AHS Views

Every day I see articles telling parents to discuss drugs with their children if they want them to stay drug-free. Statistics show that kids whose parents talk to them about drugs are 50% less like to take them. But often parents don’t know what to say and, because of that, don’t talk to them about the subject at all.

Really, all that’s really necessary is to educate your kids. Do a little research and find out about drugs yourself - that’s the first step. Do an Internet search for information on methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, MDMA, and marijuana to start with, and then find out about prescription drugs. There are many prescription drugs to watch out for - any tranquilizers, sedatives, sleeping pills, antidepressants, painkillers, ADD and ADHD drugs like Ritalin and Adderall (they’re similar to methamphetamine and cocaine) are very common.

Find out how they work and their side effects. You can also read stories and articles about drug addicts, or former drug addicts, and find out how drugs have affected their lives.

Once you know a little about it yourself, talk to your kids.

If you start when they’re really young - they may be offered drugs in the schoolyard or by a friend by the time they’re 8 or 10 - they’ll know that drugs are very dangerous and they’ll refuse to take them. Or, at least, there’s a 50% chance they’ll refuse. Not a guarantee - but better than the chances if they don’t know what they’re getting into.

Start by bringing it up in conversations when the opportunity presents itself - during a TV show, a commercial about drugs, when seeing someone on the street who is homeless and might be on drugs, and so on. Or take the time to teach them about their body and how it works, and fit it in there. 

If your kids are a little older, it would be a good idea to have a sitdown for the express purpose of teaching them about drugs.

Some parents think their kids will never get on drugs so they don’t take the time to do this education. But kids from all walks of life, even great kids who seem close to perfect, try them all the time. No one is immune.

Many parents don’t find out their kids are taking drugs until they’re already at the point of needing addiction help. Opening up the subject through education early on will help prevent that and, if they do experiment, they’re also more likely to be willing to talk about it so you can nip it in the bud.

I recently had occasion to meet one of the major marketing people for perhaps the best-known energy drink. More caffeine than about 10 cups of coffee in one little can. She confessed to having been wired on this stuff - but said she’s now down to about 6 cans a day. I don’t know the stats on her drink specifically but, for some of them, that’s the equivalent of about 64 cans of coke. A day. What are the possibilities of this leading to taking drugs?

Caffeine is addictive, although it doesn’t produce anywhere near the serious side effects of drugs when you try to get off it, but I wonder how many people who drink energy drinks in these amounts wind up getting into drugs. When you’ve had that much false energy pumped into your body, you’ve got to feel drained and lifeless when you stop drinking it - which opens the door to saying yes to a little ’pick-me-up’ offered by a friend. A pick-me-up that might include methamphetamine, cocaine, or one of the many meth-type prescription drugs that help keep you awake.

According to some research, energy drinks might well be gateway drugs. Roland Griffiths, one of the authors of a Johns Hopkins Medical Institution study on caffeine intoxication, said there is evidence that energy drinks are gateway drugs. He suggested that the drinks should have FDA warning labels - not about the gateway drug end of things, but about the possibility of caffeine intoxication.

One of the commenters laughed at this - said if the FDA was going to put warnings on energy drinks they should also put warnings on Coca Cola, pointing out that the name came from COKE - i.e. cocaine. But it hasn’t contained cocaine since 1929, so no need for the FDA to do that. I hope the commenter isn’t disappointed to find that out.

Personally, I would see a kid drinking a lot of energy drinks as a warning sign. Either there’s something physically wrong with the person - so they need energy desperately - or they’re wired. Or they’re just stupid. In which case, I’d definitely be worried since there’s a much better chance of them saying yes to an offer of a little pill that will create the same effect. Maybe someone will give them a Ritalin or Adderall. Especially if it’s a college kid trying to stay awake or using ’study drugs’ (speed) to focus.

When a person does one thing that’s harmful to their body, they’re more likely to do another. And it could get them in a lot of trouble. Including the eventually need for addiction help.

My advice? Check into it. 

More about what happens with drugs in college. Susan Smith (not her real name) grew up in a normal, loving, educated family. She was a girl scout, mom lead a troup. A great life. Then she went to college - she was going to be a social worker - which is where she started drinking, smoking marijuana, and using cocaine.  After a year and a half she got some addiction help but, although she stopped using cocaine, continue alcohol and marijuana. I would definitely say the addiction help she got was inadequate. If it had been thorough, she wouldn’t have continued with alcohol and marijuana.

Obviously, her college education didn’t quite turn out to be what she’d hoped. She now a cosmetologist, 48 years old, and is once again getting addiction help to stop using cocaine - she’s been on it again for the last six years.  Her habit cost her $200 - $300 a day.

This story has a relatively good ending, so far. She’s still alive, and she’s getting the addiction help services she needs. But, her life, I’m sure, was far different than she had planned. 

Here’s the story of a narcotics officer who spent his work hours battling the drug problem and then went home to the same thing - his sister was also fighting her own personal battle with drug addiction. Their mother bailed her out of jail more than once, and bought her stories. Finally, because of her brother, the cop, she went to jail. For her, that was the beginning of the drug addiction help she needed. He calls it tough love.

If you can get someone to get the drug addiction help they need before they get in trouble with the law, that would obviously be a better alternative. But when it comes right down to it, if the choice was to let them continue to take drugs or put them in jail, jail would probably be safer. And even though jails don’t necessarily offer drug addiction help - other than, in most cases, to keep the person away from drugs - at least the person will get off them.

However, when they get out, they’re still likely to need drug addiction help services of some sort to ensure they don’t start taking them again.  Would you be willing to put someone you care about in jail rather than seeing them continue to take drugs.

By the way, if you’ve tried to convince someone to get addiction help and have been unsuccessful, you might also consider intervention. 

“Addicts need guidance, not judgement” is the headline of an article about the TV show Intervention and the fact that it humanizes addicts - to think of them as people with a problem who need help, drug addiction help, instead of people of “poor morals” who refuse to improve their situation.

What many people don’t understand about drug addicts is that, these days, many of them became addicted when they were given drugs by their doctors - painkillers, tranquillizers, antidepressants - and when it came time to get off them, they couldn’t.

Others may have started very young, perhaps with Ritalin, Adderall or some other drug supposedly used to handle a ‘disorder.” Ritalin, for example, is similar to cocaine. Whe you’re eight years old and using cocaine, and continue to do so for years, it’s got to be pretty hard to get and stay drug free later in life.

Prescription drug addiction is the worst epidemic this country has ever seen. Think twice before allowing someone you care about to go on these kinds of drugs and if they’re already on them, consider getting them the drug addiction help services they need. Don’t judge, just help. 

I don’t have any problem with ingenuity. In fact, I admire and approve of most entrepreneurs. However, this case is an exception: I think positioning an energy drink to appear as a drug is sleazy.  Logan Gola, the CEO of Blow, has made his energy drink powder and packaging look like a vial of cocaine. Energy drinks may not be gateway drugs requiring drug addiction help, and naming energy drinks after drugs isn’t illegal, but I wonder what parents will think if a few 10 year olds order it and have it stored in their bedrooms.

A similar product called ‘Cocaine’ was taken off the market by the FDA - the same may happen to Blow. ‘Cocaine’s’ manufacturer changed the name and redistributed it, but it now looks like they’ve won the battle to use the name ‘Cocaine’ again. Blow and Logan Gola may get some publicity for this product. But in this case, I hope it is a dismal failure.  I can’t really see how promoting an energy drink to appear like cocaine can help anyone, except perhaps Mr. Gola.

Cocaine has been a problem in Florida for 40 years and to try and ride on those coattails doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of anyone except Mr. Gola, a few employees, and perhaps some investors. At Addiction Help Services we talk to people who are addicted to cocaine, it isn’t a joke and they do need drug addiction help. In time we will know if these energy drinks are “gateway drugs.” For now I would advise keeping your children away from them. In Florida, one school district in Broward County has banned them from campus. Mr. Gola, if you need addiction help I hope you will get it.

Crack cocaine is becoming a bigger problem in Maine according to York’s Chief of Police Douglas Bracy. You can be sure that addiction help will be necessary as more kids become addicted.

Chief Bracy is warning parents to keep track of their kids because of the influx of cocaine. He strongly suggests that you know where they are and where they are going so they don’t end up needing addiction help. Kids who want to try drugs will migrate toward something like crack because it’s cheap, but it’s also very addictive. One high school student has already been arrested, Jared Turner, a 17-year-old who had been suspended from the football team. Maine had an influx of heroin five years ago and Chief Bracy is comparing the cocaine influx to that. I am wondering if the crack may be replacing methamphetamines - meth prices have gone up and, with all the restrictions on the ingredients for meth, maybe clever drug dealers have decided to supply something else.

Crack, like heroin, is coming down in price – and both are easy to get. Most kids think trying crack or using it occasionally isn’t dangerous. Unfortunately, those kids will be the first to need addiction help services.

A lot of people get the alcohol or drug treatment they need through drug court. Here’s the story of one young Kentucky woman, a mother, who started taking drugs and drinking casually while she was a senior in high school. It seems she wasn’t really interested in drugs, but because the people she hung around with took them and they were conveniently available, she went along with it. It took five long years before she got the addiction help she needed, and that was only after an overdose.

Her story demonstrates how easy it is to fall into the trap of drugs. And to get addicted. As a high school senior she started going out with an older guy who took drugs, drank, smoked, and so on. Things she had never done, and she didn’t know anyone else who did. She tried drugs out of curiosity, really. She continued the relationship, and the association with people who took drugs. Truthfully, had she stopped seeing this guy early enough she probably would have gone back to her old drug-free friends and her life would have turned out just fine.

Instead she wound up a 22-year-old addict shooting cocaine, morphine and OxyContin - which was very easy to get in her Kentucky hometown. She was also living a life of crime to support her habit. Within a short time, she lost everything she had.

This was a girl who, while still going to school, worked, bought a car and rented a place to live - that’s quite an exceptional teenager. But drugs ruined it all.

When she overdosed there was some kind of crime involved because she ended up in the justice system. She begged for drug court - which offers drug rehab instead of jail so the offender can get the addiction help they need.

Fortunately, she made it. But for every story like this, there are thousands of drug addicts who never get the addiction help they need and never have a chance to get their life under control.

If you’re in trouble with drugs or alcohol and are looking for drug rehab in Kentucky, give us a call. We can help you find the addiction help services you need to get out of the trap and get your life back.

Drug abuse trends in Idaho are changing from methamphetamines to cocaine. Cocaine has always been easy to get in Idaho and now people are switching from methamphetamine abuse to cocaine abuse. Addiction help facilities are likely to see an increase in cocaine users coming for treatment. This trend change has been occurring over the past two or three months according to Nampa Special Investigations Unit Sgt. Joe Huff.

“I wouldn’t say meth is going away and it’s not a problem. It’s still a huge problem, but right now it’s taken a backseat to cocaine,’ he said.

The reason for the switch appears to be the price: cocaine runs between $600 and $700 and ounce while methamphetamines go for $1500 to $1600 and ounce. A year ago meth and cocaine were closer in price - meth sold for $850 to 900 dollars an ounce.

The price of meth has gone up because of stricter laws regarding some of the raw materials needed to make it. Also the supply is being directed more to the east coast cities rather than Idaho.

The anti-meth campaigns are useful in curbing meth abuse and should be continued, along with more drug education and treatment. As people switch to cocaine, the next logical switch will be to Ritalin or Adderall as they are just as useful as cocaine but are legal

If you have a friend who needs addiction help services because of methamphetamines or cocaine, call us.

I read yet another story today about the vaccine that’s supposed to cure cocaine addiction. It’s not going to work for the vast majority - I can tell you that right now. Even though this drug may block the receptors in the brain that cause the high - most addicts will simply find another drug to create the same effect until they get the addiction help they need.

Drug addiction doesn’t stem from simply taking a drug. For every person out there who has used cocaine and become an addict there is probably another person who used cocaine and didn’t.

Was it because they took the ‘vaccine.’ No, it’s because they’re handling whatever issues they have in life without drugs. A drug addict, on the other hand, is not.

How is the person going to get relief from those issues if he can’t feel the effects of the drug? He’s not. So, he’ll look for something else.

Until the person is able to get the addiction help services he needs to resolve the problems, things aren’t going to change. And, if the person does get the help he needs, he won’t need a vaccine, or any other drug for that matter, to get sorted out.