Category Archives: Drug Dependency

Cass County Judge John Smith and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court Associate Judge Korey Wahwassuck, far right, preside over a wellness court session last year at the Cass County courthouse in Walker, Minn. The six-year-old and unique tribal state collaboration to combat drug and alcohol addiction is becoming a national model for other states. (From "A Community Solution") Bath salts, designer drugs, prescription drug abuse, the return of heroin -- all bad, no doubt, and all the subject of recent headlines on rising illicit drug trends. But nothing touches alcohol abuse. The most legal of controlled substances is still the most destructive. Excessive drinking cost the U.S. economy $223.5 billion in 2006, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2009, 10,839 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for roughly one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S. that year. Which brings me to Cass County District Judge John Smith and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court Associate Judge Korey Wahwassuck. The jurists, from their upbringing and from handling cases, were long aware of the devastating impact of alcoholism on a good number of county residents, particularly on the Leech Lake Indian … Continue reading →

08/04/2012 10:55 CHINA - ASIA HRW: torture and denial of rights for drug addicts locked up in camps in Asia Hundreds of thousands of people in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos held without trial, and victims of torture and violence. In the name of a supposed "health care" they are subjected to forced labor and abuse. The structures built and maintained with money from donor countries and UN agencies. Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Hundreds of thousands of people identified as drug users in China and across Southeast Asia are held without due process in centers where they may be subjected to torture, and physical and sexual violence in the name of "treatment". The charge is contained in a 23-page Human Rights Watch (HRW), recent report titled " Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR." These centers, added the expert organization based in New York (United States), have received financial support and funds from donor countries and UN agencies, but the centers systematically deny people rights to effective HIV and drug dependency treatment, and have ignored forced labor and abuse. The HRW document shows that more than 350 thousand persons, identified … Continue reading →

Some teens struggling with drug addictions will have an opportunity this fall to receive school-based treatment and counseling. The Winona Area Public Schools Board on Thursday unanimously approved a proposal from the Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center, Winona Senior High School principal Kelly Halvorsen and Miller Mentoring director Cindy Althoff to implement a chemical-dependency and mental-health treatment program this year for high school students. Participants will attend treatment in the morning at the former Central Elementary School building, then return to the high school in the afternoon for a half-day of classes. They will receive academic credit for the morning programming. Hiawatha Valley adolescent counselor Todd Hoffe has said the program is necessary and will create a positive and encouraging environment to help students who are battling substance abuse. I dont even know if there is a program around that looks like this, Hoffe said at a previous board meeting. Its very creative. Its very now. Its very needed. The pilot program, which will serve about six students this fall and could be expanded at a later date, will cost the school district an estimated $25,000. Read the original: WAPS mental health, drug treatment programs OK’d … Continue reading →

MORE people in Bristol are claiming disability benefits because they are addicted to illegal drugs than anywhere else in the country. Government figures show that more than 1,400 people in the city are receiving incapacity benefit or its replacement, employment support allowance, because of their drug problems more than in any other local authority area, Birmingham, Glasgow or Manchester. The government released the data to try to generate support for its controversial shake-up of benefit payments. According to the figures, from the Department for Work and Pensions, drug addiction was the main reason for welfare dependency of 990 incapacity benefit claimants and 420 people receiving ESA. City council bosses said it had been recognised that Bristol had one of the highest numbers of "complex drug users" in Britain. Ministers said the figures showed why the whole benefits system needs to be transformed. But a Bristol charity warned of "marginalising" people with drug problems. Bristol West Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams said: "There may well be a lot of people receiving benefits because of drug addiction. But curtailing their benefits isn't going to deal with that." Charlotte Leslie, Conservative MP for Bristol North West, said: "It is obviously bad for everybody … Continue reading →

Last updated at 16:22, Tuesday, 31 July 2012 THE cost to the taxpayer for supporting drug addicts and alcoholics across Barrow, South Lakeland and Copeland through benefits is a staggering 32,000 a week. Figures released by the government show the total includes people on Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance where they cite the primary reason for claiming the benefit is alcoholism or drug problems. Also included are payments for people claiming the lowest level of one of the two Disability Living Allowance (DLA) components at 20.55 a week. The actual total for Barrow, Copeland and South Lakeland could be up to 10,000 higher depending on what level and components of DLA the 90 claimants across the three areas qualify for. The annual cost for the three areas is 1.66m 739,024 for Barrow, 494,598 for Copeland and 443,040 for South Lakeland. A breakdown shows there are 50 people claiming incapacity benefit paid at 99.15 after 12 months for alcohol dependency in Barrow, 40 in Copeland and 30 in South Lakeland. A further 30 people in Barrow cite drugs as the reason they cannot work, along with 20 in each of Copeland and South Lakeland. For Employment and Support Allowance, … Continue reading →

by Jon Collins, Minnesota Public Radio July 31, 2012 St. Paul, Minn. Washington County authorities will offer defendants deals that include less jail time and more emphasis on drug treatment in just under 100 cases affected by the closing of the St. Paul Police Department crime lab. The problems at the crime lab, acknowledged by lab employees in court testimony earlier this month have thrown thousands of past and pending cases into question. The St. Paul Police Department crime lab provided drug testing for the Minnesota State Patrol and law enforcement in Dakota, Washington and Ramsey Counties. Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said about 10 defendants in his county have already accepted plea offers. "We're emphasizing more the chemical dependency aspect, asking people to get a chemical dependency evaluation, follow the recommendations," Orput said. "We're willing to negotiate any jail down significantly less than we had been previous to this incident." Orput said his office is offering favorable pleas to low-level drug offenders in pending cases, but will still focus on the full prosecution of drug dealers. "We don't want to let them not be held to account for what they're doing because we understand how pernicious drugs are in … Continue reading →

In King County, Washington, a portion of all sales tax collected is dedicated to substance abuse, mental health and therapeutic court services. The Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Plan (MIDD), passed by the King County Council in 2007, has helped prevent and reduce the involvement of people with substance use disorders and mental illness in the criminal justice system, says the plans project manager. We are seeing people recovering from substance abuse and mental illness with the help of programs funded by MIDD, says Andrea LaFazia-Geraghty, MSW, MPH, of the King County Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division. She spoke about the passage and implementation of the plan at the recent National Alliance on Mental Illness National Convention. MIDD is funded through a one-tenth of one cent sales tax. Counties in Washington state have had the option to raise the sales tax by 0.1 percent since 2005. More than a dozen counties in the state have implemented the sales tax increase. King County, which includes Seattle, raises an estimated $45 million per year through the tax, LaFazia-Geraghty said. MIDDs programs are designed to stabilize people suffering from mental illness and chemical dependency, diverting them from jails and emergency … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2012) Ingesting the hormone oxytocin via nasal spray improves the ability to read people's facial expressions. These findings hold great promise for treatment of mental health disorders and drug addiction. In other contexts, oxytocin is already well-known as the "bliss hormone." The hormone is secreted upon stimulation by touch and is known to result in a feeling of calm and physical relaxation. It is also used to induce labour in childbirth and as an aid for women experiencing difficulties in breastfeeding. Oxytocin has also been referred to as a "mindreading" hormone. Recent research findings show that there may be some truth to these claims -- although the mindreading component may have a more down-to-earth explanation. Angry people seemed angrier As part of a research project carried out by Siri Leknes, a research fellow at the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo, 40 healthy students were administered nasal spray containing a dose of either saltwater or oxytocin. They were subsequently shown photographs of faces displaying angry, happy or neutral expressions. Some of the photos showed individuals displaying more "hidden" emotional expressions which tend to be picked up at a more subconscious level. "We found that oxytocin … Continue reading →

The number of teens Todd Hoffe works with who use plant food dropped slightly after the drug and other synthetics were banned last summer. Maybe it was fear of prosecution, or of the powerful hallucinogen itself, the Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center adolescent counselor said last week. Either way, Hoffe said, within the past month he has noticed a resurgence. Hes also noticed constant talk about a different man-made drug synthetic marijuana, also called K2. A year-and-a-half ago, he would mention the substance and kids would ask him what is was. Now theyre educating him. A study released last December by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that one in nine high school seniors had tried synthetic marijuana in the past year. It can cause seizures and other dangerous side effects. There arent specific numbers for states or cities, but Hoffe guesses, from what he has heard, that the percentage now is much higher. To combat the use of synthetic substances and other drugs among teens, the Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center, Winona Senior High School principal Kelly Halvorsen and Cindy Althoff, director of the Miller Mentoring program, have proposed implementing a chemical-dependency treatment program this fall for high … Continue reading →

When Christa Holt last used heroin in March, she was on a three-month binge. Still, she had to spin her arm in circles to pump hard-to-find veins with blood so that she could inject the drug. The 27-year-old Arroyo Grande resident was at her nadir. She had begun using methamphetamine at age 11. By her early 20s, she had become addicted to prescription pills. She turned to heroin this year after her younger brother, Andrew, died of a heroin overdose in 2011. I was just curious what was so hard-core that killed my brother. Whats so awesome about this that my brother could not stop, she explained. Holt and her 24-year-old brother tragically exemplify the growing presence of heroin in San Luis Obispo County. Law enforcement officials and treatment specialists say the drug is relatively cheap, readily available and an easy replacement for widely abused opiate-based prescription drugs that are harder to find and less potent. Black tar heroin, much of it from Mexico, is now nearly as ubiquitous as meth in the county, police officials say. (In recent years, Mexico has been second only to Afghanistan in heroin poppy cultivation, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the … Continue reading →