AHS Views

Meth and meth addiction is Oregon’s number one crime problem according to candidate John Kroger. John Kroger is running for Attorney General for the State of Oregon and if elected he will help get more people into drug treatment. “Évery year meth costs us hundreds of millions of dollars in prison and law enforcement costs, health care expenditures, and lost workforce productivity.” He wants to see people get the addiction help they need.

Mr. Kroger understands that treatment can save tax payers plenty of money, “for every dollar we invest in treatment, we will save nearly six dollars by bringing down the crime and incarceration rates.”

His plan to send more people to drug treatment makes more sense then sending people to prison. Currently Oregon ranks 45th in the nation for addiction help overall and 49th for treatment in young adults ages 18 to 25. He will need to find a successful treatment program to help the meth users in Oregon, and he will need more treatment centers.

The number of small meth labs in Oregon has decreased since 2005 when the Governor put laws in place to limit the supplies that methamphetamine manufacturers needed to produce this deadly drug. But like other parts of the country, large drug trading organizations filled that hole by importing drugs from Mexico. Mr. Kroger wants to take on the drug cartel head on. We hope he is successful, we see the devastation meth and other drugs bring to society everyday.

If his plan works, Mr. Kroger will cut the supply and force more people into treatment instead of sentencing the addicts to long stints of incarceration which, in the long run, doesn’t usually result in them getting the addiction help they need. Instead, they often wind up back on drugs, and back in prison.

Addiction Help Services can help you, a family member or friend if you are having trouble with meth or any drug if you live in Oregon.

The Governor of Nevada requested a report on what to do about Nevada’s methamphetamine problems. The task force was headed by Nevada’s attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto. The report talks about combating the meth problem on four fronts: law enforcement, legislation, treatment and education/prevention. This four-pronged approach sounds just like the addiction help the state needs.

Nevada leads the nation in meth users, so this report and the execution of its recommendations are vital for the future of the state and the people who live there. How to deal with the problems that meth abuse presents are detailed in the report. Some of the problems mentioned include children of meth abusers and the amount of violent crime result from drug abuse.

It also emphasizes the need for more people to work in the addiction help industry – an industry with very high turnover.

Addiction help counselors currently make around $30,000 a year and the turnover at addiction treatment facilities runs at about 25% per year. Older workers are leaving the industry and, because of low pay and poor working conditions, new people aren’t coming on board to work with addicts.

Education and prevention will play a big role: It will be the most important element.  Teaching children early and often about the dangers of drug abuse should be on every state’s agenda, as will ensuring parents understand the problems drug and alcohol abuse present.

The Governor and the state are trying to tackle this problem head on, and we wish them well. If you, a family member or a friend need any help in Nevada because of drug addiction call us at Addiction Help Services.

Pennsylvania has a small population of drug users that can use addiction help. We are not talking about prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Xanax or Vicodin. We’re not even talking about the common illegal drugs. We’re talking about toad licking. And anyone who would go to those extremes to get high needs addiction help.

That’s right - toad licking. And it’s back in the news. Bill Graff, the Drug Czar of York County, Pennsylvania thought it was a joke. So did Diane Weaver of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Commission’s External Affairs Department and Dan Tredinnick, the press secretary for the Pennsylvania State Fish and Boat Commission.

All three laughed out loud about the prospect of toad licking as a way to get high and knew nothing about the arrest of the 21-year-old Colorado man in November of this year.

Toad licking will probably not make the news that often and certainly there are easier ways to abuse drugs. The venom from the toad could kill a dog, cause paralysis and all the while you can hallucinate. If you have it as a pet I suppose you could keep it out of harm’s way but still it could be dangerous.

Some people might make the case that hallucinogens such as these are more natural and thus they are safe. It would seem that a toad that has a self defense mechanism such as this is not safe as either a pet or a way to get high.

At Addiction Help Services we don’t believe that getting high is safe. And whether a hallucinogenic substance comes from a lab, toads, or is grown in the ground, it should not be used..

If you, a family member or a friend are using drugs, or toads, to get high we would like to get you the help you need at a successful drug treatment center. While the use of toads may seem funny, the abuse of drugs in any form is not. Addiction help services are available and we can help you find them.

I don’t know of many drug addicts who want to get arrested, but I came across a story about NASCAR driver Aaron Fike who reportedly told a judge that he was thankful for an arrest that got him the addiction help he needed to handle his problem with heroin.
 
According to the article, Fike was arrested while shooting up in an amusement park parking lot and was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of heroin. After four days in jail, Fike was admitted into a drug addiction treatment program where he spent four months.

Fike had struggled with addiction for many years. It started with him taking prescription painkillers to handle a physical injury. He got hooked on them very quickly, then graduated to OxyContin, and then started shooting heroin.

After his arrest he was thankful for the opportunity to get addiction treatment help to handle his substance abuse issues. Today, although he still may face some sentencing for his arrest, Fike is trying to deliver drug education to schools, racetracks and other community venues in order to reduce his charges.

His personal story shows what can happen when a person gets the addiction help services they need.

I read an article today about drug addiction in Washington, D.C. – it’s a messy scene. According to the article, only 7,000 of the 60,000 who needed treatment last year were treated. An additional $10 million in federal funding is being made available over the next three years – adding to the $6 million they already have – and that’s supposed to get another 8,000 people the drug addiction help they need.

The way the war on drugs is going, there will probably be even more drug addicts by that time. It seems like a losing battle.

The prisons in D.C. are also loaded with drug addicts. Seven out of 10 prisoners are on drugs, and only one in nine get treatment. So, they come out of prison, back into the same environment with the same drug problem they had when they went in. And the drug problem may have had a lot to do with why they were in prison in the first place.

Cleaning up America’s drug problem is obviously going to take a lot more than money. What’s it going to take? You. That’s right, you.

According to government statistics, there are 22 million people in the U.S. with alcohol or drug addiction problems. That means that if about 10 people chipped in to get one drug addict or alcoholic on the straight and narrow, we’d have one big part of the problem solved.

And if the addiction help services they get includes an excellent drug rehab, the people who are helped should be able to make sure others don’t follow in their footsteps. A desperate solution for an even more desperate problem. But sometimes you’ve just got to step out of your comfort zone to get something done.

I was reading an article today about a memorial scholarship fund to help drug addicts get treatment. Individuals donate money, and it’s matched by the fund. Over the years I’ve spoken with hundreds of people trying to get a family member the addiction help they need, and the number one barrier is always the money.

When an addict asks for help, he needs it now. If you send him off to wait for weeks or months until a bed is ready in a state funded facility, it’s more than likely you’ll never see him again.

Scholarship programs in drug addiction treatment centers are a brilliant solution. I’m sure that others who’ve been helped through these programs would want to donate money to help others – and, for some, it may be the only thing that allows them to get the addiction help services they need.

Anyone who watches the news knows about the trials and tribulations of Britney Spears. Now an article reports that her ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, has just released a music video said to tell the story of Spear’s life spiraling out of control leading to her getting addiction help through a stint in drug rehab.

While it is being reported that the video is about celebrity culture in general, as many young celebrities have recently checked into drug addiction treatment recently, the co-writer of the piece, Duran Duran is quoted as saying is it “loosely based on Spears.”

And judging from the girl in the video, dressed in a “Spears inspired” outfit and oversize designer sunglasses, I would say that the video is more than loosely based on the pop star whose time in an addiction treatment program and bizarre behavior since then has caught the attention of the media on an almost daily basis. 

With all of the negative influences on young adults these days through pop culture, and role models such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan possibly making alcohol and drug addiction look attractive and glamorous, this video might be useful to educate kids on the flip side of the story and encourage them to either stay away from drugs, or to get the addiction help services they need.

While no specific numbers have been reported, I would imagine there are several hundred thousand drug addicts out there who are parents. And parents, just like anyone else struggling with substance abuse, often end up needing some type of drug addiction help treatment to handle their addiction.

Unfortunately, when that times comes, many parents will chose to not get the addiction help they need because they know that once they are in a program it will be left up to their families or the state to decide who will take care of their children. Losing or being away from their children can be too much for any parent to bear, even when a parent knows that if they don’t get addiction help they could lose their children permanently.

But what if drug addiction treatment centers provided child care or allowed children of addicts to stay with their addicted parent while they were undergoing substance abuse treatment?

This is actually the plan at a drug addiction treatment center in Oregon. Facilities are being built to accommodate six mothers and their children.

The center is one of the first to offer this option and it may open the door for more addicts to get the addiction help services they need while also enabling mothers to learn to be responsible for their children again in a controlled, drug-free environment.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, teens who smoke cigarettes are nine times more likely to develop a drug addiction than those who don’t smoke. If you don’t discourage kids from smoking cigarettes now, you may be looking for drug addiction help later.

According to the study, nicotine causes changes in brain development, making teenagers more vulnerable to addiction to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. The study also found that smokers are three times more likely to binge drink, 15 times more likely to smoke marijuana and seven times more likely to use drugs like heroin and cocaine.

I’m a former smoker - started smoking cigarettes at age 13 and less than a year later was smoking marijuana. I can’t say that one had anything to do with the other, but the same thing happened to many of my friends. And most of us moved onto harder drugs later in life.

I don’t know what the relationship is between smoking and drugs – it’s possibly that smoking cigarettes opens a door to addiction. After all, almost any smoker who has tried to quit knows that it certainly acts as an addiction, and can even cause withdrawal symptoms.

One more reason to discourage smoking, and one more hint on how to avoid needing drug addiction treatment down the road.

The state of North Carolina is currently investigating 16 methadone-related deaths that occurred in a handful of clinics across the state. According to the Charlotte Observer, the victims went to the clinics for drug addiction help and, instead, lost their lives.

Unfortunately, the 16 deaths being investigated are just the tip of the iceberg: 245 people in North Carolina died from methadone poisoning last year.

If you or someone you care about is looking for addiction help, treatment that gets you addicted to another drug shouldn’t be an option. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who needs to become addicted to methadone or any other replacement drug to handle their heroin addiction. Don’t fall for it. If someone you know isn’t getting the drug addiction help they need, it’s not because they need another drug to replace it, it’s because they haven’t gotten the drug detox and drug rehab that’s right for their situation.

Why people choose this route despite the fact that it doesn’t get people off drugs is beyond me. I know some have been led to believe that heroin addiction, for example, is difficult to overcome but, in reality, it’s not if you have the help you need. I know, I’ve done it.

There are many different options in drug treatment. Your best bet is to contact an experienced drug rehab counselor who can help you find the right addiction help treatment right for your situation.