European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 20, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 6 a the stars and stripes Friday december 20, 1991 Bush s War on drugs in Retreat Survey says by the new York times Washington a cocaine and heroin use Are once again on the Rise in the United states administration officials said wednesday one year after president Bush triumphantly announced a Sharp drop in illicit drug use. The data compiled from a National Survey and Hospital Rcpt its were the first reversal in the presidents Campaign against drugs since late 1989, when it became Clear that the cocaine epidemic was beginning to Wane. Administration officials said the increases were greatest in the inner cities and among people 35 years of age and older who arc believed to have been using drugs for some time. For Young people the use of cocaine continued to decline but at a slower rate than a year ago. A this dramatically Points out one of the sad lessons of the drug War a said Bob Martinez director of National drug control policy. A once you Start to use drugs its very hard to get off and stay  the annual Survey which critics say tends to understate the extent of the drug problem showed the sharpest increase in cocaine use among the heaviest users. Last year the National Institute on drug abuse which conducts the Survey estimated that 606, pm americans used cocaine frequently or about once a week. This year the number Rose to 855,000, compared to 862, my in 1989. The Survey relies on information provided by residents of apartments and houses. But homeless people and those in prison where drug use is believed to be High Are not questioned. The Hospital statistics also compiled by the drug Institute and based on reports from More than 150 hospitals around the country showed an increase in the number of americans who sought emergency room help after using cocaine in the first six months of this year when 47, my sought help compared to 44,400 in drug abuse Here Are some key findings of the household Survey of drug abuse for 199 it _ q use of cocaine Rose this year to 1.9 million people from 1.6 million last year. But that is still lower than the 2.9 million in 1968. I use of marijuana has declined steadily from 11.6 million in 1988 to 9.7 million this year. The number of people age 35 and older who use drugs has increased steadily since 1988, from 2.3 million to 3.4 million. Q for adolescents age 12 to 17, current use of an illicit drug has dropped steadily from 1.9 million in 1988 to 1,4 million this year. I a amps Sharon Kilday Tarrani the same period last year. The Bush administration provided statistics on the number of heroin users who were sent to emergency rooms for Only the second Quarter of 1991 and a comparable period in 1990 and 1989. In the second Quarter of this year bad reactions to heroin use sent 9,432 people to emergency rooms the drug Institute said up 17 percent from 8,059 in 1990, but still below the Peak of 10,050 in 1989. Drug experts were divided on whether the latest statistics marked the beginning of another upward Cycle in drug use or amounted to a Blip on Long term decline. But they said the apparent stubbornness of the problem raised questions about the administration s Reliance on Law enforcement to Deal with drug use. Imitation human nerve cell developed from wire reports Washington a a computer circuit that responds in the same Way that human nerve cells function has been developed by researchers at the California Institute of technology and Oxford University England. A this is really exciting work Quot said Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute in la Jolla Calif. Sejnowski said the approach could do As much to Advance understanding of the brain As genetic engineering techniques have done to shed Light on cells. In findings reported wednesday in the British journal nature computer scientist Misha Mahowald of Cal tech and neuroscientist Rodney Douglas of Oxford described their electronic Chip. While the immediate goal is to study the brain the researchers said practical applications Are inevitable. One possibility is a device that recognizes a person s voice and then unlocks a door or it could be linked to digital computers Sti that they could understand English spoken in any conversational syntax. A key aspect of the technology is its analog nature because the real world Phenomena the brain process Are analog. Sights and sounds Are All smoothly varying Phenomena like the continuous passage of time indicated by the moving second hand of a conventional watch. Ordinary computers can Only process digital information represented by 0s and is. If they Are to process anything it must be chopped into pieces Tike the display of a digital watch that makes it seem As if time stands still until the next number comes up. A your interest in analog comes from looking at the biological world and seeing How effortlessly brains can do things a Mahowald said. A we look at a person s face and instantly we can say who it  faces she notes Are composed not of pixels a discrete dots that Are either while or Black a but of subtly graded contours and continuously varying shades of Gray. The Light Waves that reach the Eye vary in Wavelength and intensity. And the Eye and brain extract intelligence from the Light signals through analog processes. Not everyone is enthusiastic about Neur chips. A i done to think this tells us anything we did t already know Quot said Marvin Minsky a Pioneer in artificial intelligence at Mit. A to me its such a Long jump to the human brain that this Isnit that interesting. For one thing there Are several Hundred kinds of neurons. Which one s this supposed to be a vaccine blamed for false aids test results from wire reports Washington a prospective blood donors who recently received a thu vaccine have been registering false positives on three screening tests including one for the aids virus officials said wednesday. The officials however emphasized that the false positive results pose no risk to the blood Supply since such implicated blood is not used. And they said the flu vaccine carries no risk of infection with the virus. In a related development a study said the virus that causes aids Isnit present in the sweat of those infected with it. Although some flu vaccinated blood donors tested positive further testing showed that they were not infected with the human immunodeficiency virus Type i the most common aids virus in the United states or either of two others for which they initially tested positive. The food and drug administration said that in re cent weeks More than 20 blood establishments have re ported some 90 blood donors testing positive in the Ini Lial tests for All three infections but negative ii subsequent tests. Early indications Are that at least 60 percent of these donors recently had received a flu vaccine. The cd said 2 percent of the donors with false positive re actions said they had not received flu vaccinations. I was unknown whether the remaining donors had been vaccinated recently the Fra said. The Fra is working with the makers of the flu vac Cine and with the manufacturers of the screening test to determine the reason for the false positives. The two year study on the sweat of his positive patients and people with aids was conducted by or Gary Wormser of new York medical College. A we were Able to identify the aids virus in moot samples taken irom 39 of 50 known Hill infected patients but none of the sweat samples taken from these same patients contained the  he said.  escapes by hiding in theater from wire reports Atlanta a a gunman who tried to Rob a theater hid among scores of moviegoers wednesday night As swat teams surrounded the building. After the people left the theater police were unable to find the gunman. Three men tried to Rob the Parkside Cinema in North suburban Atlanta about 10 30 . But apparently were interrupted police said. They said two of the men fled into Woods and were captured while the other remained in the building. An estimated 100 people who had been in theater left safely and police searched the empty building for the gunman officer Joe Harbin assistant supervisor of the Fulton county police department  Catacomb found Miami a Federal agents discovered 6,000 pounds of cocaine and a secret underground drug vault wednesday. The vault was discovered at a warehouse that was searched As a result of last month s second largest cocaine bust in . History. The secret storage place under the floor of an office had stainless steel Walls and a 6-Inch-thick vault Type door . Customs and drug enforcement agents said. A i Call it a cocaine Catacomb Quot said Thomas Cash the head of the drug enforcement Agency s Miami office. No one has been arrested in the  dancer arrested san Francisco a an exotic dancer who offered Cash a trip to Hawaii and a 1968 Mustang to a Man to kill a rival stripper has been arrested on attempted murder charges. Inspector Ken King said wednesday that Diana Manet ii an exotic dancer at the City a Century theatre was arrested on the charges after the Man she approached turned informant. The informant secretly taped the pairs conversations involving a plot to kill Joyce Massagli who uses the the name a Bambi a he said. A there was some talk of securing an unregistered handgun of doing the murder and the hit Man getting rid of the body Quot said King in describing what was on the tapes. A then the intended victim moved to Hawaii and the plans shifted to  the police inspector said his office had contacted the Honolulu police department to make sure Massagli had not been  germ discovered Atlanta a the discovery of cholera bacteria in the ballast tanks of three ships in Mobile Bay ala., has prompted Federal health officials to Check other vessels entering ports on the East and West coasts. Or. Jessica Tuttle of the National centers for disease control said the food and drug administration was conducting the studies to determine the extent of the cholera contamination of the ships ballast water. She said 60 ships were being checked. Last August the cd announced that a Strain of cholera similar to the one causing epidemics in latin America had been found in Oyster Beds in Mobile Bay. The finding caused the cd to Issue guidelines for diagnosing and treating cholera. Cholera is an infectious bacterial disease spread by contaminated food and water. It can be fatal if not treated  bother neighbors Philadelphia a three Hawk anti aircraft missiles sat ominously on a flatbed truck parked unattended in a residential area making neighbors nervous. Police got a Call tuesday night and a bomb squad was sent to the scene. Other officers de Tolfred traffic and searched for the trucks Driver Paul w. Weeks of Quakertown a. Police discovered the Driver had been there before with outmoded military gear usually jeeps and tanks. Officers said they were told weeks Mother in Law lives in the neighbourhood and he stops on his Way through town. The bomb squad discovered the missiles were deactivated and filled with Concrete