For many years Alabama was the 49th state on the list for dollars put into drug rehab. And even though the funding has increased, the state is playing catch up – only 25,000 of the 300,000 who need it will get through treatment this year. The problem has largely been one of quality – although they haven’t been able to measure the success of their programs, a report in the Birmingham News said that people often go through treatment four or five times. State officials are learning that successful drug rehab is almost impossible with short term programs.

The increased funding, now at $38.9 million, will largely go to improving the quality of drug rehab in Alabama so clients can really kick the habit the first time. This should cut down on the funds wasted on people for whom treatment is a revolving door, and perhaps they’ll be able to treat more people with the money they’ve got.

Alabama has been struggling with growing drug problems for years. Illegally obtained prescription drugs are at an all time high. Perhaps the new funding will allow them to establish more successful drug rehab programs in Alabama so they can turn things around.

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Today I read a story in the York Daily Record about a guy who was sentenced to six years in prison on burglary charges. He was remorseful, and said the burglaries were fuelled by his addiction to crack cocaine. What’s going to happen to him? In all likelihood, he’ll do his time, then go back out on the street and start the same thing all over again. And he’ll probably wind up back in prison – one more turn in a never-ending cycle. The only real hope he has of getting off the merry-go-round is a drug rehab program that gets down to the bottom of why he’s taking drugs.

According to national statistics, 80 percent of the U.S. prison population is there on drug-related charges. They were either under the influence at the time of the crimes, or they committed them to finance their drug habit. Although jail time may be appropriate for the crimes committed, what are we going to do for the individual?

Some people may have the attitude that the guy’s a criminal and doesn’t deserve help. Regardless of your personal feelings about that, if he doesn’t get help, your house could be the next to be burglarized. If he does get help, he may turn into someone who is a contributing member of society. And, ultimately, that helps us all.

If we could take every criminal who is addicted to drugs and enroll them in a successful drug rehab program, we might stop this once and for all. Drug addicts would be rehabilitated, crime rates would go down and the addicts would re-enter society as productive, contributing individuals.

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They’re having serious drug problems in Alabama. Deaths from illegal and prescription drug abuse have risen 67% since 2000, and in two counties drug deaths have surpassed traffic accident fatalities. A story in the Birmingham News offers a rare glimpse into causes of death that often escape public view – fatalities triggered by drug overdoses, drug addiction, and deadly combinations. Both legal and illegal drugs are involved, along with alcohol. I can’t help thinking about how much better things would be if more of Alabama’s drug addicts and drug abusers would take advantage of the state’s numerous drug rehab facilities.

Jefferson County is the state’s most populous county and the location of the county seat at Birmingham. There were 119 drug-related deaths last year in Jefferson County, an increase of 42% since 2002, and only 80 deaths from traffic accidents.

In neighboring Shelby County, with only a quarter of the population of Jefferson, only 11 traffic fatalities have occurred so far this year. But the coroner has responded to 18 drug deaths in the same period. There were 18 drug deaths in all of 2005, and that rose to 24 in 2006. It looks like this year is shaping up for a drug death record. If the trend continues it could go above 30, or even 40 by the end of the year.

I hope officials and the public are taking a good look at the situation and doing everything they can to reach out to drug addicts, drug abusers and even the dedicated weekend drug dabblers who just can’t say no to a few pills, tokes, snorts or shots. It’s not like there aren’t any treatment centers available. In Birmingham alone there are more than a dozen. And a successful drug rehab program could save these lives.

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WCNC TV in Charlotte, North Carolina recently did an investigation into the relationship between drug addiction and prostitution. Several of the women interviewed for the investigation said that becoming a prostitute was directly fueled by drug addiction. This opens the door to getting many women off the streets: a successful drug rehab program could end their drug addiction, and give them back their lives.

Although Charlotte’s prostitution situation is bad - one Saturday afternoon more than two dozen women were locked up – it is not the only area with a problem. Women all over the country are selling their body to support their habit. And they’re risking disease, prison and death in the process.

I worked in the drug rehab field for many years and, occasionally, a woman with a history of prostitution was admitted into drug rehab so she could kick the drug habit. And consequently, she could stop being a prostitute and start a new life. But the vast majority don’t get treatment, and they continue to put their lives on the line every day.

Addressing both the mental and physical components of drug addiction by going through a good drug rehab program can get prostitutes off the drugs, off the streets, and able to restore their integrity.

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I’ve been wondering for years why people addicted to heroin, morphine and other opiates are put on methadone, a synthetic narcotic used for more than 30 years to “treat” opiate addiction. The thing is, methadone is an addictive drug in its own right, and those people stay addicted to it. Why trade one drug addiction for another when an addict can be helped immediately through drug detox and a successful drug rehab program?

Methadone withdrawal symptoms are slower and easier to withstand, according to the official descriptions from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Taken orally once a day, it suppresses narcotic withdrawal for between 24 and 36 hours. When used as a “treatment” it gives time for the addict to eventually be weaned off drugs entirely. Or so goes the theory.

But then we have the following, and this sounds really kind of nuts: “It is possible to maintain an addiction to methadone without harsh side effects . .  .” and “. . . many patients require continuous treatment, sometimes over a period of years.”

A period of years strung out on methadone? It just defies any logic to keep someone addicted to drugs instead of using drug detox and drug rehab to handle it in just weeks, or a few months at most!

If addicts were actually being treated it might at least be a start in the very, very short term – certainly not years, or even months. But the fact is, tens of thousands of methadone addicts across the country are getting it free from local clinics, while they continue to live on the streets. Many actually sell their methadone so they can continue to buy heroin or morphine. Methadone has been available as an illicit street drug for decades. The people on the street aren’t taking it to wean themselves off heroin or get through some form of drug rehab. They’re taking it to get stoned, and stay stoned. And by handing out free methadone we’re just keeping them addicted to opiates.

Also, let’s not forget that methadone is very dangerous. Last year the FDA issued a methadone public health advisory because it can suppress breathing and cause dangerous, and sometimes fatal, changes in heartbeat. In fact, there has been a huge rise in methadone deaths - even when consumed at low doses. According to the ONDCP, six percent of people carry a gene that makes methadone a life-threatening killer.

Doing something to help free addicts from the crime, violence and dead end of the street-drug world of drug addiction is a good thing. Handing out methadone and watching them return to that ugly world is not. Well, okay, handing out methadone to anyone for any reason is not a good thing. We need to change our point of view, and demand some system changes that create the means for all addicts to fully reclaim their lives through proper drug detox and drug rehab.

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Advertising promotes drug abuse by sending the message that pills are a cure-all. Parents set bad example by popping pills for every ill and filling their medicine cabinets with drugs.

An epidemic is a disease that spreads rapidly in a population, and that fully describes the abuse of over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drugs by America’s young adults. In a few short years, the numbers of young people showing up at hospital emergency rooms, drug detox and drug rehab centers has skyrocketed.

The Partnership for a Drug Free America’s 2006 tracking study has found that:

• Nearly one in five (19 percent or 4.5 million) teens has tried prescription medication (pain relievers such as Vicodin and OxyContin and stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall) to get high.
• One in 10 (that’s 2.4 million) teens report abusing cough medicine to get high.
• OTC and prescription drug abuse is on par or higher than the abuse of illegal drugs such as Ecstasy (8 percent), cocaine/crack (10 percent), methamphetamine (8 percent) and heroin (5 percent).

Direct-to-consumer drug advertising, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1997, sends the message that pills offer a cure for every ill. Which pill to take, many commercials suggest, is largely a matter of personal choice. And significantly absent are clear warnings about the risks of drug addiction and dependency that can only be overcome with successful drug rehab, and the overdoses and drug combinations that have killed thousands of people of all ages.

Maybe America’s parents should be in drug rehab.

Parents take prescription drugs for every little up and down in life – sad, can’t sleep, can’t wake up, have a little ache, need a pick-me-up, need to relax – there’s a pill for almost everything. And confused, ill-informed doctors hand them out like candy, even to teenagers who lie about their symptoms to get them, the Partnership survey found.

The lessons being taught here are that these drugs are okay, everybody takes them, and they’re safer than illegal street drugs because they have all these legitimate uses – hey, mom and dad use them all the time and they’re not really sick.

The most important lesson of all, and one that they’re not being taught by their pill-popping parents, is that drugs are not the solution for every little problem. And taking them to get high or “self-medicate” is every bit as dangerous and addictive as using street drugs, and can just as quickly lead to months in drug rehab.

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Actiq ‘Lollipop’ Causing Drug Addiction, Injuries and Deaths

You may have heard about a drug called Actiq – a berry-flavored lozenge on a stick that looks and tastes like a lollipop. It was approved by the FDA for cancer patients but is being prescribed for everything from migraines to back pain, and has now found it’s way to the street. Actiq contains fentanyl, a highly-addictive drug 80 times more powerful than heroin or morphine. It is a very dangerous drug, and someone who’s using it should get into drug rehab as fast as possible. Here are the statistics.

The FDA approved Actiq for cancer patients who suffer from severe spikes of pain not controlled by their long-acting chronic pain medication. However, one study found that of the 187,076 prescriptions filled over a six-month period, only 1 percent were written by oncologists.
 
To date, Actiq prescriptions for non-cancer pain has led to at least 127 deaths – including two children who confused the drug for candy. Another 47 deaths were linked to overdoses. Actiq’s manufacturer, Cephalon, Inc., has also reported 91 serious, nonfatal incidents ranging from respiratory distress to severe dehydration.

Over the last few years, Actiq on the street has been linked hundreds of overdose deaths and injuries, and drug abuse treatment centers across the country have reported increasing numbers of lollipop addicts turning up for drug rehab. Known by abusers as “perc-o-pops” or simply “lollipops”, Actiq is usually obtained through forged prescriptions or bought from people with legitimate prescriptions.

Although it is legal for doctors to prescribe a drug for a purpose other than which it was approved, the situation has gotten out of hand.

This drug is so addictive that one woman, who was originally prescribed the drug for headaches, spent her entire pregnancy on “one big high sucking lollipops” until she gave birth. Needless to say, her baby was also born with an addiction to this powerful narcotic. The mother struggled with Actiq addiction for several more months after giving birth, and ended up in jail for forging a prescription for the drug.

She finally entered a successful drug rehab program to get help. Really, with a drug this dangerous, that’s your only hope. And with the death and incident toll rising, the sooner the better.

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Alcohol or drug abuse affects 25 million Americans; only four million get treatment

The need in this country for increased insurance coverage for alcohol and drug addiction treatment is indisputable. Drug rehab and drug detox have little or no recognition among health insurers, yet drug addiction is a major cause of ruined lives, family violence, emergency room visits, and death. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, alcohol and drug addiction also cost America $77 billion each year in lost productivity. Clearly something needs to be done to make it easier for addicts to get alcohol and drug rehab.

But the question that leaps out when one reads the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, H.R. 1402, is this: is substance abuse and addiction “mental illness”?
 
The proposed “Wellstone bill”, H.R. 1402, would require insurance companies to treat “addiction and other mental health disorders” on an equal basis with other chronic diseases, such as diabetes or hypertension.
 
The Wellstone bill is being sponsored by U.S. Reps. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Jim Ramstad (R-Minn). Kennedy has said that we should “. . . end the discrimination against those with mental health and substance abuse disorders.” And Ramstad said Congress should “. . . end the discrimination against people with mental illness and chemical dependency.”
 
Where is this idea coming from that people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are in the same category as alcohol or drug abuse, including those inadvertently got hooked on addictive prescription drugs. Is it possible that they are not mentally ill – that they simply need drug detox and drug rehab?

For example, was Justice William H. Rhenquist of the Supreme Court “mentally ill” because he was hooked on powerful painkillers for a decade before he entered drug rehab? You’d have a tough time convincing college law professors or anyone on the Supreme Court that we should go back and cancel 10 years of brilliant and insightful decisions and opinions – the ones that later got Rhenquist appointed Chief Justice – because he was “mentally ill.”

Or what about one of America’s most famous, prolific and successful writers who for decades was either drunk or wired on cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, cough medicines, or marijuana? Was Stephen King “mentally ill” when he wrote several intricately plotted, best-seller blockbuster novels? We never heard anything about “mental illness” when King went into drug rehab in the 1980s. And he’s been sober ever since.
 
And let’s not forget that Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a habitual cocaine abuser who sang the drug’s praises for years to anyone who would listen. After a friend died of an overdose, he abruptly gave it up and quit promoting it – not the action one expects from someone who is “mentally ill”.
 
The so-called “mental health parity” bills such as the Wellstone bill have always failed to pass – and there’s been a lot of attempts over the decades. Aside from the huge lobbying efforts against it by the insurance industry, perhaps people also feel deep down that substance abuse and mental illness are not the same thing at all and do not belong together in a such a bill.

The “mental health industry”, as it’s known today, receives billions of tax dollars every year in grants and other forms of support. In comparison, appropriations for alcohol and drug rehab are a drop in the bucket. Yet untreated dependency and addiction are costing us $77billion in lost productivity - more than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and far more than “mental illness.”
 
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, nearly 25 million Americans suffer from a substance abuse problem. And less than four million of these victims receive the drug rehab they need.
 
If we really want to do something about this situation, we need to separate these two issues and get each of them into their own proposed legislation. That way we may have a better chance to get the insurance industry up to speed on helping the millions of Americans who are not mentally ill, and who too often need financial help getting into and through a succesful drug rehab program.

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A successful drug rehab saves lives. For Justice Renquist, it was nearly too late.

Drug addiction can happen to anyone. I just saw the recently-released FBI files regarding the late Justice William H. Rehnquist and his decade-long addiction to the sleep-inducing drug Placidyl. After years on the bench, Justice Renquist came close to ending his career. And would have, had it not been for drug rehab.

Justice Rhenquist began taking the drug after back surgery, and a decade later he was taking three times the usual dose. And even though the situation was not widely known, people noticed: according to The Washington Post, even journalists had noted that Rehnquist’s speech was sometimes slurred.

One physician said that after Rhenquist checked into a Washington hospital for drug rehab, he expressed “bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts. He imagined, for example, that there was a CIA plot against him.” The doctor said Rehnquist “had also gone to the lobby in his pajamas in order to try to escape.” Rehnquist’s delirium was consistent with suddenly stopping his daily dose of 1400 milligrams of the drug – nearly three times higher than the maximum recommended by physicians. No wonder it was so hard for him to kick the habit.

Justice Renquist suffered for ten years. He went through an ordeal, but he beat it and was able to resume his career. Others aren’t so lucky. Don’t let something like that happen to someone you care about - get them into a successful drug rehab program before it’s too late.

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