Perth's black market in prescription drugs is booming and health professionals say they cannot control it.
With a single tablet of the powerful painkiller oxycodone selling on the street for $50, trade is thriving and doctors and pharmacists say they do not have the powers or the tools they need to identify dealers and addicts.
"Every doctor and every pharmacy in this State has stand-alone computers, but these computers don't talk to each other so there is no simple centralised record of who is getting what," Lenette Mullen, of the Pharmacy Guild of WA, said.
Without that information there is no way to stop doctor-shopping - where people visit a string of GPs and collect numerous prescriptions for powerful drugs.
Addiction specialist Dr George O'Neil says he is seeing more and more people addicted to prescription drugs.
"Prescription drug addicts use doctors and pharmacists in the same way as heroin addicts use street dealers," he said.
Figures from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme show nearly 134,000 scripts for oxycodone were dispensed in WA last year costing taxpayers $5.78 million.
No-one can say how many of these scripts ended up on the black market.
"Addicts get the same high from many prescription drugs as you get from heroin and we all know that doctors and pharmacists don't share their records - so doctor-shopping is a low-risk way of getting safe drugs," former drug addict and "doctor-shopper" Mike Desbouvrie said.
Society's Child
Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato has expressed anger at the central government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., saying both "betrayed" the people of Fukushima Prefecture with repeated assurances about the safety of nuclear power plants.
"We feel we were betrayed [by the central government and TEPCO]," Sato said during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday, nearly a month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the outbreak of a series of accidents at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant.
"The central government and TEPCO repeatedly told us, 'Nuclear power plants are safe because they've got multiple protection systems,' and, 'Earthquake-proof measures have been taken,'" Sato said.
© Reuters/Toru Hanai
Protesters take part in an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo March 27, 2011. The sign on the left reads, "Change energy policy". The sign on the right reads, "Do not sprinkle radioactive material".
Protesters take part in an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo March 27, 2011. The sign on the left reads, "Change energy policy". The sign on the right reads, "Do not sprinkle radioactive material".
Around the JR Koenji Station in Suginami Ward, some 15,000 people took part in a demonstration march organized by local shop owners and reported online as a call for joining the event had spread on Twitter, organizers said.
''I learned of the event on Twitter. Now is the time to stop nuclear plants,'' said Takashi Kamiyama, who took part with his 2- and 6-year-old children among participants. ''I want to do what I can do for these kids.''
As an organizer, Hajime Matsumoto said, ''It's epoch-making that so many people gathered without being mobilized by a large organization. It's become big power as we joined hands over the Internet.''
Thousands of Americans have staged a protest rally in New York City to voice concerns over US war and foreign policies as well as the economy and the persisting reduction of social programs.
Scores of peace, labor and community activists took to the streets of the major commercial city on Saturday to call for peace and solidarity with Muslims and an end to US wars abroad, a Press TV correspondent reported.
"I am sick and tired of the elite trying to rule the country, the elite that is only one percent (of the society), ruling the country and getting us into wars that we do not need. Not paying their fair share of taxes while we suffer cutbacks in social programs," a demonstrator said.
The protesters called on Washington to create more job opportunities in a bid to revive the fragile US economy.
More than 500 organizations also came together from communities across the US to call for an end to government harassment of Muslim immigrants and people of color.
They also called for the restoration of peace and democracy.
Scores of peace, labor and community activists took to the streets of the major commercial city on Saturday to call for peace and solidarity with Muslims and an end to US wars abroad, a Press TV correspondent reported.
"I am sick and tired of the elite trying to rule the country, the elite that is only one percent (of the society), ruling the country and getting us into wars that we do not need. Not paying their fair share of taxes while we suffer cutbacks in social programs," a demonstrator said.
The protesters called on Washington to create more job opportunities in a bid to revive the fragile US economy.
More than 500 organizations also came together from communities across the US to call for an end to government harassment of Muslim immigrants and people of color.
They also called for the restoration of peace and democracy.
An Alaska Airlines flight headed from Sacramento to Hawaii turned around and landed safely after striking a bird this morning, airport officials reported.
Flight 869 reportedly had engine trouble after the bird strike, but no damage details were available.
The plane, which took off at about 10 a.m., landed safely at Sacramento International Airport and the passengers deplaned.
There was no information available on reboarding or rescheduling for the passengers.
Why progressives need to think beyond the mantra of creating a "middle class America."
We want a decent home to call our own, healthcare to heal us when we are sick or old, education to improve our minds and job prospects, healthy food and clean water to nourish us, income to provide for all our needs and even some affordable luxuries, a career to give us social status and a sense of self-worth, and a pension for our golden years.
These seemingly universal desires define the post-WWII American Dream, and are still the reference point for both left and right. The "Golden Age of American Capitalism" from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s is commonly seen as the triumph of the middle class, a time when the fruits of a robust capitalist economy extended to tens of millions.
But today we are trapped in the fault lines of a violent global economy, and these dreams seem as archaic as waking up at dawn with the grandparents, children and cousins to milk cows, bake pies and plow fields.
However outdated the American Dream, organized labor and liberals desperately cling to it as they retreat in the face of the Republican and corporate blitzkrieg. In this war, the battlefield is social spending and the public sector, and for the losing side the situation is dire. (The critique that follows is not of the rank and file or all unions, but rather the dominant tendencies among many labor leaders and large national unions.)
© Unknown
These seemingly universal desires define the post-WWII American Dream, and are still the reference point for both left and right. The "Golden Age of American Capitalism" from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s is commonly seen as the triumph of the middle class, a time when the fruits of a robust capitalist economy extended to tens of millions.
But today we are trapped in the fault lines of a violent global economy, and these dreams seem as archaic as waking up at dawn with the grandparents, children and cousins to milk cows, bake pies and plow fields.
However outdated the American Dream, organized labor and liberals desperately cling to it as they retreat in the face of the Republican and corporate blitzkrieg. In this war, the battlefield is social spending and the public sector, and for the losing side the situation is dire. (The critique that follows is not of the rank and file or all unions, but rather the dominant tendencies among many labor leaders and large national unions.)
© Damon Winter/The New York Times
A nurse administered methadone to Matthew, 4 weeks old, at a medical center in Bangor, Me., while he was held by his father.
A nurse administered methadone to Matthew, 4 weeks old, at a medical center in Bangor, Me., while he was held by his father.
The mother had abused prescription painkillers like OxyContin for the first 12 weeks of her pregnancy, buying them on the street in rural northern Maine, and then tried to quit cold turkey - a dangerous course, doctors say, that could have ended in miscarriage. The baby had seizures in utero as a result, and his mother, Tonya, turned to methadone treatment, with daily doses to keep her cravings and withdrawal symptoms at bay.
As prescription drug abuse ravages communities across the country, doctors are confronting an emerging challenge: newborns dependent on painkillers. While methadone may have saved Tonya's pregnancy, her son, Matthew, needed to be painstakingly weaned from it.
Infants like him may cry excessively and have stiff limbs, tremors, diarrhea and other problems that make their first days of life excruciating. Many have to stay in the hospital for weeks while they are weaned off the drugs, taxing neonatal units and driving the cost of their medical care into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Like the cocaine-exposed babies of the 1980s, those born dependent on prescription opiates - narcotics that contain opium or its derivatives - are entering a world in which little is known about the long-term effects on their development. Few doctors are even willing to treat pregnant opiate addicts, and there is no universally accepted standard of care for their babies, partly because of the difficulty of conducting research on pregnant women and newborns.
- Calls to vice girls made on untraceable cell phones
- He thwarted police with three-minute calls to sister of victim
- They believe he may have murdered four prostitutes in Atlantic City in 2006
- Search widened to Nassau County
The startling new theory emerged as it was revealed the last man to see suspected victim Shannan Gilbert believes the prostitute is still alive.
Officers in Long Island where four bodies of of vice girls have been dug up, are convinced the killer could be in law enforcement because:
© Facebook
Shannan Gilbert: The 24-year-old was last seen in May 2010 in the Oak Beach area. She is from Jersey City and was known to be a prostitute.
Shannan Gilbert: The 24-year-old was last seen in May 2010 in the Oak Beach area. She is from Jersey City and was known to be a prostitute.
© Unknown
A boisterous, anti-war rally in Manhattan on Saturday with activists demanding an end to U.S. involved conflicts.
Hundreds of demonstrators took part in the Union Square rally on Saturday afternoon.
Protestors said if the U.S. would pull out of the wars it's involved in, the government wouldn't need to cut spending on programs such as Medicare, Head Start and Medicaid.
© Komae/AP
Kunio Shiga poses for a photo at his home in Minami Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, inside the deserted evacuation zone established for the 20 kilometer radius around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in northeastern Japan. The 75-year-old man was stranded alone in his farmhouse ever since Japan's monstrous tsunami struck nearly a month ago.
Kunio Shiga poses for a photo at his home in Minami Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, inside the deserted evacuation zone established for the 20 kilometer radius around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in northeastern Japan. The 75-year-old man was stranded alone in his farmhouse ever since Japan's monstrous tsunami struck nearly a month ago.
© Komae/AP
The devasation in Minami Soma.
The devasation in Minami Soma.
He doesn't know where his wife is, and his neighbors have all fled his city of Minami Soma because it's within the 12-mile zone of a radiation-leaking plant. Authorities had ordered evacuations but Shiga, who has trouble walking, and was unable to leave.
"You are the first people I have spoken to" since the earthquake and tsunami, Shiga told the Associated Press.
With the man's permission, local police were notified of his dire situation.
