USA: Schmidt an Open Book on Greenies

IF the use of steroids enhanced the power-hitting abilities of players, as the untested but commonly held belief goes, then we have already seen the effect of the elimination of steroids use. Last season, when fewer than 1 percent of major league players tested positive for steroids, home runs declined by 8 percent.

This year, another chemical aid, amphetamines, will be eliminated. For the first time, players will be tested and face sanctions for the use of those little green pills — greenies in the vernacular — that have been a staple in baseball longer than hot dogs and beer.

Amphetamines "have been around the game forever," the Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt writes in his new book, "Clearing the Bases," which HarperCollins will publish next month. "In my day," he says, they "were widely available in major-league clubhouses."

That Major League Baseball chooses to act against amphetamines in 2006 is farcical. You almost have to cover your face when you snicker at the thought.

Better late than never? It depends on how late you're talking about. If you were to put Commissioner Bud Selig under oath, he would have to admit that he has known about amphetamines for 36 years, ever since he took a baseball team to Milwaukee in 1970.

His predecessors knew about them, too, but they didn't want to do anything about them, either. At a drug trial in Pittsburgh in 1985, Dale Berra and Dave Parker testified that Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock dispensed greenies to their Pirates teammates. John Milner told the jury that Willie Mays had a bottle of red juice, or liquid amphetamines, in his locker when they played for the Mets.

Peter Ueberroth, then the commissioner, opted not to believe their testimony. But the pills were readily available in all clubhouses, often dispensed by team trainers and other medical personnel.

"They were obtainable with a prescription," Schmidt writes, "but be under no illusion that the name on the bottle always coincided with the name of the player taking them before game time."

The pills energized players, helped get them through a tough series of games, a 162-game schedule played in 182 days. The only thing a player had to do was make sure he didn't take a pill prematurely. Players like to tell of teammates who took pills before games, then had the games rained out and spent the rest of the night climbing walls.

Schmidt doesn't acknowledge in the book that he used greenies, but in a telephone interview Sunday, he said, "A couple times in my career I bit on it."

He added: "There were a few times in my career when I felt I needed help to get in there. I'm a victim; I admit to it. I'm not incriminating myself or players I played with to say we were on amphetamines our entire careers. I just wanted to see what they would do. It was a lack of willpower. You had an impressionable young kid, and someone says, 'Man you want to feel good?' If I had to do it over, I probably wouldn't do it. You can't put a 56-year-old head on a 28-year-old kid."

But if steroids testing drove power production down, how will testing for greenies affect players and, by extension, the game?

Will it sap speed out of players' swings? In some games, will they have to stop at second base on a double instead of bursting around the base and trying for third? Will they come up short on a diving attempt for a line drive in the gap? Will a whole bunch of players play lethargically?

In the book — in which Schmidt also discusses Barry Bonds, the legacies of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, and Pete Rose — Schmidt writes that the elimination of amphetamines could have "possibly far greater implications for the game than the crackdown against steroids."

He explains in the book that "amphetamine use in baseball is both far more common and has been going on a lot longer than steroid abuse."

In the interview, Schmidt, a former third baseman for the Phillies who hit 548 home runs, said he didn't have firsthand knowledge of the extent of amphetamine use today.

"I don't have any sense of what's going to happen," he said. "Will there be more days off? Will there be more lethargic games? But my guess would be that there will be nothing we'll be able to visibly see. We're not going to see a big drop in performance. I don't think we'll see any marked difference in the game."

What if baseball had acted to rid the game of amphetamines in his playing days?

"I think you would have learned to face that game," Schmidt said, "where you probably didn't have the energy to go on the field in St. Louis when it was 115 degrees and the game went into extra innings the night before and you had played every day for a couple weeks. You might have had a couple cups of coffee. You'd adapt."

The World Baseball Classic starts tomorrow in the US. Australia is in Pool D, with the Dominican Republic, Italy and Venezuela. Australia's first game is against Italy on Wednesday, live at noon on ESPN.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Tues, 28 February 2006
Source: The New York Times (USA)
Author: Murray Chass
Website: http://www.nytimes.com

Australia: Three charged in 'ice' find denied bail

Police say they expect to make further arrests after seizing $17.5 million worth of drugs at Sydney's Port Botany.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Customs found 46 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, known as 'ice', in a speedboat imported in a shipping container from Canada.

Three men charged in connection to the seizure have appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court this afternoon.

Luke Burnett, 25, from Sadleir, Jay Heathcote, 25, from Bringelly and 23-year-old Pham Ngoc Minh from Liverpool have all been refused bail.

The Deputy Manager of the AFP's Sydney office, David Stewart, says it is the fifth largest seizure of the drug in Australia.

"We've successfully dismantled this syndicate and we believe that we prevented this drug from reaching the Australian streets and preventing some serious health concerns amongst our youth."

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Tue, 07 February 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia Web)
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/

USA: 'Meth mouth' a consequence of drug abuse

Each front tooth was the shape of an apple core, with the rotten enamel eaten away and the exquisitely sensitive central nerve exposed. The back teeth were decayed beyond repair as well. The patient lived in a constant vigil of pain, unable to chew, drink or even speak without eliciting the unbearable ache. His only hope for relief was that someone would extract all his nonrestorable teeth - teeth that should have lasted him a lifetime.

This pattern of tooth decay, caused by unrelenting sugar cravings, dehydration and an absence of dental hygiene, is what we call "early childhood caries" and generally occurs in young children in rural areas with poor hygiene and no access to dental care. But this condition is now seen in people in their teens, twenties and beyond - even in those whose teeth have been healthy and well-cared for throughout their lives.

What is ravaging the mouths of our older adolescents and young adults? The answer is simple and very frightening. The popularity of methamphetamine, an easily produced drug that is being abused throughout rural America, is leading to the destruction of adult dental health. Here in Maine, methamphetamine use is growing, and we can safely predict a parallel rise in serious dental problems among those users.

"Meth mouth" is the result of methamphetamine's pronounced drying effect on the mouth and the user's constant consumption of carbonated beverages to relieve that dryness. Combined with little or no tooth brushing, the end result is quick, devastating tooth decay - often in just a few months.

Furthering this crisis is the fact that most methamphetamine users are poor, with little access to dental care. The cost of fixing the teeth of a person ravaged by meth mouth is almost limitless, yet many of those affected have little or no way to pay for this care. The net result for our society will be a growing segment of poor adults with ravaged mouths.

Dr. Robert Brandjord, president of the American Dental Association, testified before a special U.S. Senate panel on the dental effects of methamphetamine abuse in late January. During his testimony, he said: "Often, there is no hope of treating methamphetamine damaged teeth, leading to full-mouth extractions. This can, and in some cases already has, led to significant increases in oral health care costs for society."

Not immune to this epidemic will be the children of those addicted to methamphetamine. The theory of vertical transmission, where a parent or caregiver infects a child with the bacteria that causes tooth decay, is multiplied when a parent has very active dental disease. Thus, methamphetamine use now further complicates our attempts to take control of the rise in tooth decay among children in Maine and across the United States.

Ultimately, the solution to this dental epidemic is not to find more dental providers to treat those impacted by meth mouth. The solution is to eliminate the abuse of methamphetamine. Already, positive steps have been taken here in Maine by making it more difficult to possess the ingredients to produce this dangerous drug. But, as with most narcotics, new ways will be found to produce a popular product.

In the meantime, we will be faced with a prison population with escalating dental costs, overwhelmed community health centers struggling to provide adequate services, increased emergency room costs due to dental pain and infection and the undeniable social stigma associated with rampant tooth decay in adults.

Ultimately, it is the people of the state of Maine who will lose the most, as we watch our rural communities deteriorate.

Dr. Jonathan Shenkin specializes in children's dental care. His practice is in Bangor.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Thursday, 02 February 2006
Source: Bangor Daily News (USA)
Author: Dr. Jonathan Shenkin
Website: http://www.bangornews.com/

New Zealand: Cardiologist accused of methamphetamine conspiracy

An Auckland Hospital cardiologist went on trial at Auckland District Court yesterday accused of supplying a precurser drug for manufacturing pure methamphetamine worth up to $13 million.

Xiao-Zhong Chen, 55, pleaded not guilty to seven charges of supplying the drug Telfast knowing it was to be used in manufacturing methamphetamine.

Crown prosecutor Kirsten Lummis alleged Chen conspired with three others between November 20, 2003, and August 30, 2004 to supply pseudoephedrine, an ingredient found in Telfast, for the manufacture of P.

She said Chen bought 22,000 boxes of Telfast at $12 each over an eight-month period, on-selling them to an associate known only as Yang for $25 a box.

Yang, skipped the country while on bail, allegedly on-sold the boxes for $100 each.

Ms Lummis said Chen made $200,000 out of the sale of Telfast.

She said Chen paid cash for the bulk cold and flu remedy from Auckland-based pharmaceutical supplier Anspec Limited, telling them the Telfast was for export to China - where the product was unavailable.

In the largest purchase in February 2004, Chen paid $56,628 for 5200 boxes.

Ms Lummis said police set up a surveillance operation August 30, 2004, and watched Chen collect 2000 Telfast boxes from Anspec Ltd in Henderson in a car supplied by Yang.

Chen then drove to Auckland Hospital where he gave the car and Telfast supply to Yang and another associate, Jin.

Police followed Yang and Jin to a Hillsborough residence, in Auckland, where they executed a search warrant and arrested Yang, Jin and a further associate, who appeared before the court earlier yesterday.

Chen was arrested later that night and in his video interview, Ms Lummis said he told police he was unaware the Telfast was being converted into P.

"The crown says this is a clear case of wilful blindness.

"Taking a cut of $200,000 - that sort of profit is too good to be true," Ms Lummis said.

Prosecution witness Detective Sergeant John Sowter of Auckland metro drug squad said pseudoephedrine was the primary ingredient in P. He said between 50-75 per cent of pseudoephedrine content could be converted into methamphetamine.

Ms Lummis said Chen supplied the equivalent of 13.2kg worth of P.

Mr Sowter said one gram fetched between $600-$1000 on the black market.

P was usually bought in "points" - one point, or one tenth of a gram, costing the buyer between $80-$120.

Defence counsel Paul Davison QC told the jury of eight women and four men that there was no dispute Chen paid cash for bulk supplies of Telfast from Anspec Ltd. on seven different occasions.

He said, however, Chen believed the Telfast was then being legally exported to China to be used as a cold and flu remedy.

"Defence is he did not know the product was going to be converted into a controlled drug, namely P," Mr Davison said.

The trial is expected to last for seven days.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Contact: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/feedback/1,2280,,00.html
Website: http://www.stuff.co.nz/
Copyright: Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2006
Url: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3557593a12855,00.html