Creating the Opiate Addiction Epidemic

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Administrator

For many years I have been writing about the devastation caused by drug companies and have helped thousands of families find drug rehab centers for addictions to prescription drugs. However, the latest discovery started with a hunch that I tracked down and found comparable statistics that cannot be ignored.

The conspiracy surrounding buprenorphine, and the development of the drug sponsored by the Federal Government, was disturbing enough, but it appears that the market was flooded with prescription painkillers in advance of the drug’s approval to create more users “in need” of this new prescription.

Here are the facts that you can draw your own conclusions out of:

- Buprenorphine (in the form of Subutex and Suboxone) was approved by the FDA in 2002 for the treatment of opiate addicts, with doctors being initially limited to 30 patients.

- The number of patients was increased to 100 per doctor in 2006.

- The number if buprenorphine prescriptions increased from 2.12 million in 2007 to 3.54 million in 2008.

- The number of people dependent on prescription painkillers rose 49 percent from 2002 to 2009, totalling 1.4 million Americans.

- The number of people who received drug addiction treatment for prescription painkillers in the previous year more than doubled from about 360,000 in 2002 to nearly 740,000 in 2009.

- There are roughly 5.3 million Americans aged 12 or older that have abused prescription painkillers in the last year.

It’s more than coincidental that the statistics tracking back from 2002 show that use has rapidly INCREASED since buprenorphine hit the market, and this doesn’t even count those addicted to heroin. I have stated before that we are on the brink of a new heroin epidemic following the prescription drug boom.

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To Intervene or Not – Addiction Doesn't Wait

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Administrator

Having worked with thousands of families over the years, one of the toughest situations to deal with is whether or not to intervene on the addict. This is inclusive of what type of intervention and exactly how it should be done.

Too often people wait until something terrible happens. The old saying of letting them hit ‘rock bottom’ is damaging and even potentially deadly, because there really is no telling where the bottom is for each individual. The accumulated losses from addiction can be detrimental. We here stories all the time where family members have chosen a rehab but wait to act on any type of intervention and the addict either skips town, gets arrested, has an accident, overdoses or even dies.

This is not meant to scare anyone, but we’ve seen it over and over again and we believe the wrong thing to do is nothing. There is never a guarantee in an intervention or treatment that it is going to work this time around, but at least the people involved know that they didn’t sit around and wait for something worse to happen – they tried to help the person – and most of the time (better than 80%) interventions are successful at getting someone into a drug rehab program.

We can help you determine which addiction treatment centers may be best for your situation and connect you up with drug intervention resources directly or they can be recommended by the facility. The course of action immediately following research should be action.

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The Difference Between Dependence and Addiction

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Administrator

With the massive scourge of prescription drug abuse and addiction in America today, the line between drug dependency and drug addiction is now more gray than ever. It also challenges the previous definitions of addiction as being an incurable disease since these drugs have shown that anyone can become addicted to a substance with a high potential for abuse and dependency.

One example is when someone is prescribed a painkiller after an injury or surgery of some type. If taken long enough then a tolerance builds where the individual will need more to achieve the same effects. If they suddenly stop taking it then they experience withdrawal symptoms. This is typically what is considered a dependency.

A dependency on prescription drugs, or any other substance, can escalate into a full-blown addiction when that need for the drug becomes greater than other things in life and the individual starts to seek more drugs regardless of the consequences. This is when the lying, stealing, cheating, and other erratic behavior kicks in, however, it can start with just the dependency.

While these may be very crude examples, it does show that the difference between the two is generally just the degree of behavior, although someone who is dependent could be said to be addicted and someone who is an addict can be said to have a dependency, so they are somewhat interchangeable as well.

For more information on addiction and recovery or to get help for a loved one in need, contact drug and alcohol rehabs today by calling 1-877-421-9659.

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Pushing "New Drugs" for Depression?

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Administrator

A group of insane researchers are making a news splash by trying to promote psychedelic drugs like Ketamine (aka Special K) for people with depression. This is so crazy that they must have been on drugs like this when they came up with the idea. First of all, go into just about any treatment center and you will find people who were addicted to Ketamine (which is an animal tranquilizer). Second, drugs in this category cause severe mental distortions, so if patients weren’t feeling “depressed” anymore it’s only because they were completely gone from their minds and couldn’t really feel anything other than the high or the disassociation.

Hell, why not just give them the whole bag of deadly drugs and let them pick which high they like best? That’s what these doctors are basically saying – drug people out of their minds and they will feel better for a while. Of course! However, all drugs have side effects and make people feel worse when they withdraw from the drugs.

How about interviewing drug rehab and addiction experts first before testing drugs like this on people. It’s not just crazy, it’s inhumane.

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Prescription Drug Abuse Up 400%

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Administrator

While it’s not shocking news considering we have been tracking this for years, but a recent survey confirmed that the number of people in America abusing prescription drugs increased by more than 400% between 1998 and 2008. Although data isn’t available yet for last year, I am sure it will show yet another increase.

The report from the Treatment Episode Data Set also revealed that the number of opiate users admitted for drug rehab centers who were on prescription painkillers had increased from 6.8% to 26.5% during that time. Many long-term drug treatment programs we work with echo these results.

There is no question that prescription drug addiction and abuse is a national epidemic – way more than any type of flu has been, yet swine and bird strands caused millions of people to get shots unnecessarily and drug companies raked hundreds of millions of dollars in sales from those “outbreaks”. Maybe that is the real connection – it’s not the number of lives lost that counts to them, but how much money winds up in their bank accounts each year. Both situations are directly related to drug companies and their bottom lines – though each has very different story lines.

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Cartel Kills 19 at Drug Rehab Center in Mexico

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Administrator

The violence surrounding Mexican drug lords doesn’t seem to be getting much better. In devastating news released today via the AP, 19 people at a drug rehab center in Chihuahua were executed by drug cartel members.

Roughly 23,000 deaths have been linked to drug cartels in Mexico since the end of 2006. More than 60 deaths have occurred specifically at treatment programs just in the last two years, where cartel members are exploiting people in the clinics by offering drugs to participants and threatening them with death if they do not join their operations.

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Cheaper, Stronger Heroin Contributing to Rise in Deaths

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Administrator

An Associated Press (AP) story that hit the web on Monday talked about the increased number of cheaper and purer heroin entering the U.S. through Mexico and contributing to the dramatic rise in heroin-related overdose deaths.

The article cites that there were about 2,000 deaths from heroin overdoses in 2000, and they were over 3,000 by 2008 with only 36 states reporting. That is a 50% increase in less than a decade, and there was a 20% increase just from ’06 to ’08.

While the increased availability and purity of Mexican black tar or brown heroin may be a culprit, you also have to draw parallels with the increase in prescription painkiller abuse. As I have stated, there is a hidden heroin addiction epidemic where people addicted to painkillers wind up turning to heroin for a stronger and cheaper fix to continue getting high or even to just keep from experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

This is very much a created demand for the drug, and if I were more of a conspiracy theorist I would tell you that it has been carefully orchestrated and that there are some of the same hands in the pots of both the legal and illegal opiate trade.

We will continue monitoring admission trends for drug rehabs to document this prediction (I predicted the prescription drug addiction outbreak many years ago as well) and also keep promoting successful rehabilitation options to help people permanently recover.

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Prison Treatment Program Funding in Jeopardy

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Administrator

As reported in JoinTogether Online, an AP article earlier this month stated that several states have either eliminated prison drug treatment programs or have proposed cutbacks due to budget shortfalls.

A quote from Boby May, associated director for the Association of State Correctional Administrators said, “When inmates are busy, they’re not getting into bad things. Programming is good and helps build responsibility and accountability.”

The article notes that eliminating drug and alcohol rehab programs from prison systems will likely cause an increase in recidivism.

One of the major problems with our nation’s prison system, aside from the fact that too many people are incarcerated instead of receiving other forms of help, is that there are many private facilities charging our country more money to contract with the government to house criminals.

A much more effective long-term plan would be to have a higher rate of alternative sentencing so that the money could be used for successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities, especially long-term rehab programs.

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Substance Abuse and the Military

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Administrator

Nobody can claim to know what it’s like to be in the military stationed overseas, taking orders from people that you may not agree with, being stuck in 100+ degree desert climates and potentially having to resort to killing innocent people in an effort to go after those who threaten the freedom of so many.

It’s no wonder that so many of our nation’s military personnel are developing substance abuse issues. In a recent USA Today article, Army vice chief of staff General Peter Chiarelli claimed the US Army needed to double the number of addiction treatment counselors to help soldiers, citing rampant alcohol abuse.

What is also happening is that an alarmingly high number of soldiers are being labeled with mental disorders and are given a deadly mixture of psychiatric drugs. Complications from these drugs have been demonstrated in numerous news stories.

Veterans’ Affairs advocate site vawatchdog.org talks about toxic overdose of military personnel from anti-psychotic drug cocktails.

There have also been reports of murders and suicides involving returning military veterans that had been placed on similar drugs.

The point is that in most cases drugs will not make people well, and our government is turning against our nation’s soldiers by prescribing them mind-altering drugs with very dangerous side effects. Many of these drugs also have a high potential for abuse in themselves, like anti-anxiety drugs (benzos), etc. These courageous men and women need real help – rehabilitation that does not put them on more drugs.

If you are a veteran or a family member of one in need of help to get off alcohol or other substances, there are effective drug rehabs available. Let us help you locate one that works. Call 1-877-421-9659 now.

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The Importance of Knowing about Different Types of Rehabs

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Administrator

A common mistake made by many individuals and families seeking drug and alcohol rehabs for themselves or a loved one is believing that “rehab is rehab” and that the main differences are only in the cost, location and setting.

However, those are actually only of secondary importance compared to what type of treatments are offered and what rehabilitation philosophies are followed by the facilities.

For example, one major difference is whether the drug rehab centers believe that addiction is an incurable brain disease or if they can demonstrate that people can actually become permanently cured with no further relapse or symptoms of the addiction.

Another difference is if they prescribe drugs to patients or if they use healthier alternatives to address the symptoms often associated with addiction. Many medications given in treatment centers today either have heavy side effects or potentially cause relapse because of their abuse potential themselves. After all, prescription drug addiction is one of the biggest problems in America today.

So, before you choose a drug rehab program based on cost or location alone, call us to speak with someone who can go over all of your options so that you can make an educated decision. Call 1-877-421-9659 today.

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