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Pam Bondi on prescription drug monitoring and crackdown on overprescribing physicians – YouTube. Pam Bondi is the Florida Attorney General working at odds with Republican Governor Rick Scott who thought monitoring was an infringement on doctors rights. Go figure.
Ex-addicts 
staying sober through sport – CNN.com.
Phoenix Multisport fosters a supportive, physically active community for individuals who are recovering from alcohol and substance abuse and those who choose to live a sober life. Through such pursuits as climbing, hiking, running, swimming, road and mountain biking, and other activities, we seek to help our members develop and maintain the emotional strength they need to stay sober.
Here is a little taste of how your tax dollars are fighting drug abuse in America. Above the Influence is an advertising campaign in the U.S. by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign that includes broad messaging to focus on substances most abused by teens, and delivers both broad prevention messaging at the national level and more targeted efforts at the local community level. Here is an example of some of their ads. Think they help? It is funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. (ONDCP) In early 2011, The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign will launch a monthly webinar series: Implementing Above the Influence (ATI) in Your Local Community. You can get involved via their webinar site, Citrix Online Jan. 13th or Citrix Online Jan. 20th. Check it out. link by Mary S.
Alternative to prison for drug offenders. More later on this. Hot topic in Arizona that showing a little hope for the future.
NIDA Drug Facts Week – Shatter the Myth
The first thing I want to say is that when you think about NIDA, think Nora Volkow and click on her name to see who she is. NIDA ( National Institute on drug Abuse ) is best defined by Wikipedia; Ms Volkow is a phenomenal director doing important work on the scourge of drug addiction in America. On this day, October 28th, NIDA, is launching a new public outreach called SHOUT OUT!, to publicize and shatter myths about the world of drug addiction and treatment. particularly related to our young people and their parents. Drug abuse can turn into drug addiction and moms and dads need to know they are often the last ones to know. Yes, I am on fire. I have children and have known many young people who have suffered needlessly. Here are a few myths I would like to shatter during NIDA’s drug fact week:
1. Addiction is an isolated condition, of mostly meth and heroin dependence that preys on a few depraved souls and we should ignore them and hope they go away. North America is now nearing a point where 25 million citizens suffer from some identified condition of addiction to a legal or illegal substance. Addiction to dangerous illegal narcotics, meth-amphetamines and cocaine, according to most sources, affects an average of 7 million Americans on any given day. More than one and a half million addicts are in jail at the time you read this. This is anything but isolated. It impacts us all.
2. An addict can just quit because god gave us the strength and will power to do so. A few hearty souls can do it that easy! I hope your loved one is one of them. AA and NA recognizes that there are those we can not explain. Addiction is brain altering disease, often accompanied by mental illness and depression. AA and NA acknowledges; addiction is for life. Once sober, diligence is key. The doors of 12 step rooms are revolving, because an addict or alcoholic is always welcome back, unconditionally, with just a desire to stay clean for today. The ultimate path of addiction is physiological and cognitive impairment, but with good treatment, addicts can be rehabilitated. The degree of that success relies on ones basic human will to want their life back.
3. Addiction is a behavioral problem. We need to let our jails deal with it and keep it out of the health care system. For some, jail may be an answer. However, more than half of inmates are locked up for drug related crimes or possession. Locking them up doesn’t solve their problem. Many of these people are our kids! Addiction not dealt with by proper treatment, save for sheer will power, will progress to a medical condition. Our emergency rooms attest to the heavy impact from overdoses and other carnage. The cost to society of untreated addiction is astronomical if you include this cost of health care; its incarceration, related mental illness, and the costly drug war. That costs America hundreds of billions. Diverting, criminalized addicts from jail to compulsory treatment would begin to realize a better cost to success ratio and defuse the drug war focus.
4. Addiction can easily be treated by private treatment practitioners and public resources for detox and rehab. Of course, addiction can be effectively treated by a private practitioner at a cost that only very well-funded addicts can afford. Less than 5% of all addicts and alcoholics received inpatient rehabilitation in 2010. OAS.SAMHSA. If addiction were to be recognized as a medical condition, insurance and public health services would treat it. Easy right? Not so! Legislators are still working hard to punish drug use in jail and keep addiction out of the health care system. That still costs the same billions and addicts that go untreated will cause damage to themselves, their families and our communities.
5. Addiction is morally bad. Judging an addict morally is unproductive and a diversion from positive solutions. Many moms and dads have a young addict in the family and would give anything for the elusive cure. Addiction, is an ugly health care problem and society perpetuates it by hating it. Morality, as a positive human attribute, can be just as easily defined by treating addiction, much as we would treat cancer. Addiction, like a cancer has destructive symptoms. For an addict, that is cognitive impairment, deterioration, social criminality and death.
6. Addiction will not be an issue when America finally wins the Drug War and drugs are no longer available. As long the demand is there, drugs will be there. Society will demand eradication, that fills our jails with drug users and the mentally ill. Changing that is like turning around a ship in a narrow canal. A system grounded in conquering evil by destroying it, is infinitely expensive. You don’t change that; you end it. A “drug war” can’t be won when we are source of demand. Once we acknowledge that, we can begin to reduce demand by dealing with the human beings that are defined by a bondage to drug use. If America, shifts its focus to a “war on addiction”, funding will come from a transformation of purpose, and new job definitions will emerge that focus on the preservation of human lives freeing addicts from bondage to drugs.
NIDA, SAMSA, ONDCP and other public agencies who fight to show people how to stop using drugs can step to the plate to be advocates for a sober nation. Our trusted public organizations have the resources and influence to do so and it will start with legislating to address the issue. Our young disillusioned teams, will see for themselves, we have a nation that cares and if not from their own sheer will power will to enjoy the clarity of mind only sobriety can provide.
Since late 2009 and early 2010, Walgreens, and many other private pharmacies have been providing generic “Suboxone”. Addicts prescribed the opiate replacement drug, Buprenorphine should ask about the availability of generic “buprenorphine” rather relying on expensive proprietary suboxone. Generics are selling for about half the cost since Reckitt Benckiser’s patent expired in October 2009. BupPractice.com is website that focuses on proper use and protocol of using buphrenorphine. Generic buprenorphine averages about $2.50 to $3.00 per 8mg pill in generic form. Patients average doses range from 8 to 16mg; lower doses when weaning and higher doses, relative to heavier opiate use when starting a program.
Were talking about the therapeutic drug replacement for heroin addiction. Make no mistake, the buprenorphine/naloxone generic substitute is about as addictive as heroin, (like “Suboxone”), but harder to abuse than the original therapeutic replacement drug, methadone which is still widely used in many clinics. Nonetheless, the benefits of this kind of harm reduction is obvious. Therapeutic drug replacement is safe for those who can manage it and take direction, but any such program can and will be abused by some. Weaning off the drug, is the next tough hurdle for addicts. The blog: suboxone talk zone is one of the best “in the trenches” sources of information. It is an active blog thread on this drug and the way it is used, and ultimately, not used as an addict succeeds at achieving full abstinence from all drugs.
Former Mexican president: ‘US must legalise drugs to stop violence’.
As insane as it sounds, there is no other promising solution to the damage that America’s drug demand is inflicting on ourselves or Mexico. Can anyone blame Vincente Fox for his campaign against the drug war’s damage to Mexico? By January 13, 2011, 34,612 people were reported murdered in Mexico in the past four years. Look for a minute at America’s demand for the drugs that fuels this carnage. For every drug related incarceration, there are 20 substance abusers waiting for their turn in jails and hospitals. It never seems to end. More than half of our 2.4 million inmates are locked up for drug related charges. Consider that even half of them need drug rehabilitation and we are talking about 25 billion dollars that could be spent reducing deman
d by treating drug addiction in stead of punishing it. Add in the cost of emergency rooms, lost workplace productivity, related homelessness and mental illness, judicial costs, and the cost of fighting demand on the streets, we are into numbers that approach a major federal government program in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Ending this carnage is not a pipe dream.
The International Drug Policy Reform Conference The International Drug Policy Reform Conference is a biennial event that brings together people from around the world who believe that the war on drugs is doing more harm than good. It brings together over 1,000 attendees representing 30 different countries. Mark your calendar and be there on November 2-5, 2011 at the Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles, CA. REGISTER HERE.
Teenage Addiction Epi
demic Documentary to air October 12, 2011 on PBS-KVIE
The primary mission of Pathway to Prevention is the prevention and early intervention of teenage drug and alcohol addiction. A secondary goal of Pathway to Prevention is to help fund rehabilitation. View the trailer
Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation : Drug Rehabs for Addiction Help. Rehab Programs Inc. is a community service provider with an objective of finding the right rehab program for those suffering from drug and alcohol addictions. With over 20 years in the substance abuse field, we understand the needs of people and their families.
Recovery Month 2011 – Get Involved. SAMHSA has been sponsoring National Recovery Month, every September. The intention is to promote the societal benefits of treatment for substance use and mental disorders, celebrates people in recovery, lauds the contributions of treatment providers, and promotes the message that recovery in all its forms is possible. It is a worthwhile investment, since addictions is such an intertwined affliction to the American People. An practicing addict will drag down many others. Alcohol, methamphetamine, and many pill addictions that lead to heroin, etc.. are all drugs that suck in so much of Americas resources. Link by Mary S.
Robbie Gennet: End the Drug War by Rescheduling All Drugs.
The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet. The war on drugs is a failure. All that taxpayer money spent with no real impact on lowering taxpayer consumption. Yet simply adjusting the methodology and basis of our drug scheduling could change it all, using a new set of standards based on empirical data and facts, not misleading rhetoric propping up the status quo. link by Mary
World Drug Report 2011
Many illicit drug markets have reached global dimensions and require control strategies on a comparable scale. In that context, there is a need to better understand these transnational markets and the manner in which they operate. The yearly World Drug Report is a contribution towards that objective.
Moms United to End the War on Drugs & Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Rally & Vigil Join us to call attention to the devastation of the war on drugs and prohibition @ Chuco’s Justice Center, 1137 E. Rodondo Blvd., Inglewoood, CA, June 18, 2011 – all day – starting @ 1 pm
A New PATH /Los Angeles is co-sponsoring with SSDP an all day festival SATURDAY JUNE 18TH; collaborating with 27 other drug war activist and advocacy groups to present 2 panels of speakers, poetry readings, candlelight vigil – ending the evening with live music till midnight! For more information
St. Francis Mission Recovery Programs…Can you imagine driving more than 90 miles to get to your weekly meeting? What if you wanted to go to more than one a week but couldn’t because it was either too far away or you didn’t have adequate transportation? What would you do, and more importantly, who would you turn to? These issues, sadly, are run of the mill problems for those recovering from alcoholism and addiction on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation is home to the Lakota (Sioux Indian) people, many of whom suffer from the problems mentioned above. Two recovery centers – the Icimani Ya Waste Recovery Center and White River Recovery Center – are working to help those who suffer from addiction on the Rosebud Reservation. The centers are run by members of the Lakota tribe / the St. Francis Mission (link: http://www.sfmission.org/programs/recovery/). They help coordinate 12 step meetings for those in need, provide space for those meetings to take place, give referrals to treatment centers and support for the families of those suffering from addiction. In talking to the coordinators to the two recovery centers, it is clear that the need for recover is strong on the reservation. Jim Stands, director of the White River Recovery Center, states, the people on the Reservation are affected by the disease of addiction. Whole families – from great grandchildren to great grandparents – are affected, and in turn, addiction affected the community and the whole Lakota nation (called the oyate). When an individual wants to overcome their addiction, they face challenges that are above and beyond what someone who lives off a Reservation might face. One of the open AA groups that meets on Wednesdays at the White River Recovery Center is called the “Out of Towners” meeting for a reason. Many of the individuals who attend this group live far away from where the meeting is held, but make the long drive every week to support each other in sobriety. The St. Francis Mission and the Recovery Centers have partnered with the Betty Ford Institute to provide educational programing to address the effects addiction has on the family. Participants of the Betty Ford Family Program learn to set boundaries, control codependency issues, and communication skills so they can express emotions and feelings in a healthy constructive way. The recovery programs combine Lakota traditions with more traditional recovery content. by Corrie Oberdin corrie@corrieoberdin.net http://www.sfmission.org
As U.S drug policy struggles with the reality of a failing drug war, a dysfunctional drug policy and confusion in moving towards decriminalizing America’s addict population, I would like to acknowledge the real losers here; our addicted population of young addicts. They are on the road to become old addicts. Some have a hustle; others are in constant danger of filling our jails. Many are our children. They fit somewhere in a population of 25 million alcohol and drug users. They impact 2/3′s of Americans in some form. This is not a moral issue. It is a medical issue, in which treatment and not the least a cure, is more elusive than cancer.
Our public and private treatment institutions turn out to be pretty insignificant and I would dare say that the thousands of 12 steps meeting in the U.S. , for all of the bias against them, do work and are effective. They are at least free. They say you get what you pay for. That’s great for rich addicts, but addicts are almost all defined as indigent and non-contributing to society, so how does that work? Who pays? Their addictions, albeit complicated and unique, are at least defined in the common sence as a condition where dopamine receptors no longer function in abstinence. The realty is this. A very long period of abstinence would be necessary for the restoration of naturally occurring dopamine and receptor functioning; maybe a year minimum; brain rehab, if you will. Without this transformation, an addict exists in an emotional black hole. In a tenuous world, the blatant loss of 7 million Americans to addiction each year is just the tip of the iceberg. Next to the bigger issue of losing America’s economic stability; an addict nation threatens to drag us down. With some exception to VMAC, most of our insurance and healthcare institutions are miserable at treatment. They skirt co-existing mental disorders, while showing across the board rejection of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment programs. Except for sparse and difficult public funding, insurance companies won’t even pay for basic replacement drug therapy, which I would estimate, as an interim stop-gap measure could cost anywhere from total subsidy to $200 per month. A paltry sum for such a large benefit. At a baseline minimum, no narcotics addict should be turned down.
We live in a world that abhors addictive behavior, yet institutionally condones the biggest drug dependant and alcoholic society on earth. People like Governor Scott of Florida ditch prescription databases over privacy rights. How does that even fit? Our government claims to want to eradicate demand and source, yet have at least enabled or created a situation in which more pharmaceutical opiates are available than ever and our budget to fight the drug war in Mexico is as counterproductive as our U.S. job eating trade deficit. Instead we march our most desparate addicts off to jail for criminal training to support an over crowded pork barrel prison system. Addicts who are not violent, need to be screened and sequestered in a contained environment geared towards treatment. There is no good excuse for not doing it. Dollars spent to accomplish this can come from 30-60% redundant incarceration rates and less damage to society. Addicts are human beings that need to be rehabilitated. That has to be a common committment. Rehabilitation is even a stated purpose of America’s incarceration systems. Prisons are supposed to try and make men useful again. Secure penal facilities already exist in abundance. They specialize in the warehousing and exacerbation of criminals. What is missing, is willful intent, screening, and intelligence.
Portugal’s Drug Policies pay off, US eyes lessons. 12/26/2010
Drugs in Portugal are still illegal. But here’s what Portugal did: It changed the law so that users are sent to counseling and sometimes treatment instead of criminal courts and prison. The switch from drugs as a criminal issue to a public health one was aimed at preventing users from going underground. Portugal with an estimated 100,000 people — an astonishing 1 percent of its population — were addicted to illegal drugs. So, like anyone with little to lose, the Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000. Now, the United States, which has waged a 40-year, $1 trillion war on drugs, is looking for answers in tiny Portugal, which is reaping the benefits of what once looked like a dangerous gamble. White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited Portugal in September to learn about its drug reforms, and other countries — including Norway, Denmark, Australia and Peru — have taken interest, too. Post by Mary.
Attention to all mothers of loved ones afflicted with addiction to prescription pain killers or heroin. Tom at Recovery Helpdesk is asking you to answer 5 questions. PLEASE CLICK HERE.
Florida’s treasure coast is a stretch of pacific beach from Sebastian to Palm Beach. Tragic drug overdoses there, are not uncommon. With little help from the state, The St. Lucie Sheriff’s Department took action following the loss of Jaclyn Kinkade, a local beauty, who found herself hooked on prescription pain killers. 2010 treasure coast overdoses were recorded at 91. In fact, all of Florida recorded 1270 overdose deaths in the fist half of 2010. That’s 7 deaths per day. What makes this alarming, is that, this is prescription drugs we are talking about. In 2009, prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) was passed in Florida and it is on the chopping block. The Florida Pain Clinic Society supports monitoring, however, the “less government is more” crowd led by Governor Scott’s opposition want to get rid of it. 42 other states have PDMP and States in the Southeast U.S. are frustrated with Florida’s position as the America’s biggest illegal prescription drug source. links by JJ
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