I’ve seen a lot of news about using ADHD drugs in school simply to study. Concerta, Adderall and Ritalin are the main ones. Unfortunately, most of the news has simply reported it, there seems to have been very little protest, very little news about the problems with these drugs despite the fact that they’re dangerous and can easily lead to prescription drug addiction and abuse.

Finally, from the University of Arizona, we’re getting a little of the truth about ‘study’ drugs.  One of the students interviewed for the article said that a couple of weeks before exam time he tries to prepare for it by getting at least six hours sleep a night and eating well. He also said he avoids the risk of prescription drug addiction by only taking study drugs when he has to do 15 hours of work in one night..

Okay. So I have a few questions. First, where is he getting the idea that sleeping for six hours a night is enough? And where is he getting the idea that eating well for two weeks will make up for not eating well for months before that. Next – if he’s sleeping for six hours a night for the two weeks before exams, how much sleep is he getting the rest of the time. And what’s he doing for the other 18 hours? Not studying, you can be sure of that. If he was spending that much time studying he wouldn’t be so worried about exams. He’d know his stuff.

And what’s he eating the rest of the time?

The director of health services for the university said that kids who get enough sleep, eat well and take care of themselves get higher marks than those who don’t. A simple solution, and yet many students are willing to risk prescription drug addiction, all the side effects, and everything else that goes along with drug abuse, rather than do that.

If I were the parent of a college-age kid right now, I’d be afraid to send them away to school. If you are such a parent, and your kid is already dabbling with drugs or drinking, I would advise they get into a drug addiction treatment before college. Whatever they’re doing now is bound to escalate once they get to school.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The lockers of the students in three schools in Massachussetts were K9 searched for drugs earlier this week. They caught one kid, with a lot of marijuana – all bagged up and ready to go. He’s been arrested. The searches were done to demonstrate the zero tolerance policy of illicit drugs in schools – the only problem is that illicit drugs are probably not the major problem. What they need to focus on is prescription drugs.

Prescription drug addiction and abuse is more popular among teens these days that marijuana. OxyContin and other opiate painkillers, stimulants, tranqilizers – the kids get them free from their parent’s medicine cabinets, give them to their friends, take them to parties where they’re thrown in a big bowl so kids can take whatever they want, not even knowing what the drugs are – that’s what the schools are really up against. And it’s the hardest to detect. K9s are trained to smell Xanax.

Truthfully, half the kids in school could have been high that day – having a good laugh afterwards. If the kid who was arrested doesn’t go to jail, chances are he’ll start dealing prescription drugs instead. And while the search will certainly keep marijuana, heroin and speed out of the school – which may help – what’s really needed is a body search and a urine or other type of test that will identify the presence of prescription drugs. Only that way can you stop prescription drug addiction or abuse.

I admire the fact that law enforcement is doing something about the drug problem in schools – but they’ve got to get the right target. Then they can find the kids with a problem and get them into prescription drug rehab for help. 

Popularity: 19% [?]

A second methadone clinic is opening in Pennsylvania, where heroin addiction is “rampant.” Methadone clinics are controversial – some says it’s trading heroin addiction for methadone addiction and, in fact, it is. Even the director of the clinic, Glen Cooper, acknowledges that methadone treatment is not a cure, and that it ”works best” in tandem with counselling. Which they also deliver. The counselling, I assume, is an actual drug rehab program that gets people off drugs completely – heroin and methadone.

The public in the area are suspicious – they don’t want a bunch of ’drug addicts’ around, and they don’t particularly care what drug they’re taking. Cooper’s response? ”I think people should keep in mind that people in methadone treatment programs, if they are successful, are no longer using drugs and don’t need to steal.”

I’m not sure what he means by ‘if they are successful,’ or they ‘are no longer using drugs.’ Does he mean that if they’re successful they’re no longer using heroin or methadone? If that’s not what he means then, yes, they are using drugs. They’re using methadone.

True, they don’t need to steal. They get their drugs from the clinic and it’s either free – not likely, since it’s a for-profit organization, or they’re relatively inexpensive.

Either way, it would be nice if we could expect something more than  they ‘don’t need to steal’ from a drug treatment facility. Sure, that’s a step in the right direction but how many are actually taking the next step – becoming completely drug-free?

Popularity: 26% [?]

Wausau, Wisconsin, not a very big town, about 125,000, is battling prescription drug addiction and abuse with the local kids. Eight deaths in the last year or so, that they know of, four of which were methadone related – it was being used as a painkiller – and there were two suicides.

The police are busy trying to control the Wausau prescription drug problem but they run up against the same thing as everyone else in the U.S. - the drugs are legal, even though they might not be prescribed for the person taking them, and, because they came from a doctor, aren’t considered really dangerous.

Nevertheless, a 35-year-old drug dealer – who obviously deals in prescription drugs – is spending five years in prison as a result of the latest death, 19-year-old Chuck Tabaka. Not much time to spend locked up after killing someone. As I’m sure Chuck’s parents and the 200 people who attended his funeral would agree.

Does your kid know anyone who takes prescription drugs? Find out.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Years ago I ran a medical clinic that used hair samples to analyze nutritional deficiencies and the presence of toxic substances. We didn’t test for drugs, that wasn’t what we were after, but hair analysis is an effective way to find out about drug use – and it could help prevent prescription drug addiction and problems with street drugs.

A company based in San Diego, California, is now offering hair analysis kits that test for drugs and you can use them in your home.

The type of hair analysis I’m familiar with would not tell you if your kid did drugs last night, but it will certainly tell you what’s been going on for the last few months.  You can see if your kids been experimenting with drugs and get them into a drug addiction treatment program early enough in the game to prevent much of the damage caused by prescription drug addiction and abuse.

While it’s true that you might not be the most popular parent in town, unless you do get your kid off drugs, for which he will be eternally grateful, this is not too harsh a move in my opinion.  Years ago all we had to do to make sure our kids didn’t kill themselves was keep them off the street until they learned to look both ways. Now we’re faced with new dangers and, as parents, we have to do something about them. A little antagonism for so-called invasion of privacy is nothing compared to prescription drug addiction and abuse killing our kids and ruining their lives.

If you think your kid needs help, contact Drug Rehab Referral. We can help you find a drug rehab or addiction treatment center that will get them off drugs and help them address the issues that got them started with drugs in the first place.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I was speaking with a friend today who told me about some alarming statistics for kids who’ve taken psychiatric drugs – specifically antipsychotics, but it clearly involved other types as well. Kids who take one such drug are about twice as likely to be obese, have diabetes, and a variety of cardiac problems that are usually associated with people who are much older: strokes, heart attacks, blocked arteries, and so on. It’s also well known that kids who take drugs or drink alcohol early in life are more likely to develop a prescription drug addiction, an addiction to street drugs, or become alcoholics as adults.

This makes me wonder if the current health problems of Americans – we’re one of the least healthy nations – are tied into the incredible increase over the last couple of decades in the number of kids who’ve been given prescription drugs.

Certainly when you’re overweight, have diabetes, and already have atheroscerlosis as a child, you’re not going to turn into a healthy adult.

To make matters worse, the risk increased for those who had taken two drugs, then again for those who’d taken three, and so on.

Add to that the number of kids getting prescription drugs from their parents and friends medicine cabinets, and you’ve got a serious problem – not just with prescription drug addiction, but with a population with even greater physical problems.

I don’t know what it’s really going to take for people to get the message about the dangers of prescription drugs and get themselves and their loved ones into a drug addiction treatment center so they can get off them.

It’s hard to say if prescription drugs are our society’s biggest problem right now. But, when you consider that they ruin people’s health, mental function, family lives, turn people into criminals, etc. I would venture to say that if terrorists wanted to destroy a society over a longish period of time, this would be the way to do it.

Popularity: 100% [?]

As most people think prescription drugs – since they came from a doctor – are safe, I would imagine many people also think they can stop anytime. But an attempt to quit drugs that cause prescription drug addiction or a physical dependency can be almost as dangerous as taking them. Witness the story of Gus Castellanos, a prominent doctor, found by his wife convulsing on the floor in his attempt to wean himself off the prescription painkiller, hydrocodone.  Thank God she was there. She saved his life.

Dr. Castellanos should have known everything there was to know about prescription drug addiction and withdrawal. He is from a medical family, three generations of prominent doctors, one of them twice won the Nobel. But even he didn’t have the education he needed to get off drugs successfully. He tried several times. Once he used methadone, that didn’t work. The last time he tried Florinal with codeine – which sent him into convulsions, then the ER, then prescription drug rehab, and then a new life.

Of course, it didn’t happen quite that fast. And there were a few other bumps along there road – prison, for example. Read his story. It has a very happy ending.  Dr. Castellanos got off drugs and, in the process of his prescription drug rehab and recovery, he made some remarkable discoveries about himself. And he really changed his life. This is one former drug addict I don’t think will ever relapse.  

Popularity: 13% [?]

When it comes to the real truth about drugs, forensic pathologists, doctors who investigate the cause of death, may be our best friends. They tell the truth, based on irrefutable evidence. The kind that holds up in court. Right now, one of their chief concerns is the alarming rise in prescription drug-related deaths. Some of the dead may have developed a prescription drug addiction, some may not really have had a drug problem at all. 

A recent presentation given by Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, a forensic pathologist in Liberty, Ohio, showed that of the cases accepted and autopsied or analyzed by the county coroner’s office, nearly 20% of the deaths were drug related. And that didn’t include drug-related homicides, suicides or accidents. Just people who took the drugs, and died.

The doctor’s presentation included his profile of the typical family – a father who is ”a plant worker who developed a back problem and became dependent on painkillers. His wife was a hospital employee, who sprained her ankle and was confident she could handle a pain patch she was prescribed. The athletic daughter also developed problems from a sports injury and peer pressure.”

They all started with prescription drugs, may or may not have developed an actual prescription drug addiction, but are nevertheless the types of people who end up on a slab in the morgue.

The common denominators, according to the doc, are the build up of drugs in the system and mixing prescribed drugs. As he put it: “”One (pill) makes me feel good. Two makes me feel better. Three and I’m dead.”

You may think you’re safe but I would bet that the majority of people who ended up on slabs in morgues thought the same thing.

If you’re using prescription drugs that aren’t strictly medically necessary, you should check with your doctor about getting off them. It may be a simple task, or you may need prescription drug rehab. Either way, it’s better than risking your life.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I wonder what effect the Wall Street meltdown is having on the number of people who will soon develop a prescription drug addicton or dependancy.

Really, when you look at what’s going on in the world – and even just the U.S. – it’s not hard to understand why so many people want to just block it all out. We’re waging war on  country that hasn’t done anything to us, killing thousands of innocent people (including our own children), hundreds of thousands of our homes are being foreclosed on every month, our kids are coming out of public schools that are like plots for another Dumb and Dumber movie, they’re taking drugs, drinking, hanging out with gangs, our jobs are at risk, our social security is at risk, and now it looks like we’re headed for another depression.

And most of it is all happening at the level of ‘city hall’, the entity almost everyone thinks they can’t fight.

Is it really any wonder why people are turning to prescription drug addiction?

The truth is, although there are many things we can’t do much about, at least, not quickly, there are also many things we can change. There’s a lot about our own lives, our own environment, our kids, our health, even our financial position, that we can do something about.

But it’s not going to happen if we’re living in the haze caused by prescription drug addiction.

If you or someone you care about has turned to prescription drugs to make things better, get help through prescription drug rehab. When you’re off drugs – especially if you go to a good drug addiction treatment center that will also help you address your problems – you’re better able to cope with and solve the problems of life.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Another promising football career might be down the drain. Considered one of the nation’s top 20 recruits in 2005, Ike Whitaker was suspended from the team at Virginia Tech  after missing several important team meetings, having a real problem with alcohol addiction, and missing classes.

He reportedly feels he wasn’t treated fairly. I’m sure the coach and other team members don’t feel they were treated fairly by him either. Or the school – which he’s attending on a football scholarship. His parents probably aren’t too pleased either. And his fans who were looking forward to his promising career also may feel a little cheated.

Despite Ike’s big changes after alcohol rehab, it appears he slid back a little too far into his past unprofessional conduct – there’s nothing professional about drinking, brawling, missing meetings, and missing classes.

After he was told he was suspended, Whitaker got into a brawl when someone made a snide comment about his suspension. The brawl was stopped by the police, who measured his blood alcohol at 3.3, more than 4 times the legal limit.  Whitaker commented that he shouldn’t have handled it that way but, at the same time, said he hadn’t had enough to drink for his blood alcohol level to be that high.  Which, as an excuse, inspires about as much confidence as “I woke up late” – his excuse for missing the wide receivers meeting just before his suspension.

Really, in the college atmosphere, where drinking is so accepted, expected, and frequent, it’s hard to resist temptation. One way or another, hundreds or thousands of people in your immediate environment are trying to get you to go off track.

Although it looks like his time at Virginia Tech is over, for football at least, Ike’s beat this before. He’s risen to the occasion before, and I think he can do it again.  As long as he takes it as seriously as he did the last time, owns up to what he’s done, and takes responsibility for doing something about it.

A little more time in alcohol rehab, perhaps this time addressing how he handles adversity, temptation, fame, and so on, will help. He also has to make sure he doesn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself.  He’s got to realize this is his doing and, as he did before, get things under control.  Then he might still have a chance.

Good luck, Ike.

Popularity: 13% [?]