College students and use of K2: an emerging drug of abuse in young persons

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>K2 or "spice" has emerged as a popular legal alternative to marijuana among adolescents and young adults. However, no data has been published assessing prevalence of and associations with ever K2 use in any population. This study's aims were to examine prevalence of ever K2 use among a sample of college students, to determine characteristics of persons who use K2, and to access the association between K2 and other drug use.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Ever use of K2 was reported by 69 (8%) of the sample of 852 college students. Response rate was 36%. Bivariate and multivariate analyses assessed whether sociodemographic characteristics and other drug use were associated with ever use of K2. Ever use of K2 was reported by 69 (8%) of the sample. Among these 69 individuals, 61 (88%) had used a cigarette and 25 (36%) had used a hookah to smoke K2. In multivariate analyses, K2 use was more common in males (vs. females, adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) = 2.0, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.2-3.5, <it>p </it>= 0.01) and 1^stor 2^ndyear college students (vs. 3^rdyear or above, aOR = 2.4, 95% CI = 1.2-5.0, <it>p </it>= 0.02).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Ever use of K2 in this sample was higher than ever use of many other drugs of abuse that are commonly monitored in adolescents and young adults. Although DEA had banned five synthetic cannabinoids recently, clinicians and public health officials concerned with substance abuse in youth should be aware of and monitor the use of this drug in college students over time.</p

Triage Method for Out-of-Hospital Poisoned Patients

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a triage method to prevent unnecessary emergency department visits of out-of-hospital poisoned patients. From October 2003 to September 2004, the calls that lay persons gave to the Seoul Emergency Medical Information Center to seek advices on the out-of-hospital poisoned patients were enrolled. We designed a triage protocol that consisted of five factors and applied it to the patients. According to the medical outcomes, we classified the patients into two groups, the toxicity-positive and the toxicity-negative. We arranged the factors on the basis of the priority that was determined in order of the odds ratio of each factor for the toxicity-positive and made a flow chart as a triage method. Then we calculated a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the method. We regarded the specificity as the ability of the method and the sensitivity as the safety. A total of 220 patients were enrolled in this study. The method showed a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 99.2%, 53.4%, 76.2%, and 97.9%, respectively. Our triage method prevented 53.4% of the unnecessary emergency department visits of out-of-hospital acutely poisoned patients, safely