College Experiments Dangerous

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When many people think of college, especially aspiring students, they think of it as a time to cut loose, a time to let go. Perhaps the ever infamous “South Park” character “Chef” said it best in an older episode, “there’s a time and place for everything children,” the lovable mentor said. “And it’s called college.”

In a recent editorial in The University Echo Online, they discuss the fact that administrators are rejoicing that college campuses are gradually losing their stigmas as locations for drunken debauchery and drug use. Traditionally the article says, the college years were viewed as times of “few responsibilities” that students took advantage of to explore the “possibilities that would be unavailable to them once they entered the real world.”

Now, the piece goes on to claim, college campuses have become places for “judgmental chastity and restriction.” The true shock is when the article goes on to say that this may be a BAD thing, that these new restrictions will cause alums to experiment later in life and cause themselves more harm.

As a former police/court reporter at Washington State University, a college still recovering from its label as Playboy’s #1 party school in America some years ago, I am going to vouch for the fact that the drug use, sexual acts and excessive drinking have not actually tapered down, but instead gone underground. Sure, gone may be the times of 5-block wide parties that attract celebrities and leave houses in shambles, but there exists just as big a problem as ever.

I composed an article some months ago concerning the rise in cocaine use among students, a very dangerous trend indeed. It turns out that there has been a sharp decrease in the trafficking of party drugs such as Ecstasy and the new nationwide killer methamphetamine, as my source, Undersheriff Ronald Rockness, told me, but unfortunately there has been a dangerous spike in the use of cocaine, making it the next most popular drug after marijuana.

As it turns out, many students view cocaine to be cleaner and safer than “X” and “meth,” because of these drugs’ nature of being manufactured in homemade clandestine labs. This is a very dangerous attitude to hold towards the very mentally addictive and dangerous stimulant.

According to DrugFree, a popular anti-drug website, some of the side effects of cocaine use can include: high body temperature, paranoia, aggression, destruction of nasal tissue, and depression after quitting use.

These are some very dangerous side-effects for students to consider. It is very difficult I assume, to be a drug user of this magnitude and succeed in school. It is for this reason that I disagree with the Echo’s editorial. Administrators should be cracking down on these dangerous behaviors and have a right to embrace the decrease, if in fact it does occur. Some of these things are far too dangerous for students to experiment with, even once, as it may cause their future and current lives to be in danger.

The sleep we deserve

Sleep is a very vital part of human life. We spend over a third of our lives doing it, yet no one really understands what goes on when we close our eyes at night. Students in particular don't get enough sleep and as a result have been suffering from all sorts of symptoms, perhaps with out even knowing it.

In this three minute audio production I examine, through interviews and research, just how much our lives might improve if we were allowed to spend more time in bed. Click on the link below, and give me some feedback on the subject. Enjoy.

Smoking put out by taxes

7,500 cigarettes, three weeks of your life and just under two thousand dollars: That’s what a person who smokes one pack a day could save themselves by quitting for only one year, and let’s face it, most people don’t smoke just one pack a day.

Some months ago Washington enacted the most restrictive ban in United States history, making it a punishable offense to smoke within twenty feet of a public building. This therefore, also put bar and tavern owners at risk of being fined for allowing people to smoke near their establishments.

The trend seems to be catching on too. Across the country, states like California and Minnesota are working to enact similar policies. Anything from not allowing smoking in bars, to enacting huge tobacco taxes to deter smokers, the country is really out to stop this problem.

There is one setback that it seems no one really anticipated. A few years ago, one in five adults smoked, according to an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Now, with the pushing through of all these new regulations, that number is down, and as a result so is the money in the treasury. In Minnesota, where the article was published, tobacco tax collections have fallen about 1% a year consistently, or about 4-5 million dollars annually.

State budgeters attribute this to the raise in taxes, calling it a sin tax, and the most justifiable one that you can raise. Tobacco taxes amounted to 13 billion dollars nationally last year.. It seems that the taxes have reached their peak, finally becoming so high that it has forced many consumers to lay down there cancer sticks.

While many state penny pinchers may see this as an unanticipated setback, I view it as a huge blessing. We’ve finally reached the point where cigarettes are deterring people by themselves; we don’t even need to produce negative advertising. If these prices and regulations continue to increase, we could be on our way to a healthier, smoke free nation, and everyone has to be happy about that especially the smokers who stand to save thousands.

Nap for your Health!

With the ever-increasing rate of American obesity, heart disease is growing as a real health issue. As the leading cause of death in America, it’s scary to think that so many people simply ignore it when they pull up to the drive-thru at McDonalds.

It’s a fact; our waistlines are growing faster than ever. If there’s anything greater than our obsession with fast food, it’s our downright reluctance and laziness to do anything about it.

There is some good news in sight though for those of us who want to be healthy and still enjoy ourselves.

In an article for Forbes.com, research has revealed that being a little lazy might actually help your heart stay healthy. In the article, a study of Greek men and women revealed that taking a midday nap may reduce your risk of heart disease by up to 30 percent. These naps, or siestas, are very common in Mediterranean countries and a few places in Latin America, all of which have comparatively low rates of heart disease.

The study followed over 20,000 individuals for an average of 6.3 years, monitoring their habits. They found that a daily nap was ultimately a good way to lower the risk of heart disease. Even people who napped only occasionally found their risk to be reduced by about 12%.

This is good news for people in countries such as Mexico and Spain, and may spell out some employer work day changes within the U.S. if these findings are confirmed.

Researchers say that the cause for this odd association between sleep and heart problems, may simply be the stress component. A nap relieves a lot of the stress that you may feel, which would greatly benefit a working individual, they hypothesized. The improvements caused by taking a siesta were greatly reduced in those individuals who did not have jobs.

However the team behind the study wanted to be clear that taking a nap, despite their results, was no substitute for a proper diet and exercise regime. They advised that people who don’t currently nap wait for the results of further research and stick to what’s been proven effective for now: Exercise regularly, don’t smoke and maintain a healthy weight and blood pressure level.

Fiber: Too many benefits to count

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Miracle fixes are all the fad these days. Nowhere can you look without seeing a pill, machine or special new routine that’s guaranteed to turn your life around. There’s actually a diet pill on the market that advertises itself as being “one-hundred dollars a bottle because it works.”

It turns out that the quick solution that everyone’s looking for might not come from an infomercial or in a bottle. It’s probably in your cabinet or refrigerator right now.

An article in the Orlando Sentinel explores the lives of a couple of people who have made drastic changes in their lives, losing large amounts of weight and improving their quality of living, by simply adding fiber to their diet. One woman in the article lost 60 pounds since starting the Fiber35 Diet, published by Brenda Watson, the co-owner of ReNew Life formulas in Palm Harbor. According to Watson, people are increasingly turning to fiber in the battle to shed weight.

Well it begs the question, what is fiber? It’s a question that apparently most Americans don’t know the answer to; the American Heart Association (AHA) says that the average American only gets half of their daily value of this precious material. Quite simply, fiber is a substance found in plants, known commonly as roughage, that the body cannot digest, helping promote regularity Foods such as grains, oats, brans, fruits and beans are all high in soluble fiber, the form that’s also been shown to lower cholesterol, according to the AHA. Foods high in insoluble fiber, shown to help improve bowel function and help reduce weight include things like whole wheat bread and cereal, rice vegetables and apple skin.

On a side note apples are one of the best sources of fiber, their skin being full of the insoluble form, and the pulp loaded with the soluble type.

In addition to weight loss, lower cholesterol and some claims of cancer preventative properties, eating a diet rich in fiber will benefit you in other ways as well. Everyone should try to get at least 35 grams of fiber a day, according to Watson, and doing so will teach you optimum nutrition and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Also, foods rich in fiber are also rich in many other essential nutrients, proving yet another unexpected benefit.

However, both Watson and the AHA warn that you can overdo it. If you eat too much fiber you will likely suffer from gas and diarrhea, and if you don’t drink enough water, which is essential in a high-fiber diet, you run the risk of developing intestinal blockage.

It’s no doubt to me that the obesity rate in America is due to a lack of education about essential substances like fiber. Getting that average number above half would greatly benefit the health, not to mention the waistlines, of our nation.

Vitamins, Miracle Cure or Curse?

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In the battle to stay healthy in an increasingly fast-paced world, people are constantly taking shortcuts to stay healthy. One of the biggest trends that has been building for the last several decades has been the use of vitamin supplements. You can just take a handful, or even better, just one pill in the morning that supposedly has all of the vitamins and minerals for your day. Sounds great for someone always on the go, with no time to think about what they eat.

Well, as it always seems to turn out, there is a catch. Some of these vitamin supplements may pose a risk to some people, with that risk growing even more when they misuse or overuse the product. A New York Times piece titled, “Revisiting a Poison Control Database on Supplement Risks,” serves as a correction on another article, but also highlights the number of adverse reactions to these substances. Granted, the number is rather low, so to be clear I am not advocating that everybody quit taking vitamins, but rather be careful when beginning a regimen, waiting to see how your body reacts, and to always listen to your doctor or at least the label when determining dosage.

According to the Times article, of the 125,595 exposures to supplements documented by the Poison Control Center, 17,843 of them resulted in health care visits, which is over 10 percent of the cases.

Another article by the New York Times, “Vitamins: More may be too much,” looked to over-using vitamin A as being a potential hazard. The article estimated that 70 percent of Americans occasionally use supplements, with 40 percent using them regularly. Of these health conscious people, there is a sub-set that may be pre-disposed to over doing it. Some supplements contain up to four times the recommended daily dosage of vitamin A, a fact that may put some people at greater risk for bone breakage and weakness.

Dr. Benjamin Caballero, a member of the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academy of Sciences said to the interviewing reporter, “that the difference between the recommended dose and a dose that could lead to bad outcomes like osteoperosis is not large.”

He added that popular multivitamins often contain what could be considered risky doses.
Admittedly, this risk affects only a small amount of the population, but with the growing amount of multivitamins and health-conscious consumers, it’s one that we should be aware of. The best thing to do is always check the label, do research or when in doubt, ask a doctor.