Every time law enforcement gains an advantage over drug cartels bringing their loads over the border into the U.S., the cartels adapt to the pressure and change their tactics. In previous decades, drug cartels used Miami, Tijuana and El Paso as portals for their drug smuggling. The last few years, the Arizona border has been the target of cartels. Wide-open deserts and remote Native American reservations have been some of the primary channels used for the movement of tons of drugs.

But along with the drugs, Arizona and, in particular, Phoenix have inherited other crimes. Some law enforcement bodies report that Phoenix is experiencing an average of one kidnapping a day. In the whole world, only Mexico City has more kidnappings.

The kidnappings relate to drug debts that have not been paid and other drug-smuggling offenses. They also relate to the trafficking of humans that has followed the path of drug smuggling.

The people doing the drug smuggling and the human trafficking have one terrible characteristic in common: they are criminals willing to use any level of violence to achieve their aims.

The volume of drugs and illegal immigrants coming across the border is staggering. Border Patrol agents in Arizona alone arrest an average of 900 illegal immigrants a day. And last year, they seized 1.2 million pounds of marijuana – more than a ton and a half every day.

In Arizona, we have the situation of the drug war in Mexico spilling over into the United States. It is not something we can ignore. Demand reduction through effective rehabilitation and drug education is an essential component to ending this dangerous and violent situation.

This article is brought to you by Narconon International. Narconon is an international organization dedicated to the elimination of drug addiction through the Narconon drug rehab program and drug education.

The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program brings about a lower demand for drugs by enabling its graduates to live a drug-free life after graduation. Further, the Narconon drug education curriculum has been proven to lower drug use statistics among students who attend the classes. For more information, see our video http://www.youtube.com/user/narconon?blend=1&ob=5#p/u/6/AlkKeOO-nTo.

Via EPR Network
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America’s War on Drugs has resulted in a disproportionately large number of women being incarcerated for drug-related offenses.

The war on drugs looked like good idea at the time but no one foresaw its harsh effects on women in America.

In the early 1980s, laws intended to fight the increase of drug trafficking into the U.S. and the spread of cocaine addiction changed the way drug offenders were sentenced. But one of the unexpected results of this change was that the number of women being incarcerated for drug-related offenses shot up dramatically.

Over a thirteen-year period starting in 1986, the ratio of women serving time for a drug-related offense rose from 1 in 8 women to 1 in 3 women. Nationwide, the total number of women incarcerated for drug offenses increased an incredible 888 percent over this time. At the same time, the number of women incarcerated for other offenses rose only 129 percent.

As women are most often the primary caregivers for the next generation, it becomes particularly important that they find a solution to a substance abuse problem or addiction that could end up sending them to jail or prison. It’s well known that the only outcomes of addiction are sobriety, prison or death. The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program offers drug recovery programs to both women and men in more than one hundred locations around the world.

By 2008, about half of women confined in state prisons reported that they had been using alcohol, drugs or both at the time of the crime for which they were arrested. And about half of these women admitted that they were daily users of drugs or alcohol. About a third of these women committed the crime that sent them to prison so they could get money for drugs or alcohol.

When women find their way to one of the Narconon facilities, they find a program that enables them to learn new life skills to replace the ones that addiction may have destroyed. Improved communication skills, a restoration of personal integrity and values, and a retraining in morals feature in this long-term drug treatment program. As a result, women and men alike are able to stay clean and sober in seven out of ten cases, after graduation from the Narconon drug program.

Via EPR Network
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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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