AHS Views

A recent study found that women who increase their drinking between high school and college are more at risk for sexual abuse. Along with the trauma of sexual abuse, some of these women will also need addiction help. Parents are well advised to do whatever they can to educate their children on the risks associated with drinking and the problems it can cause later in life.

The study also found that women who don’t drink are at lower risk for sexual abuse.

Most parents think that drinking is part of college life. However, the risks to your children are apparent - drink a lot in high school and college and there is a good chance you will find trouble. There’s also a good chance their drinking habits will continue and, eventually you, or they, will be looking for addiction help so they can stop drinking.

If you are a parent don’t assume your teenage daughter isn’t drinking. Studies show that as many young women as men take drugs and drink. And a large percentage of those who drink when they’re young end up with alcohol problems for a lifetime. Avoiding drugs and alcohol, even in college, will enable your kids to get through school and start their career instead of looking for addiction help services.

A person ingesting poisons to get high is not a big surprise, using all sorts of natural or chemical based substances has been going on for decades. However, finding a frog that comes from the Colorado River, bringing it home, and using it to get high does sound unique. It also got David S. Theisss, 21, from Kansas City, arrested. I don’t know what other drugs David has been taking, but if it’s come down to ‘toad smoking’, chances are he could use some addiction help.

Copyright © 2003 Albert Most

Lucky for David, he may not have had to leave Kansas to purchase his little amphibian, but I hope he has read enough about this creature to know it could cause paralysis or death!

It is probably unlikely that you will find your kids buying frogs on line but if they do it’s probably best to get the origins checked out.

It’s hard to know what is the humane thing to do with the frog if it does end up as a family pet:you can’t really release it into the wild unless you live near its natural habitat – which, for this frog, is California or Mexico - and certainly the back yard is out of the question. You wouldn’t want a toddler or the family dog deciding to play with this little guy. I wonder if David lives alone or has any younger brothers or sisters who were at any risk to be poisoned by the toad.

It’s hard to get too worked up about a toad when so many people are becoming addicted to prescription drugs. Certainly using this toad, which is not a prince, to get high is an activity for a specialist. But, really, when things go that far, I do think it’s a good idea to look into the possibility of getting some addiction help.

More alcohol and inhalants are used by the 9 to 15 crowd than toads and that is a far bigger problem, especially since alcohol and inhalants are also hard-to-control everyday household items.

Hallucinogens are dangerous just like any other drug, and this frog is no exception.
Hopefully, people will drop this particular idea and let the frog live in his natural habitat.

Addiction help services will be available when the croaking stops.

There’s a new movie coming out – Happy Valley. It’s filmed in Utah, where anti-depressant use is double the national average. Ron Williams is the director/creator/producer and, from his viewpoint, the denial of addiction is a more serious problem than addiction itself. I agree. I have often wondered why drug rehab facilities even have to bother to advertise: With over 22 million Americans needing treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, you’d think they’d be beating down the doors. Not so.

To get subjects for Happy Valley, a documentary, Williams put up a major freeway billboard offering free drug rehab. He got 12 calls – no question why he thinks denial is a big issue.

The film will address some big issues, very big. Here’s a quote from the website: “What price are we really paying to fund pharmaceutical companies? Why are we the sickest generation of Americans ever if we have more patents and drugs than ever before? Do pharmaceutical companies design business models to prey on the sick? We, the people, continue to nobly fund profits for multi-trillion dollar corporations instead of appropriately investing in our health. Why.”

Very good questions. If enough people see this movie, and are inspired to take action, no good drug rehab program will have an empty bed, and more Americans will be drug free.

Okay, so we’ve held out as long as possible on this story, but when it was announced by the California State Medical Board to news outlets that a Los Angeles psychiatrist is being investigated for prescribing all of the11 types of drugs that were found in Anna Nicole Smith’s room at the Florida hotel where she died, we had to chime in. The report said that while they were not all prescribed directly to Anna Nicole, they were all provided by the same doctor.

Another doctor is also being investigated by the California State Medical Board for prescribing the painkiller methadone and the sedative Ativan to Smith, both of which were found in her system when she died.

As reported earlier, the medical examiner did state that the mixture of prescription drugs is what killed her, but which ones or which combinations caused the most damage?

For her son, it was a combination of methadone and two antidepressants, Lexapro and Zoloft.

The common factors in the death of Anna Nicole and her son are methadone and psychiatric drugs. Do you think the same psychiatrist was involved?

Should this be a lesson to the millions of people out there taking similar drug combinations and thinking they’re safe? If so, it is a tragic way for the truth to come out, but if you do some searching, you’ll find that Smith and her son weren’t exactly the only ones in the country who died from these drugs this past year, only the most famous.

Article by Eric

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The short answer is probably no, but there is a longer explanation.

Drug addiction is often characterized as compulsive, drug seeking behavior due to physical and/or mental dependency on a drug, despite knowingly causing damage to oneself and others regardless of consequence.

Someone who is drug dependent may not exhibit the compulsive drug-seeking and may have a more rational appearance in life. Cases of this may include the moderate-to-heavy social drinker who has three alcoholic drinks several nights per week or more. You can also include the millions of people who take prescribed drugs day in and day out.

Someone who is drug dependent can easily become a drug addict, but there really isn’t a definite line. What happens if the drinker gets cut off at the bar? He often gets belligerent and goes to another bar to buy alcohol, which would be the compulsive drug (or alcohol) seeking.

Tolerance can also have an effect on dependence turning into addiction. One example might be someone being prescribed a narcotic painkiller after an injury or surgery. She takes it for the recommended week as prescribed, but when she stops she goes into withdrawals because her body became dependent on it. Her next reaction is that she has to get more of the drug to not feel bad anymore – and this escalates. We receive calls every week of this very scenario, after people have fallen completely into the addiction category.

Another example we see a lot with prescriptions includes teenagers who were put on amphetamines for learning disorder labels. Their bodies naturally develop a tolerance to the stimulant and then need more – something stronger. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard the story of “please help, my son is using cocaine,” and when I ask questions about their history I find out he was on Ritalin for three years prior to this happening.

So, despite different characteristics and definitions, one has to be drug dependent to be an addict, but the line isn’t definite when it is crossed. When do you think that line is crossed, if it’s there at all?

Article by Eric

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On Monday the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released figures on prescription drug abuse in New Jersey.

National studies have shown that 3% of residents have abused prescription drugs in the past year with 6% of those in the 18-25 age bracket reporting misusing prescription drugs.

Those numbers are even higher in New Jersey where recent reports show the numbers for young adults in the 18-25 category at 11% while statewide 4% of residents reported they abused prescription drugs in the past year.

The White House report also stated that admissions to drug and alcohol rehab programs for pain killers have increased 217% from 1999-2005 for New Jersey. Deputy US Drug Czar Scott Burns said, “Prescription drug abuse is a serious problem in New Jersey.” Officials partly blame the practice of “doctor shopping” where people go from doctor to doctor obtaining multiple prescriptions and have them filled at different pharmacies, a practice which is on the rise nationwide.

New Jersey is one of 16 states that still don’t have a drug-monitoring program in place that would allow doctors and pharmacies to receive up to date and accurate information about the patients drug history.

Does your state have a drug monitoring program available? Do you think this should be implemented on a federal level? Let us know what you think.

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In today’s day and age, beer is still considered the drink of choice for many Czechs. According to the UK-based Society for the Study of Addiction, in 2003, Czechs drank an average of 162 liters of beer per person.

This is more than any other nation on earth. That’s one bottle of beer for every man, woman, and child in the Czech Republic every day.

In this nation, the pub has been and will remain a key place for many to gather after work. In fact the above trend is not recent and drinking beer has been apart of Czech history for at least 1,000 years. Beers like Budweis and Pilsner beers were born and remain popular, both in the Czech Republic and around the globe.

What’s even more odd is that scientists in the United Kingdom just did a study and reported that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than Ecstasy, marijuana and LSD as alcohol is involved in half of all emergency room visits in the country.

The study went on to say that tobacco causes 40 percent of all illnesses that require hospitalization. Scientists doing the study feel that alcohol and tobacco cause more economical and societal problems than the use of many of these illegal drugs.

Will these new findings cut down on the amount of alcohol use and abuse in the country? Will many who abuse alcohol now turn to abusing drugs because these drugs are reported as being less dangerous than alcohol?

Article by Eric

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There are many drugs in existence today, both legal and illegal, that are called “non-addictive.”

In fact, pharmaceutical companies have come out with “non-narcotic” forms of pain relief like Ultram and Ambien that are “safe if used as directed and non-addictive” yet the incidents of people becoming addicted to these drugs continues to increase.

This is not something new.

In the 1850’s when opium addiction first became an epidemic in the United States, morphine was used as a non-addictive substitute until it was later outlawed in the 1920’s because of its’ addictive properties.

There have even been statements that the illegal drugs marijuana is a “non-addictive” and “non-harmful” drug, yet it continues to be one of the most abused drug in the country.

Another drug said to be “non-addictive” is LSD which is in fact one of the most harmful drugs out there, causing long-term damage to users. Not only does LSD cause flashbacks, where certain aspects of their LSD experience reoccur, but it also can cause long-lasting psychoses, and drug tolerance - where the user needs more and more of the drug to achieve the desired effect. After experiencing their first high on LSD, many users take this drug over and over again, even with the negative effects associated with the drug.

The fact remains that drugs alter the senses and perceptions. Drugs produce a high in the user and the user continues taking the drugs to achieve the desired effect and in many cases takes more and more of the drug. This is true of everything from LSD to marijuana, to those legal prescription drugs and replacement drug therapies that are so heavily promoted on a day to day basis.

Calling these drugs “non-addictive” is not only a false statement but easily proven untrue, not only with illegal drugs like marijuana and LSD but also with “legal” drugs like prescription pain pills, anti-depressants and replacement drug therapies.

If these drugs are so non-addictive, why does the number of people becoming addicted to them continue to increase?

You do the math and you’ll see that “non-addictive” drugs really don’t exist.

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Recently the Broward County Medical Examiner has ruled that Anna Nicole Smith’s death was the result of an accidental drug overdose. Since she was found unresponsive on Feb 8th in her hotel room in Hollywood, FL there has been a media storm surrounding questions of how she died as well as where to bury her and who gets custody of her infant daughter Dannielynn.

It was stated by the Medical Examiner that prescription drugs found in therapeutic levels were present when the body was examined.

Benzodiazepine medications such as Klonipin, Valium and Ativan were all found in her body as well as Chloral Hydrate, a sedative used in the short-term treatment of insomnia as well as to relieve anxiety and induce sleep before surgery. It is also used after surgery for pain and to treat alcohol withdrawl.

Additionally Topomax, a medication commonly used in the treatment of seizures, the muscle relaxant Soma as well as over the counter medications such as Benedryl and Tylenol were also found to be present in her toxicology report.

It is believed that the combination of these and other drugs found in her bloodstream are what resulted in her death.

Questions of whether this could have been prevented if the multiple doctors who prescribed these medications were aware of the interactions between them could not be answered.

More and more in the United States this is a trend for many drug users who seek out prescription medications from multiple doctors without letting one know about the other, called “doctor shopping” it is a practice many prescription drug abusers are all too familiar with. As we can now see the results of the interactions of these drugs taken together even at therapeutic levels can be deadly.

Did Anna Nicole intend to commit suicide or was she simply taking medications as directed?

At this point, at least as far as the medical examiner is concerned, the death was accidental; an eerie warning to those who use any combination of these drugs without the physicians who prescribe them being aware of the combinations the patient is taking.

Should doctors who prescribe benzodiazepines be held responsible if a person dies from the interaction of drugs they prescribe when taken at therapeutic levels? What do you think?

Article by Eric

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Earlier we discussed the notion that LSD and other hallucinogens were possibly the most harmful drugs, simply for what they do to a person’s mind.

Well, a new ranking system of drugs has been recommended and was recently printed in The Lancet medical journal in the UK. This new system devised harm scores for drugs, examining the damage caused by each drug not just to an individual or how addictive it was, but also by the damage it caused to families and society as a whole.

Topping the list were heroin and cocaine, but an article in The Guardian seemed surprised that alcohol was placed fifth on the list.

Although it is the world’s most consumed addictive substance and is legal, it actually costs more to the population in terms of damage caused by its use. This includes deaths from drinking and driving, as well as domestic violence, assault and battery, and lost productivity at work.

Also mentioned in the article was that marijuana was ranked as being more harmful that Ecstasy, LSD and GHB.

Does this classification system make sense? These British research scientists seemed to think so. What do you think?

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