BACKGROUND AND AIM There is little academic research on tobacco brand loyalty and switching, and even less in restrictive marketing environments such as Australia. This paper examines tobacco brand family loyalty, reasons for choice of brand and the relation between these and sociodemographic variables over a period of 10 years in Australia. METHODS Data from current Australian smokers from 9...

Bacterial endocarditis is a serious medical complication of heroin addiction and should be suspected in any addict with a fever and positive blood cultures. However, gram-negative bacteria, and particularly Pseudomonas aeruginosa, are uncommon causes of bacterial endocarditis and their presence in a blood culture may be dismissed as a contaminant or as originating from another site. Therefore, ...

Heroin detoxification, as defined here, is dispensing, for a period of less than twenty-one days, decreasing doses of methadone or other symptomatic medication to an addict in an inor outpatient setting in order to alleviate the acute physiological and psychological effects incident to withdrawal from chronic narcotic use. It is a method of bringing the individual to a drug-free state within su...

Naltrexone is a long acting opioid antagonist that is used in rehabilitation programmes to maintain heroin abstinence. It is a relatively new drug prescribed by specialists in substance misuse. Its actions and effects may not be familiar to many accident and emergency doctors or even to the people who take it. A case report is described where accidental ingestion of naltrexone results in a medi...

How can a person get help quitting the use of smokeless tobacco? All of the resources in this general area are geared toward helping smokers stop smoking, but a smokeless tobacco nicotine addict does not have a similar usage ritual as a smoker, but does have a similar, or worse, addiction than a smoker because the nicotine absorption levels are many times greater. Any suggestions as to how a sm...

The abuse of inhaled cocaine causes chemical sinus pathology by secondary midfacial destruction and necrosis. When midfacial necrosis is already established, other complications may occur related to the proximity of structures such as the orbit or optic nerve. We present the evolution of a young cocaine addict with midfacial destruction, who has had a subperiosteal abscess and optic neuritis ov...

One month after a 21-year-old female drug addict with tricuspid staphylococcal endocarditis seemed to have been cured by antibiotic therapy she relapsed. Further antibiotic treatment for one month failed to control the infection. Tricuspidectomy was when performed and the infection was eliminated. A valve prosthesis was inserted 3 months later. She recovered and is now fully restored to health....