We Restore Hope -

Learn to… be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

Prescriptions for painkillers are on the rise in Kentucky. Doctors are writing more prescriptions for drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and Xanax. Five counties – Bell, Clinton, Magoffin, Owsley and Whitley – all averaged more than four prescriptions for controlled substances per resident in 2007.

“The misuse, abuse and illegal sale of prescription drugs continue to plague the commonwealth,” Justice and Public Safety Secretary J. Michael Brown said. “Although we remain vigilant in our efforts to curtail illegal use and abuse, this remains a significant challenge.”

The more prescription drugs dispensed, the greater the chances are for abuse, said Van Ingram, director of Kentucky’s office of drug control policy.

Oxycodone saw the largest jump in prescriptions – nearly 24 percent – between 2005 and 2007. Hydrocodone and Xanax prescriptions each increased about 13 percent.

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FYI Soberfest 2009
October 17th 3:00 to 8:00 pm
Free food, music, prizes and fun

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. ~Winston Churchill

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced it is awarding up to $15.3 million over three years to 13 grantees. This money will expand substance abuse treatment capacity systems in communities that can most benefit from these types of comprehensive services.

“For many people, these grants will expand their community’s ability to provide integrated and comprehensive care,” said acting administrator Eric Broderick, D.D.S., M.P.H. “This community-based response will improve the quality and intensity of care and services.”

These grants will foster the development and utilization of local recovery-oriented systems of care to address gaps in treatment capacity. They will support person-centered and self-directed treatment approaches for substance abuse.

There are two ways of spreading light – to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante

China has proposed expanding a campaign against drunk drivers to include fines against passengers.

The plan calls for fines for passengers riding in cars with a drunk driver and increased jail time for repeat drunk drivers.

The plan follows a two-month crackdown on drunk driving that included road blocks, heavier fines, 15-day jail terms and six-month license suspensions.

In one case, a thirty-year-old man was sentenced to death after killing four people in an accident in the southwestern province of Chengdu. It was believed to be the first time China gave the death penalty in a drunk driving case. The sentence was later reduced to life in prison for the man.

What you want to be eventually, you must be every day. With practice, the quality of your deeds gets down to your soul.

Frank Crane

September was National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery month. The observance highlighted the importance of substance abuse treatment, the contributions of treatment providers and the fact that recovery from substance abuse is not impossible to achieve.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, there is a big disparity between the number of people needing treatment and number of people who actually get the help they need. The 2008 SAMHSA survey stated that 23.1 million people need treatment for a substance abuse problem, but only about ten percent get help. Almost 12 percent of children under 18 lived with at least one parent with a substance abuse problem.

“The survey findings are important because they often point to emerging patterns of substance abuse,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, the United States “drug czar.”

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What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn! ~Logan Pearsall Smith

Health advocates are hoping that an inexpensive red watch worn by college students will become the new must-have accessory on campus. The watches are part of the latest effort to fight the toll of binge drinking.

Studies report that more than 80 percent of college students drink alcohol, but nearly half are binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks in about two hours for men and four or more drinks for women in the same time period.

The number of college students who binge drink rose from nearly 42 percent in 1999, to nearly 45 percent in 2005, according to a report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The NIAAA reported that alcohol-related deaths among college students increased from 1,440 in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005.

The main goal of programs such as the new “Red Watch Band” program at Stony Brook University in New York, is to prevent students from dying of alcohol poisoning.

Red Watch Band “is a death prevention program,” says Lara Hunter, the program’s national coordinator. “It’s targeted at the bystander.”

The watches, which students receive after completing a training program on how to recognize and respond to alcohol emergencies, are meant to symbolize a band of students watching over each other when every minute counts. It is a matter of life and death.
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If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought. ~Dennis Roth

Vaccine-like shots to keep cocaine abusers from getting high also helped them fight their addiction in the first successful study of this approach to treating illicit drug use.

The shots did not work perfectly, but the researchers say their limited success is promising enough to suggest it could be widely used to treat addiction within several years.

“It is such an important study. It clearly demonstrates… that it is possible to generate a vaccine that could interfere with cocaine actions in the brain,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study.

In the new study, cocaine-fighting antibodies helped prevent users from getting a euphoric high and led almost 40 percent of them to significantly cut back or stop using cocaine at least temporarily.

With more than 2 million cocaine abusers in the U.S., and no federally approved treatment, the results “are good enough – better than having nothing,” said lead author Dr. Thomas Kosten of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He developed the vaccine used in the study.

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Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. ~Oprah Winfrey

With substance abuse now accounting for one in 14 hospital admissions and generating billions in health care costs, leading scientists went to Capitol Hill this week to present the existing evidence and the evidence needed to treat and prevent the use and abuse of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Scientists affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Substance Abuse Policy Research Program, identified steps that federal, state and local governments could take now to reduce the $2 billion healthcare burden from alcohol, drug and tobacco use and abuse. They also provided Congress with a plan for research over the next five years to work on reducing substance abuse in the United States.

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There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday. ~Robert Nathan, So Love Returns

Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. said it will continue to develop its lead drug candidate for the treatment of cocaine and methamphetamine addiction after it reviewed data from a mid-stage trial and proof-of-concept study.

In May, the drug CPP-109 had failed in a mid-stage trial for the treatment of cocaine addiction. At the time, the company had said it was converting a mid-stage trial for methamphetamine addiction to a smaller proof-of-concept study, in order to save money.

The decision to continue development of the drug was based on earlier data, which found that less than 40 percent of the subjects were medication compliant in the cocaine trial.

The methamphetamine study results were found to be encouraging, but were not statistically significant due to the small number of subjects in the study.
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The surest cure for vanity is loneliness. ~Thomas Wolfe

Trauma patients who were drunk before they were injured were more likely to survive than sober trauma patients, U.S. researchers have found. Another recent study had a similar finding.

The latest study of 7,985 trauma patients found that 7 percent of sober patients died compared to 1 percent of intoxicated patients. All of the patients were of similar age and had similar injuries.

“This study is not encouraging the use of alcohol,” said principal investigator Dr. Christian de Virgilio of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. “It is seeking to further explore earlier studies that had found alcohol may improve the body’s response to severe injuries. If alcohol is proven to improve the body’s response to traumatic injury, it could lead to treatments that help patients survive and recover more quickly.”
It is believed that alcohol may reduce the risk of death by changing the body’s chemical response to injury.

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The human body is a machine which winds its own springs. ~Julien Offroy de la Mettrie

Italians have long been regarded as a model of Mediterranean restraint when it comes to alcohol consumption.

That is all changing, for many reasons. Italian parents are working longer hours and have less time to supervise their teenagers. The “rhythm of Italiam life is changing,” says Dr. Emanuele Scafato, the director of the Italian Institute for Health.

Beverage companies aggressively market ready-mixed drinks and alcopops to teenagers, bombarding them with the message that alcohol consumption is sexy.

The Italians attitude toward alcohol has been transformed by the increasing numbers of young foreign tourists – especially in the summer. Budge flights have put Rome, Venice and Milan within easy reach of young British, Irish and other hard-drinking northern Europeans, plus Australians and Americans.

Around 1.5 million Italians are now considered to be at risk for alcoholism. The number of diagnosed alcoholics has tripled in the last decade to around 60,000 out of a population of 60 million.