It seems that they’ve given up on handling the heroin addiction problem in England. They’re no longer talking drug rehab, they’re not even talking about ‘harm reduction’ like methadone programs and setting up sites where heroin addicts are supervised and can get clean needles so they can shoot up. Now they’re talking about just giving heroin addicts heroin. They hope to cut down the crime associated with the various things addicts do get the drug, and reducing sales of the drug on the street.

Okay – so they’re about to throw in the towel on the addicts. After a two-year trial, they’ve concluded that parking heroin addicts on heroin is a better idea than parking them on methadone – at great expense to the taxpayer, who will foot the bill, an infinitely larger bill than ‘methadone maintenance.’

Not that the government owes heroin addicts anything, but there are good drug rehab programs around that would get heroin addicts clean and sober – they just don’t seem to invest the time and money into really understanding addiction and figuring out what program(s) will work. And, really, if you want fewer heroin addicts, the last thing you want to do is support the habit and thereby condemn addicts to lifelong addiction.

Now they’re opening the door to more and more heroin addicts, and fewer and fewer productive and functional citizens.

I wonder if that’s what will eventually happen in the U.S. The so-called War on Drugs isn’t successful – there are more addicts of one sort or another now than ever, despite the fact that $ billions have been spent on fighting the war.

I’d like to know what people think of this as a solution.

Do you have an opinion? Do you have a better solution?

Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s the new year, and it’s time to start taking drug rehab, for yourself or someone you care about, into consideration. Do you really want to go through another year of hell living with drugs?

If you are looking at drug rehab options, there’s one specific method of so-called drug treatment that you really don’t want – and that’s methadone treatment.

Methadone treatment is used for people addicted to heroin or other opiates – like prescription painkillers.

Sometimes methadone is recommended as a ‘stop gap’ – a drug to take that will prevent withdrawal symptoms but does not get you high. You should know that people who are put on methadone for this reason almost never get into drug rehab. They are given methadone for years. Sometimes for life.

Other people, usually those who have gone back to taking drugs after drug rehab, are told that their body is no longer capable of producing the natural endorphins that make us ‘happy’, and that their only choice is to take methadone.

What has usually happened there is that the person hasn’t done a good drug addiction treatment program – and there are plenty out there that usually don’t work.

People who are on methadone, and have been on it for some time, say that the drug has no negative affect. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that it does.

A recent study in Norway, for example, found that people who are on methadone are twice as likely to have car accidents as those who are not on it. For the study, they spent two years following 2,500 people who were on methadone.

Perhaps the worst thing about methadone is that it’s almost impossible to quit. It’s harder to get off it than heroin and the prescription painkillers the person was taking before. In fact, many drug rehab centers won’t even accept someone on methadone because getting off the drug is so very difficult – even when being treated by professionals who’ve gotten hundreds of people off heroin and prescription opiates.

The real solution to opiate addiction is a good drug rehab program. One that has a very high success rate. At Drug Rehab Referral, we’ve helped thousands of people get off those drugs.

If you’re looking into drug rehab, check with us first. We can help you find the addiction treatment program that’s most likely to guarantee success. Of course, there are no real guarantees, but you might as well start off with a program that has a better chance of success than with one that has a low success rate.

The alternative is having an addict go through treatment and fail – in which case they lose their faith that they can actually get off drugs and are more likely to fall for the idea that they need to be drugged forever – on methadone.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Drug rehab in the USA, compared to drug rehab in some other countries, can be a breeze. Here you are often given help to get through withdrawal, are fed well, coached through difficulties, helped with the problems in your life that led to drug addiction or alcohol abuse and given counseling and a program that will help you stay clean when you leave the program.

In Russia, it’s quite a different story. There are not many alcohol or drug addiction treatment facilities in the first place – far more are needed to handle their huge heroin problem – and I doubt there are any centers at all that offer the type of drug rehab program you would find in the U.S. – except perhaps a few to deal with celebrities or officials.

One of the programs they have for the general public, called City Without Drugs, is making the news lately and growing increasingly more popular.

Their primary drug problem is heroin addiction. So, for most of the addicts who come to City Without Drugs, heroin withdrawal is the first step.

The withdrawing heroin addicts are locked in a room with about 30 bunk beds, each one occupied by a person who is going through withdrawal. While on withdrawal, they are fed very little – bread, water and gruel. They say that it sometimes takes a month just to get through the withdrawal process.

After they’ve withdrawn, they don’t get any counseling – instead, you work. The jobs are sometimes menial and sometimes a little more creative. One news report talked about a recovering addict who is refurbishing the art on the walls of a damaged church.

How well you do, how cooperative you are, and so on, determines when you will get out. It could take as much as a year.

Russia has a real problem and the authorities say that other types of drug rehab just don’t work. What they are doing at City Without Drugs – locking people up – is actually illegal, except for the fact that they have the addict’s parents’ permission. Those parents think, not incorrectly, that their son or daughter is going to wind up dead if they don’t do something – they’d rather see them they go through that system, and live.

Not surprisingly, some human rights advocate groups are furious about City Without Drugs. But others actually think the country is doing the right thing considering the extent of the heroin problem. Russia’s heroin addiction situation is desperate – they get it directly from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, it’s ruining their country and their youth. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

There are obviously arguments on both sides. Perhaps eating only bread and water, and a little gruel, is tortuous. On the other hand, considering that the addicts aren’t likely to hold anything down when they’re withdrawing under those circumstances, it might not be the worst thing in the world.

Also, I can’t personally say that working for the next year alongside other recovering addicts and being a contributing member of society – which they have probably not been for quite a while – is the worst idea in the world. Could that not bring about positive change and a willingness and desire to live a normal, productive, drug-free life?

Some advocates have said that City Without Drugs should give their ‘clients’ methadone. Russia doesn’t believe in methadone, they call it an ‘American fad’. It certainly is well past ‘fad’ status, but giving someone methadone in the U.S. and Europe hasn’t led to fewer addicts – they’re just addicted to methadone now instead of heroin. Methadone is very difficult to stop taking. It was also recently announced that more accidental drug-related deaths are caused by methadone than any other drug. In other words, if they gave addicts methadone, they might wind up with an even  more serious problem.

What do you think of the City Without Drugs approach?

Popularity: 1% [?]

A recent news item says that the heroin industry in Mexico is coming into high gear and, consequently, the Midwest and Atlantic states are going to turn into heroin hubs. Until now, that role has been played primarily by California and Texas. What does that mean for us – the general public? There will be a lot more heroin around, and a lot of people are going to be doing into drug rehab to help get off the drug. This is especially true for kids who experiment with drugs, and for people fighting prescription drug addiction.

The cost of heroin is already relatively low – $5 a hit, maybe as much as $10 – which is how students and young adults can afford it. For people with a prescription drug problem, like OxyContin addiction, heroin is also a cheap and readily available substitute. One OxyContin pill could cost as much as $80 on the street.

Prescription drug addiction has become a major problem in the U.S. Even the President’s talking about it. With prescription drug monitoring becoming more prevalent – which makes it harder for someone to go from one doctor to another faking symptoms to get OxyContin they can sell to others – and laws on pill mills getting tighter, more heroin will be welcome.

The article also said that the Mexican heroin dealers are changing the face of the typical heroin user. “Using savvy marketing tactics, they’ve also repositioned heroin commercially, revamping its image from the inner-city drug of yore, with its junkies and needles, into a narcotic that can be snorted or smoked, appealing to suburban and even rural high school youth.”
Pretty disgusting. Parents, especially, should make sure their kids are educated on drugs so they are not tempted. Also, anyone who has a friend or family member who tends to experiment with street drugs or pills and might be tempted to try something a little cheaper should put extra effort into getting them into a drug rehab program asap.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you know someone who is on heroin, methadone, other opiates – even prescription painkillers – you need to know this.

A recent article regarding heroin addicts in the UK says the government – i.e. the taxpayers – is spending 3.6 billion pounds (that’s nearly $6 billion dollars) to keep heroin addicts addicted to methadone. At the same time, the number of those addicts actually being referred to a drug rehab program where they can become totally free of drugs has dropped dramatically.

There is somewhere between 150,000 and 320,000 heroin/methadone/opiate addicts on the UK’s drug addiction sponsorship programs: here’s an example of what the British taxpayers are financing:

$1.2 million a year on methadone.

$2.8 billion a year on welfare payments

$1.9 billion a year on looking after the children of drug addicts

Wow.

The original intention of the methadone program – except for a very few addicts – was to use the drug to help wean them off heroin; to prevent them from having to go through the horrible withdrawal side effects that so often stops heroin addicts from kicking the habit.

Methadone is not a solution. It’s much, much more difficult to get someone off methadone than heroin. Many facilities in the U.S. won’t even accept methadone addicts in their drug rehab program. So methadone doesn’t free the person of anything – it imprisons them.

So, what about real drug rehab for these addicts? Of these 150,000 or 320,000 people (whatever the real number is) only 3,914 per year are referred for actual drug rehab. In fact, there are only 1,872 ‘affordable’ – which is being defined at about $1000 a week – beds in drug rehab facilities in the entire country.

A real lose/lose situation. Everybody loses – the addicts, the government, the families of addicts, the British taxpayer. Everyone in the country is paying to keep addicts addicted.

The very disturbing thing about this is that there is a similar trend in the U.S. Britain was one of the first countries to offer methadone as a solution. Now, decades later, it’s glaringly obvious that the great methadone experiment has failed. Let’s hope the U.S. is paying attention and learns from Britain’s mistakes.

If you know of someone who is addicted to heroin – or other opiates, which methadone is also used for – methadone is not the answer;  methadone is not drug rehab, it is continued drug addiction.

When someone you care about is addicted to heroin or other opiates, it’s tempting to do something to ‘quiet’ things down. Methadone addicts who are getting their drugs inexpensively, or, sometimes, free, often stop causing trouble. Like ‘psychiatric’ patients who are given drugs to calm them down – often to the point where they’re just sitting in a chair staring at whatever’s in front of them. Sure, with the right drug, no one causes trouble.

But is that really all you want? Wouldn’t you prefer to get them help so they can end their dependency on drugs and get back to leading a normal, productive life?

Only a good drug rehab program can do that. And by ‘good’, I don’t mean one of those 30-day things that get the person off drugs temporarily but, because they don’t thoroughly deal with why they got on drugs in the first place or how they’re going to stay off them when they get back into their regular environment, rarely gets permanent results. A good drug rehab program includes those steps. And, for the vast majority of addicts, it’s the only thing that works.

Don’t settle for less. Get your life back.

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of the most disturbing things about drug addiction is the effect on kids.  A recent news story highlights  why parents with kids need to run, not walk, to drug rehab

The mom in this story was pulled over to the side of the road by police in a simple traffic stop.  She had her kids with her – boys aged 14 and 11. The police searched the 14-year-old and found that his mother had stashed heroin in his pants

Mom said she was a single parent and transporting drugs just one time to pay the rent. When officers looked into it, they found out she’d been selling drugs for a while. They charged her with several things – including child endangerment – and her kids were taken away from her by social services.

Imagine how these kids must have felt and what kind of life they’ve had. And how badly set  up they are for the future. Unless these kids have relatives that take them in, they’ll wind up in foster homes. They may even wind up separated, in which case they’ll also lose each other.

If you know a mom using drugs, do the kids a favor and help get her into drug rehab.

Popularity: 1% [?]

People who have never taken drugs, or have never been addicted, often think that addicts should just be able to quit with will power alone. This week I read the story of an addict who eventually got sorted out through drug rehab, and now counsels others, but it took him 11 years to get off drugs.

He was taking heroin, primarily, although he started with marijuana. He said he could never get “high enough” with any drug, so he kept trying one drug after another, each one stronger than the last, until he finally settled on heroin, which he used for years.

He tried to quit a few times. But even when he was in rehab he snuck out to get heroin. The rehab programs he chose were definitely not right for him – he was still in the same environment, with the same people right outside the door, same peer pressure. Quitting was all but impossible.

He even had several friends die of overdoses or contract HIV and AIDS – but even watching his friends die was not enough to enable him to quit.

If someone you care about is an addict, don’t expect will power to do it. The person needs to be in a completely different environment, where he is not surrounded by the same friends, the same lifestyle, the same problems and the same temptations he’s trying to resist.

Addicts want to quit. But they need help. They can get it in a good residential treatment center. After they’ve completed the program they may even have to move to a different area entirely to begin their new life. A good treatment program will help determine whether that is necessary, along with other steps the person needs to take to stay clean.

Often addicts go through several rehab programs before they are totally free of drugs. This not only wastes time and money, every time an addict goes through a program that doesn’t work for him, he also loses confidence that he will ever be able to quit.

Better to do your research and look for one that works in the first place. A long-term residential drug rehab, away from home, is usually the best option.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Here’s the first paragraph of a recent news story from the UK: “The Government has announced its new drug strategy with an uncompromising drive to crack down on those involved in the drugs trade combined with revolutionising treatment services to offer recovery as a route out of dependency. “

Wow. A revolutionary treatment – actually getting the person through a drug rehab program that makes an addict no longer an addict, and no longer wanting to take drugs. A new life.

It’s hard not to be flippant about that. It is so obviously the only real solution.

But in the UK, and in other countries, getting people to actually be able to stop taking drugs and not want to take them is a concept that was abandoned quite some time ago. Instead, they try to reduce the harm caused by the drugs.

There are several programs designed for harm reduction.

Methadone treatment. Methadone was originally intended, for most people, for short-term use to get someone through heroin withdrawal so they can get through a drug rehab program. Instead, people are parked on methadone for years and without any actual rehab at all. The rationale? It’s better than heroin: no needles, no crime (the methadone is supplied at nominal cost through the government), and they can often work and carry on a more or less normal life – as long as they keep taking this dangerous, highly addictive drug.

Other programs include needle exchanges, where the addict can come to a needle exchange site, get a clean needle instead of using one that’s been used by someone else and may be infected with HIV or other diseases. They can also shoot up at those sites, with personnel there to take care of them if they overdose.

Both reduce harm, true, but neither gets the person off drugs.

James Brokenshire, England’s Minister for Crime Prevention is determined to make changes. “There are no quick fixes, what we want to achieve is a generational shift, to get people to take responsibility for their actions and free themselves from the vicious cycle of drug and alcohol dependency.

“Today’s message is clear. Simply focusing on reducing the harms cause by illicit drug use is no longer enough. We must focus on recovery as the most effective route out of dependency.

“We will also tighten the net on unscrupulous drug dealers, introduce temporary banning orders to allow us to take immediate action against new ‘legal highs’, protect vulnerable young people by preventing them from falling into a cycle of dependency, and encourage record numbers of drug users into treatment.”

Hallelujah! More power to you!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Did you know that Massachussetts has an OxyContin and Heroin Commission? Notice how they lump those two drugs together? There’s a couple of reasons for that – first, OxyContin is basically legal heroin and, second, OxyContin can get really expensive.

If you’re not getting your pills from a doctor, in which case they’ll cost you a max of about $5 per pill, you’re going to pay about $60 a pill on the street. Very expensive. The alternative? Heroin. It’s cheaper by far, and can be a lot easier to get.

Heroin addiction used to be associated only with dark alleys and the most depraved of drug addicts. Now our kids are taking it. It’s common.

In Massachussetts heroin and OxyContin addiction and abuse are epidemic. And they’re getting worried about it. They want to put addiction treatment centers in place so addicts know they have someplace to go to get help.

Do you need help with heroin or OxyContin? Does someone in your family? Contact us – Drug Rehab Referral. We can help you find the right addiction treatment center for your situation.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Have you seen the new study on methadone? We’ve said many times that methadone is a dangerous drug – its highly addictive, harder to kick than heroin (and just about every other drug around), and methadone-related deaths increased by 400% in just a few years.

Here’s the stats: adverse events connected to methadone increased 1800% during the same time period as the number of prescriptions written increased by only 1300% (although it’s hard to justify the word ‘only’ when you’re talking about such an outrageous increase). The number of methadone-related deaths increased by 400% during that same time.

A new study shows that prescribing guidelines could be a major source of the problem. Check out New information points to safer methadone use for treatment of pain and addiction for more details.

Several coroners in the U.S. have written reports about the dangers of methadone – now we know more about it.  The study opens some doors, but we are not yet out of the woods. Do yourself a favor, stay away from methadone. If you’re trying to get off heroin, go to a good long-term residential addiction treatment center.

There are people who will try to convince you that heroin can’t be kicked. In fact, it can. I’ve done it myself, and know many others who’ve done the same. Don’t buy stories that methadone is the solution – a good drug rehab program is the solution, not more drugs.

Popularity: 14% [?]