Finding a drug rehab and drug detox may be what is in store for many Oregonians. More women than men and quite a few teens are becoming addicted to prescription drugs, according to Dr. Darryl S. Inaba. Dr. Inaba thinks that a larger percentage of the population abuse prescription drugs in Oregon than anywhere else. He says that Oregon ranks number one for prescription drug abuse. The drugs most abused drugs are the usual suspects - OxyContin, Vicodon, Ritalin, Adderall and cough syrup with DXM. No surprise; they’re abused all over the country. And the number of people in drug rehab centers trying to get off them are climbing.

This ties in with another story: a sad one from Reed College near Portland where one student died and another is on medical leave from heroin overdoses. The President of Reed College, Colin Driver, says “This is not working. We have to get help.” Mr. Diver may understand the problem of not only street drugs but also prescription drugs. It doesn’t really matter whether it is prescription drug abuse or heroin addiction. Mr. Diver knows he needs help, or many of his students will end up in a drug detox and drug rehab program.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Sam Nolan started taking drugs at the age of 13. Sam was from Hove, a city in England near Brighton in East Sussex. Her story could have played out the same way in Florida, Kentucky, or anywhere for that matter. Sam started her drug use with inhalants and marijuana. She graduated to heroin and tried to stop on several occasions. Her parents sent her to drug rehab but, although a good drug rehab program works for many people, for Sam, it was unsuccessful.

This story is sad not just because Sam died but also because her family stood by her and tried to help her. The confusion, despair and anxiety from her drug abuse is obvious in her brother, Ricky Wright’s, comment: “For me personally, I would implore anyone using heroin to see what it did to Sam.”

The problems that OxyContin, Vicodin and heroin have brought to communities may not be obvious until you have a personal tragedy like Ricky and his parents. But those problems can be seen in the newspapers and on TV everyday. Children in the U.S. are using drugs and alcohol at younger and younger ages. Kids 11 and 12 years old are taking prescription drugs to schools and sharing them with their friends. If you know someone addicted to OxyContin, Vicodon or heroin, get them into drug detox and drug rehab so their story doesn’t play out the same way as Sam’s.

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You can buy an OxyContin pill for $60 or $80 dollars or you can buy a quarter gram of heroin for $15 to take the edge off. In Utah, this is known as a splitter. Former OxyContin addicts are turning to heroin - the splitter is just the beginning - and Utah is seeing an increasing number of drug rehab and drug detox admissions for heroin addicts who used to be addicted to OxyContin..

There is currently about twice as much heroin produced in Afghanistan as is used by U.S. addicts. This trend of switching from OxyContin to heroin may mean Afghanistan’s heroin is  going to be bought after all. And it’s also causing more people to enter drug rehab for heroin addiction. One rehab in Utah is seeing 100 to 150 heroin addicts a year - up from 50 in 2000. The prescription drug addiction problem in Utah are well documented, but the heroin problem is just beginning.

When the doctor shopping ends and the Tampa, Florida-based Internet sites cease to exist - there’s currently a real crack down going on - addicts will either go on to heroin or, if they’re lucky, they’ll go to a drug detox or drug rehabs program to end their addiction. The problem of OxyContin addiction in the U.S. needs serious attention or we will have a lot more heroin addicts. If you know someone, of whatever age, who is addicted to OxyContin, convince them to go to a drug detox and a drug rehab program before they, too, start turning to heroin.

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Here’s yet another story of someone being prescribed painkillers after an injury, developing a prescription drug addiction, and then moving on to cocaine and heroin. This story focuses on Hunter Clark, from Portland, Oregon. Drug rehab is finally help him turn his life around.

Although prescription drug addiction is spreading like wildfire across the country, Oregon is one of the top ten states under seige and Oregon drug rehab centers have their hands full. One of the major problems is marijuana - the gateway drug. A survey revealed that nearly 20% of kids aged 12 to 17 used marijuana in the year before the survey, and the percentage rose to 35% for young adults aged 18 to 25. And in case you’re one of those people who smoked marijuana years ago, let me tell you it’s not what it used to be. It’s now very strong, and is often laced with other drugs - like heroin.

Neverthless, there’s no doubt in my mind that prescription drug addiction will become Oregon’s biggest problem, just as it will in other states.

The problem with prescription drugs is that they are so incredibly easy to get. You just take them from your parents’ or friends’ medicine cabinets. It’s that easy. And, it’s relatively acceptable. No one bats an eye when someone has OxyContin in their medicine cabinet - hey, doctors give it to patients, what could possibly be wrong with it? - and yet it’s the same as heroin. And getting off it is just as difficult: it still takes drug rehab, and will probably even require drug detox to help an addict through withdrawal.

To many, this may seem like betrayal. We trust our doctors to keep us safe. But Hunter Clark’s doctor prescribed painkillers liberally, and Hunter’s lucky he’s still alive. No thanks to his doctor.

Doctors and their patients have to wise up on the subject of prescription drug addiction. Get help now through a drug rehab program if you need it, and educate your friends and family on the dangers so they don’t fall into the trap.

Popularity: 7% [?]

From Arizona to Massachusetts heroin use is spreading among teenagers. In the Northeast, even in environments like Stoneham, Massachusetts, heroin has been a problem for a long time but now it is becoming an even bigger problem. In Arizona , heroin is making a comeback, according to an article by Bert Sass of azcentral.com. Drug detox and drug rehab are the two best steps to take if you know someone addicted to heroin.

While I have never seen any statistics about how someone gets started with heroin, Stephanie Kreiling from Community Bridges thinks its starts with prescription painkillers such as OxyContin. At Drug Rehab Referral we have spoken to some heroin addicts who had to switch from OxyContin to heroin because of cost.

All sorts of people use heroin and at least 11 percent of young adults don’t think it is dangerous to use a couple of times a week. Heroin is inexpensive it can be bought for as little as $3 a bag. One thing you should know; one in four people who try heroin become addicted. And only 5 percent who try to quit without drug detox or drug rehab manage to do it.

Heroin can be injected, snorted or smoked and, like OxyContin and other opiates, it is highly addictive. Prescription drugs are creating problems like this all over. Soon we may be reading about cocaine or other street drugs coming down in price to compete with stimulants and anti-anxiety drugs.

If you are hooked on prescription painkillers or heroin try drug detox first before going to a drug rehab program . Your chances of actually getting off the drugs are much higher.

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If parents from Maine don’t get the idea about how bad the drug abuse problem really is their kids will grow up needing a drug rehab program and drug detox.

There are many examples of this in the 2007 Youth Risk Survey. Several statistics stand out: 36% of kids are binge drinking and 75% said it is easy to get alcohol. But only 2% said they bought alcohol at a store.

I wonder if parents are giving their kids alcohol or if they’re turning a blind eye when they take it.

Prescription drugs are not covered in the report but at least 20% have used prescription drugs non-medically in the past year based on other national surveys. Most of the prescription drugs used by high school students come from a medicine cabinet. Heroin, cocaine and ecstasy use are also on the rise in Maine - those you have to buy from a drug dealer.

Drug rehab and drug detox will be part of life if you live in Maine. The Northeast has a problem with heroin and prescription drugs. If you don’t what your kids going to drug rehab and drug detox, lock up your pills and your alcohol.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Merry Christmas!! If you’re reading this on Christmas day, I can only assume two things – you’re not Christian and therefore not celebrating Christmas, or you’ve just had a family member with a drug or alcohol problem remind you once again, by their actions, that they need help and you’re online looking for a drug rehab program.

I can’t help but think back to when I was on drugs years ago and what my mother must have gone through when I didn’t show up for Christmas. I wasn’t generally in touch very much in those days but, honestly, I don’t even remember if I called on Christmas during those many years of drug addiction.

My mother, unlike most parents these days, did not have access to the amount of information now available about alcohol and drug abuse – nor were there very many drug rehab facilities available. Having no other option, my mother sent me to a psychiatrist – thinking this must be some kind of mental problem. The psych promptly started me on methadone, an addictive drug that was a relatively new treatment for heroin addiction at that time. Fortunately, the dangers of methadone are now finally coming to light and I’m hoping it won’t be around much longer.

For me, as it is for most people, methadone was an outright failure – not to mention that it was extremely painful - and I was back on illegal drugs within three weeks.

However, things have changed: Parents now have access to literally thousands of alcohol and drug rehab programs that can help their kids, or other members of their family.

To all the moms and dads out there who are frustrated, angry and scared about their kid’s alcohol or drug abuse problem, let me say one thing: There is help available. You don’t have to go through this, and neither do your kids. Contact a drug rehab program counselor today to find out what you can do.

Popularity: 7% [?]

As prescription drug addiction, abuse and dependency rampages through Florida you have to wonder when the other shoe will drop. More and more people will need a prescription drug detox, followed by a successful drug rehab.

These statistics come from the Florida medical examiners office and, really, when companies like Cardinal Health are busted for drug dealing and doctors will sell prescriptions for thousands of dollars, you just can’t expect anything else.

Medical examiners detected drugs in 3980 corpses during the first 6 months of 2007 –what’s not so surprising is that 69% of the people who died had prescription drugs in their system. And that’s only in the first six months. We still don’t have the stats from the rest of the year, and God knows what will happen next year.

More people died with prescription drugs in their systems than cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin combined. That is really frightening, especially when you consider that over 50% of the population think they are safe with prescription drugs because they came from the doctor. It never occurs to them they’re going to get addicted or dependent, or need drug detox and drug rehab to get off them.

Florida has been hard hit by prescription drug addiction and abuse from Broward county right over to Sarasota. There are articles not just every day, but all day long from all parts of Florida.

Prescription drugs are so embedded into society that people think nothing of taking Oxycontin, Vicodin and Xanax or sharing them with their friends. Students take them from their parent’s medicine cabinets and buy them from their friends.

The sad part about the prescription drug problem is that so many more addicted people will eventually turn to heroin or other replacement drugs if they don’t get into a successful drug rehab. The supply of heroin is rising and prescription drugs will eventually be hard to come by as the DEA puts in more stringent rules and the supply dries up. Those addicts will turn to heroin: it’s cheaper and there is ample supply.

We will see higher numbers from every age group as people step forward to say they have a prescription drug addiction problem

Drug Rehab Referral is here to help your family find a successful drug rehab program when you need it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

It appears that the abject failure of methadone treatment for heroin addiction – i.e. getting people addicted to methadone instead – is finally getting attention in England. Are they switching to drug rehab that allows people to live without drugs? No, they’re giving them heroin instead. Brilliant.

The article features a heroin addict by the name of Gareth. He became addicted to heroin at a very young age – he was sent to reform school at age 14 because of the ‘persistent thieving” that supported his addiction – and, after four years in reform school he still wanted the drug. He started taking it immediately upon his release, and was back in custody within six days.

It’s now 20 years later. Gareth has spent that time in and out of jail, on and off drugs. The only actual treatment mentioned in the article is a three week drug detox and rehab. Three weeks? Barely enough time to get through withdrawal, let alone drug rehab.

Now Gareth has been enrolled in a new government initiative and he’s getting his heroin from the government. Obviously, he’s considered a lost cause.

What went wrong? No real drug rehab program that got to the bottom of why he started taking drugs in the first place and gave him the tools he needs to stay off them.

Gareth’s story is not a new one. Millions of people battle drug addiction for years – and most never win.

Choose your drug rehab program wisely – something that merely scratches the surface will not fully rehab the person, and will not prevent relapse.

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Marti Hottenstein cried and begged for an apology from Matt Schaulk, the man who sold a fatal dose of methadone to her son, Karl, and his friend. Schaulk, a former heroin addict, is on ‘methadone maintenance’ – the biggest sham heroin addiction treatment model around: A model that turns heroin addicts into methadone addicts instead of giving them the drug detox and drug rehab program that could have enabled them to live drug free.

Schaulk sold his dose of liquid methadone to Karl’s friend. Karl’s friend split it with Karl, and Karl died. This is nothing new: in 2006, 325 people died from methadone in Pennsylvania alone. Karl’s mother has convinced the state to form a task force to review methadone clinic regulations.

But are methadone clinics the real target? I don’t think so. The real target is the treatment model. How in the world anyone in this day and age can consider trading heroin addiction for methadone addiction to be a sane treatment model is beyond me. Drug addiction treatment is drug detox. Drug addiction treatment is drug rehab. Drug addiction treatment is not drug addiction.

In fact, the problem is not just with methadone treatment. Any treatment that involves getting someone addicted to a drug is flawed, at best. It doesn’t matter whether you’re treating heroin addiction, depression, obesity, insomnia, anxiety, or any one of the hundreds of society’s ills that are now being ‘treated’ with addictive and dangerous drugs.

We even give our kids drugs if they’re fidgeting in their seats for God’s sake. And those drugs have even caused five-year-olds to kill themselves. How bad does it have to get before people wake up to the fact that we are being slaughtered just as surely as if someone put a gun to our head?

You want to get someone off heroin? Get them into a good drug detox and drug rehab program. Call someone about it today. All methadone treatment does is feed the problem – the person is still addicted to a dangerous drug, and their life is still at risk.

Popularity: 4% [?]