christopher Budlong tried to subdue her using pepper spray, but it had no effect. He then used a taser on the woman but was unable to handcuff her. She was then taken into custody and later went into cardiac arrest.

Her boyfriend Williams said she had a history of drug abuse but he was shocked by her behavior. Their son luckily escaped the attack with minor injuries and is now in the custody of William’s mother.

He said, “I told her mom, "She needs help'," Williams told WSYR. 'Everyone says to get rid of her because I tell all mean stories. I got nothing good to say. I love her…love her to death…then I seen that.”

Here’s the ABC News report:

Here’s the CNYCentralNews eyewitness report:

 




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Lindsay Lohan found unconscious in hotel

Paramedics were called after Lindsay Lohan was found unconscious in a hotel near Los Angeles on Friday, local media reported, but emergency services said she was not taken to hospital. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said paramedics were called to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Marina del Rey mid-morning after a 911 call about an unconscious person, but could not confirm it was Lohan. ABC television local affiliate KABC reported that Lohan, who is currently filming a television movie about Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor's stormy romance with Richard Burton, was found in the penthouse of the hotel. It said she was taken to the hospital, but the Fire Department could not confirm the report. Celebrity news website TMZ meanwhile reported that Lohan had been working for two days almost non-stop, including shooting parts of the movie near the hotel. She was found "non-responsive." Paramedics responded, and determined nothing was wrong with Lindsay, TMZ reported. The 25-year-old last week spent two hours undergoing tests in hospital after an accident that saw the car she was reportedly driving smash into an 18-wheel big rig on the Pacific Coast Highway, west of Los Angeles. The TV movie "Liz and Dick" role is a break for Lohan, who after a promising early start has become known chiefly as a hell-raising celebrity with substance abuse problems and frequent brushes with the law. In March, an LA judge formally ended Lohan's probation after a long string of court appearances, but told the "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday" star to "stop the nightclubbing" and behave more maturely.

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Cat Marnell, the Internet, and the Cycle of Addiction

Addiction is a terrible thing. Drug addiction, alcohol addiction, whatever type of addiction it is...it destroys relationships, jobs, lives. Anyone who's ever loved an addict has faced the reality at some dark point of how much it's not, really, a choice, as much as we still hope and wish that it is or could be. It's brutal. People waste away. Talent is destroyed. Lives and relationships, already hard, become that much harder. People die. 

A lot of us in the media have been watching one of our own—Cat Marnell, 29, the former beauty director and health critic of xoJane.com, a talented writer, a person with an apparent system of support among coworkers and friends, a person with, until today, a job—deal with her own unabashed addiction in a very public forum. Which is to say, online. All over the place online, on her own Twitter; on the website she wrote for; in recent interviews for New York and Vice in which she professes with no apologies to be exactly who she is; and so on.

Via Page Six today, Cat Marnell is leaving xoJane.com "after refusing to get clean." The website was a place where she'd written often of her drug use, interspersing it with beauty and health coverage, and though she'd gone to rehab, "sources say Marnell never stayed clean, with one suspecting she even worked high." Marnell wrote to the Post, “I’m always on drugs. Look, I couldn’t spend another summer meeting deadlines behind a computer at night when I could be on the rooftop of Le Bain looking for shooting stars and smoking angel dust with my friends and writing a book, which is what I’m doing next.” 

This announcement of her departure, as dramatic as it sounds, is not terribly surprising. From thatVice interview, several weeks ago:

Cat Marnell, xoJane's Beauty Editor, is always in trouble. Whether it's for taking Plan B three times in one month (and writing an essay about it) or snorting heroin in a bathtub on a business trip or showing up an hour late for a New York magazine interview that would ultimately slag her, but Cat doesn't really care. This is just who she is. Cat makes no apologies for her drug use, which I like. She's been a prescription speed freak since she was 15 years old and there is no sign of stopping. Everyone gets that, even her editors and the people in HR. You might ask yourself, "Why is someone in charge of a beauty-and-health department of an online magazine acting like this?" Cat doesn't stay inside the lines. She colors off the pages, but that may have something to do with the angel dust.

And from the New York piece, published in April: 

It’s 7 p.m., but Marnell tells me she’s been up for only an hour. She seems flustered, jittery, and a little lost. “They want me to go to rehab,” she says as we rush to a Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee. “Shit, I was going to wait until the end of the interview to tell you that.”

“They” is SAY Media, the publisher of xoJane.com. According to the company, Marnell is the site’s most read and most commented-on writer—Pratt calls her writing “raw, riveting, and not at all derivative.” Marnell tries to return the compliment: She describes Pratt as “not like Slimer in Ghostbusters,” a movie she will confess she’s never seen, “but it’s the same essence. She’s always smiling and hovering and saying ‘I love you, honey.’ ”

Watching all this happen is something like watching Lindsay Lohan cycle through highs and lows, denying but clearly struggling with her own addiction demons. We watch and wait and it's cringe-worthy and awful, but it's the proverbial car crash we can't look away from. We know it's going to end someday, and it's probably going to end badly. But it's not "personal": These people we watch on the Internet seem more like characters than real people. So when Marnell announces that she'd rather smoke angel dust on the rooftop of Le Bain than work in a dreary office job, a lot of people come forth to, sort of, Internet high-five her. Why should any of us live dreary existences, have to pander to the man, slog our lives away in tedium? What's wrong with drugs? Drugs are cool! And to be so honest and upfront about it, well, let's accolade her for that, too. What bravery! What a way to live on your own terms! As Marnell tells New York magazine's Kayleen Schaefer, “I don’t want the reader not to be in a shared experience, not connected with me,” she says. “Why am I not talking about drugs if I’m taking them every day? People can say that’s pathetic, but it’s one of my main hobbies. That’s when I go back to the idea of shame, especially for girls. Why do I have to clean up?” she asks. “It’s time to question the idea that everybody has to live a certain kind of life.”

But is the issue really shame here, or not fitting into a certain life? We're talking about an illness, not a "lifestyle choice." Making matters worse, it's one that the Internet gathers round to watch play out in people, to gawk and mock and even sometimes celebrate. And when it takes a turn into tragedy, though that tragedy has really been there from the beginning, we sigh and cluck-cluck and mourn and regret and wonder what we should have done differently. In the course of watching this happen, those of us on the Internet have become enablers just as much as the people in an addict's actual life, maybe even more so. 

The twisted side effect of that is that the same habit of addiction that drives a person to return again and again to the drug of his or her choice, at the cost of everything else, may well parallel the addiction habit that keeps a person on a constant Twitter drip, or revealing her life choices to the world in interviews, or oversharing confessional posts that go on to be shared even further—all with the purpose of getting more and more attention back from the Internet. With Marnell, that addiction to Internet attention appears to be getting scratched via her ongoing online revelations. I wish her the best, but I worry about what's next. 

Those of us who work in this arena know what it feels like to be ignored, when you're having a bad day, when none of your posts hit the way you want them to. But what if the success of your post or article was linked to how much it revealed about your life as it spirals out of control? What if making a big deal over your drug use was a way to ensure page views or traffic, not to mention the Internet attention that you so love and crave? And what if your "Internet persona" was so tied to your addiction that you really saw no way to separate them, even if you did manage to escape the physical grips of the addiction itself?

That would be pretty messed up. 

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Aging and addicted

11:08 0 Comments

Chances are that the addict living down the street from you is not a teenager but a baby boomer. A Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockland, Md., study predicts that by 2020, the number of seniors with alcohol and other drug problems will jump 150 percent to 4.4 million older people — up from 1.7 million in 2001. HELP AVAILABLE Local agencies can provide support and drug counseling. In Monroe County, contact: Catholic Social Services, 724 Phillips St., Suite A, Stroudsburg, PA 18360; 570-517-0892 Northwestern Human Services, 663 Pocono Blvd., Mount Pocono, PA 18334; 570-839-3097 In Pike County, contact: Catholic Social Services, P.O. Box 1195, Milford, PA 18337; 570-296-1054 "Often considered the hidden epidemic, prescription drug and alcohol addiction continues to rise as more and more baby boomers retire," said Dr. Carl Catino of Community Psychological Center in Bangor. Older people with drug problems seeking treatment by 2020 are likely to swamp the system, according to Deborah Trunzo, coordinator for the substance abuse organization, which is operated by the U.S. government. Additionally, the study showed a drastic increase in the number of older adults suffering from co-occurring substance abuse disorders, said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, which is part of the substance abuse organization. "What this means is when a person has substance abuse, it is only one part of the disease, and the person also suffers from depression or some other psychological disorder," he said. Signs of abuse "Look for signs of lethargy and sleeping frequently during the day," Catino said. If you are out socially with the person and he or she suddenly has a mood swing, becomes agitated or tense and wants to leave, this could be a sign of possible addiction. Sometimes the addict will complain of not feeling well, but the symptoms are vague. Falling injuries and minor accidents around the home can also be a sign that there is an abuse issue, he said. "Basically look for changes in the person's personality, especially if they are withdrawing from socialization," Catino said. Addiction causes "Many of these people thought they were going to retire and enjoy their older years, but because of the downturn in the economy, their financial security is gone," Catino said. When faced with the reality of working until the end, baby boomers often become depressed, he said. Aside from the stress of working more years than anticipated and lack of financial security, changes in lifestyle can also contribute to the large number of baby boomer addicts, he said. "Previously active and productive members of the community, they experience a void in productivity — or the children have grown and moved way," Catino said. When they have no outside interests or activities, life grows boring, making it easier to abuse drugs and alcohol, Clark said. Addictions can also be a result of the emotional traumas accompanying old age, he said. Many times, injuries, accidents and isolation or the death of a close friend, can trigger anxiety, and the person will use drugs or alcohol in an attempt to dispel it, Clark said. "It is even possible that the cause goes back to a childhood trauma or physical and sexual abuse as a child," he said. Influence of aging As baby boomers age, health problems contribute to the number of maintenance drugs taken to control diabetes, heart problems, cholesterol and several other age-related diseases, he said. These medications, when combined with other drugs, can influence how your body reacts to other drugs, especially opiates, Clark said. It can cause loss of motor control, depth perception and reaction times. Often the result is a fall in the home or a crash when driving, he said. "The best way to help the person you suspect is abusing drugs and alcohol, is to cautiously approach the matter in a calm manner," Catino said. "Nothing will be accomplished if you approach the person with a judgmental and critical attitude," he said.

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Agents arrest six in California medical marijuana chain

Six people associated with a chain of medical marijuana shops in southern California were arrested on Thursday as federal authorities continued efforts to rein in commercial trade in the drug. California voters in 1996 made the state the first in the nation to allow medical marijuana, but the possession or sale of cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Attorneys for each of California's federal districts announced a crackdown on commercial trade in medical marijuana in October. They outlined a range of actions, including warnings to landlords and civil forfeiture lawsuits.

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America's Worst Tattoos features grammatically-incorrect mottos, ugly image misprints and unfortunate impulse decisions

From a droopy 'cookie monster' drawn by a heroin addict, to the incorrectly spelled word, 'literacy,' a new programme will showcase one of the biggest regrets in life, a meaningless tattoo.
America's Worst Tattoos features grammatically-incorrect mottos, ugly image misprints and unfortunate impulse decisions in a new, one-hour special.
The TLC programme, which premieres next Thursday, reveals the back story to each ill-fated tattoo, and the labour-intensive process of finally having them covered up with a transformation artist.
Loves food: David overheard someone refer to their mother as 'well fed' at a party, and thought it was genius, but now he says he 'loathes' it
Loves food: David overheard someone refer to their mother as 'well fed' at a party, and thought it was genius, but now he says he 'loathes' it
Ryan from Michigan wanted the motto 'Art is Literacy of the Heart,' tattooed on his lower stomach.
He explained, however that he was horrified when he learned 'Literacy' had been spelled with an 'e' instead of a 'c'.
 'I didn't realise myself, but my friend Carson said it was spelled wrong. I was like "You're kidding!" I got really upset, I was like, "I can't believe this is spelled wrong," I can not think of a worse word to be spelled wrong,' he said.
Dog love: A participant on the show had an Edwardian-style portrait of their dog tattooed onto their arm
Puppy love: A participant on the show had an Edwardian-style portrait of their dog tattooed onto their arm

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Error in judgement: America's Worst Tattoos  features grammatically-incorrect mottos, ugly image misprints and unfortunate impulse decisions, including this skeleton man (left) and a misdrawn 'moon face' (right)
Another victim of a bad tattoo decision is David, who got 'Well Fed' placed on his stomach.
He explained: 'I overheard someone refer to their mother as 'well fed' at a party, I thought it was genius. So I got 'Well Fed' tattooed on my stomach.
'I loathe it. The 'Well Fed' is placed on my stomach like a cholo mustache - off to the side, nothing in the middle. So i got the post-it note [Put Food in me] in the middle to fill that space.'
'People gawk and laugh at it, it was a big mistake,' he said.
Grammatically incorrect: Ryan wanted the motto 'Art is Literacy of the Heart,' tattooed on his lower stomach, and was horrified when he learned 'Literacy' had been spelled with an 'e' instead of a 'c'
Grammatically incorrect: Ryan wanted the motto 'Art is Literacy of the Heart,' tattooed on his lower stomach, and was horrified when he learned 'Literacy' had been spelled with an 'e' instead of a 'c'
One girl, who made a decision to get a 'moon face' tattooed on her lower back while heavily under the influence of alcohol, received a misdrawn image that she now calls the 'cookie monster'.
She said sarcastically: 'I was intoxicated, so that made the situation ever better.
'She finished, and, oh my god, it's disgusting.'
She disturbingly added: 'Then I found out she was a heroin addict and apparently she wasn't high enough for me - they say when she's really high she does a really great job, so I must have caught her when she was, "eh".
Ho Ha Ha: The special programme will showcase meaningless tattoos which become a large regret in people's lives
Christmas cheer: The special programme will showcase meaningless, impulsive tattoos which have become a large regret in people's lives
NY INK’s tattoo artist Megan Massacre also appears on the show, transforming the unfortunate tattoos into 'masterpieces'.
'A lot of times when people want tattoos covered up, it reminds them of something they don't want to think about,' she said.
'So having to wear that on their body every day really brings them down as a person. I believe when we are able to cover the tattoo with something that is more positive, that they can look at and be happy about...it can really transform a person.'


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Recovering Addict Daniel Powter Preparing Chart Comeback

Daniel Powter

Picture: Daniel Powter PS Arts 'Express Yourself' Benefit held at Barker Hanger Santa Monica, Califor....

Recovering Addict Daniel Powter Preparing Chart Comeback

     




Singer Daniel Powter is planning a major chart comeback after beating drug and alcohol addictions following the huge success of his 2006 single Bad Day.

The artist earned himself a reputation as a one-hit wonder after failing to climb the charts with his follow-up releases and he subsequently disappeared from the spotlight.

Powter admits he struggled with fame and grew sick of the catchy tune, turning to illegal substances and alcohol to drown his sorrows.

He tells the Associated Press, "When the spotlight hit me, I was like, 'I don't want to be in the spotlight'. I hated it. I hated being on TV. I just didn't want to do it anymore."

He managed to kick his habits two years ago and rebuild his life, and Powter is now engaged to the mother of his four-month-old daughter.

The 41 year old, who is now preparing to release his forthcoming album Turn on the Lights, still isn't keen on performing Bad Day but he's starting to accept it's the song that he will forever be known around the world for.

He says, "It's hard to play it every night. (But) the audience is different every night. And I really don't sing it much, (the audience members) sing it. I make them do all the parts, three-part harmony. I mean, when I'm in Japan and they sing it differently and when I'm in Italy, they sing it different (sic). So, it keeps it interesting."

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Will treating addiction as a 'disease' combat a growing epidemic

Should drug addiction be considered a disease, or will thinking about addiction in this way only further enable drug users by convincing them that they're powerless? Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the National Drug Control Policy and President Obama’s top drug policy advisor, believes so, saying that addiction should be treated as a public health issue. Kerlikowske addressed the issue from the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs on Monday, calling for more accessible rehabilitation and recovery programs. Morgan Little elaborated on Politics Now: "Previous federal drug policies were a three-legged stool, Kerlikowske said, with criminalization, prevention and treatment serving as the foundation for national policies. Now, there will be a fourth leg -- recovery. […] The proposed access includes a voucher system to allow not only those recovering to pay for treatment, but also would pay for costs such as transitional housing, child care and work-appropriate clothing." The thinking at MusiCares Foundation and Map Fund, which help music people with emergency financial assistance and addiction recovery resources, concurs with the idea that addiction is a disease. "The shame around addiction is -- simply put -- a barrier to treatment and recovery," Neil Portnow, president and CEO of the Recording Academy and its MusiCares Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times in an email Tuesday. "In fact, we just hosted a panel in conjunction with our annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit focused on removing the stigma of addiction." Neuroscientist Marc Lewis, on the other hand, has a hard time accepting the idea that addiction is a disease. It can act "like a disease," writes Lewis, a former drug addict, on a website for his new book "Memoirs of an Addicted Brain." He continues: "If you are tuned into the helplessness, the insidious, relentless growth of addiction, if you see addiction as something that takes over one’s body, one's mind, maybe one’s soul, then the disease model is going to be meaningful to you." The problem with that line of thinking, according to Lewis, is that it comes with the implication that "'you' can't do anything about it -- at least not without help." Whatever side of this debate you fall on, it's hard to disagree with Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs), who argues that more must be done to curb a growing epidemic. Introducing Kerlikowske on Monday, Bono Mack said: "Today, two classes of medicines -- painkillers and insomnia and anxiety drugs -- are responsible for about 70 deaths and nearly 3,000 emergency room visits a day.  These are alarming numbers.  As a nation, we must do more to combat this growing public health epidemic."

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sugar addicts

07:22 0 Comments

Up a rickety staircase at the Newarke Houses Museum in Leicester, England hangs a portrait of Britain's first obese man, painted in 1806.Daniel Lambert weighed 53st (335kg) and was considered a medical oddity. Too heavy to work, Lambert came up with an ingenious idea: he would charge people a shilling to see him. Lambert made a fortune, and his portrait shows him at the end of his life: affluent and respected – a celebrated son of Leicester.

Two hundred years on, I'm in a bariatric ambulance (an alternative term for obese, favoured by the medical world because it's less shaming to patients) investigating why the UK is in the midst of an obesity crisis. The crew pick up a dozen Daniel Lamberts every week. Fifty-three stone is nothing special, it's at the lower end of the weight spectrum, with only the 80st patients worthy of mention when a shift finishes. The specially designed ambulance carries an array of bariatric gizmos including a "spatula" to help with people who have fallen out of bed or, on a recent occasion, an obese man jammed between the two walls in his hallway. As well as the ambulance, there's a convoy of support vehicles including a winch to lift patients onto a reinforced stretcher. In extreme cases, the cost of removing a patient to hospital can be up to £100,000, as seen in the recent case of 63st teenager Georgia Davis.

But these people are not where the heartland of the obesity crisis lies. On average, in the UK, we are all – every man, woman and child – three stone heavier than we were in the mid-60s. We haven't noticed it happening, but this glacial shift has been mapped by bigger car seats, swimming cubicles, XL trousers dropped to L (L dropped to M). An elasticated nation with an ever-expanding sense of normality.

Why are we so fat? We have not become greedier as a race. We are not, contrary to popular wisdom, less active – a 12-year study, which began in 2000 at Plymouth hospital, measured children's physical activity and found it the same as 50 years ago. But something has changed: and that something is very simple. It's the food we eat. More specifically, the sheer amount of sugar in that food, sugar we're often unaware of.

The story begins in 1971. Richard Nixon was facing re-election. The Vietnam war was threatening his popularity at home, but just as big an issue with voters was the soaring cost of food. If Nixon was to survive, he needed food prices to go down, and that required getting a very powerful lobby on board – the farmers. Nixon appointed Earl Butz, an academic from the farming heartland of Indiana, to broker a compromise. Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race.

Butz pushed farmers into a new, industrial scale of production, and into farming one crop in particular: corn. US cattle were fattened by the immense increases in corn production. Burgers became bigger. Fries, fried in corn oil, became fattier. Corn became the engine for the massive surge in the quantities of cheaper food being supplied to American supermarkets: everything from cereals, to biscuits and flour found new uses for corn. As a result of Butz's free-market reforms, American farmers, almost overnight, went from parochial small-holders to multimillionaire businessmen with a global market. One Indiana farmer believes that America could have won the cold war by simply starving the Russians of corn. But instead they chose to make money.

By the mid-70s, there was a surplus of corn. Butz flew to Japan to look into a scientific innovation that would change everything: the mass development of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), or glucose-fructose syrup as it's often referred to in the UK, a highly sweet, gloppy syrup, produced from surplus corn, that was also incredibly cheap. HFCS had been discovered in the 50s, but it was only in the 70s that a process had been found to harness it for mass production. HFCS was soon pumped into every conceivable food: pizzas, coleslaw, meat. It provided that "just baked" sheen on bread and cakes, made everything sweeter, and extended shelf life from days to years. A silent revolution of the amount of sugar that was going into our bodies was taking place. In Britain, the food on our plates became pure science – each processed milligram tweaked and sweetened for maximum palatability. And the general public were clueless that these changes were taking place.

There was one product in particular that it had a dramatic effect on – soft drinks. Hank Cardello, the former head of marketing at Coca-Cola, tells me that in 1984, Coke in the US swapped from sugar to HFCS (In the UK, it continued to use sugar). As a market leader, Coke's decision sent a message of endorsement to the rest of the industry, which quickly followed suit. There was "no downside" to HFCS, Cardello says. It was two-thirds the price of sugar, and even the risk of messing with the taste was a risk worth taking when you looked at the margin, especially as there were no apparent health risks. At that time, "obesity wasn't even on the radar" says Cardello.

But another health issue was on the radar: heart disease, and in the mid-70s, a fierce debate was raging behind the closed doors of academia over what was causing it. An American nutritionist called Ancel Keys blamed fat, while a British researcher at the University of LondonProfessor John Yudkin, blamed sugar. But Yudkin's work was rubbished by what many believe, including Professor Robert Lustig, one of the world's leading endocrinologists, was a concerted campaign to discredit Yudkin. Much of the criticism came from fellow academics, whose research was aligning far more closely with the direction the food industry was intending to take. Yudkin's colleague at the time, Dr Richard Bruckdorfer at UCL says: "There was a huge lobby from [the food] industry, particularly from the sugar industry, and Yudkin complained bitterly that they were subverting some of his ideas." Yudkin was, Lustig says simply, "thrown under the bus", because there was a huge financial gain to be made by fingering fat, not sugar, as the culprit of heart disease.

The food industry had its eyes on the creation of a new genre of food, something they knew the public would embrace with huge enthusiasm, believing it to be better for their health – "low fat". It promised an immense business opportunity forged from the potential disaster of heart disease. But, says Lustig, there was a problem. "When you take the fat out of a recipe, food tastes like cardboard, and you need to replace it with something – that something being sugar."

Overnight, new products arrived on the shelves that seemed too good to be true. Low-fat yoghurts, spreads, even desserts and biscuits. All with the fat taken out, and replaced with sugar. Britain was one of the most enthusiastic adopters of what food writer Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat, calls "the low-fat dogma", with sales rocketing.

By the mid-80s, health experts such as Professor Philip James, a world-renowned British scientist who was one of the first to identify obesity as an issue, were noticing that people were getting fatter and no one could explain why. The food industry was keen to point out that individuals must be responsible for their own calorie consumption, but even those who exercised and ate low-fat products were gaining weight. In 1966 the proportion of people with a BMI of over 30 (classified as obese) was just 1.2% for men and 1.8% for women. By 1989 the figures had risen to 10.6% for men and 14.0% for women. And no one was joining the dots between HFCS and fat.

Moreover, there was something else going on. The more sugar we ate, the more we wanted, and the hungrier we became. At New York University, Professor Anthony Sclafani, a nutritionist studying appetite and weight gain, noticed something strange about his lab rats. When they ate rat food, they put on weight normally. But when they ate processed food from a supermarket, they ballooned in a matter of days. Their appetite for sugary foods was insatiable: they just carried on eating.

According to Professor Jean-Marc Schwarz of San Francisco hospital, who is currently studying the precise way in which the major organs of the body metabolise sugar, this momentum creates "a tsunami" of sugar. The effect this has on different organs in the body is only now being understood by scientists. Around the liver, it coalesces as fat, leading to diseases such as type-2 diabetes. Other studies have found that sugar may even coat semen and result in obese men becoming less fertile. One researcher told me that, ultimately, perhaps nothing needs to be done about obesity, as obese people will wipe themselves out.

The organ of most interest, however, is the gut. According to Schwarz and Sclafani, the gut is a highly complex nervous system. It is the body's "second brain", and this second brain becomes conditioned to wanting more sugar, sending messages back to the brain that are impossible to fight.

The Sugar Association is keen to point out that sugar intake alone "is not linked to any lifestyle disease". But evidence to the contrary appears to be emerging. In February, Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the University of California wrote an opinion article for the journal Natureciting the growing body of scientific evidence showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases, and in March, the New York Times reported a study that had been published in the journal Circulation, which found that men who drank sweetened beverages most often were 20% more likely to have had a heart attack than those who drank the least. David Kessler, the former head of the US government's most powerful food agency, theFDA, and the person responsible for introducing warnings on cigarette packets in the early 90s, believes that sugar, through its metabolisation by the gut and hence the brain, is extremely addictive, just like cigarettes or alcohol. He believes that sugar is hedonic – eating it is "highly pleasurable. It gives you this momentary bliss. When you're eating food that is highly hedonic, it sort of takes over your brain."

In London, Dr Tony Goldstone is mapping out the specific parts of the brain that are stimulated by this process. According to Goldstone, one of the by-products of obesity is that a hormone called leptin ceases to work properly. Normally, leptin is produced by the body to tell you that you are full. However, in obese people, it becomes severely depleted, and it is thought that a high intake of sugar is a key reason. When the leptin doesn't work, your body simply doesn't realise you should stop eating.

Leptin raises a big question: did the food industry knowingly create foods that were addictive, that would make you feel as though you were never satisfied and always wanted more? Kessler is cautious in his response: "Did they understand the neuroscience? No. But they learned experientially what worked." This is highly controversial. If it could be proved that at that some point the food industry became aware of the long-term, detrimental effects their products were having on the public, and continued to develop and sell them, the scandal would rival that of what happened to the tobacco industry.

The food industry's defence has always been that the science doesn't prove its culpability. Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, a lobby group for the soft-drinks industry, says: "there's a lot of work to try to establish causality, and I don't know that I've seen any study that does that." But it looks as though things might be changing. According to Professor Kelly Brownell at Yale University, one of the world's foremost experts on obesity and its causes, the science will soon be irrefutable and we may then be just a few years away from the first successful lawsuit.

The relationship between the food industry and the scientists conducting research into obesity is also complicated by the issue of funding. There is not a great deal of money set aside for this work and so the food industry has become a vital source of income. But this means that the very same science going into combating obesity could also be used to hone the products that are making us obese. Many of the scientists I spoke to are wary about going on the record because they fear their funding will be taken away if they speak out.

The relationship between government and the food industry is also far from straightforward. Health secretary Andrew Lansley worked, until 2009, as a non-executive director of Profero, a marketing agency whose clients have included Pizza Hut, Mars and PepsiCo. In opposition, Lansley asked public health expert Professor Simon Capewell to contribute to future policy on obesity. Capewell was amazed at the degree to which the food industry was also being consulted: the equivalent, he says, "of putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank". Lansley has made no secret of his work for Profero, and denies a conflict of interest, saying that he did not work directly with the company's clients. And the government argues, not unreasonably, that it's essential to have the industry on board to get anything done. But the relationships are not always kept at arms length. Professor James was part of a WHO committee to recommend global limits on sugar in 1990. As the report was being drafted, something extraordinary happened: theUS secretary of state for health Tommy Thompson flew to Geneva to lobby on behalf of the sugar industry. "Those recommendations were never made," says James.

In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is currently planning to reduce soft drink super-sizing while last week, a former executive at Coca-Cola Todd Putman spoke publicly about the need for soft drink companies to move their focus to "healthy products". But it's not going to be easy to bring about change. A previous attempt to bring in a soda tax was stopped by intense lobbying on Capitol Hill. The soft-drinks industry paid for a new ward at Philadelphia Children's Hospital, and the tax went away. It was a children's obesity ward.

Why has Kessler, when he has had such success with his warnings on cigarette packets, not done the same thing for processed foods high in sugar? Because, he tells me, when the warnings came in on cigarettes, the game was already up in the west for the tobacco industry. Their new markets were the far east, India and China. It was no concession at all. The food industry is a different matter. For one thing, the food lobby is more powerful than the tobacco lobby. The industry is tied into a complex matrix of other interests: drugs, chemicals, even dieting products. The panoply of satellite industries that make money from obesity means the food industry's relationship to obesity is an incredibly complex one.

Anne Milton, the minister for public health, tells me that legislation against the food industry isn't being ruled out, because of the escalating costs to the NHS. Previous governments have always taken the route of partnership. Why? Because the food industry provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in revenue. It is immensely powerful, and any politician who takes it on does so at their peril. "Let's get one thing straight," Milton tells me, however. "I am not scared of the food industry."

And I believe her, because now, there is something far bigger to be frightened of. Eventually, the point will be reached when the cost to the NHS of obesity, which is now £5bn a year, outweighs the revenue from the UK snacks and confectionery market, which is currently approximately £8bn a year. Then the solution to obesity will become very simple.

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Sugar = Heroin. How to Cut Your Addiction

Whether you think Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent proposal to ban large sized sodas in New York City is government overreach, or not going far enough, this is incontrovertible: sugar is bad for you. Not only is it bad for you, it's as addictive as heroin. And yet, the good news is that you don't have to wait for government action to take control of your own health. The bad news is it's not always easy. You have to go cold turkey.  So argues Dr. Mark Hyman in his book, The Blood Sugar Solution, which presents ten ways you can cut food addiction "by regulating your hormones, by using food as medicine, by changing the information going in your body and upgrading your biological software."

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Heroin has made an aggressive comeback in central Minnesota

Heroin has made an aggressive comeback in central Minnesota, the St. Cloud Times reported Sunday ( http://on.sctimes.com/JVTjEA). There have been five overdoses resulting in two deaths in the last month and a half in the St. Cloud area. There also have been four deaths in Mille Lacs County since the first of the year, two deaths in Sherburne County and at least one each in Wright and Morrison counties. "I think it's the tip of the iceberg," Fair said. "I don't want to alarm you, but there will be, within a year, kids dying. And it will be high school kids, people still in school; the tragic story, the cheerleader or the captain of the football team. It's a statewide problem, too. Hospital-treated heroin cases in Minnesota were up 68 percent in 2011 compared with 2010. And it's why the Central Minnesota Violent Offender Task Force in April held a summit about the drug. It included members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Fair didn't hear much about heroin in the St. Cloud area when he began undercover work for the regional task force. Things changed in 2009, when the Drug Enforcement Administration reported a spike in the purity of heroin. Now, he said, some of the heroin found around St. Cloud is more than 90 percent pure. The statewide fallout includes: _ Arrests by Minnesota task forces for heroin were up 91 percent in 2011 compared with 2010. _ Heroin seizures by Minnesota task forces were up 1,584 percent in 2011 compared with 2010. _ Heroin overdose deaths in Hennepin, Anoka and Ramsey counties in the Twin Cities metro area nearly tripled in 2011 compared with 2010. The problem also has roots in the easy availability of prescription pain medications. Young people often get addicted to narcotics, such as Oxycontin that are prescribed for their parents, Fair said. Then their addiction needs to be fed by other opiates, which are cheaper than painkillers on the black market. Once hooked on heroin, the quest for the next high is difficult to break. Users need more and more to achieve a high like the first one. Young people shouldn't take any comfort from stories of fellow users surviving overdoses, Fair said. "If you're lucky, someone calls an ambulance," he said. "But if you're not lucky and everybody panics when you go over, you're dead."

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Police in 'legal highs' warning after teen dies at RockNess Festival

Police are warning festival goers against taking so-called “legal highs” after a teenager died and two other people were taken to hospital at the RockNess Festival in Scotland today. A 19-year-old man collapsed in the main arena of the festival on Saturday night and died early this morning at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. A second 19-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were also taken to the hospital earlier today and are recovering. Drugs are believed to be involved in all three incidents. Police and health authorities say they are particularly concerned about a “legal high” or designer drug known as Benzo Fury. The RockNess Festival, on the shores of Loch Ness, attracts 35,000 music lovers over three days to see the likes of Ed Sheeran and Biffy Clyro. It began on Friday and ends today. In a statement the Northern Constabulary said they were making inquiries into Benzo Fury “which it is believed may have been taken by those who are currently being treated in hospital”. It added: “This is not a controlled drug. It may, however, be very dangerous, particularly if consumed with other substances.” Designer drugs are slightly modified versions of illegal substances which the manufacturers hope will circumvent drug laws. Because of this they are difficult to control. A spokesman for the charity Drugscope said that often trade names were switched to different products so it was impossible to know for certain what might be being taken. “All you have to do is tweak the chemical formula and it is no longer illegal,” he said. “If people take ecstasy or ketamine they know there is a risk. But because these are marketed as ”legal highs“ they can assume they are therefore safe. The message has to be that they are not.” Benzo is marketed on the internet. Also known as 6-APB it is a stimulant based MDA, a psychedelic drug similar to ecstasy. Public Health Consultant Dr Cameron Stark added: “Our advice is simple: limit how much alcohol you drink, and don’t take none prescribed drugs. If however you have taken non prescribed drugs including “legal highs”, it is really important that you don't combine them with alcohol. If you feel unwell or you are worried about a friend, please get immediate advice from the onsite medical team.“ Jim King, the organiser of the Rockness Festival, added: “What should be very clear from this information is that legal highs does not mean safe, and customers should not go anywhere near these dangerous substances. Festival goers should heed the advice given to them by the health professionals and the police, and stay safe by avoiding drugs of any kind.”

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Child actors, which research shows is an at-risk group, three times more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs than the average young American

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When Nick Stahl went missing in early May, the media referred ominously to “the John Connor curse,” a reference to the fact that he and the three other former child stars who played John in theTerminator franchise have all suffered bad luck.

Edward Furlong (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) has a history of drug addiction, Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was recently arrested for a DUI. Even the most successful John Connor, Christian Bale (Terminator: Salvation), had a well-publicized meltdown during the making of the film.

And now there’s Stahl (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), whose wife reported him missing on May 14, only for him to resurface four days later to check himself into rehab.

But these four have more in common than a fictional teenager. All were child actors, which research shows is an at-risk group, three times more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs than the average young American, according to a survey conducted by Wayne State University for A Minor Consideration, an organization whose membership includes 600 current and former child actors.

A surprising number of these troubled young stars have disappeared under circumstances similar to Stahl’s (see sidebar), often after their star power has started to fade. And though Hollywood provided the silver platter that delivered them to misfortune, it is often the youngsters’ parents who place them on the tray.

A Minor Consideration, a non-profit started in January 1990, is one of the few organizations in Hollywood that serves these parents and their kids. Its members use their own experience to assist young performers and their families on an “on call” basis, helping them with education, money issues and character development. Besides counselling, the foundation also lobbies for improvements in legislation for child labourers.

President Paul Petersen, himself an ex-child star (he starred on The Donna Reed Show), says a “red flag” in Stahl’s childhood was an absentee father (who, according to IMDB.com, left the family when Nick was 2). But according to ex-child star Alison Arngrim, who has worked with A Minor Consideration in the past, stage parents more often screw up in two other ways: They’re either too naive or too nasty.

Natasha Lyonne, who starred in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse at the age of 6 and 20 years later in 2005, landed in a New York hospital with hepatitis C, a collapsed lung and track marks up her arm, has suggested her folks were good examples of Hollywood naiveté.

“Even if they were ready to have children, it is kind of a wacky idea to put your child in business at 6 years old,” she told Heeb Magazine in 2009. “I don’t think they knew better. It was a decision of my parents built on hopeful ignorance.”

Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie and is a board member and spokeswoman for the National Association to Protect Children, cites Lauren Chapin’s father as a symbol of “really nasty” parenting. Before she starred as Kitten in the ’50s series Father Knows Best, Chapin revealed in her 1989 memoir, Father Does Know Best: The Lauren Chapin Story, that her dad started sexually abusing her at the age of three. She recounts how she eventually ran away from home only to become a heroin addict and prostitute.

“If you’re willing to make that jump that you can see your kid as a sex object, big whoop, you can legally go make them work eight hours a day and keep the money,” Arngrim told the Star.“If you can make that jump of seeing your kid as a meal ticket, then how much of a jump is it to see them as a prospective date?”

The latter comment referred to off-and-on drug addict Tatum O’Neal, who at 10 became the youngest actress to win an Oscar for her role in 1973’s Paper Moon. O’Neal’s father admitted in a 2009 issue of Vanity Fair that he hit on his own daughter at his late lover Farrah Fawcett’s funeral.

But Hollywood’s inappropriate treatment of child stars doesn’t stop at sex.

“They don’t think you’re a kid anymore so people decide the rules don’t apply,” Arngrim says, adding that the average routine — school, bedtime, play dates — goes “out the window” in the case of child stars.

“A lot of these people just decide that this person’s a celebrity so give them whatever the hell they want or whatever you think they might want,” she says, “So child actors are offered drugs, sex, anything in the universe.”

For kids who come from traumatic backgrounds, “it’s just a little too easy” to get hooked on substances on set, Arngrim says. But even for the ones who don’t, becoming famous as a child causes its own problems.

Petersen used the term “a bug in amber” to describe child stars like Stahl, who reached the zenith of his celebrity at 13 as the star of Mel Gibson’s directorial debut, The Man Without a Face, and Canada’s Neil Hope, who even in his late 20s was recognized as his teen alter ego Wheels from Degrassi.

Arngrim admits it is a “pain in the ass” to be associated with Nellie Oleson 30 years on, but she made typecasting work for her. Her one-woman show, “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” premiered in 2001, spawned a book and was recently mounted in France.

“I don’t think most people do that and I think that’s why most child actors are incredibly frustrated,” she says.

That appeared to be the case with Hope, who was found dead in 2007 in a Hamilton rooming house. According to the New York Times, by the end of Degrassi’s run in 1991, at only 19, he already had a drinking problem and spent the rest of his brief life struggling with it.

“He got a taste of the limelight early,” his brother told the Star in February. “He was a little bit spoiled, and once it was gone he didn’t know how to handle it.”

Hope was in good company. Chapin told the Spokane Chronicle in 1983 that when Father Knows Best finished, “everything finished.” While Hope chose alcohol, she found solace in drugs.

“Fame is a hard drug and when you are removed from the things that make you famous, you begin to seek alternatives,” Petersen says. “You’re looking for that high and drugs are a cheap and ill-considered means to gain that high.”

A Minor Consideration offers support to child actors (encouraging them to go to university, which Petersen is convinced helped ex-child stars Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields stay on the right path) but their good intentions aren’t always welcome — a child star’s handlers don’t want to blemish the kids’ image or take up too much of their time.

“When people become dependent on your success, they need you to continue to perform,” Petersen says. “It is a pay cheque issue for them — don’t kill the golden goose!”

Though A Minor Consideration is often called to intervene when a young star hits rock bottom, it prefers to perform a preventative function, pointing out young actors’ worth beyond Hollywood. Or, in Petersen’s words, “help them find other targets by which they can measure their success as a person, not as a celebrity or commodity.”

THESE KIDS WEREN’T ALL RIGHT

Nick Stahl, 32

Claim to Fame:The Man Without a Face, 1993

Missing: May 10-18, 2012

Stahl led a tabloid-light life until January, when he was arrested for failing to pay cab fare. A month later, his wife, Rose, requested full custody of their daughter, Marla, allowing Stahl visitation only if he tested negative for cocaine, marijuana and alcohol. She filed a missing person’s report on May 14, claiming she last saw Stahl on the May 9. After reports circulated that he had disappeared into L.A.’s skid row, he emailed friends on May 18 to say he was entering rehab.

Neil Hope, 35

Died: Nov. 25, 2007

Claim to Fame: Wheels on Degrassi, 1979-1991

Missing: 2007-2012

After Degrassi ended in 1991, Hope (who played Wheels), was already abusing alcohol. He drifted around Canada, taking odd jobs and rarely contacting his family, who said he took poor care of his health. He appeared on a Degrassi documentary in 2005 before moving to Hamilton a year later. In Nov., 2007, the landlord of his rooming house found him dead of a heart attack. He had reportedly passed away a week before. He was buried in March 2008. His family learned of his death this past January.

Natasha Lyonne, 32

Claim to Fame: Opal on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, 1986-1987

Missing: April-Aug., 2005

In 1999, Lyonne starred in American Pie and went on to meet troubled child star Edward Furlong that same year on the set of Detroit Rock City. She was arrested for DUI in 2001. Two years later, she was evicted from her apartment by actor Michael Rappaport, who penned an editorial in Jane magazine about her squalid living conditions. In 2005, she was found in a New York hospital with hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung and was undergoing methadone treatment. She went to rehab a year later and is now said to be clean.

Todd Bridges, 47

Claim to Fame: Willis on Diff’rent Strokes, 1978-1986

Missing: Late ’80s

After Diff’rent Strokes was cancelled, Bridges, who was sexually abused at 11, started living in south central L.A. where he became addicted to crack cocaine and methamphetamines. He dealt drugs and acted as a pimp to support his habit. In 1989 he was acquitted of shooting a drug dealer. He went to rehab in 1992 and has been clean ever since.

Danny Bonaduce, 52

Claim to Fame: Danny on The Partridge Family, 1970-1974

Missing: Early ’80s

Following his four years on the Partridge Family, Bonaduce abused drugs and briefly lived in his car behind Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He was arrested for cocaine possession in 1985 and then for attempting to buy the drug in 1990 (while hosting an anti-drug campaign). A year later he was arrested again, for assaulting and robbing a transvestite prostitute. He claims to be sober now.

Lauren Chapin, 62

Claim to Fame: Kitten on Father Knows Best, 1954-1960

Missing: Early ’60s-’70s

She ran away from home after the show ended, when she was just 15, and became addicted to heroin reportedly through a boyfriend. Unable to find work in Hollywood, she became a prostitute to support her habit. The last time she was arrested, she went to rehab and became a born-again Christian in 1979. She is now a licensed and ordained evangelist.

Bobby Driscoll, 31

Died: March 30, 1968

Claim to Fame:Treasure Island, 1950

Missing: 1967-1968

Driscoll was dropped by Disney when he got severe acne during puberty. At 17, he started experimenting with drugs and became addicted to heroin. He entered rehab in his early 20s. In 1962, unable to find work in L.A. he relocated to New York to try his hand on Broadway. He worked in Andy Warhol’s factory from 1965 to 1967 doing collages, before disappearing into the city’s underground. He was found dead in a deserted East Village apartment building following heart failure caused by long-term drug abuse. With no ID, his body went unclaimed until his mother went looking for him 19 months later.

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