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HOW TO KNOW WHEN A FRIEND HAS A GAMBLING PROBLEM

               In a report to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, researchers at Duke University alluded to a link between the way gambling is advertised and belief in the supernatural. The report states: “Many [lottery] ads are unabashedly materialistic. Yet this is not the materialism of hard work and perseverance but rather of genies and magnetic lamps, rooted in hopes, dreams, and superstition. And every lottery manager knows that many of his or her best customers base their bets on personal superstitions, astrological tables, self-styled seers, and the venerable ‘dream books’ that list numbers corresponding to names, dates, and dreams. Rather than emphasizing that all numbers have the same probability of being selected and that playing popular numbers will reduce a person’s expected payoff in pari-mutuel games, lottery agencies have chosen to encourage players to choose ( and stick with) personally significant numbers. “Gambling did not affect my

DRUGS: LIVES RUINED, LIVES LOST

                                     Drugs are like sledgehammers,” points out Dr. Eric Nestler. Indeed, a single dose of these chemical sledgehammers can be deadly. “Crack cocaine, for example, has been known to kill people the first time they used it,” explains the book Drugs In America. The new wave of synthetic drugs can be just as hazardous. “Gullible youngsters buying drugs at a ‘rave’ party can have no idea of what chemical cocktail is about to bombard their brains,” warns the United Nations World Drug Report. For most youngsters, however, the descent into the depths of drugs addiction is gradual one, as the following examples illustrate.                                                “AN ESCAPE FROM REALITY” Pedro, one of nine children, was born in a rough neighborhood in the city of Cordoba, Spain. His childhood was traumatic because of his father’s alcoholism. When Pedro was 14, his cousin introduced him to hashish. Within, a month, he was hooked. “T

HOW ILLICIT DRUGS AFFECT YOUR LIFE AND HEALTH

           Like the dry rot that eats away the wooden beams of a house, drugs can corrode the whole structure of society. For human society to function properly, it must have stable families, healthy workers, trustworthy governments, honest police, and law-abiding citizens. Drugs corrupt every one of these fundamental elements. One reason governments have banned nonmedical drug is the damage that it does to the health of their citizens. Every year thousands of drug addicts die of an overdose. Many more die of AIDS. Indeed, some 22 percent of the world’s HIV-positive population are drug users who injected themselves with infested needles. With good reason, at a recent United Nations conference, Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, from Qatar, warned that “the global village is about to become a communal tomb for millions of human beings as a result of the illicit drugs trade.” But more than the health of the user is affected. About 10 percent of all babies born in the Unit