Drug Use on the Rise
Powered by the popularity of methamphetamines and perhaps aided by the legalization of medicinal marijuana in several states, illegal drug use spiked sharply last year, reaching its highest level in almost a decade, according to a government report. About 21.8 million Americans, or 8.7 percent of the population, used illegal drugs last year—up about 9 percent from the previous year. Methamphetamines were among the report’s biggest villains with its use skyrocketing 60 percent. Ecstasy use rose 37 percent. A piece of good news: Cocaine use continues to drop, down 32 percent from its high in 2006. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Policy, said he wasn’t surprised with the rise. He says society has been growing more tolerant of drug use, and the fact that so many states have approved medicinal marijuana doesn’t help. “I think all the attention and the focus of calling marijuana medicine has sent the absolute wrong message to our young people,” he said. (AP)

Text Books?
Passing notes in class? That’s soooo 20th century. A recent survey by textPlus found that 42.5 percent of students ages 13-17 have texted during class, and more than half of those say they’ve made a habit of texting “sometimes” or “often.” If it’s any consolation, perhaps many of those students actually are talking with Mom or Dad. According to the survey, two-thirds of teens say they’ve received texts from their parents during class. (FastCompany.com)

Not-So-Sweet Deal
About 25 students in Roswell, N.M., apparently are facing suspension and detention after leaving doughnuts augmented with Bible verses in their teachers’ lounges. The students all belong to a youth group called Relentless in Roswell, part of the Church on the Move. Earlier, the same students were disciplined for bringing dolls that resembled fetuses to school, which also were festooned with Bible verses and advertised the services of a local pregnancy center. School officials said it has a policy against advertising and solicitation on campus, but the church since has filed suit. About 200 members of the church protested against the school following the most recent flap. One of the protesters was Sheila Bejarano, mother of a 16-year-old boy who received detention after the doughnut incident. “My son was showing kindness…and he was punished?” she said. “What did my child do that was so wrong?” (AP)

‘F’ as in Facebook
Facebook users can expect to get 20 percent lower grades than those who don’t use the popular social networking site, according to a new study by Netherlands psychologist Paul Kirschnera. Kirschnera studied more than 200 American college students during the course of the study: The average grade point average for a Facebook user was 3.06 while a non-user typically had a 3.82 GPA. Critics might look at these results with a bit of skepticism. The number of college students who don’t use Facebook might be thought to be freakishly small these days, making the results less than representative. Kirschnera says the study instead reflects on the fallacy of multitasking. “The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks,” he says. “Our study and other previous work suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes.” (MSNBC)