Drug Documentary Attempts to Bring a Personal Face to the Cycle of Illegal Drug Use

The cameras travel the globe to the fields, jungles and hidden laboratories where drugs begin their illegal journey. We watch smugglers at work who have had a great day if they make it back home with their life. The perspectives of pushers and dealers are also examined in the series, bringing a surprisingly human face to an occupation that is often thought to be performed only by cold-blooded inhuman individuals. You see addicts in the throws of their obsession to their particular drug of choice. We watch as doctors and psychiatrists try to intervene with individuals deep into the addiction process in an attempt to get them much needed treatment. While police and drug agents are seen attempting to stop the flow of drugs over the borders and into smaller cities and towns.

Nat Geo Explores the Impact of a Wide Range of Narcotics on Societies Around the World

The documentary investigates the impacts of the production of a wide array of legal and illegal substances on indigenous societies and environments. The thread that ties all the drugs spotlighted in the series is that their abuse can lead to a subsequent addiction and has the potential for death. Some of the drugs such as ayahuasca, mushrooms and LSD are actually highlighted as narcotics with supporters that claim they have psychological and medicinal possibilities with uses for psychological trauma and end-of-life pain and emotional comfort. The cameras follow individuals experimenting with these drugs in different medicinal arenas with both positive and negative outcomes. However, most of the drugs are shown to have mostly negative impacts on users over time.

The series details all facets of the production, distribution, use and control of the following drugs:

• Crack
• Hashish
• Ecstasy
• Hallucinogens, including LSD, psilocybin and ibogaine
• Ketamine (an anesthetic, that also has properties of a stimulant, depressant and hallucinogen)
• Prescription medications
• Designer drugs

The viewers of the documentary series get a front row seat to the consequences of the drug trade on individuals involved the world over.

Have you seen this documentary series? If so, do you think it provides a realistic look at all factors involved in the illegal drug industry? All thoughts and opinions are encouraged below.

Alcohol Poses Highest Risk to Fetus During Second Half of First Trimester

The findings of the UC San Diego research were published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and included data from 992 women over a 27-year period. The results were clear that there was no minimal threshold of alcohol consumption before a negative effect was seen on the health of babies. They found that the latter part of the first trimester posed the greatest risk to the fetus from alcohol consumption. During this period, with each additional alcoholic drink per day the risk of the following factors, each early signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, increased by the following amount:

• 12-percent increase in smaller head circumference
• 25-percent increase in lip disfigurement
• 16-percent increase in below average birth weight

Author of the study, Dr. Christina Chambers, points out these results are in line with the surgeon general’s guidelines to steer clear of alcohol altogether while pregnant. She points out binge drinking seemed to have little effect on the baby’s health, instead the total amount of alcohol throughout the entire pregnancy was the largest factor in fetal alcohol syndrome signs.

How Is This Study Different Than Those in the Past?

Why should the results of this study be taken anymore seriously than past studies that have come to the opposite conclusion you may ask? Most of the previous studies that concluded a moderate approach to alcohol was safe during pregnancy were based off the mother’s memory of how much she had drank while she was expecting. The UC San Diego study actually touched base with women frequently throughout their pregnancy to get up-to-date information rather than relying on the strength of someone’s long-term memory.

Do you think occasional drinking is okay during pregnancy? Let us know below what you think the appropriate amount of alcohol is while pregnant

The Rise of Prescription Painkiller Addiction

Over the past couple of decades, the number of patients living with a prescription drug addiction – especially to narcotic painkillers – shot through the roof. Prescriptions were handed out far more easily in recent years, with larger numbers of pills than were needed to handle short-term pain relief, which opened up the patient to develop an unnecessary dependence. Patients were more likely to store unused medications, leaving them available to other family members who might abuse them and develop an addiction as a result. When prescriptions ran out, it was relatively simple to get a refill, go to the emergency room for a short-term script, or find another doctor who would duplicate the prescription unknowingly.

Over the years, however, as authorities realized the extent of prescription drug addiction, law enforcement and medical professionals have worked together to crack down in order to mitigate the problem.

Pill Mills, “Doctor Shopping” and Other Fraud

Federal drug enforcement agencies have been working overtime to shut down illegal pill mills, or clinics open with the sole purpose of filling prescriptions for narcotics with or without a legitimate medical need. Statewide databases have been implemented, allowing pharmacists and doctors to work together to make sure that no one patient receives multiple prescriptions with the same purpose. Pharmacists routinely call in narcotics prescriptions to the prescribing physician in order to verify amounts and cut down on patients who would fraudulently increase their script.

Veterans and Prescription Drugs

Veterans are more and more often becoming the victims of prescription painkiller addicts. Those who need pills know that they can get them – and in large supply – from vets. Often elderly and unaware of the street value of the medication, addicts may offer to buy the pills or just steal them. Dealers, too, often look to veterans in order to increase their supply. In areas where there is a high number of veterans, law enforcement and medical professionals are reporting that the problem is increasing.

Getting Help

The best way to avoid the struggle to feed a prescription painkiller addiction is to receive the medical detox and addiction treatment necessary to safely stop abusing your drug of choice. Contact us at Michael’s House today to learn more about our prescription drug rehab programs and to determine which one is the best choice for you.

Hitting Rock Bottom

Chris’ mother says that there was a time when the X Factor contestant was so overwhelmed by addiction that at one point he tried to throw himself from a moving vehicle while he was being driven down a busy highway.

Said his mother to the New York Post: “A few years ago, Chris and I were driving around looking at Christmas lights, and all of a sudden his behavior started becoming very erratic. He started saying things that made no sense. He grabbed my cell phone and began punching numbers erratically.”

Worried by her son’s sudden change in behavior, Chris’ mother began driving to the hospital. She said:  “I got on the freeway, and he saw where I was headed. He opened the car door and tried to jump out. Thank God he had his seatbelt on! It was horrible and frightening.”

As his mother, her worst fear was waking up in the middle of the night to a call from the police telling her that her son was in the hospital or, worse, dead as a result of choices made under the influence or in pursuit of his addiction. One morning, it happened: Chris was almost killed in a car accident. The experience was an eye-opening experience; he immediately enrolled in drug rehab and hasn’t looked back since.

Getting Help, Moving Forward

Says Chris’ mother: “The fact that he has become clean and sober and maintained that — and that is his priority – has made me so proud. I have seen a major, major transformation in Chris from March until now. He knows how good it feels to be clean and see the world through fresh eyes. He has blossomed into the man he was meant to be.”

And now, with his success on the X Factor, he has the opportunity to be a role model to others as well.

Can one success story have the power to lead others to experience their own successes in fighting addiction? If you or someone you care about is struggling with drug dependence, contact us at Michael’s House today to learn how you can make the changes that will help you avoid the consequences of untreated addiction. Call now.

You Need to Change

When those who love an addict are asked what needs to happen for real change to come about for them, their family and their addicted loved one, the answer invariably comes back that the addict needs to change. This is usually followed by a long list of wrongs committed regularly by the addicted person and includes lies, broken promises, theft, violence and more. While it’s true that your addicted loved one will need to change by undergoing treatment and therapy, the fact is that you, too, will need to change in order to help them stay on course. An enabler can be life threatening to an addict close to enrolling in rehab – and one who has just returned home in hopes of starting a new life in sobriety.

Accepting that you will need to reevaluate your actions and learn new coping mechanisms and ways of communicating with your loved one is the first step in helping you and your addicted family member heal after addiction.

You Need to Take Action

Unfortunately, the burden is on you to get the ball rolling in order to get your loved one into treatment. You can no longer just react to the addict in your life. Rather, you are now to be proactive and be the energy that drives the momentum in your family. Here are a few ideas:

• Refuse to support your addicted loved one financially. If you are giving the addict money for their habit, stop.
• Refuse to lie or cover for your loved one when their addiction causes them problems. Don’t call into work for your family member if they’re too hungover to go in, and don’t lie to police when the neighbors call them on your behalf.
• Stage an intervention. Gather together others who are concerned and make it clear to the addict you care about that they have a medically dysfunctional relationship with illicit substances that requires immediate medical care and treatment.

Making sure that your loved one has to deal with the consequences of their addiction and helping them to get the help they need to heal at a drug rehab center is the best way to get your loved one started on the road to recovery. Call us at Michael’s House today to discuss your options.

Heroin Addiction and the Vietnam War

Studies of returning Vietnam vets showed that initial estimates of rates of heroin abuse were low. About 20 percent of servicemen returning home said that they were living with heroin addiction. Those who were identified as addicts stayed in Vietnam until they detoxed and, when they returned home, they checked in regularly with those running the studies. The findings were unexpected; servicemen who detoxed in Vietnam, where they started and lived out their heroin addiction, and then returned home had extremely low rates of recidivism. That is, few servicemen who started and ended their heroin addiction in Vietnam began using the drug again when they came home. In fact, an estimated 95 percent of returning heroin addicts from Vietnam remained free of heroin after treatment.

Environment Is Key

What conclusions can we draw from this interesting finding? Perhaps the lesson to be learned is how important environment is to recovery. Changing our environment helps us to change our behavior, and leaving behind the environment in which addiction was fostered and maintained may help patients to build a new life in recovery with a lesser chance of relapse. It may be beneficial, for example, for patients to choose rehabilitation in a different state or city than where they actively abused their drug of choice – and then stay in that new place to rebuild their lives. Removing themselves from the environment of drug abuse may make it easier to change their outlook and view for the long term.

Of course, environment is not the primary factor in all cases. When the behavior of addiction is motivated by an attempt to heal untreated emotional wounds from the past, long-term psychotherapeutic care will be necessary. However, environment is a recognized factor in the development of drug dependence; perhaps it is also a factor to be addressed during treatment.

Heroin Addiction Treatment

If you would like to learn more about our heroin addiction treatment programs here at Michael’s House, contact us today. Located in Southern California, we can provide you with the healing environment you need to leave addiction behind forever. Call now.

When the woman got to a hospital, her arm was swollen and red with a red mark where she had injected the bath salts. Medical staff gave her intravenous antibiotics and the problem appeared to clear up, but a couple of days later, the swelling returned and the woman returned the hospital, confessing how she had incurred the wound.

According to the journal Orthopedics, the medical staff reacted quickly, opening her arm, only to find infection and dead muscle. They cut further in search of healthy tissue but instead saw that the rapidly moving infection was visibly killing her flesh as they watched. Ultimately, the medical team was forced to amputate her arm and shoulder in order to stop the flesh-eating bacteria as well as perform a radical mastectomy. These measures saved the woman’s life.

Sold online and in head shops across the country, bath salts commonly go by names like Vanilla Sky and Ivory Wave. So dangerous are these substances, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) did not go through the regular channels to schedule and control bath salts as they do for most other drugs. Instead, they exercised their emergency scheduling authority and made the possession and sale of the drug illegal.

Initially, bath salts were primarily ingested through snorting or smoking. However, like other drugs, injecting the substance results in a quicker and stronger high; it’s not surprising that users are now turning to this method of injection more often – though this may be the first documented case of a user contracting a flesh-eating bacteria while injecting bath salts.

Are you concerned about the effects of bath salts or other illicit substances? Have you suffered through devastating health problems and dangerous consequences of drug abuse yet are still unable to stop on your own? If so, we can help. Contact us at Michael’s House today to learn more about the different ways that we can provide treatment. Call now.

The High Intensity Drug Task Force that has been set-up to combat the problem is putting up cameras to survey the activity outside of trendy malls. They are having to develop whole new methods of surveillance because the rules of the drug trade have changed. Typical heroin users now tend to be teens and young adults from affluent families. They usually get hooked originally on prescription drugs from the family medicine cabinet. Once the prescription runs out, the cost of these pills can be in the ballpark of $80 per pill on the street as opposed to heroin which produces a similar high and costs roughly $12 a balloon.

Heroin Is Being Distributed in the Same Manner That Pizza Is Delivered

Cartels from Mexico send staff that set up houses to receive heroin shipments. The staff receives the heroin, cuts it with another substance (e.g., flour or dirt) and packages the drug in red balloons. Calls come in for orders and then drivers are sent out to deliver the heroin to customers in the same fashion that pizza is distributed. It is operated like a well-oiled business, but with no storefront and the upper tier of staff never have to leave their houses.

Experts Feel Education and Outreach Programs Are the Best Solution to the Heroin Problem

Officials understand that investigating and busting the distributors will only manage to slow down the flow of the drug into our cities, but will not stop it. Arresting dealers will not put an end to the issue of black tar heroin in our suburbs. Instead, according to experts, a multi-pronged educational approach holds the greatest promise.

The new task force hopes to educate adults through civic organizations and teens in schools on the dangers of prescription drugs. They want the community to understand how prescription medications truly function as a gateway to heroin use. They believe if people understand that just because doctors hand out prescription drugs, it does not make them safe when they are abused. Hopefully creating recognition on a wide scale of the connection between prescription medication abuse and heroin addiction will help people be more careful with what they keep and how they treat the drugs in their medicine cabinet.

Do you feel it is known that prescription drug addiction is leading to a rise in heroin use in American suburbs? What do you think legislators, officers and educators can do to stop this problem? All ideas are welcome below.

Supporting the Drop of Harm-Reducing Needle Exchange Programs From the Budget

Needle exchanges provide active injection drug users with clean needles in an effort to stem the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C. Paid for in large part by government grants, needle exchanges are scheduled to be dropped from the federal spending package. Why? Proponents of dropping funding for needle exchanges say that federal funds must be made available to support the widest range of people and create the most benefit across the board. Some think that needle exchanges only benefit a small portion of the population – namely, injection drug users and those who have sex with them – and that those funds would better serve the population and the future of our country if invested in education and more generalized healthcare.

Supporting Federal Funding for Harm Reduction and Treatment Programs

For the past decade and a half, studies have been pouring in that support the efficacy of needle exchanges in minimizing the health damage caused by injection drug use and lowering the rates of deadly illnesses like HIV and hepatitis C. A lower rate of infection means a lower number of deaths as well as decreased cost to government healthcare resources in the treatment of those illnesses. Whatever the thoughts on the morality of drug addiction or the perception of needle exchanges in the ethics debate on addiction in general, the bottom line may just be the dollar; it’s cheaper to pay for needle exchanges than it is to pay for medical care.

What Do You Think?

Are needle exchanges a good way to help addicts stay healthy and alive, moving a day closer to rehabilitation and treatment that will help them change their lives? Or are needle exchanges supported by the federal government sending “the wrong message” about drug addiction? Leave us a comment below and share your thoughts.

Though it is risky for anyone on regular narcotics to drive, this Norwegian study says that those on methadone are twice as likely to end up in a motor vehicle accident. Out of the 2,500 study participants on methadone, 26 were involved in a car accident during a two-year period, which was twice as many as the rest of the population.

Risks of accident increase when a patient is new to their methadone prescription or their dose is increased. According to Miriam Mintzer, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, however, impaired functioning is always an issue for patients at any point in their methadone treatment, and she’s not sure if methadone is directly to blame for the increased rate of car accidents found by the study.

Says Mintzer: “I would be reluctant to draw strong conclusions from the study, given that they don’t have a lot of information about the accidents.”

There was no testing done, for example, to see if the drivers had previous histories of driving recklessly or if they were also under the influence of other substances in addition to methadone. Additionally, few women were included in the study and their rate of accident while on methadone was smaller than that of men.

Dr. Jrgen G. Bramness of the Norwegian Centre for Addiction Research at the University of Oslo was the lead author of the study. He agrees with Mintzer’s comments.

Said Bramness to Reuters Health: “Many different things go into increasing traffic accident risk, like reduced attention, slowed reaction, slowed psychomotor performance, less accurate psychomotor performance, etc.”

Because of the increased risk of patients behind the wheel at the beginning of their treatment, Bramness suggests making sure that patients are advised not to drive until they are more stable and have gotten used to the medication. Says Bramness: “A first step would be to enforce the current regulations more strictly. If you abuse other drugs, when on methadone, you should not be allowed to drive.”

What do you think? Should methadone users be restricted in their driving? Should patients be required to be off the medication and completely clean and sober before driving? Leave us a comment below and let us know your thoughts.