Methamphetamine Abuse Linked To Underage Sex, Smoking And Drinking

Children and adolescents who abuse alcohol or are sexually active are more likely to take methamphetamines (MA), also known as ‘meth’ or ‘speed’. New research reveals the risk factors associated with MA use, in both low-risk children (those who don’t take drugs) and high-risk children (those who have taken other drugs or who have ever attended juvenile detention centres).

MA is a stimulant, usually smoked, snorted or injected. It produces sensations of euphoria, lowered inhibitions, feelings of invincibility, increased wakefulness, heightened sexual experiences, and hyperactivity resulting from increased energy for extended periods of time. According to the lead author of this study, Terry P. Klassen of the University of Alberta, Canada, “MA is produced, or ‘cooked’, quickly, reasonably simply, and cheaply by using legal and readily available ingredients with recipes that can be found on the internet”.
Because of the low cost, ready availability and legal status of the drug, long-term use can be a serious problem. In order to assess the risk factors that are associated with people using MA, Klassen and his team carried out an analysis of twelve different medical studies, combining their results to get a bigger picture of the MA problem. They said, “Within the low-risk group, there were some clear patterns of risk factors associated with MA use. A history of engaging in behaviors such as sexual activity, alcohol consumption and smoking was significantly associated with MA use among low-risk youth. Engaging in these kinds of behaviors may be a gateway for MA use or vice versa. A homosexual or bisexual lifestyle is also a risk factor.”
Amongst high-risk youth, the risk factors the authors identified were, “growing up in an unstable family environment (e.g., family history of crime, alcohol use and drug use) and having received treatment for psychiatric conditions. Among high-risk youth, being female was also a risk factor”.

Source: BMC Pediatrics (2008, October 29). Methamphetamine Abuse Linked To Underage Sex, Smoking And Drinking. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 12, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com

Highest in Europe – one in ten Scots used cannabis last year

SCOTS are some of the biggest users of drugs in Europe, a new study has shown.
The annual report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), has shown that 11 per cent of Scottish adults used cannabis last year – second only to Italy – compared with an European average of 6.8 per cent, and a UK rate of 8.4 per cent.

The report also showed Scotland has the highest usage of cocaine (3.8 per cent), amphetamines (2.2 per cent) and LSD (0.6 per cent), while ecstasy use came in at 3.2 per cent, second to the Czech Republic, which has a rate of 3.5 per cent.

The figures follow controversy over cannabis classification following UK government drug adviser Professor David Nutt’s sacking last week.

He had spoken out against the decision to reclassify cannabis from a Class C drug to the more dangerous category B.

The EMCDDA’s figures, which are based on the most up-to-date regional cannabis-use statistics, revealed that the Dutch were among the lowest users, with just 5.4 per cent using the drug.

Scottish Drugs Forum director David Liddle said the figures pointed to wider issues about approaches to tackling drug use.

“They raise the question of what is the best route, through education and giving young people information about drug use, or through the legal route,” he said. “The bigger issue is the one of early use, which leads young people on to particular cultures and problematic use of illegal substances, but early drunkenness and smoking are also linked to this.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “This report highlights why Scotland’s drugs problem cannot be tackled overnight.

“We need long-term cultural change, which is why we launched ‘Road to Recovery’, Scotland’s national drugs strategy.”

Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Bill Aitken said the figures reflected the need for a rethink on drugs policy.

Mr Aitken said: “These are clearly very concerning figures, and the cannabis statistics in particular result from the lack of a firm message from the UK government on cannabis classification.”
Source: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland 7th Nov. 2009

New research shows alcohol-related illnesses could be killing one in 20 Scots – twice as many as previously thought. The study totalled the proportion of 53 different causes of death – ranging from stomach cancer and strokes to assaults and road deaths – in which alcohol consumption played a part, to show that nearly 3,000 deaths in 2003 were alcohol-related.
This is double the figure for deaths from illnesses caused almost entirely by alcohol consumption alone, such as alcoholic liver disease. It means one Scot may be dying from alcohol-related causes every three hours.
While alcohol-related deaths accounted for five per cent of all deaths in Scotland, this proportion rises to more than a quarter of deaths in men and a fifth of women aged 35-44. In addition, around 41,414 people were discharged from hospital due to alcohol consumption – more than one in twenty (7.3 per cent) of patients over 16, and 50 per cent higher than figures based on wholly attributable conditions.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said:
“This research shows that alcohol misuse is taking an even higher toll on Scotland’s health than previously thought. To have one in 20 Scots dying from alcohol-related causes is a truly shocking statistic. Drinking alcohol is part of Scottish culture, but it’s clear that many people are drinking too much and damaging their health in the process. Alcohol misuse is the biggest public health challenge we face and the Scottish Government has made crystal clear our determination to get to grips with it.”
Cancer deaths accounted for just over a fifth (21.7 per cent) of all alcohol attributable deaths. A total of 2,374 of the 2,882 deaths (82.4 per cent) linked to alcohol were in people under the age of 75. And of these, 1,080 deaths were people under the age of 55.
The calculations are based on consumption data from the Scottish Health Survey 2003, updated to reflect the increasing strength of alcoholic drinks. Conditions were identified where alcohol increased the likelihood of developing the condition and this information was applied to consumption patterns to calculate the proportion of deaths from a particular condition attributable to alcohol. New Scottish Health Survey data due for publication later this year will allow updated mortality figures to be calculated. The study, published by ISD Scotland, also indicated that 1,493 heart disease deaths may have been prevented by low levels of alcohol consumption, although drinking even at low levels was found to be a risk factor for almost all the other conditions. Furthermore, the positive effects of low consumption in relation to heart disease were cancelled out by higher consumption.
Last week the Scottish Government held an Alcohol Summit which brought together representatives from all the political parties, alcohol industry, NHS, retailers and academics to discuss the measures outlined in the Alcohol Framework.
Source: The Scottish Government 30th June 2009

The ban on the sale of fresh hallucinogenic mushrooms from December 1 has been confirmed by health minister Ab Klink on Monday evening as earlier reported. The ban covers both the growing and sale of these mushrooms.
The sale of dried mushrooms is already banned.
Klink said last year he would ban the so-called magic mushrooms following a series of incidents involving tourists.
Source: DutchNews.nl 11th Nov. 2008

THE serious consequences of long-term cannabis use in indigenous communities are beginning to show, with an alarming surge in the rate of chronic mental health conditions among those who started smoking the drug at an early age.
James Cook University researcher Alan Clough, who has been looking at the issue of indigenous drug use for the past five years, found cannabis use in remote communities was now as high as 70 per cent of people, with almost 90 per cent of users claiming to be addicted.
Since the study began in 2004, the bulk of users surveyed reported continuing heavy use. “After 15 years of a cannabis epidemic we’re really starting to see the chronic mental effects appearing,” Professor Clough said.
“We’ve seen acute psychosis that is irreversible, as well as depression and dependence. Unfortunately we also have the situation where suicide is linked not just with cannabis use but also through withdrawal. The other worrying trend is the declining age of people trying it for the first time. Some kids are starting at 10.”
In a recent study of three remote Arnhem Land communities, Professor Clough and a team of researchers found that cannabis use exceeded six “cones” daily in almost 90 per cent of users. This was about twice the consumption of regular users elsewhere in Australia. The study also found people spent more than 60 per cent of their income on cannabis.
Professor Clough denied that alcohol bans under the intervention had forced people to switch to drugs. Senior Arnhem Land elder Bakamumu Marika said young people were turning to cannabis out of boredom. “People just get bored stiff. They’ve got no work to do, no training, no jobs,” he said.
Source:www.theaustralian.com 9th Nov. 2009

The breakdown shows health boards and councils forked out £77 million on drug services in 2007 and just under £26 million on alcohol services.
Drug and alcohol abuse is costing Scotland nearly £5billion a year, according a report by the watchdog Audit Scotland. The breakdown shows health boards and councils forked out £77million on drug services in 2007 and just under £26million on alcohol services.
The report said spending patterns did not always reflect national priorities or need, and funding arrangements are often “complex and fragmented”.
Death rates for alcohol and drug abuse in Scotland are amongst the highest in Europe and have doubled in the last 15 years. This is while rates decrase in other parts of Europe. The number of alcohol-related deaths in 2007 was 1,399 – compared to 455 drugs-related deaths.
The report has called for a more co-ordinated approach to services.
Auditor General Robert Black said: “The range of services for people in need of help can depend on where they live and there is not enough information about the effectiveness of these services.”
Scottish ministers have not set out minimum national standards that victims and their families can expect from drug and alcohol services. The report says ministers need to work with the NHS, councils and others to ensure they all know their responsibilities. While recent Scottish Government strategies have a focus on prevention, only 6 per cent of direct spending was on preventive activities.
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said: “This report came about as a result of Scottish Conservative pressure in the 2008 budget. We suspected there was chaos in how funding streams were directed towards addressing addiction. The horrific truth has now been exposed and I am shocked at the sheer scale of the drugs and alcohol problem in Scotland.”
Labour’s Cathy Jamieson added: “I am particularly concerned that Audit Scotland’s report states that the Scottish Government is not funding services in the most effective way as they have no way of measuring performance. This is completely unacceptable and must change.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said the Government had asked for the report and welcomed its findings. He added: “It details the system we inherited from the previous administration.” The spokesman also said spending on drug and alcohol services had increased.

Source: www.stv.tv 26 March 2009,

Possession and use of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD and amphetamines are no longer criminal offenses in Mexico, the A law that went into effect this week decriminalized minor drug possession, although individuals caught three times with drugs would be required to attend an addiction-treatment program.
Mexican officials have said that the law would free police up to focus on combatting dealers and higher-level drug traffickers.
Source: Associated Press reported Aug. 21.2009

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen burst into a drug treatment center in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10 people, the second such mass killing this month.
Police say nine men and one woman were killed in the attack just before midnight Tuesday at the Anexo de Vida center in Mexico’s most violent city. Two people were seriously wounded. Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Chihuahua state police, said Wednesday the identities of the gunmen and the motive for the attack have not yet been established. But officials have said in the past that drug gangs may be using treatment centers to recruit dealers, or may be targeting them to eliminate rivals. Most of the victims are believed to have been recovering addicts staying at the facility.
“Why? Why them?” said Pilar Macias, weeping after she identified the body of her brother, Juan Carlos Macias, 39. “He was recovering, he wanted to get back on the right track and they didn’t let him, they didn’t give him a chance. This is going to kill my mother,” Macias said. “She’s very sick and this is going to kill her.” Macias said the mother had encouraged her son to enter the facility for treatment of his cocaine addiction three months ago.
Maria Hernandez also had come to the state prosecutor’s office to identify the body of her 25-year son. “He was good, he didn’t hang out with gangs, he didn’t have ‘narco’ friends,” she said. “He just began with marijuana, and then … they killed him.”
Pools of dry blood and bloodied footprints were visible Wednesday in the courtyard of the drug and alcohol rehab center where the shooting occurred. The center is located in a poor neighborhood with dirt streets, some of which were impassable due to recent rains.
On Sept. 2, gunmen lined patients against a wall at another rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez and then riddled them with bullets, killing 18.
Five men were killed at another rehabilitation center in June, and in August 2008, gunmen barged into a pastor’s sermon at a rehabilitation center and opened fire, killing eight people. Authorities have not said if any of the attacks are related.
Ciudad Juarez has seen the worst of the nation’s drug violence, with more than 1,300 deaths this year. The bloodshed has continued despite a buildup in troops since March. Early Wednesday, gunmen burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and shot to death five men, police said. They said they knew of no motive for the attack. Surging gang violence has claimed 13,500 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and deployed extra soldiers across the country to fight cartels.
Also Wednesday, police in the southern state of Guerrero reported they had found the decomposed bodies of four men by the side of a highway. Because of their poor condition, the cause of death and identity of the bodies has not yet been established.
Source: Yahoo news Sept. 2009

Chapel Hill Independent School District announced today that they will host Project 7th Grade, a national initiative of the notMYkid organization that educates parents, schools and children on substance abuse prevention, for a presentation on effective means for families to communicate and prevent teenagers from abusing prescription and illicit drugs. Project 7th Grade serves as a family-oriented prevention resource that helps parents develop plans to communicate and maintain an early, but ongoing dialogue with their children about the perils of substance abuse, incorporating drug testing as a cornerstone of deterrence.
This presentation will be held in English on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 and in Spanish on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 6:30p.m. at 13172 Hwy 64 E Tyler, TX. All area parents are invited to attend this program but please note it is not open to students. Parents will learn about drug issues, trends, terminology, see photos of paraphernalia and be given tips on talking to their kids about drugs and establishing a proactive drug prevention plan for their families. Each family that attends is also given a First Check drug test kit to take home with them, it tests for seven illicit and five prescription drugs, and often just having the kit in the home is enough of a deterrent for middle school students.
“Project 7th Grade is unique because it encourages proactive, two-way communications between parent and child to prevent drug use before it has had a chance to occur,” said Lacy Lowrey, Manager of National Program Development for Project 7th Grade. “We provide the essential resources so that pare! nts can develop their own family substance abuse prevention plans based on their own particular circumstances, as well as offering test kits to serve as an effective deterrent and means for teenagers to escape peer pressure.”
Source: www.kltv.com 21.4.08

The article below was written in an American publication in 2008 and drew on previous articles from the 1990s – also included here. It is salutary to see that the comments about drug education in schools in the USA are still completely relevant to drug education in Britain today.

Parents should ask to see which drug education programme is being used in the schools which their children attend – and they should read them with great care, to identify any covert messages. To prevent drug use by young people it is vital that parents, schools and colleges all give the same message – drug use is unlawful, unhealthy, and unacceptable – NDPA

In a recent article about the debate on the legalization of marijuana between Robert Stutman, a retired DEA agent, and Steve Hager, editor-in-chief of High Times Magazine, which had been sponsored by the student union at the University of Kansas, a student later said that the debaters had appealed too much to the emotions of the audience, that she had wanted more concrete facts.

Another notable comment from another student said she did not smoke marijuana but was interested in the event because some of her friends did smoke. “I don’t look down on people that smoke,” she said. “I have never smoked and never will. It’s a personal choice, and it’s just how I am.”

It seems that many students think that marijuana use is a “personal choice,” without regard to its being against the law and school codes. Several highly qualified people who have reviewed school drug curricula have pointed out that the approach being used in most school drug education, which focuses on self-esteem and teaching ‘decision-making skills,’ implies that drug use is a choice for the student to make. Furthermore, with that psychosocial emphasis, indications are that there has been too little knowledge provided to students about drugs and the harms of their use, which is surely what drug education is assumed to be about.

Arlene Seal, Ph.D., who has a vast background in drug-prevention analysis and activities, wrote several excellent articles in the mid-1990s about concerns regarding the choice/decision-making approach being used in school drug curricula. Two of those articles are excerpted below, and also below is an excerpt from another article on the same subject, that one written in 1990 by a professor in education at Northern Illinois University.

Although there may have been some improvements in school drug curricula since these articles were written, apparently the basic “choice/decision-making” emphasis remains the same, as was indicated by the comment of the student in the recent article about the marijuana legalization debate held at Kansas.
If we are to be effective in youth drug-use prevention, we must pay more attention to, and have an input in, what is being taught (and how) in drug education in the middle and high schools, prior to students arriving at college.
Source: Nancy Starr, Drugwatch International. October 2008

THERE IS NO CHOICE

by Arlene B. Seal, Ph.D., published in Prevention Pipeline, May/June 1991,
condensed from a longer article published in Dec./Jan. 1991 Adolescent Counsellor. (Dr. Seal has been a drug-education consultant for many years, was a Fulbright Scholar, and is Founder/President of Positive Moves.)

I am very concerned about the prevalence of drug education throughout the country that focuses on individual choice and decision-making skills. Most often these programs and curricula emphasize self-esteem or self-confidence as prerequisites for responsible behavior and ‘good choices or decisions.’ Although engendering important social development and life skills, this approach dilutes the fact that illicit drugs are dangerous and illegal.
Drug education for young people that relies upon ‘choices’ or ‘moderation’ about drug use carries subtle and misleading messages that say:

* Any age is old enough to have gained a perspective in life and an experienced frame of reference to make critical life decisions to choose what one wants to do.

* Laws are not important. One has a right to do whatever one individually feels or thinks is best for oneself regardless of authority or society.

*When one is able to make a choice equivalent to deciding whether or not to go out and play, it must mean that there is no real harm in drug use.

Furthermore, ‘choice’ implies that there are two or more viable options. Is there any ‘choice’ about drugs that is medically and socially acceptable other than no unlawful use? Use of illicit drugs is against the law because it is harmful to the survival and well-being of society. It is not a matter of choosing whether or not to use illegal drugs, but rather a decision whether or not to break the law.

Drug education, especially for children, that centers on choice has three inherent problems:

1. Choices or decisions cannot be made without a frame of reference.
Over the past thirty years, American society changed many of its rules and the societal frame of reference got lost in individualistic interpretation. How can young people possibly make critical choices in a society that is no longer clear about the rules it follows?

2. ‘Choice’ evades a clear message of right and wrong. There is no choice about murder, it is societally unacceptable. If one commits murder, one makes a decision to break the law with known consequences.

3. Giving children critical life choices relinquishes adult and societal responsibility. One does not tell a 5-year-old that cars can hurt or kill and then send the child off alone to cross a street on the first day of school. . . Is it realistic or responsible on the part of adults to give young people choices about drug use that is equally life-threatening? . . . .

One of the most positive things we can do, as parents and as a society, to help our children, ourselves, our country and our world gain long-term freedom from rampant societal drug use, is to be clear and consistent in the messages we give and the lines we draw. We must insist that all drug education transmit a non-acceptance for illegal drug use.

From CHOICE . . . TO LEGALIZATION

- Excerpts from an article by Arlene B. Seal, Ph.D., which originally appeared as a guest editorial in IDEA Newsletter, April 1993.

Following the 1986 Drug-Free Act, many people with the best of intentions but with limited understanding of the new direction required, implemented strategies, policies and programs within the initial context of treatment and law enforcement. While treatment and law enforcement are essential parts of national policies, these approaches cannot accomplish the drug-free goal. They are both REACTIVE approaches that begin only after the problem has occurred…. .
Critical to the long-term solution of preventing the problem before it occurs, is a PREVENTIVE approach that will change societal attitudes about the acceptance of drugs…..

This raises one of the most significant problems in current US drug education strategies and policies. Much of the continued use of drugs and some of the other major problems associated with drugs in the US, such as gangs and violence, can be attributed, in part, to the type of education implemented over the past two decades at all levels.

Today, about 59%-98% of drug ‘prevention’ curricula and youth programs (including ‘drug-free’ youth programs) are based on a ‘choice/decision-making’ model.

Drug prevention education based on teaching children that ‘it is their choice or decision whether or not to use drugs’ is actually COUNTERPRODUCTIVE TO THE GOALS OF A DRUG-FREE SOCIETY. In fact, teaching children that drug use is their ‘choice’ increases acceptance of drug prevalence and use by making both use and non-use viable options. More simply, choice/decision models violate the accepted federal standard of no use that is the litmus test for receiving federal monies, including drug-free school dollars.

Furthermore, since all drugs are illegal for children, teaching a child that s/he is the only one who can decide on behavior that is best for her/himself, burdens a child with responsibility relinquished by adults and society while it undermines the child’s respect for authority in any form—parent, teacher, school, religion, government.

Teaching children guided decision-making skills by responsible and caring adults is a process that takes place gradually over years (like an apprenticeship) while the child gains knowledge and a life perspective with which to make good choices and wise decisions—and to understand that there are non-negotiables in order to protect individuals and the well-being of society.

Promoting the concept that drug use is the choice of each individual is the premise promoted by drug advocacy groups. This concept is the pathway to an ultimate outcome of legalization of drugs.

By teaching children that it is their choice whether or not to use drugs, children are learning that drugs are acceptable in society while they are being indoctrinated to eventually vote for drug legalization.

SOME DRUG EDUCATION PROGRAMS SEND MIXED MESSAGES TO STUDENTS

by Lowell Horton, Professor of education at Northern Illinois University
from ‘ON TARGET’, March 1990 -reprinted in ‘National Chemical People Newsletter’, March – April 1990. Excerpts follow:

All 50 states now have laws requiring alcohol and other drug education. As often as not, these mandates are ambiguous and poorly conceived. While several good drug education packages are available, many others were rushed to the market with more interest in the bottom line than in outcome.

School leaders are required to exercise thoughtful consideration before approving programs for school districts. Many drug education programs send a mixed and confusing message to students. Others are clearly wrong. Here are some clues that your program may be worse than no program at all. (One of those clues with commentary follows.)

Drug education that is value free so students can decide for themselves. This overworked saw is still grinding in too many schools. The message from this transmogrification of teaching critical thinking is that we should simply present the facts in a non-biased way and allow children to decide for themselves whether they will drink alcohol, smoke pot or snort cocaine.

Further, this outrageous notion exhorts teachers to remain neutral without pointing out right and wrong. This absurd approach is totally inappropriate. Fourteen-year-olds do not have the ability, nor should they have the responsibility, for making unaided decisions about drug use. As educators, we do have legal and moral obligations to assist our students in making legal and healthful decisions. We don’t need to apologize for standing against drug use. Beware of mixed and hidden messages……

Administrators, teachers, community groups and students must work together to craft a program that will unequivocally contribute to the goal of a totally drug-free environment in the school and community.

COLLEGE STUDENTS LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF MARIJUANA HARM

From newsletter of The Chemical People of Erie County, Pa. Fall 2002 – The letter below, written by former Drug Enforcement Administration member Robert Stutman, was sent to nine major newspapers. Is it a reflection of what students did not learn in high school drug education and/or what they are not learning at college or what they are learning at college?

Dear Editor:
As the former head of the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as a current member of the Board of Directors of Educating Voices, Inc., an organization of people who care about this issue and are working to do something about it, and as someone who delivers about one hundred speeches a year on the subject of drugs in all types of venues, I believe that I was probably as sophisticated about drugs in America as most people could hope to be. However, with April 20th, the “Holy Grail” of the marihuana counter-culture quickly approaching, I felt obliged to speak out.

I debate the “Legalization of Marihuana” dozens of times a year on major college campuse. Recently, I have been aghast at the utter lack of knowledge and misconceptions on which our college students are basing their decisions as to whether they should use marihuana and indeed, whether it should be legalized. I have college students regularly tell me that “Marihuana cures cancer” and “I drive better when I am stoned on grass.”

Those ridiculous positions, not even advocated by leaders on the other side of the issue, are examples of the struggles and dangers we face as a nation. Unfortunately, most Americans are pretending drugs are not a major problem in the U. S. I wish they could spend time with me debating against the legalization of drugs with our college students, always in the minority in an auditorium full of students. April 20th will reinvigorate those Americans who want to make drugs available to our young people. When will the rest of us become reinvigorated?

Robert Stutman.

Researchers have tested several models to explain in what way different factors influence the possibility that an adolescent starts to abuse substances. In all of these models, parental and family factors have a central position in the long-term pathways leading to substance abuse, whereas peer influence acts as a contributing factor closer to the time when youth initiate drug or alcohol use. In other words, although peer influence is often the major reason adolescents initiate negative behaviours, a positive family environment is the primary reason youth do not engage in these behaviours, including drug and alcohol abuse, delinquency and early or unprotected sex.

While it is recognized that the peer group is influential, it is now known that an
adolescent’s choice of peers is greatly affected by the relationship he or she has with his or her parents. When adolescents have a positive relationship with their parents, they are more likely to choose peers who are a positive influence. Further research has identified the critical family factors that help to protect children from substance abuse:

(a) Secure and healthy parent/child attachment;
(b) Parental supervision, monitoring and effective discipline;
(c) Communication of pro-social family values;
(d) Parental involvement in child’s life;
(e) Supportive parenting (emotionally, cognitively, socially and financially).

Research on resiliency has also confirmed these points. This body of research focuses on children and families living through acute or chronic stressful life events and confirms that parental and family factors contribute to the capacity of youth to overcome adverse family situations and achieve positive outcomes.

Research shows that parents who are supportive, who encourage their children to become independent, expect compliance with rules and are consistent and fair in their discipline practices have children who are more resilient than other children. This style of parenting is often labelled “authoritative parenting”. Other factors that have been found to contribute to resiliency are an organized family environment, supportive relations, family beliefs, family cohesion and flexibility, family problem-solving and coping skills, and communication.

The research provides strong evidence that parents and families can be powerful
protective factors in the lives of children and youth; conversely, the research provides clear evidence that certain family characteristics can act as strong risk factors. Poor management of children’s behaviour, harsh and inconsistent discipline, and lack of opportunities to learn social skills have been associated with social, psychological and academic problems in children and adolescents. In general, a chaotic home environment and lack of structure in the family life are major risk factors for substance abuse. Moreover, parent-child relationships and families characterized by indifference, non responsiveness, emotional insecurity and lack of consistency by parents in caring and comforting children during the early years of development are associated with higher risks of depression, anxiety and relationship problems among children and adults. Childhood depression has been further associated with drug use in early adolescence.

IIMPLEMENTING FAMILY SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAMMES FOR DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION
These factors often characterize families with substance-abusing parents, where family relationships are likely to be disrupted, particularly if the mother is an addict. When parents abuse substances, children have greater chances of repeated exposure to family conflicts and violence, including physical and verbal abuse, and to alcohol and drugs. Families with addiction problems tend to socially isolate to protect themselves from detection, social censure and criminal action. A side effect of this is that children also become isolated and develop fewer pro-social relationships.

To conclude, research indicates that the main factors in a family that put
children and youth at risk of substance abuse are the same factors that place youth at risk for other problem behaviours; hence efforts to prevent substance abuse will also have beneficial effects on other risky behaviours. The main factors in a family that put children and youth at risk of substance abuse are:

(a) Lack of bonding and insecure relationship with parents;
(b) Lack of a signifi cant relationship with a caring adult;
(c) Ineffective parenting;
(d) Chaotic home environment;
(e) Parents or siblings who abuse substances, suffer from mental illness or are involved in criminal behaviour;
(f) Social isolation.

Definition of family skills training programmes
What are family skills training programmes? Family skills training programmes generally aim at strengthening the family protective factors that have been mentioned above. For example, they might include exercises to increase communication, trust, problem-solving skills and conflict resolution or they might include opportunities for parents and children to spend positive time together, as ways to strengthen the bonding and attachment between parents and children. To match the protective and risk factors described above, family skills training programmes generally include strategies aimed at increasing:

(a) Positive family relationships;
(b) Family supervision and monitoring;
(c) Communication of family values and expectations.

These strategies are generally grouped and presented in three sub-sessions within a given intervention session: family skills training programmes generally combine:
(a) training of parents to strengthen their parenting skills;
(b) training of children in personal and social skills; and
(c) family practice sessions.

Thus, a typical session will see parents and children attending their own training groups and, at the end, coming together as a whole family for some practice time. These interventions are generally delivered to groups of families and allow for practice time within individual families. Some programmes use technology (computer-based learning and telephones) as an intervention modality, especially for universal-level delivery and for families living in remote locations.

A recent research review40 concluded that the most effective family skills training
programmes include active parental involvement, focus on the development of
adolescents’ social skills and responsibility among children and adolescents, and
address issues related to substance abuse. Effective interventions also involve youth in family activities and strengthen family bonds.

Source: Family skills training programmes for drug abuse prevention
ONDCP Vienna 23rd March 2009

The study’s release coincides with the Partnership’s second annual “Time To Talk” Month, a family-focused parents’ movement throughout August designed to help parents start and maintain open, honest dialogue with their kids about the risks of drugs and alcohol. Time To Talk supports and empowers parents and caregivers to have frequent and positive conversations with their teens to keep them healthy and drug free.
This year’s Time To Talk effort prompts parents to adapt the technology teens use and reaching out to them with an encouraging text message at back to school time. Parents can join the Partnership’s first-ever “Time To Text” initiative, an effort to motivate parents to open new lines of communication by learning to text message, starting with a back-to-school message as a reminder of support.
Parent visitors to TimeToTalk.org can learn to talk to their kids about drugs and alcohol in their own language by downloading a “Time To Text” guide offering tips on sending a message to their kid’s mobile phone. Those who can’t quite find the words can choose from several pre-written messages. Parents can also download a wallet card with shortcuts teens use when text messaging. The “Time To Text” guide is available at TimeToTalk.org.
PATS research consistently shows that kids who learn a lot about the risks of drugs at home are up to 50 percent less likely to use than those who do not. Yet, only 32 percent of teens report that they are getting this vital message from their parents.
Parents are encouraged to visit TimeToTalk.org in August for tips on talking to teens about school stress and helping them manage pressure.
Among the recommendations for parents are regular reminders to kids that they are loved and admired for who they are, not for their grades and achievements, making family time a priority, and having frequent discussions about the risks of drug and alcohol.
Time To Talk reaches parents and caregivers through the support of 2008 sponsors A&E Television Network, Comcast, King Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Major League Baseball Charities, Wyeth Consumer Healthcare and Yahoo!
Source: www.drugfree.org Aug.2008

NEW YORK, NY – A new study released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America reveals a troubling new insight into the reasons why teens use drugs. According to the 2007 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study of 6,511 teens (PATS Teens), the number one reason teens see for using drugs is to deal with the pressures and stress of school. In this nationally projectable study (margin of error +/- 1.6 percent), 73 percent of teens reported that school stress is the primary reason for drug use, indicating that teens’ perceptions of motivating factors for using drugs are dramatically different than past research has indicated.
Deep Disconnect Between Teen Behavior and Parental Awareness
An accompanying 2007 Partnership study of parents’ attitudes about teen drug use, released in June, showed that parents severely underestimate the impact of stress on their teens’ decision to use drugs. Only 7 percent of parents believe that teens might use drugs to cope with stress.
“A wide disconnect exists between what teens are thinking and feeling and what parents believe about their teens when it comes to attitudes about drug use,” said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the Partnership. “This is a pivotal opportunity for parents to understand what motivates today’s teens to engage in this type of risky behavior, and to communicate the very real dangers and risks, while offering their kids support and guidance on dealing with pressure in a healthy way.”
In previous PATS Teens studies, when teen respondents were asked to select from a number of reasons for using drugs, the number one reason (65 percent) selected was to “feel cool.” The 2007 study was the first to offer the option of selecting school stress as a motivator, one which nearly 3 out of 4 teens (73 percent) strongly agreed with. This was followed closely by “feeling cool” (65 percent) and “feeling better about themselves” (65 percent).
Over the past decade, studies have indicated a steady changing trend in what teens perceive as the motivations for using drugs. The “to have fun” rationales are declining, while motivations to use drugs to solve problems are increasing.
Overall Teen Drug Use Declining; Prescription Drug Abuse Disturbingly High Among Nation’s Youth
The 2007 PATS Teens study confirms that overall substance abuse remains in steady decline among teens. Marijuana use is in its tenth consecutive year of decline, down 30 percent since 1998 alone. Teen use of Ecstasy, inhalants and methamphetamine has continued a multi-year, significant decline, and use of both alcohol and cigarettes continue to decrease.
Teens’ ongoing intentional abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications remains a serious concern, as many teens mistakenly believe the abuse of medicines is less dangerous than abuse of illegal drugs.
According to the survey:
• 1 in 5 teens (4.4 million) has abused a prescription medication,
• Nearly 1 in 5 teens (4.2 million) has already abused a prescription painkiller,
• 41 percent of teens think it’s safer to abuse a prescription drug than it is to use illegal drugs.
“Teens continue to take their lives into their own hands when they intentionally abuse prescribed medications, said Pasierb. “Whether it’s to get high or deal with stress, or if they mistakenly believe it will help them perform better in school or sports, teens don’t realize that when used without a prescription, these medicines can be every bit as harmful as illegal street drugs.”
Source Press Release. Partnership for a Drug Free America. Aug. 2008

Youngsters under 21, often the first time away from home, often drink to excess when they are in college. This can reflect on their academic work, acceptable behaviour and sadly, too often, result in alcohol overdoses. Yet parents, (who are paying the bills !) are not informed unless or until the situation is one of
asking the student to leave. Well done to the University of Kansas.
Calling parents about alcohol abuse good policy
University of Kansas officials get good marks on policy to notify parents of student drinking
University of Kansas students seeking relief from stress or just a bit of fun may think twice now before inviting alcohol or drugs to the party.

University officials have decided that what underage students are doing in Lawrence doesn’t necessarily have to stay in Lawrence if it involves alcohol or drugs. Henceforth, the university will inform parents when students younger than 21 are found to be in violation of drug and alcohol laws.

We welcome the change in policy at KU, and think universities that don’t phone home now when young students endanger their lives or the lives of others during an incident of substance abuse would do well to follow suit.

It’s the nature of university officials across the country to want to treat their students like responsible adults. However, some students don’t always act like responsible adults, and if a call home and parental intervention will put them back on track, so be it.

In KU’s case, officials had good reason to review the school’s policy and make a change. Alcohol played a role in the deaths of two students this spring.

Jason Wren, 19, of Littleton, Colo., was found dead at a fraternity house March 8 after a night of heavy drinking. He had been kicked out of a university residence hall for earlier incidents involving alcohol. Dalton Hawkins, 18, of Shawnee, died April 24 after falling off the roof of a campus building. An autopsy report indicated he had been drinking.

We think Wren’s family would have been interested in knowing he was having trouble with alcohol and are pretty sure they would have tried to help him with his problem.

It’s unfortunate that universities everywhere, including several in Kansas, have stories about students who were lost to encounters with too much alcohol. Perhaps the changes brought about at the University of Kansas following the deaths of Wren and Hawkins will save some lives.

In addition to calling parents, KU will step up efforts to educate students about drinking and has instituted an amnesty policy meant to encourage students to get help for friends having alcohol-related emergencies.

At Kansas State University, officials notify the parents of underage students who have multiple offenses with alcohol or other controlled substances that occur on the campus. The policy had been in place in KSU residence halls and was extended to the entire campus last fall.

At Washburn University, parents may be notified if a student is deemed to be in a crisis, but the school doesn’t have a policy to notify parents of use.

Stepping in to help a student before he or she has had multiple offenses or is in a crisis situation probably would prove to be more effective, and could save a life.

We’d encourage all universities to review their policies concerning students and alcohol to determine whether they’re doing all they should to ensure someone doesn’t have to call a student’s parents with some really bad news

Source: The Topeka Capital Journal May 10, 2009

It’s summer, when kids should be able to run free. “Should be able” is the operative phrase here, unfortunately. – No parent would ever wish drug abuse on their child; the thought that their beloved newborn could turn out to be a drug user, terrifies every responsible, loving parent!
Today, marijuana pervades our teens world; your children are the targets of those who promote drugs. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of websites promoting marijuana; these websites ridicule the scientific studies; they ridicule the war on drugs, convincing many that nothing can be done to stop drug use.
Primarily, what parents need to know is: Prevention works.
Parents and grandparents can normally prevent the tragedy that comes from drug use, but they must not only educate themselves, they need to become actively and aggressively part of the anti-drug community, for drug use has now reached a pandemic stage among youth.
The average age of first use of any drug in America is 12. The first drugs of use are tobacco, alcohol and marijuana, all “gateway drugs,” and are accepted as an accurate predictor of potential future drug use.
What Can Be Done?
Use the tragedies around us to teach our children!

1. First, make sure your children know that use of any drugs is unacceptable – that participating in drug use will close any number of doors which would normally be open to them throughout their lives – that it can limit their choices, having a permanent impact on their lives.
2. In front of your children, talk about the parents whose children have become users and the pain and grieving their parents are going through! If the chance occurs, let them experience it first hand, by being with you when you visit with those parents; let them experience the pain.
3. Set rules and consequences and be consistent about enforcing them. Explain to them how the world works – regarding how education and schooling, is preparing them to support and provide for their future families.
4. Role play with them, giving them effective ways to say “no”! Peer pressure will be on them much earlier than you expect.
5. Instill leadership qualities; some children naturally tend to be followers; teach them not to.
6. Understand the pressures: the alcohol, tobacco industries and marijuana promoters know that if one is drug free at 21, it’s unlikely they will ever use drugs – children are targets and peer pressure is real.
7. Become involved with your children’s environment:
a) Schools; make sure their policies clearly promote drug-free youth.
b) Internet: monitor their use; there are many good tracking programs.
c) Music: listen to it, not only theirs, but their friends; and if you suspect lyrics, search them out online – you’ll be amazed!Music for example is one of the underpinnings of promoting drug use (as well as of other anti-social behaviors).
d) Reading: visit your library or buy and read a couple issues of “High Times” to see how pot is being presented to youth! Actively speak out against, and challenge all things which promote the acceptance of drugs – paraphernalia and hemp products.
e) Closely monitor their well-supervised and age-appropriate whereabouts; contract with them that you will be there and never complain if they ever encounter a situation where they’re in the presence of drug use – that you’ll pick them up immediately. Learn to say “no” to their requests.
Basically, engage life; support the safe environment in your community.
Now comes the hard part – if in case we loose a battle, and an older child begins to use, statistically, that child will very likely pass the drug on to younger children!
When a child begins to use and there are younger children in the home, that child needs to be put into a program to get them off and keep them off all drugs – for the sake of the younger children in the home, yet this is useless without regular testing! If they relapse, for the safety of the other children, they need to leave the home – that relates back to the #1 item above – they’ve been warned that if they’ve made a choice to violate rules, they’re old enough to not live at home.
Source: www.examiner.com 28th June 2009

3668 Bonita View Drive., Bonita, Ca. 91902 (619) 475 9941/475 9942 email rogermorgan339@sbcglobal.net

4/18/2009
To: President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

CC: Vice President Joe Biden
Director of The Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske

Dear Mr. President:

We, an international coalition of drug prevention professionals and organizations throughout the world, many with over thirty years of experience, believe that the nation’s problems of health, academic achievement, crime, welfare and resultant impacts on the federal and state budgets cannot be resolved without focusing on the root cause of all of these problems ….. alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (hereinafter ATOD). We therefore call upon the President of the United States to reduce the demand for ATOD as follows:

WHEREAS …..

• Almost all of our nation’s problems, are caused by or made worse by alcohol, tobacco
and illicit drugs. (hereinafter ATOD).

• In your first term of four years, unless there is a radical shift to prevent the disease of addiction, the nation will incur $2.4 TRILLION in cost and an estimated 2.8 MILLION AMERICANS WILL DIE from tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs and misuse of legal drugs.

• Addiction to ATOD is a “pediatric onset disease” (Dr. Barthwell, former Deputy Director of ONDCP). Almost all addiction begins with adolescents, aged 11 to 18 years old.

• If a young person reaches age 21 prior to first significant use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs, they should virtually never have a problem. (Joseph Califano Jr., Chairman of CASA)

• Just as we inoculate for measles, small pox, polio and other diseases, if we universally employ the best known prevention methods we can significantly reduce the level of death, destruction and economic cost of health care, and increase academic achievement and productivity.

• America has 5% of the world’s population, yet we consume 65% of illicit drugs. Over 2000 young people start smoking tobacco daily, 50% of whom will die from it, and in the process of dying will inflict enormous costs on society for health care. 50% of adolescents use drugs and alcohol, 25% frequently.

• Demand for drugs fuels the drug cartels which in turn financially underwrite terrorism and corruption in Mexico and throughout the world. Reducing demand is of equal importance to interdicting supply, and no longer an option if the nation is to effectively win the war on drugs.

• The High School Drop Out Rate – UC Santa Barbara recently concluded a study showing the average drop out rate in California is 24.2%. Each class of drop outs (127,000 students) cost California taxpayers $46.4 billion …. $365,000 PER DROP OUT, as two thirds will end up on welfare, in prison, and/or burdening public health care. Nationally there are 1.2 million high school drop outs (www.edweek.org). If the same cost figure applies as in California, the ANNUAL NATIONAL COST FOR HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUTS IS $438 BILLION.

• The Cost of Substance Abuse – NIDA reported in 2006 that the annual cost of illicit drugs to the nation was $181 billion, and when combined with alcohol they exceed $500 billion, which includes costs for healthcare, criminal justice and lost productivity. Add tobacco, and the figure is over $700 billion a year … SOON TO BE ONE TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

• Criminal Activity/Prison Overcrowding – Drugs and alcohol are implicated in roughly 85% of all crime. 80% of prison inmates are high school drop outs. Unless corrective measures are taken to improve the high school drop out rate, the social and economic costs to society will increase as the employment, crime, welfare and health care costs increase.

• Death Rate – According to The Center for Disease Control, overdose deaths in 2006 amounted to 3,042 deaths a month. In 1998, the last year total drug deaths were quantified, overdose deaths were only 27% of the total and drug related deaths comprised the balance. If that holds true today, 2,620 Americans die weekly from drugs….. almost the equivalent of 9/11, every week. But tobacco trumps them all, with 1200 deaths a day.

• Treatment vs Prevention – NIDA reported in 2006 23.6 million persons aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol (9.6% of persons aged 12 or older), and only 2.5 million actually got treatment. Every dollar spent on addiction treatment returned $4 to $7 dollars in reduction of drug-related crimes. While treatment is economically sound, and necessary, the savings in human lives, misery and costs from PREVENTING the problem to begin with could save HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY.

• States (and we think the federal government) spend 113 times as much to clean up the devastation that substance abuse visits on children as they do to prevent and treat it.” (Joseph Califano; 2001 Study called Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets). This is appalling economic and social policy.

• “The primary responsibility for the protection of its people does lie with the state itself …. and, prevention is the single most important dimension of the responsibility to protect. “(George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy)

• Parents are considered to be the number one factor in determining a child’s at-risk behavior. However, parents are unable to protect all children without federal help. 56% of kids in American children are at moderate to high risk of substance abuse (CASA) and the only plausible way to ensure that all children are protected is with federally mandated and approved school-based drug prevention programs in all schools combined with improved education for students and their parents on the pharmacology of drugs.

• We cannot rely on persuasion to get 17,000 school boards in America to make the right choices to defer the onset of ATOD and protect kids. A federal mandate is required to direct schools to protect all kids using the best known prevention techniques starting with non-punitive random drug testing.

• ATOD is a national problem, that inflicts more death, destruction and economic cost on this nation than all other forms of terrorism combined. It makes no sense to focus on terrorism alone, or a war in Iraq that claimed 3,000 soldiers in four years, when 3,000 Americans die monthly just from drug overdose, not to mention a cost of $200 billion a year just for drugs ( $600 billion if one adds alcohol and tobacco.)

• Two of the most important responsibilities of all elected officials are to protect the people, and manage tax dollars intelligently.

• Schools, by virtue of the fact they house 98.5% of adolescents, are critical in terms of shoring up the shortfalls in parenting. A federal mandate for schools to implement the best known prevention practices is an absolute necessity to protect all kids.

• In large part due to drugs and alcohol, there are 6.1 million children in America being raised by grandparents or foster parents; 1.6 million of those are in foster homes.

• China has more children getting straight A’s in school than all of the kids in the school system in America combined, and 1.2 million kids in America don’t even graduate from high school. (Capt Len Kaine, Retired) We cannot retain our competitive position in the world if this is not corrected.

THEREFORE we request President Obama and the Administration to take the following actions to reduce the demand for alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs:

1) Implement a Demand Reduction Program in all schools for grades 6 through 12 to include:

A) A requirement for non-punitive random drug testing for ALL STUDENTS aged 11 to
17 years old. This is the best known tool for deterring the onset of ATOD use. It keeps kids in the system, gives them a reason to say no to peer pressure, takes the burden off teachers and the administration to play drug cop, identifies problems early so kids can get help if needed, keeps law enforcement out of the equation, gets parents involved when problems arise, decreases juvenile problems, and enhances academic achievement and graduation rates.

B) Use the best known practices to keep alcohol, tobacco and other drugs off campus.
According to CASA research, the propensity to use is 5 times greater if ATOD is readily available on campuses.

C) Strive to get Student Assistant Programs (SAP) and effective counselors on each campus, to
fill the void in many young people’s lives caused by the lack of effective parenting.

D) Continue with educational programs that convey an effective no-use message from grades
K – 12 for young people and adults in communicating the pharmacology of ATOD, and their effect on individuals and society in general.

E) Create activities during and after school that enhance physical fitness and healthy
lifestyles.

2) As a condition for receiving federal aid for welfare, health care or child/family assistance, require all
recipients to subject to random drug testing.

3) As a means of expanding knowledge on the pharmacology of drugs by parents and the general public, have ONDCP and/or the Department of Health and Human services provide materials and information to all major employers in the United States so they in turn can provide the information to their employees; and extend incentives such as tax credits for employees who pass an exam. Smaller employers should be allowed to piggy back on larger employers.

SUMMARY

The health of our nation, and the individuals in it, requires a coordinated effort by the Departments of Health and Human Service, Education and ONDCP, but most importantly, leadership from the President of the United States.

The magnitude of the problem suggests that DEMAND REDUCTION for alcohol, tobacco and other drugs is no longer an option, but a necessity, if America is to reduce the cost of health care, enhance education, productivity and retain its competitive position among nations. We pray that you will have the wisdom, courage and conviction to stand in the face of opposition and mandate a policy that will protect our young people, and in turn the future of our nation.

ENDORSED BY:

• Roger Morgan, Californians For Drug Free Schools
• Carla D. Lowe, Californians For Drug Free Schools
• Sandra Bennett, Northwest Center for Health & Safety
• Dee Rathbone, National Institute of Citizen Anti-Drug Policy
• Joyce Nalepka, Drug Free Kids, Americas Challenge
• Dr. Eric Voth, Consultant to the White House
• Ron Cuff, Partnership for Responsible Parenting
• Aurora Williams, Partnership for Responsible Parenting
• Dr. Arlene Seal, Founder & President, Positive Moves/CWD International, Inc.
• Dr. Eric Voth, Chairman of the Institute of Global Drug Policy
• Alex Romero, Founder, Arizonans for Drug Free Youth & Communities
• Mina Seinfeld de Carakushanksy, President of BRAHA, Brazilian Humanitarians in Action
• Brenda Chabot – The Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition
• Dr. Paul Chabot, Coalition for Drug Free California
• Lori Green, Yucca Valley Anti-Marijuana/drug Activist
• Cap Beyer, Chairman of the National Student Drug Testing Coalition
• Jeanette McDougall – MM, CCDP. Director – National Alliance for Health & Safety
• Katalin Szomor – Hungarian Parliament’s Drug Committee. Drug Czar 1991-1997
• Stephanie Haynes – SOS – Save our Society from Drugs
• Fabio Bernaber – President of Associazione Osservatorio Droga – Rome Italy
• Linda Taylor – Ex Director Repeal Prop 36 Fund. Anti Drug Activist
• Yvonne Gelpi, Former Head Mistress and Principle of De La Salle High School, New Orleans
• Geraldine Silverman – New Jersey Federation for Drug Free Communities
• Wayne Rogues – Retired DEA. Rogues Group
• Theresa Costello, Port Richmond Community Group, Philadephia
• Ruby Schaaf, R.N. The Chemical People of Erie County, Pa.
• Nancy Starr, The Chemcial People of Erie County, Pa.
• Kate Patten, The Kelley McEnery Baker Foundation. “Forever Kelley;s Mom”
• Susie Dugan, Drugwatch, Omaha, Nebraska

Pres Barak Obama – Petition for Demand Reduction

As a D.A.R.E. officer and a school resource officer in Reno County, Kansas, I am out every day in my community—particularly at schools—working to prevent substance abuse. When I heard about the Five Moms Campaign, I was inspired to raise awareness about this problem among teenagers. Cough medicine abuse is something people don’t really know about or ever think would be a problem, and I want parents to know that it can be just as dangerous and prominent as other drugs.
There was one other inspiration that made me decide to be a part of the Five Moms Campaign: my adopted son. My son is four, and has had a difficult life full of changes. He is a little behind in learning and is just starting to make progress. I will do everything in my power to make sure that as he grows older, he is able to catch up in school and graduate without any setbacks, especially something like cough medicine abuse.
As I watch my son grow, so do the dreams I have for him. And, those dreams don’t include doing drugs. To help build those dreams, I try to spend as much quality time with my son as possible. We enjoy swimming, camping, playing at the park, and taking walks in the summertime. And as he gets older, having conversations about the dangers of cough medicine abuse and other drug abuse will certainly be a part of our “fun” time together.
Working as a D.A.R.E officer, I have the opportunity to teach kids about the dangers of drugs. It’s a great feeling to know that at the end of the day, I might have convinced at least one kid that it’s not worth destroying his or her life with drugs. But my influence can only go so far. Parents have to do their part at home for the message to really get through.
This campaign is my opportunity to reach out to parents. You can make sure that what your child learns from D.A.R.E. and other programs doesn’t stay at school. And make sure that what you learn about cough medicine abuse doesn’t stay with you. Share it with your kids. There are many worries in today’s world that we can’t control. But this—cough medicine abuse—is something that you can help protect your children from. It’s something you can control.
Join the Conversation
The Five Moms Campaign has a community on www.Gather.com. It is a place for parents to communicate about cough medicine abuse. Your voice matters; come and talk with other moms.
Source: www.DARE.com 2009

More than 11,000 children under 16 years old were treated last year for addictions to alcohol and drugs, including heroin, according to new figures released this week.
The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse puts the total figure of children treated at 11,294. This includes 6,075 under-16s addicted to cannabis, of which 102 are under 12 years old.
More than 4,000 children received help for alcoholism, including 57 under-12s.
The children addicted to class A drugs included ten under-12s who were dependent on heroin, out of 93 under-16s. A further 323 children were treated for cocaine misuse, 165 for ecstasy, and 36 for crack.
Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the government is neglecting a ‘forgotten generation’ of children. “It’s a sad indictment of our broken society that so many are turning to things like drug and alcohol abuse at such a young age” he said.
The Department of Health said the high figures were due to an increase in spending on treatment, a rise of £10million, from £15million to £25million in the past five years,
Funding for the government’s national anti-drug campaign which is aimed at teenagers has been cut by 41 per cent from £9.05million in 2006-7 to £5.35million today.
Charity Drugscope offered an optimistic approach to the figures, saying the overall numbers of young people using illegal drugs has fallen in recent years, especially cannabis.
Source: www.askamum.co.uk 8th July 2009

The 2008-09 PRIDE Survey showed that middle and high school students whose parents set clear rules for them “a lot” or “often” were less likely to report using illicit drugs in the past year (12 percent and 21 percent, respectively). By contrast, 49 percent of students whose parents never set clear rules reported a 49 percent illicit drug use.

Similar results were found for having parents who punish them for breaking these rules. Previous studies have found that youths living in households where parents kept track of their whereabouts and set curfews were less likely to report heavy drinking (for more information see CESAR FAX, Volume 17, Issue 31, www.cesar.umd.edu/).

The 2009 Pride Survey National Summary is based on the responses of 122,243 students selected from 447,532 students from 25 states who completed the Pride Survey for Grades 6 to 12 during the school year from August 2008 to June 2009. These students, while not drawn through a formal probability sampling process, do represent a broad cross-section of American youth. Results from previous years’ national summaries have tracked closely with nationwide surveys such as Monitoring the Future.

Source:www.pridesurveys.com/customercenter/us08ns.pdf. October 2009

[This blog, first posted on 20th May, 2009 has had over 1100 visits]
We found my 20 year old brother dead of an overdose. He had just kicked the habit so tolerance was low. He started a job and the first payday was his last.
Mum wrote this after I got clean. Copy and use it anywhere it can be of use.
What is it like being the mother of an addict?
(Experiences of a mother of two young heroin addicts)
Sheer horror! I just could not exaggerate the chaos drugs cause in a family.
It sort of creeps up gradually, after the disbelief that it really can’t be happening to your boys. You think that it is something that only happens to other people’s kids. You know, the type that don’t have any parental control.
Well, all of a sudden, it’s your turn to be judged. You just know that everyone thinks that you must have been a bad parent. You even jump on the bandwagon yourself and keep asking yourself where you went wrong, with a long list of ‘if only’s’.
But the real hurt comes with watching the ones you love and have cherished turning into the low life everyone despises – even they themselves.
Your heart breaks as they become a physical wreck: thin, gaunt, grey, full of cigarette burns they didn’t feel, with only two things on their minds. Where to get the drugs, and how to pay for them?
The realisation doesn’t come all at once and it takes a while before the stealing from your purse begins. But it is inevitable – even though you’ve convinced yourself that they wouldn’t do that to you.
From then on, the inconvenience of having to hide every penny starts. Not just because you don’t want to lose your money, but because you don’t want to become part of the problem by financing their habit. You can’t even give Christmas presents in case they sell them to buy drugs (not that Christmas will ever be the same again).
There is so much lying, scheming and deceiving that it is impossible to know the truth or to believe anything. Obviously, you cannot allow drugs to be taken in your home; so with the threats of them being made homeless, come all the promises of giving up, and you just have to believe it, because what else can you do?
Giving up on them does not seem like an option.
Coming off heroin, they need a lot of help to have any chance of success, so they now become a full-time job. You feel yourself withdrawing from the outside world and dreading visitors calling, while they ‘cold turkey’ on your couch and leave the fires on all night, and burn holes in your furniture – surrounded by bottles of pills to get over the withdrawals, most of which are also subject to abuse.
Then of course there’s the naltrexone (which is your only weapon to stop them taking heroin) – but it’s not long before they develop several ingenious ways to hide it, spit it out, or some other way to look like they’ve taken it and put you off your guard. Always one step ahead!
You live in a constant state of stress, trying to catch them out, wondering which drugs they might be taking, always hoping your suspicions are wrong. But sooner or later the needles and paraphernalia start to appear and you know you’re going round the same old cycle again.
There’s something demonic about the whole thing; the thought of your son sticking a needle full of poison into himself is excruciatingly painful. You just wonder: what has happened to my family, my life?
You feel too ashamed to tell anyone and so you become very isolated, fearful and helpless. Then – just in case you had a little pride left – you (and probably all your friends) see your son begging in the street. Your child, begging? Can it get any worse? Unfortunately, yes.
The most horrific part of it all: the overdosing.
Now you watch your son on the point of death, wondering whether the ambulance will arrive in time, trying to keep him alive in the meantime, watching him turn blue, and the life trying hard to leave the worn out, abused body.
After regular arrivals of ambulances outside your house, you start to leave the house by the back door. And just when you are starting to get complacent about the whole thing, you are hit in the face by the reality of a dead son.
And while you grieve for your precious one who lost the battle before he’d barely got into it, the other son is stealing your money to buy more drugs. The dead brother, the near-death experiences of his own, seem to have no impact at all.
So afraid that he will die, too, we go looking for him, and find him, and drag him out of public toilets, but he goes off anyway. Maybe that’s the only way he can deal with the situation.
A few more overdoses down the line and I’m completely neurotic about leaving him in the house, for fear of coming home to a corpse: it’s been too close, too many times. I have to come in slowly, listening for a noise, or for evidence of signs of life – too scared to look properly.
Once I came home to find him tangled up in the telephone cord – followed shortly afterwards by an ambulance and the police, who had presumed he’d died while calling 999. Another time, while fighting for life, a loud, shrill, almost inhuman noise was coming from him although his mouth was clenched shut. That was the time the ambulance crashed on the road just before arriving. Of course, he was oblivious to all this trauma.
Every time he left the house it was a worry. It seemed a bit naïve to trust him even though I really wanted to. Always on your mind is – is he getting drugs? Where has he got the money? Will he overdose and die? Then the cycle starts again, the cold turkey, the getting better and then back to the drugs again.
We wanted to help him stop so badly, and in the early days we really thought that if we could keep him off the drugs for a couple of weeks the habit would be broken. We tried shutting him in but he escaped through a very small upper window (that’s how thin he’d become).
In desperation we’ve followed, chased, begged, threatened, bribed, but nothing ever seemed to make a difference for long. To us, he was a sick child, but really he was a grown-up with free will, so we were helpless. All we could really do was provide a safe environment for the times when he wanted to try and get better, and swallow our own heartbreak and anger.
Next came the hope of going to rehab. This created its own tensions with trying to get funding (we didn’t know there were any free rehabs then), getting a place in the detox at the right time to go on to a room in the rehab, and hoping that he would not go off the rails in the meantime.
When it finally all fell into place it was a relief beyond imagining – only to have our hopes dashed again when after months of waiting, he only stayed a few days.
Giving up still wasn’t an option, so after getting funding again and his returning for three months, things were at least improving for a while, and we were all getting a much-needed break.
He left early and relapsed, however, but had a few more attempts at rehab. Although he never completed much of the program there, they certainly seemed to help – even though (until the last time he went) he relapsed every time he left and usually overdosed before he got back home.
Thinking back, I know I underestimated the power of the drugs, how evil they are – the hold they have and how difficult it is to get off them. The personality change and the times he let us down, seemed almost out of his control.
A turning point came when he reached a new low while injecting crack cocaine. I had always thought my money was safe as long as it was on my person, and that he would never hurt me, however much he was under the control of the drugs – but things changed.
He prised my bag out of my hands while I was screaming and begging him to stop. I was hoping something would click in his mind and he would realise what he was doing, but he just had a blank look in his eyes. I was absolutely devastated.
For the first time, I felt frightened of him, and called the police, hoping they would find him before he got more drugs – knowing that that was where he was headed. But they didn’t know where to look as there were too many dealers in our small town.
I didn’t press charges just in case it was a one off, and thank God, it was. It was the turning point in his recovery and for us. I knew everything would have to change after that: a line had been crossed and everything would have to change one way or the other.
I think, looking back, it may have been the best thing that happened – his real recovery began here – but it didn’t seem like it at the time.
I’m so thankful we didn’t give up on him – but most of all I am so thankful he didn’t give up on himself.
(S. died of a heroin overdose in 1999, aged 20; T. has now been clean for nearly a year and is rebuilding his life)
PS. Where was God in all of this? I can’t write this story without mentioning the strength God gave me when I most needed it. It was the times when I really thought I couldn’t take anymore that He really helped me through, sometimes by using other kind, helpful people and their prayers.
One person in particular was like a gift from God. Also I believe it is only by a miracle that I still have one son alive. God kept on giving me hope in what seemed like a hopeless situation, but then that’s what God is like. I just can’t imagine how those without him cope.
“This beautifully written and moving piece of writing can also be found as a pdf. Mark has asked us to use it wherever it might be of use. So please copy and pass on to other people. It may help someone else.” DC
Source: Community Blog Wired in to Recovery. Nov.2009

By Ginger Katz

On September 10, 1996, I lost my 20-year-old son, Ian to a drug overdose just before he was going into a rehabilitation program the next day. Ian had used tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana in high school. At one point he was picked up by an officer at Cranbury Park in Norwalk, CT. He was scolded and told to go home. The officer said “If I ever find you in this town again with any drugs, I will arrest you, now go home.” I insisted that Ian go into counseling at that point. I had such high hopes for Ian; I thought we had caught the addiction early. I thought it all went away, until I received the phone call from his biological Dad stating he was snorting heroin in college. My breath was taken away. My life changed.

At first, I was ashamed of his problem. I didn’t want to tell anyone about his problem when he came home from college. He was going to a day treatment program and we thought his problem was being fixed. He didn’t want me to tell his friends in Norwalk who did not know. The ugly truth is, the problem wasn’t fixed. I found him in the morning just before I was going to meet my friend at six am for our morning run. Ian died in his sleep. Neighbors told me my cries for help to 911 that morning were heard two blocks away.

Addiction does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter what race you are, how financially sound you are, if your homeless or if you have a family who loves you dearly. It can happen to anyone. Drug addiction not only destroys the person who is using; it also destroys the family. Addiction robs you of your money, it robs you of your spirit, and finally, when you have nothing else left to give…it robs you of your soul. My son Ian was a good kind person who suffered from a terrible disease and we miss him everyday of our lives………..
Please keep up the fight. You are all saving lives one child at a time.

Source: www.CouragetoSpeak.org

Shaun Bailey was born on the west London estates that have been linked to investigations into the murder of WPC Sharon Beshenivsky. Here he describes how pop culture and liberal politics have created a feral generation hooked on drugs, crime and violence

I come from a black working-class environment, born and brought up by my single mother on the North Kensington estates in London. Where I live the peer pressure to offend surrounds you. Crime is everywhere. The teenage pregnancy rate is well above the national average. There is a drugs epidemic. There are significant mental health and disability issues. Most people remain trapped.
Yet just a few yards away, on the other side of Ladbroke Grove, you can find houses worth millions of pounds where bankers, celebrities and media stars discuss being attacked and the threat of burglary rather than the problems of today’s youth.
I am one of the lucky ones. Thanks in part to a determined mother, I just scraped into university. But I returned to the North Kensington estates seven years ago as a volunteer youth worker and I came to see from street level how the cycle of deprivation and crime works in the inner cities of Britain.
The level of crime on the estates was already astonishing, but over the past four years the levels of violence with drugs, guns and knives among the younger kids has got much worse.
Eight years ago it would have been fantasy stuff to carjack. Four years ago maybe you would have found one person who’d entertain it and everybody would have thought he was a lunatic. Now I could show you at least 15 people who would consider it, 10 or 15 who would do it and five who have done it.

Kids are carrying guns now because guns are linked to bigger crime. They are selling crack because crack has a shorter turnaround and a higher profit than the likes of weed and heroin. People who smoke crack are so desperate they’d do anything for the money. And the dealers get high on the power.
I know one guy who’s only 17 years old and is a very successful crack dealer. “It’s not so much the money, Shaun,” he told me, “it’s the fact that I’ve got people who work for me.”
For rock he was able to get people to wash his car, clean his house, beat people up, steal stuff for him, send them on missions just because it made him feel powerful.
Crime starts younger, spreads wider and goes further. The number of kids growing out of crime is getting smaller. It’s why we get this horrible stuff with guns and knives: the serious nature of their offences is growing as the percentage of kids staying in crime rises.
The real scary thing is the young age at which it happens. Serious criminals used to be in their late twenties. If you came into my area and interviewed my boys, they have been involved in quite horrible stuff and they are not yet 16 or 17.
THE estates themselves are part of the problem. The blocks were badly designed. We are all too close to each other. On top of each other. One of the estates was built for 1,100 people but now houses 1,450.
There are a lot of Moroccans, a lot of blacks. Everybody there is poor. Overcrowding has an impact on how young people behave.
Most of the flats are built in such a way that nobody can sit around a table. Traditionally a table is where a family has discussions, where parents give attitudes to their children. If children come home and their parents are cooking them food, it establishes their dependency. It gives the parents authority. They can say: “You need to come in for dinner.” They can set rules and boundaries.
That doesn’t happen here. There is no room for a table. We all eat dinner off our laps. Families start to not eat together because there is no point. We don’t have any space at any time. That’s why some parents can’t love their children. They are too busy surviving.
If you talk to those families where children are behaving the worst, you find that the kids have no rules and no boundaries. The reason is that the parents have never had any point at which to put them in place.
Many of the young people I deal with have never spent any meaningful time with their mothers or their fathers. Their parents didn’t do anything with them and they have no set of family rules that govern them.
If you are the younger end of an overcrowded family you share a bedroom with your older brother. Maybe there are three of you in one small bedroom. You have no privacy so you come out of your flat for privacy. You stay on the block because you are comfortable there. It becomes your extended bedroom.
As time has gone on, the people who hang around the block have aged from cute little five-year-olds to 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds. In some cases 21-year-olds are still hanging around.
On one of the estates here there are 1,600 young people and kids under the age of 19. The sight of a big group of young people just terrorises most people. This is where it starts. The kids are perceived as a threat. They are dealt with in that manner. Then they take on the role they were handed. Put that with difficult parenting and you’ve got a problem.
This was an area where poor white people were sent who couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. The estates have also become home to London’s largest Moroccan enclave and to Jamaican, Portuguese and Spanish communities. But, although we have been housed in our racial groups, racial tension is not a feature of life here. When they found the alleged July 21 bombers on our estates, no form of war took place.
Instead a child is known by the estate he comes from. Kids will fight with other kids just because they are on their road. You defend your “ends” — your locale — because you don’t want to be seen to come from where the pussies live. You club together loosely to make sure you stand up for each other. It is an easy step from here to the creation of gangs.
Some gangs have names. There is the Cold Hearted Crew, the Heartless Crew. The names are always about being mean and tough: Cutlass, Beg for Mercy. Imagine you are a nine-year-old boy living here. You see these groups of older boys. They seem to be tough. They seem to be having a good time. Nobody interferes with them. You want to be a man and these appear to be men to you.
In some of the gangs, some of the slightly older ones have already been in prison. To the kids on the street, prison has become a badge of honour. It’s almost getting to the point that you have to go to prison.
All their talk is about f****** people up. There is no notion of conflict resolution other than battering people. Violence is deeply ingrained in their culture of “respect”. They have to take people on just because what is said might be disrespectful to them. They have to batter them. They have to be in charge. To be in charge they have to be physically violent.
Not having parental love is one reason the kids argue about respect so much. Their view is you have to be a “bad boy” or people don’t leave you alone. With white boys, it’s about being a nutter. You’ve got to be a nutter. You don’t want anyone f****** with you, you’ve got to f*** them up, you’ve got to show people you’re a nutter. The black boy will say things like “bad boy, gunman, man don’t take no shit”. They talk about blowing people’s heads off and about stabbing people.
The kids here also feel they have to have money. When you are poor, you see people on telly with phones, cars, iPods. To you the gang is the best way of getting this stuff because they steal, they rob.
The great majority of them who are “going out there” — that means going out to rob, to make money — are just 14 or 15. They use terms such as “running up in your house” (aggravated burglary). They talk about needing £100-£400 a week. If you have that kind of money, you have respect and you can buy all the cool stuff and you can show them you’ve got it. If you stand around with these boys, it’s not long before someone pulls out a wedge of money. They won’t say anything; it is just to look cool.
Young people here watch a lot of television, particularly MTV. It shows them cars and cribs (houses) and girls. They want it all. They don’t learn about real economics, what’s involved in working for money. That’s why you see them performing some really ugly crimes now, because that is the only way they can finance this lifestyle.
It means they do 20 minutes of something dangerous, then bang, they’ve got all the money. They have the whole of next week, next month doing nothing, waiting for the funds to run out and being forced to do something else.
Lots of kids here, getting towards 25%, smoke weed and skunk. It’s a serious problem. Use is starting younger than it did. It affects their mental health. It undermines their schooling and their life prospects. At our local park, young schoolgirls come around and smoke, young schoolboys, too. They smoke on the way to the bus to go to school. It affects their ability to concentrate.
Weed affects their brain chemistry while their brains are still forming. These kids need all the motivation they can get. The drugs rob them of it. So they move into crime and become more addicted and need to smoke more. So they get excluded, sent to a referral unit or are truanting more or less permanently.
This is one thing that middle-class adult smokers who support liberalising drugs don’t understand. As adults it may not be affecting their brain chemistry doing it once a week. They also have jobs to go to. They may control it. But these young kids don’t.
When the liberal classes have the view that “oh, we can all smoke a bit”, they do not realise how it generates crime for young people here who need to finance their habit. By not making drugs seem like a big deal, by decriminalising the drug, they are criminalising the kids.
This sanctioning of drugs pushes poor kids into bullying at school, then into low-level crime to get the money for drugs. This introduces them to criminality. Most children don’t begin with the desire or the confidence to rob someone. But once they bully for items at school they gradually build up and their targets become more frequent and bigger until they rob adults.
Drinking, smoking and hanging around with undesirables also leads some girls to adopt a different sexual code. They let themselves be shared by the boys. I have been told that if a girl fancies your friend, you’ll make her sleep with you first to get to your friend. Young girls are starting to accept this. They mistake sex for affection.
The next step up from this is when you get girls starting to have a baby just to get real love. Many of the teenagers are the children of the first generation of single mothers to be housed here. The assumption became that it was all right for mothers to have babies on their own. So it is doubly like that for their daughters.
But what you see now is the mother and daughter fighting for attention from the men. I watch a lot of the single mothers round here. I see they are struggling with the loneliness, the depression, the mental health problems. It is getting worse with every generation.
One of the most corrosive aspects of life here is the low expectations placed on parents. Nothing happens to you if you don’t look after your child. Too much of our policy around young people is nothing to do with their parents. Yet all parents need to be involved, need to have responsibility, need to feel the pain if their teenagers are offending.
In turn they need to have higher expectations of their children. Compare what the well-off expect from their children with what the poor think they can achieve: it is so vastly different it is unbelievable.
The parents I speak to do not find parenting easy. They lack information and practical support. None of this is helped by the lack of married families. Marriage does not exist among the black community. It is why we have so many problems with the men.
If you talk to young people, they all support marriage. But people with our lives, in our circles, understand you are better off if you are a single parent. It has reached the point where a lot of people who are not single parents present themselves as such because it makes financial sense.
If anybody thinks that people like us don’t sit around and have these discussions, they are deluding themselves. We soon figure out which way it will make us the most money. And that’s an example of how we are trapped by government policy, which discourages us from raising our children in nuclear families.
SCHOOL was where young people could have gained some moral fibre, but governments have got rid of schools that gave strong moral messages. Young people want boundaries, but school has been emasculated so it can’t give them.
Removing religion and what it is to be British from school has been a disaster. Where else are young people going to learn ethics? Citizenship is not enough. That’s how we’ve had bombers here. They’ve come here and not been exposed to the good things about being British.
Put this with the failure of school to give children real skills. Some are not going to be academically sharp, yet school is finding nothing for them to do. We live in a world of trade and real skills, vocational skills. Yet school is GCSEs or nothing. This creates a separation between mainstream society and the rest of us. This is stopping our children from succeeding, because they go for a job and people start speaking and they literally cannot understand them.
The failure of the schools to impart the most basic of social skills is astonishing. The teenagers here cannot speak to people they don’t know as they only know how to speak their own slang. This estate is not conducive to our kids being socially educated.
You are talking about boys of 22, 23 and 24 who have never been anywhere near a job. They don’t have the academic skills and they definitely don’t have the social skills to attack a job.
They are not able to talk to people without just saying, “wha’d’you want, wha’d’you want?” Not getting offended, not getting scared when somebody asks them a question, not seeing it as a challenge to their respect when they are told or asked to do something — this is all beyond them.
Yet all they talk about is money, money, money. How to raise it. Ways to spend it.
The music our children listen to says you are not worth anything unless you have lots of money. Your worth is directly related to the money you have in your pocket. All this reinforces the need, especially for these children, to get stuff, to expect stuff and to have stuff. It shows them the end product; it doesn’t show them the work involved.
They see the Wayne Rooneys, the Beckhams and their huge financial success. They have false aspirations and then they don’t concentrate on what’s real, on what’s possible for us. So the kids feel they have to have money and this leads to crime.
The education that goes on in school around drugs and sex is also ridiculous, because it is just about the technicalities. It has not dealt with the pressures and realities for kids here. When I spoke in a girls’ school and used the word abstinence, only three out of 90 of them knew what it meant.
There are a lot of really good things about Britain as a place and British people as a body. These are things that children should be taught straight up; they should learn about the community that is Britain and what it is to be British. But by removing the religion that British people generally take to, by removing the ethics that generally go with it, we’ve allowed people to come to Britain and bring their culture, their country and any problems they might have with them.
I can see the argument for taking religion out of the state, out of politics. But as a moral guideline, they need to be maintained. Losing them has meant that people have come here and had very little respect for us.
That lack of integration and lack of saying to people: if you are going to come to England, this is what we expect. That is why the Muslim religion is so powerful among the Muslim people (here).
Sex education in school is just science. Science is not what happens on the street; it is not what happens in bedrooms up and down the country. The fact that young people feel they should be having sex should be addressed. When you say to them here’s condoms, you confirm that young people should have sex. What we should be saying is “No!”
Parents should be told that contraception is being handed out and absolutely they must be told if an abortion is being arranged, because you are talking about the physical and mental health of their children.
Hiding it from the parents deprives them of their responsibility and the opportunity to exercise it. It emasculates the caring parents and it gives dependency to the uncaring ones. If you take that away from them they expect everything else to be done for them.
THEN there is multiculturalism. What it does is rob Britain of its community. Among the working class, unless you are already one of those “Queen and country” sort of British people, you are lost. You don’t know what to do. You bring your children to school and they learn far more about Diwali than Christmas.
I speak to people from Brent in northwest London and they’ve been having Muslim and Hindi days off. What it does is rob Britain of its community. Without our community we slip into a crime-riddled cesspool.
There are a lot of really good things about Britain as a place and British people as a body. These are things that children should be taught straight up; they should learn about the community that is Britain and what it is to be British. But by removing the religion that British people generally take to, by removing the ethics that generally go with it, we’ve allowed people to come to Britain and bring their culture, their country and any problems they might have with them.
I can see the argument for taking religion out of the state, out of politics. But as a moral guideline, they need to be maintained. Losing them has meant that people have come here and had very little respect for us.
That lack of integration and lack of saying to people: if you are going to come to England, this is what we expect. That is why the Muslim religion is so powerful among the Muslim people (here).
It’s like we are ashamed of where we come from.
Lots of people come to Britain and think they’ll be rich. But then they find it’s not so easy and are resentful. They are alienated because they haven’t been exposed to the good things in Britain — our ethics. That’s why we’ve now got a nation of people who wouldn’t do anything for the country. They wouldn’t fight for their country. Why would they? The nation has done nothing for them as far as they are concerned.
The more liberal we’ve been, the more the poor have suffered.
Poor people don’t need all this liberalism. They need direction. Everybody talks about “my rights” — but there is some point when your behaviour needs to be balanced by your duty to your community.
The working class look to rules. The rules are important to them. Take away the rules and they are left in limbo. So they form their own: the kind that are driven by pop economics and lead to crime.
The liberal intelligentsia relax the rules for themselves, not for us.
Bailey’s law: Six ways to stop youngsters growing into criminals
Establish boundaries early
Once children acquire a criminal mentality, they find it hard to lose, says Bailey. So it is important for parents and schools to lay down a clear moral framework from the outset.
This may seem obvious, but for people on deprived estates it’s not easy. They are bombarded by conspicuous consumption elsewhere but have to be taught that money and goods must be earned, not taken. Parents and schools must not shirk from making clear what is right and wrong.
Bailey believes that in other countries, including Jamaica, where his mother came from, parents and schools impose stricter discipline and better behaviour.
Keep them busy
The best way of preventing temptation turning into criminality is to keep youngsters occupied with other things. “You can’t stop people using drugs unless they are busy, unless they have some type of tie to society,” says Bailey. This requires jobs, education, sports or hobbies.
On one estate Bailey helped youngsters get licences to drive mopeds so they could deliver pizzas. “It was about giving them a link to wider society,” he says. “I found it transformed the young people involved.”
He also ran a project to help youngsters repair their mopeds, which led to some training as mechanics.
Be straight, be firm
In Bailey’s eyes, “young people want boundaries”. They want guidance on what is acceptable and what is not. But too many people and institutions are afraid of setting clear boundaries for fear of causing offence. They are, he says, too politically correct. “We make a point of telling youngsters the truth and we find that they grow from it,” he says.
Shield young people from commercial exploitation and celebrity culture
He believes the media, including some music magazines and television channels that promote the “coolness” of money and drugs, are corrosive. He suggests the promotion of violence and pornography, especially by some parts of the music industry, should be challenged.
Don’t wait for the problem to come to you: go and tackle it before it is too late
Instead of setting up a youth or drug centre in a particular building and waiting for people to drop in, go out on the streets. Bailey seeks out and befriends youngsters on the streets of North Kensington and gains their trust.
Keep it local
National initiatives may struggle to work because youngsters are territorial. It’s important to understand an area’s history, culture and needs.
This article is taken from Shaun Bailey’s pamphlet. No Man’s Land: how Britain’s Inner City Youth are Being Failed, to be published tomorrow by the Centre for Policy Studies. www.cps.org.uk
Source: From The Sunday Times November 27, 2005

Kudzu and its extracts and flowers have been used in traditional Chinese folk medicine to treat alcoholism for about 1,000 years. Kudzu contains daidzin, an anti-drinking substance. Daidzin inhibits human aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH-2), which metabolizes alcohol into acetaldehyde. Inhibiting ALDH-2 promotes the accumulation of acetaldehyde, which has aversive effects. A recent test of a synthetic ALDH-2 inhibitor (CVT-10216) on rodents shows that it reduces drinking and prevents relapse by increasing acetaldehyde while drinking and later decreasing dopamine in the brain region that controls relapse during abstinence.

Results will be published in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research .

“I think the over-arching issue here is medical treatment,” said Ivan Diamond, vice president of neuroscience at Gilead Science, Professor Emeritus of neurology, cellular and molecular pharmacology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, and corresponding author for the study.

“Alcoholism is a medical disorder, not just a problem of will power,” he said. “Physicians treat medical disorders in order to prevent harm, while not necessarily curing the disease being treated – for example, drug treatment of hypertension, statins for high cholesterol, insulin for diabetes – and the same will become true for treating alcoholism. Heavy drinking causes harm. We need to prevent heavy drinking in order to prevent harm.”

Diamond added that relapse may be the biggest problem facing physicians today. “We are talking about a patient who has the motivation to undergo a very unpleasant detoxification to try to stop drinking, and then gets into trouble afterward,” he said. “Nearly 80 percent of abstinent alcoholics or addicts relapse within a year. Current therapies for alcoholism help, but we can do much better.”

“Extracts of various parts of the kudzu vine have been used in many Chinese herbal medicine formulas and are said to be helpful in treating a variety of maladies, including alcoholism and intoxication,” said Ting-Kai Li, a professor in the department of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, and former director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Recent research has found that several compounds of the isoflavone family – puerarin, daidzin, daidzein – in the kudzu extract decrease alcohol intake in experimental animals.”

“Drs. Wing Ming Keung and Bert Vallee at Harvard were the first to confirm kudzu’s effects and isolate daidzin as the most potent of the isoflavones in kudzu,” added Diamond. “They went further by searching for the basis of daidzin’s anti-drinking properties, discovering that daidzin was a selective inhibitor of ALDH-2. Based on x-ray crystallographic studies of daidzin binding to ALDH-2, our team set out to design a compound that would interact more efficiently with ALDH-2, finally choosing CVT-10216 as our best candidate to date.”

Diamond and his colleagues administered CVT-10216 to groups of rats bred for moderate and high levels of drinking, after having exposed them to various scenarios of alcohol administration: two-bottle choice, deprivation-induced drinking, operant self-administration, and cue-induced reinstatement. The researchers then tested for blood acetaldehyde levels, alcohol-induced dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, and effects of the inhibitor on drinking behavior and relapse.

“We had several key findings,” said Diamond. “We found that, one, CVT-10216 is a highly selective reversible inhibitor of ALDH2 without apparent toxicity. This means that it does not cause serious damage to other proteins and functions. Two, treatment with our ALDH-2 inhibitor increases acetaldehyde in the test tube and in living animals.” Acetaldehyde’s aversive effects can include a flushing reaction and feeling ill, which tend to reduce drinking. “And three, we found that our ALDH-2 inhibitor suppresses drinking in a variety of rodent drinking models.”

But that’s not the whole story, Diamond added. “Most importantly, we also found that CVT-10216 prevents the usual increase in drinking (binge drinking) that occurs after five days of abstinence, and also prevents relapse to drink, even when alcohol is not present. This means that something else besides acetaldehyde helps to suppress craving for, and prevent relapse to, drinking alcohol. We believe that ‘something else’ is dopamine.” He said that current concepts suggest that increased dopamine in the nucleus accumbens drives craving and relapse into drinking.

“Alcohol-induced increases in dopamine in the nucleus accumbens are prevented by CVT-10216 in a dose-dependent manner,” said Diamond. “This means the drug has a therapeutic effect in the brain, probably on the desire to drink. Importantly, CVT-10216 does not reduce basal dopamine levels when there is no stimulation to increase dopamine levels. This is consistent with our findings that CVT-10216 does not appear to affect moderate drinking, and does not have adverse side effects at the therapeutic doses used.”

“The findings show promise that CVT-10216 might be better tolerated than Antabuse™,” said Li. “How this happens is yet unknown, but suggests that the compound may be useful in treating alcohol relapse and perhaps for other psychoactive, potentially addictive compounds.”

Diamond agreed: “Disulfiram or Antabuse™ has been around for 50 years,” he explained. “It is called an ALDH-2 inhibitor, but it actually inhibits far more than that. Most believe that disulfiram would not be approved today as a new drug for alcoholism because of its many toxicities. Instead, we have developed CVT-10216, a reversible inhibitor with a very favorable profile, so far.” Diamond hopes this novel compound will become an effective therapeutic agent for alcoholism.

“The goal of medicine is harm reduction,” emphasized Diamond. “Excessive drinking causes harm while moderate drinking appears to be safe. Increasing numbers of doctors believe abstinence is an unrealistic goal. It sounds like heresy, but it isn’t. Therefore, an ideal drug might be able to prevent uncontrolled relapse, convert heavy drinkers into moderate drinkers, and avoid the harmful consequences of excessive alcohol intake. If our compound works and is safe to use, then I think most physicians would not hesitate to prescribe a new drug to prevent relapse and reduce heavy drinking. My goal is to make this happen.”

Ivan Diamond, M.D., Ph.D University of California, San Francisco.
Ting-Kai Li, M.D. Duke University Medical Center Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research

Source: Medical News Today August 2009

Alcoholism Is Not Just A Medical Condition.
posted by Peter O’Loughlin on 14 Aug 2009
Professor Diamond’s views on alcoholism and relapse although interesting are not necessarily accurate. First the comment that alcoholism is a medical problem is a rather narrow concept of what is a complex mental and physical disorder, (DSM 1V & ICD-10) which causes serious medical problems. It is also a fact that alcoholics undergo personality changes. Therefore merely to treat the medical side of this condition is unlikely in and of itself to prevent relapse. Evidence in support of that can be found in a variety of Cochrane reviews of other ‘magic bullets’.

It is also debateable whether substances which appear to have desirable outcomes on rodents can be effective on human beings. As far as I’m aware the former, unlike the latter has no imagination or co-occurring mental disorders.

Professor Diamond’s comment regarding relapse rates does not tell the whole story. Whilst it is true that most relapses occur in the first year or two, that does not take into account the numbers who continue their battle with alcoholism and subsequently learn how to live their life without it.

There is no doubt that medicine has an important part to play in recovery, but there is also an abundance of evidence that many people find lasting sobriety without it. It is also true that abstinence alone is insufficient to prevent relapse, that for alcoholics to remain sober and to learn to live in a manner that they find personally satisfying, their mental and spiritual health needs have to be addressed. Abstinence alone is very fragile; recovery on the other hand is an ongoing process.

Professor Nutt was funded by the West Australian Government to come to Fremantle as a key note presenter at its bi-annual Harm Reduction/drug legalisation Drug and Alcohol Authority Symposium. Supposedly an education forum for the massive network of drug and alcohol field workers, Nutt set about not only minimising the harms of cannabis and ecstasy but promoting them.He claimed that ecstasy is being used by therapists to treat PTSD in Europe and that cannabis should be used as treatment for cannabis withdrawal paranoia and panic attacks – what he should have pointed out is that these episodes are horrifying and last many years after the first attack.Nutt did not declare his conflicting interest e.g. that he sits on the advisory boards of several international pharmaceutical companies.Now I wonder why that would be!

Source: e-mail from G. Mullins, contact in Australia. Nov. l0th 2009

The CDC report “Deaths: Final Data for 2006” released in April 2009, reveals a spectacular 15% increase in drug induced deaths in 2006 compared to 2005 (latest data available.) These 2006 rates once again have reached yet another new national all-time record high for the 16th consecutive year. It reports that 38,396 Americans died in 2006 directly from “Drug-induced causes” the vast majority of which were overdose deaths from use of illegal drugs or from illegal use of legal drugs. ( See page 93 of 135 of the CDC report at link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf )

Steadily increasing OD deaths over the past two decades strongly indicate that current national drug OD death rates in 2009 are raging out of control at national crisis levels. The graph shows the 2006 total of 38,396 deaths with the trend line heading off the chart! This calculates to a rate of over 3,000 deaths occurring MONHLY and rising.

Parents’ drug prevention organizations from throughout the nation recognize that the vast majority of those drug overdose deaths result from the early introduction and addiction of schoolchildren to drugs and alcohol (which is an illegal drug for teens) in their schools. Therefore they have petitioned President Obama and Congress for early enactment of the demand-reducing national drug prevention strategy of implementing a federal mandate for health screening all secondary school students for drugs by Random Student Drug Testing (RSDT) see attached. The legislative precedent for such a mandate is the federal mandate for the 21 drinking age that Congress enacted in 1984 in reaction to widespread tragic teen auto crashes, injuries and deaths on the nation’s highways that had directly resulted from states authorizing teen alcohol use in the 1970s.

“Diagnostic drug testing is the very best means ever found for effectively reducing the kids’ exposure to the deadly disease of drug addiction. This has been well demonstrated in the military, businesses, transportation industry and in the over 4,000 U.S. schools currently using drug testing,” said Joyce Nalepka, president of Drug Free Kids: America’s Concern and former president of Nancy Reagan’s National Federation of Parents. “We parents sincerely appreciate that RSDT is fully supported by Congress, the ONDCP, the U.S. Education Department, DEA, U.S. Justice Department, and all health-related federal agencies,” she added.

Congress should reject recent efforts by professional drug legalization lobbyists to soften federal laws on drug abuse and reduce federal support for RSDT. Their frenzied attempts to get street drugs legalized will only help drug traffickers reap further profits from the drug-related destruction of families, schools and communities throughout the nation. Congress must support parents and their children against the drug traffickers.

“This avalanche of tragic drug overdose deaths among our children should serve as a wake up call to all members of Congress. They must support America’s drug-besieged parents who demand that federal support continue and be increased for utilizing RSDT as a compassionate non-punitive means of reducing the nation’s inordinate demand for drugs and reducing the ultimate harm of massive drug overdose deaths,” said

Source DeForest Rathbone, Chairman of the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy (NICAP.)
April 30, 2009

By Carolyn Plocher (Bio | Archive)
October 14, 2009 – 17:03 ET
•
England can’t afford to help Alzheimer’s patients pay for their medicine, but it can offer free shooting galleries to heroin addicts.
On Oct. 14 CNN’s “American Morning” aired a segment about the controversial program that “gives heroin to heroin addicts at the taxpayers’ expense.” Correspondent Paula Newton declared, “A safe, steady supply of heroin is apparently just what the doctor ordered … As radical as it is, for some it is really working.” She also said that the British government’s decision to dole out 97 percent pure heroin – “better than anything sold on the street” – “takes heroin off the streets.”
John Strang, a member of King’s Health Partners claimed that the “intensity of the program is quite striking. The bond that is formed and the commitment that’s established between the patient coming in for treatment and the staff is far greater than you’d ever ordinarily see.” Not surprisingly, King’s Health Partners is affiliated with Britain’s National Health Services.
Newton summarized the rest of Strang’s interview:
The key seems to be treating heroin addiction like any other illness, and then having the patience to see the treatment through – even if that means the government is the drug dealer of choice for months, if not years.
That should comfort British taxpayers, who are shelling out $22,000 per year per addict for the program.
Although Newton mentioned in passing that “the jury is still out on this study as to what it actually does to get people off heroin permanently and get clean,” she cited the study’s claim that the program had reduced “street heroin by three-quarters and the crimes committed in trying to get that drug by two-thirds.”
“Taking heroin off the streets is making a difference,” Newton declared.
But if Newton had given any air time to critics of the program, its faults would have been glaringly obvious.
Susie Squire, the Political Director at the U.K.’s TaxPayers’ Alliance, voiced the worst of it back in Septemper:
Many taxpayers will have a massive problem paying for addicts’ heroin, particularly at a time when the NHS is unable to provide them with doctor’s appointments or life-saving cancer drugs.
This approach also reflects a poverty of ambition, with the Government merely accepting hard drug use and instead of trying to crack down and stamp it out, giving out lethal drugs for free.
Heroin addicts attend a clinic twice a day to inject themselves with diamorphine – the medical term for heroin – in the hope that their addiction will fade away. Some liken the idea to making children available to pedophiles in order to help them overcome their problem.
Reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” a blogger recommended this solution: “Perhaps the children taken off mothers that Barnardos [a UK children's protection service] disapproves of can be given to the kiddy fiddlers and then another problem will be solved.” Another blogger quipped, “If the government gives me money then I promise to stop stealing it.”
Mary Brett, the U.K . representative of Europe Against Drugs, feared that the program “will start with the most hardcore cases, but treatment services will find it easier to just give them a prescription, and more and more will be included in this scheme.”
Indeed, Russia, which has a notorious drug reputation, refuses to even consider implementing the program, stating that methadone – the heroin substitute used to wean addicts – “could seep into the black market, given the high level of corruption at many Russian clinics.”
Proponents of the program argue that, since it began in 2005, it has been extraordinarily successful in fighting illegal drug rings and drug related crimes. Of course it’s rarely mentioned that the program only involved 127 heroin addicts. Theodore Dalrymple, a diehard critic of “drug maintenance programs” and author of “Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy,” said:
The patients are self-selected: they have some motivation to change, otherwise they would not have attended the clinic in the first place. Only a minority of addicts attend, and therefore it is not safe to conclude that, if other addicts were to receive methadone, their criminal activity would similarly diminish.
In fact, the study’s coordinators had difficulty recruiting volunteers because the eligibility criteria and demands of the program were so stringent.
Furthermore, Dalrymple suggested that the real difference between the before and after crime rate could be “considerably less” because “the patients have an incentive to exaggerate it to secure the continuation of their methadone.”
As proof, other countries that have implemented similar programs with larger groups have reported little if any success. Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, pointed out that in Scotland 22,000 people are on methadone but there has been no “linked reduction in crime or in the deaths of addicts.”
Even parts of England that have participated in drug maintenance programs have failed to improve. For example, in Liverpool 2,000 people are prescribed methadone for their drug addictions but it’s still the world capital of drug-motivated burglary.
In fact, the program could actually do more harm than good. A shocking 2007 Justice Department study discovered that buprenorphine – another opium derivative that was being used to treat heroin addicts in prison – became the third drug of choice for addicts after marijuana and heroin itself. Similar studies discovered that buprenorphine was 15 times as addictive as heroin.
But even if the program isn’t helping drug abusers kick their habits, the government argues that at least it’s having a big impact on crime … or is it? The British government views an addict as “a person who is ill, like someone with pneumonia, whom it is the duty of the system – the paraphernalia of doctors, nurses, social workers, drug counselors and so forth – to cure.” Therefore, the government believes that if it gives addicts free needles, then they won’t “steal, rob, and burgle.” But the premise is wrong.
The majority of heroin addicts already had an extensive criminal record before they tried heroin for the first time. In other words, criminality is more likely to cause addiction than addiction is to cause criminality.
So if this program doesn’t cure addicts and it doesn’t prevent crime, what other options are there?
First, drug addiction needs to be viewed as a choice, not an illness. Mao Zedong, the former leader of China, cured 20 million opium addicts over just one weekend by announcing that anyone still addicted would be shot on Monday. Dalrymple gave a less extreme example with the “huge numbers of American servicemen addicted … to heroin during the Vietnam war.” He said:
Almost all of them gave up spontaneously soon after their return to the US, and two years later their rate of addiction was no higher than that among drafted conscripts who never made it to Vietnam because the war ended.
And addiction doesn’t come from a one-time adventure, or even a few episodes. In fact, addicts usually spend a year intermittently using heroin before they decide to use it regularly.
Addiction is a choice, and with that choice, the responsibility falls on the addicts – not the government – to walk away from that disastrous life. Perhaps that’s why drug abstinence programs are more successful than drug maintenance programs. The addict has made the choice and “maintaining” even small doses of the drug isn’t acceptable.
It’s hard to believe that with this much information easily accessible via Internet that CNN could present even a small portion of the other side of the story.

Source: www.newsbusters.org 14th Oct.2009

September 29, 2009

A recent analysis of official reports on the Sydney Kings Cross injecting room confirmed that unavailability of heroin is of far greater significance in preventing heroin deaths than the availability of injecting rooms.
Less than 9,800 drug users were registered at Kings Cross, a small number of illicit drug users in New South Wales. Most drug users lived well away from Kings Cross and used the rooms only occasionally so most drug use was elsewhere.
The severe heroin drought at the end of 2000 led to the reduction in drug deaths. In fact, timely ambulance attendance is more likely to prevent a drug death than any other factor.
Source: Kings Cross Injecting Centre Fails to Reduce Overdose Deaths, Dr Sullivan PhD. Click here for the research.
DRUG ADVISORY COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA COMMENTS
This study confirms overseas research that indicates that injecting rooms are a failure and are being closed down. Restriction of illicit drug supply is effective in reducing use and deaths.
Reducing the demand for illicit drugs is a key to successful drug policy.
Drug policy should divert identified drug users into court ordered and supervised detoxification and rehabilitation to get them drug free.
THE DRUG ADVISORY COUNCIL SUPPORTS:
• More detoxification & rehabilitation that gets illicit drug users drug free.
• Court ordered and supervised detoxification & rehabilitation.
• Less illicit drug users, drug pushers and drug related crimes.
Posted at 10:40 AM in News, Policies, legislation | Permalink
Comments
A very good point. So let’s destroy the heroin fields in Afghanistan!
Posted by: Frugal Dougal | September 29, 2009 at 04:54 PM
There were 2,106 overdose “events” treated at the Centre during the trial period. Nobody died during this time and yet, according to the study, no deaths were necessarily prevented, because these people could have been treated by paramedics or in a hospital ED.
True – as long as they were using with a responsible friend who could call out an ambulance. But the target group, street injecters, often don’t.
It is impossible to say exactly how many of these 2,000+ events would have been fatal had they happened elsewhere, but to choose instead to look for the effect of a single clinic by using overall population data is misguided, or just plain dishonest.
What this study shows most clearly is that people will take the evidence that suits their ideology and use it to attack the good work that is being done by others, simply because, in their opinion, it is “wrong”. Whether lives are saved, or not, is secondary.
Posted by: Adam Baxter | September 30, 2009 at 10:59 AM

A recent study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has revealed that women who continue to smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have children with behavioral problems. Disturbances caused can show signs as early as when the child is three years old.
For the sake of the study, over 14,000 mothers and child pairs were observed. The pairs were picked from the millennium cohort study. All the children observed had been born between 2000 and 2001. Professor Kate Pickett from the Hull York medical school, University of York, carried out the research.
Mothers, who were categorized as light or heavy smokers with regards to the number of cigarettes they smoked each day during pregnancy, were given a questionnaire which required them to score their children’s behavior. While 12.5% women said they smoked lightly and 12.4% said they had stopped smoking altogether when pregnant, 10% admitted to smoking heavily all throughout the term.
Based on the data collected, the study confirmed that children whose mothers smoked heavily were two times more prone to behavioral problems, a thing which kept going down as the number of cigarettes smoked during pregnancy went down. According to the study, smoking when pregnant, damages the developing structure and functioning of the fetus’s brain. Boy fetuses are more prone to damage.
Source:www.topnews.net.nz 3/11/2009

Drug addiction accelerates aging in addicts.

Addictive drugs have been shown to impair stem cell regeneration and potentate programmed cell death leading to accelerated aging.

Drug addicts are known to suffer many pathologies including cancer and elevated mortality.

Surveys of addicts aged between 19 and 45 years in Australia disclosed higher levels of infections, dental and mental pathologies and hair graying consistent with aging were present in addicts.

Degenerative changes related to aging like skin thinning, wrinkling, dementias, muscle wasting, cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disturbances were common in addicted populations.

Source: Clinical Correlates of Accelerated Aging in Addiction, Reece S & Lavin M 2009)

To assess the effect of alcohol use on prostate cancer risk, researchers analyzed data from 10,920 men participating in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial. Participants age 55 years or older and without prostate cancer were randomized to receive either finasteride or placebo and followed for 7 years. Baseline questionnaire data on quantity, frequency, and type of alcohol consumed were used to calculate average grams of ethanol per day. At baseline, 79% of subjects reported no drinking, 12% reported consumption of 0.1–14.9 g alcohol per day, 6% reported consumption of 15–49.9 g per day, and 2.4% reported consumption of ≥50 g per day.

• Prostate cancer was diagnosed in 2129 men (19.5%) during follow-up. Of these, 67% had low-grade cancer (Gleason score, 2–6), 26.5% had high-grade cancer (Gleason score, 7–10), and 6.5% had cancer of unknown grade.
• Compared with no alcohol use, heavy use (≥50 g per day) was associated with a significantly increased risk of total, low-grade, and high-grade prostate cancer in the finasteride group (relative risk [RR]=1.89, 2.01, and 2.15, respectively) and with a nonsignificant increased risk of high-grade cancer in the placebo group (RR=1.67). Lower levels of alcohol use were not associated with increased prostate cancer risk.
• Heavy beer and wine use were associated with increased prostate cancer risk, but liquor was not.
Comments:
This interesting study suggests that heavy alcohol use may increase prostate cancer risk and may also prevent a beneficial effect of finasteride on that risk. It should be noted that the threshold for increased risk in this study (50 g per day) is equal to about 4 standard drinks per day and, therefore, well above published hazardous drinking thresholds for men. Still, these results may be useful to clinicians when counseling their patients about lower-risk alcohol use and/or prostate cancer prevention. Kevin L. Kraemer, MD, MSc

Source:Gong Z, Kristal AR, Schenk JM, et al. Alcohol consumption, finasteride, and prostate cancer risk. Cancer. 2009;115(16):3661–3669.

HIV transmission among injecting drug users is happening more often now than at the beginning of the decade, the Health Protection Agency says in a report issued this week. Infections in people who began injecting recently indicate recent transmissions, and prevalence in this group has risen considerably in recent years. However, overall HIV prevalence in drug users is stable.

The Health Protection Agency’s Unlinked Anonymous Prevalence Monitoring Programme’s Survey of Injecting Drug Users is an annual study of over 3,000 current and former injectors. The study is carried out at specialist services such as needle exchanges or methadone treatment programmes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Participants complete a questionnaire and provide an oral fluid sample for HIV testing.

Looking at the whole group of current and former injectors, 1.6% had HIV (51 of 3209 people), two-thirds of whom were aware of their infection. Prevalence was considerably higher in London (3.8%) than elsewhere.

Whereas survey results in 2006 and 2007 suggested that prevalence might be decreasing, this now appears not to be the case. Prevalence in 2008 was exactly the same as that recorded in 2005.

Turning now to HIV prevalence in those who began injecting in the past three years, it remained below 0.5% from 1991 to 2002. However, in the 2008 study it was 1.3% (5 of 391 people).

Another key indicator is prevalence among people who have injected in the past month. In London, which has the greatest concentration of infection, this has remained stable. However, elsewhere in England and Wales it increased from 0.25% in 2003 to 1.1% in 2008 (18 of 1604 people).

In addition, prevalence of hepatitis C remained high. Among those who began injecting in the past three years, 22% had hepatitis, half of whom were aware of their infection.

On a more optimistic note, the numbers reporting sharing equipment are lower than earlier in the decade. A total of 19% reported sharing needles or syringes, and 37% reported sharing spoons, mixing containers, filters or water.

Source:
Shooting Up. Infections among injecting drug users in the United Kingdom 2008, an update: October 2009. London: Health Protection Agency, 2009.

Does the use of cannabis predicate the use of other illegal drugs ? The study quoted below shows that the risk of someone using other illegal drugs is 90 times higher for 16 – 17 year olds who used cannabis at least weekly. It is essential that parents who believe their child is involved in cannabis use tackle this situation and do not turn a blind eye. Read the story (at the end of this article) by Ginger Katz….

There are two main difficulties to clarifying that marijuana is a gateway substance, but even so there is some good evidence.

The first difficulty is varying definitions of “gateway”. If one defines it as to how rare is the case of someone using other illicit drugs without ever using mj before that, there can be no dispute that a gateway effect or phenomenon exists. If one defines it as an absolute, as in, anyone who uses marijuana will use other illicit drugs, then it is clearly not true, since most who use marijuana don’t progress to other drugs. I think the meaning you’re using here, John, (correct me if not) is whether there are aspects to marijuana use that directly increase the odds that other drugs will be used, rather than just situational or reverse-correlation explanations for why other illicit drug use is so rarely found without prior marijuana use.

The second difficulty is that causality is complex and multi-faceted: even if direct causality is involved, some of the other trends that cause people to question causality (e.g. that early marijuana use is a sign of troubled development, which itself can account for increased likelihood of later use of other substances) are also true in many cases.

All the above not withstanding, one of the best studies I have seen to document the direct role of marijuana in later illicit drug use is one done in New Zealand, reported in the article “The developmental antecedents of illicit drug use: Evidence from a 25-year longitudinal study”, by David M. Fergusson, Joseph M. Boden, and L. John Horwood. The journal citation is Drug and Alcohol Dependence 96 (2008) 165-177. They looked at many potential risk factors and found predictive associations from childhood based on parental use, on the youth’s exposure to sexual abuse in childhood, on gender (male was at more risk), on novelty-seeking, and on childhood conduct disorders. They then moved into additional analysis where, “the statistical model was extended and refined by the inclusion of a series of time-dynamic covariates and controls for reverse causality.” Sifting through associations that included cannabis use, association with substance-using peers, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and novelty-seeking, they found that except for some persistence in the novelty seeking factor, “accounting for substance use and peer factors reduced the associations
between the childhood fixed factors and illicit drug use and abuse/dependence to statistical non-significance.”

They then focus on cannabis use: “of the time-dynamic factors included in the final models, cannabis use had the largest and most complex associations. In particular, the study findings suggested an interactive relationship between age and the use of cannabis in the development of other forms of illicit drug involvement. In this relationship the effects of cannabis use were the strongest at younger ages, and declined progressively with age. Furthermore, the size of association depended on the extent of use of cannabis. The net results of these findings is that risks of illicit drug use were over 90 times higher amongst 16-17-year olds who used cannabis at least weekly when compared to non-users of cannabis. By the age of 25, these risks had reduced to nearly eight times higher. In addition, these associations were controlled for reverse causality by including a lagged measure of other illicit drug use in the model. These findings are consistent with the view that exposure to cannabis use increases risks of other forms of illicit drug use and abuse/dependence, even when allowance is taken of childhood factors and possible reverse causal associations.”

The authors note that the finding that “much of the association between childhood factors and other forms of illicit drug use and abuse/dependence was mediated via cannabis use” is important “in the light of claims that the association between cannabis and other forms of illicit drug use can be explained by common childhood factors …” “The present study suggests quite the opposite conclusion in which cannabis use mediated the effects of childhood factors on later illicit drug abuse.
Source: Alan Markwood of www.chestnut.org reporting to DrugWatch International. Oct.2009

There are two main difficulties to clarifying that marijuana is a gateway substance, but even so there is some good evidence.

The first difficulty is varying definitions of “gateway”. If one defines it as to how rare is the case of someone using other illicit drugs without ever using mj before that, there can be no dispute that a gateway effect or phenomenon exists. If one defines it as an absolute, as in, anyone who uses marijuana will use other illicit drugs, then it is clearly not true, since most who use marijuana don’t progress to other drugs. I think the meaning you’re using here, John, (correct me if not) is whether there are aspects to marijuana use that directly increase the odds that other drugs will be used, rather than just situational or reverse-correlation explanations for why other illicit drug use is so rarely found without prior marijuana use.

The second difficulty is that causality is complex and multi-faceted: even if direct causality is involved, some of the other trends that cause people to question causality (e.g. that early marijuana use is a sign of troubled development, which itself can account for increased likelihood of later use of other substances) are also true in many cases.

All the above not withstanding, one of the best studies I have seen to document the direct role of marijuana in later illicit drug use is one done in New Zealand, reported in the article “The developmental antecedents of illicit drug use: Evidence from a 25-year longitudinal study”, by David M. Fergusson, Joseph M. Boden, and L. John Horwood. The journal citation is Drug and Alcohol Dependence 96 (2008) 165-177. They looked at many potential risk factors and found predictive associations from childhood based on parental use, on the youth’s exposure to sexual abuse in childhood, on gender (male was at more risk), on novelty-seeking, and on childhood conduct disorders. They then moved into additional analysis where, “the statistical model was extended and refined by the inclusion of a series of time-dynamic covariates and controls for reverse causality.” Sifting through associations that included cannabis use, association with substance-using peers, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and novelty-seeking, they found that except for some persistence in the novelty seeking factor, “accounting for substance use and peer factors reduced the associations
between the childhood fixed factors and illicit drug use and abuse/dependence to statistical non-significance.”

They then focus on cannabis use: “of the time-dynamic factors included in the final models, cannabis use had the largest and most complex associations. In particular, the study findings suggested an interactive relationship between age and the use of cannabis in the development of other forms of illicit drug involvement. In this relationship the effects of cannabis use were the strongest at younger ages, and declined progressively with age. Furthermore, the size of association depended on the extent of use of cannabis. The net results of these findings is that risks of illicit drug use were over 90 times higher amongst 16-17-year olds who used cannabis at least weekly when compared to non-users of cannabis. By the age of 25, these risks had reduced to nearly eight times higher. In addition, these associations were controlled for reverse causality by including a lagged measure of other illicit drug use in the model. These findings are consistent with the view that exposure to cannabis use increases risks of other forms of illicit drug use and abuse/dependence, even when allowance is taken of childhood factors and possible reverse causal associations.”

The authors note that the finding that “much of the association between childhood factors and other forms of illicit drug use and abuse/dependence was mediated via cannabis use” is important “in the light of claims that the association between cannabis and other forms of illicit drug use can be explained by common childhood factors …” “The present study suggests quite the opposite conclusion in which cannabis use mediated the effects of childhood factors on later illicit drug abuse.
Source: Alan Markwood of www.chestnut.org reporting to DrugWatch International. Oct.2009

Current figures underestimate the number of children who may be at risk of harm from parental substance use. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Public Health have generated new estimates using five national surveys which include measures of binge, hazardous and dependent drinking, illicit drug use and mental health.

Previous UK estimates were that 250-350,000 children live with problem drug users and 780,000 – 1.3 million with problem drinkers. However, the problem, according to the researchers, is that “these estimates are based on drug users in treatment or derive from problem drinking estimates in other countries.” The study, funded by Action on Addiction and the Wates Foundation and conducted by Dr Victoria Manning and colleagues at the National Addiction Centre, entailed a secondary analysis of national household surveys that enabled a focus on parenting and substance use. The new figures indicate that approximately 3.4 million children in the UK live with at least one binge drinking parent, 2.6 million with a hazardous drinker and around one million with a parent who uses illicit drugs.
Manning said: “In order to meet the needs of both parental substance misusers and their children, we first need to understand the true nature and scale of the problem. Without knowing the number of potentially at-risk families, we are unable to assist them until they come to the attention of agencies at crisis point.”
Around 335,000 children were estimated to be living with a drug dependent user, 72,000 with an injecting drug user, and 108,000 with an adult who had overdosed. The authors suggest the risk of harm may increase for the 500,000 children living with parents who have both mental health and substance misuse problems. According to Manning, “Whilst harm from parental substance use is not inevitable, we need to raise awareness of how recreational substance use, and in particular binge episodes, can affect parenting capacity. Substance use affects our judgement, emotions and how we respond to situations. Parental substance misuse can lead to inadequate child monitoring, modelling behaviour and poor standards of child care.”
The authors encourage the involvement of mainstream services to support vulnerable families by improving access to treatment, family interventions and parenting skills training to minimize the risk of harm.

Source: Victoria Manning, David W Best, Nathan Faulkner and Emily Titherington. New estimates of the number of children living with substance misusing parents: results from UK national household surveys. BMC Public Health, 2009;