Daily Archives: December 29, 2010

Addictions, Clinics, Diagnostics, Drugs, Healthcare, Healthcare Information, Healthcare Services, Medicine, Rehab, Society, Therapies

Just What We Don’t Need: Another New Drug Slipped through a “Legal” Loophole, Reports Narconon Spokesperson

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It’s not like we don’t have enough trouble with the illicit drugs currently on the market: heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, ecstasy and others are bad enough. A new substance has hit the market in the last year, promoted as “legal,” and “providing the same high as marijuana.”

A year ago, most law enforcement offices had never heard of “Spice,” as this marijuana substitute was called. But as time went on, more hospitals were seeing cases of seizures and hallucinations resulting from use of the substance. And more people were turning up dependent on the drug. Still, none of the ingredients were illegal so law enforcement had no action they could take.

On November 24, 2010, the DEA announced that it was using its emergency powers to ban the five chemicals that were key to its manufacture. For one year, anyone possessing these chemicals without specific authorization will be subject to arrest. This will give U.S. government agencies time to determine Spice’s addictiveness and hazards.

“People who develop these synthetic drugs care nothing about the individuals they may harm by doing so,” stated Bobby Wiggins, spokesperson for Narconon®, an international organization fighting substance abuse and addiction through drug and alcohol rehabilitation. “There’s no tests to determine potential harm to someone who uses the drug. If they can promise a high similar to something a drug user already knows about and they can also claim it’s legal, these manufacturers can really make a killing.”

It’s not hard to understand the forces that drove some industrious individuals to develop this alternative to marijuana. Since 1996, the number of Americans using illicit drugs increased from 13 million to nearly 22 million in 2009. The largest drug of abuse is marijuana, with more than 16 million people using the drug every month. Any manufacturer who can put a cheap chemical substitute on the market has millions of potential users.

Spice, also known as “K2,” “Blaze” and “Red X Dawn” has been sold online, in head shops and a variety of retail outlets. Sometimes the packaging identifies the contents as incense.

Unfortunately, one of the effects of this action by the DEA will be to drive this trade underground. When a family finds that one of their members, young or old, is using Spice and can’t quit on their own, they need to act immediately. By helping the drug abuser or addict find a drug recovery service right away, they could save their loved one from arrest, damage to their health or even death from a seizure or accident. At the very least, they will help their loved ones lead drug-free, productive lives again, if the rehabilitation service has been proven effective.

At Narconon centers across the U.S. and around the world, addicts find lasting recovery in seven out of ten cases. Get more information about the Narconon drug rehabilitation program by visiting http://www.youtube.com/user/narconon#p/u/0/AlkKeOO-nTo.

Via EPR Network
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Death of Newborn Illustrates That Addiction Kills More than Just Addicts, Explains Narconon Director

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Little Maggie May never saw her first Thanksgiving or her first Christmas. She died after being added to a washing machine with a load of clothes – by Lindsey Fiddler, her drug-addled mother.

On November 4, 2010, Maggie’s great-aunt noticed that Lindsey passed out on the couch without having the baby anywhere around her. She went looking for the ten-day-old baby. Understandably, the washing machine was not the first place she looked. By the time she located the baby in the washer, the infant was dead. The mother is now in jail, awaiting trial.

According to the great-aunt, Lindsey had been up for days, probably using meth. When police questioned the mother, she said she didn’t know how the baby got into the washer and that she didn’t use meth any more. But a toxicology scan showed that she tested positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine, benzodiazepine and opiates.

Those who don’t abuse drugs and have never been addicted may not be able to grasp how this could happen. Narconon is an international organization dedicated to eliminating addiction through effective drug and alcohol rehabilitation and drug prevention services. But someone who is on four different drugs like these is going to be hugely out of touch with reality. Who knows what her perceptions were like? All we know is that they were terrible enough to result in the death of a beautiful child.

Unfortunately, Maggie’s story is far from the only one of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of children suffer neglect, injury or death at the hands of substance abusing parents. One survey stated that substance abuse was involved in 75 percent of all foster home placements.

The answer is drug rehabilitation that works, that enables a parent to live a drug-free, productive life. Of parents who come to Narconon drug rehab centers around the world to recover from addiction, seven out of ten stay clean and sober after they get home. This means hundreds of children who have the opportunity to live safely in their own homes again.

Via EPR Network
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Eliminating Alcohol Abuse Can Alleviate a Long List of Social Ills, Reports Narconon Spokesperson

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In 2005, the World Health Organization published a comprehensive summary of the world’s social burdens that result from alcohol abuse. The list was long and the conditions suffered in greater proportion by alcohol consumers were serious and often life-threatening.

Overall, the WHO reported that 4 percent of disease and 3.2 percent of all deaths around the world were attributed to alcohol. In developed countries, alcohol was the third most common risk to health.

There is every reason to eliminate alcohol dependence or abuse and no reason to allow it to go on. Narconon is an international organization dedicated to the elimination of addiction to both alcohol and drugs. Narconon offers drug rehabilitation and drug education at its more than 100 centers around the world.

The list of the conditions stated by the WHO as being caused by or worsened by alcohol abuse, dependence or addiction:

Cancers of the mouth (lip, tongue), pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, colon, ovaries and liver.
Cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure.
Hypertension (especially related to heavy drinking).
Haemorrhagic stroke even at low levels of drinking.
Liver cirrhosis.
Prenatal exposure results in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders including physical deformities and mental retardation.
Spontaneous abortion, low birth weight and prematurity.
Injury due to falls, fires or traffic accidents.
Self-inflicted injuries.
Injury from alcohol-related violence or sexual assault.
Risky sexual behavior resulting in sexually transmitted disease or unwanted pregnancy.
Additionally, some studies show a causal relationship to female breast cancer.

Around the world, people in nearly every country are experiencing harm from the abuse of alcohol. Simply eliminating the compulsion to drink would save more than a million lives every year and even more serious health conditions that don’t result in death.

But what is needed to alleviate these ills is an effective alcohol rehabilitation program, one that results in long-term sobriety after completion. Unfortunately, the stated success rate for many drug or alcohol rehabs is only 10 to 20 percent.

The Narconon program administered in recovery centers around the world enables seven out of ten graduates to stay clean and sober after they go home. With that much success, many of these injuries, illnesses and causes of death don’t have to be the fate of those who were formerly addicted to beer, wine, whiskey, vodka and other types of hard liquor.

For more information about Narconon, visit one of our many informational videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/narconon#p/u/7/jYnrLTGvsRU.

Via EPR Network
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College Students Need to be Educated on Problems Related to Alcohol Abuse, Warns Narconon Director

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When America’s young people go off to college, this is supposed to be the start of their adult lives and their careers. These young people should be getting educations that enable them to be the doctors, teachers, architects, software designers and engineers of our future.

What lies ahead for many of them is more than only classes, textbooks and exams. For many of them, years of alcohol street and prescription drug abuse will waste their talents and energies and impair their ability to get an education. Thousands of them will suffer injury, abuse or assaults related to alcohol or drug abuse. And too many will die.

A comprehensive report from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse states that half of America’s college students binge drink and abuse prescription and illegal drugs. Just what is binge drinking? It’s the consumption of five drinks in one sitting for a man and four drinks in one sitting for a female. Essentially, it’s drinking to get drunk or at least buzzed. Unfortunately, the culture on most of our college and university campuses not only condones this behavior, it encourages and enables it.

These students are at high risk for developing dependence on or addiction to the substances they are abusing. It’s common for college students to feel like they can handle heavy or frequent drinking in school. But in nearly every case, these young adults are poorly equipped to make judgments about how much is too much or to know when they have crossed the line to dependence. Few of them have any education on the hazards that can show up in a drunken party, for example.

The hazards can be disastrous. Every year, one hundred thousand women are victims of sexual assault or rape, related to alcohol abuse. Nearly three-quarters of a million students are injured in alcohol-related accidents. And 2,000 students die from alcohol poisoning or alcohol-related accidents or violence.

The media runs stories of deaths and injury from alcohol poisoning all too frequently. Like the story of Benjamin Harris at the University of Idaho who consumed as many as 15 shots on the night he turned 21. In July 2010, he was found unconscious at his fraternity and died before he could be gotten to a hospital.

And in August 2010 in Dallas, Texas, two girls who had participated in pledging activities at sororities were found passed out in their dorms. Both had to be treated for alcohol poisoning.

Heavy alcohol consumption has no more place in a college education than it has in any productive life. It’s up to parents to educate their children on substance abuse, particularly alcohol and prescription drugs. Open and honest communication about the problems that can result are essential in helping a young adult develop judgment.

It’s not something that colleges want to advertise that some of their students detour through a drug rehab before they can graduate. Many of them have made their ways to a Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. When they graduate from this program, seven out of ten go on to live clean and sober lives.

Via EPR Network
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