Recovery Stories

So I generally post about Drug and Addiction Physiology related news, but today I wanted to mix things up a bit and give some encouraging stories to you. Do you have a recovery story like these people below? 

"The Efficacy of the Twelve Steps

by Vickie B

When I crossed the invisible line from drug use into addiction, the hopelessness of my situation seemed beyond any human or divine power. Like most addicts, I explored several avenues, including counseling, church and prayer. Consequences, including a restraining order from my husband, estranged relations with my mother and sister, did not keep me sober, but desperation did give me the final willingness to seek treatment.

In a dark hotel room, the universe pointed me toward hope. I was led to a treatment center that taught recovery in the form of the twelve steps and the spiritual solution. I was skeptical, but was out of options. This is the gift of desperation many addicts need to turn the corner.

At first, the process of working the steps looked tedious and elusive. Clearly, I needed power to function and live. So I listened to people just like me. I relied on their experiences with the steps until I could have my own. Only one addict talking to another addict can make the necessary vital connection. Later in my recovery this connection helped me keep in touch with the desperation that I needed to stay close to my program.

The only evidence that a spiritual awakening could deliver me out of my darkness was the group of women I lived with and the staff who helped me work the steps. They were flesh and blood examples of how a spiritual way of life can trump addiction.

Slowly I began to have a transformation as well. My connection to a power greater than myself, living by spiritual principles such as rigorous honesty and helping others gave me strength to continue through each step. When I had to give up custody of my children, I coped with painful emotions through acceptance, gratitude and constant thought of what I could do for others. I did not have to pick up pills to get me through difficult times. Working through the steps gave me the confidence to deal with situations that had derailed me.

Today, I am also living testament to the spiritual solution and I am happy to work with other women, shoulder to shoulder, so that the path through addition to recovery grows wider for those who follow.

A Child's Love is Unconditional

by Deneen B

My name is Deneen and I am a drug addict. I have been clean since June 5, 2010, which is also how long I have been incarcerated. I am currently at a community corrections facility. I have been battling the disease of addiction for many years. I was hopeless and had completely given up when I was arrested and well before. But, I have hope today like I haven't in a long time, but that is all GOD! I have two beautiful children a 13 year old daughter named Havyn and a 15 year old son named Kaleb. Havyn has been what has kept me going for many years! She gave a reason to wake up. Since I relapsed, the last 2 ½ years were really hard on her and now you can only imagine not having her mom there with her because I'm in a correctional rehab. But she is a resilient beautiful angel! Who makes this world a better place being in it. I love her like crazy! But the way she often expresses herself is through poetry! She has sent me some of her poems and they are based on recovery, love, pain and hope. I share them with you in the hopes they can be published because if they can touch ones heart the way they have mine here at the center. Plus she would be so proud to know something got published and encouraged. She supports my recovery 100% but this shows how it effects so much more than me.

Golden Streets

When your with me I feel like an angel, the wonderful things you say to me, the amazing way you treat me.
I feel hurt when I see you like this. I feel like your in a black hole, and I wanna be the angel that saves you.
But something is stopping me, saying "This one all depends on you."

Loved Ones

Loved ones lost and loved ones found, loved one gone to the ground.
Loved ones near, loved ones far, and loved ones always in our hearts.
Loved ones new and loved ones old
Loved ones are treasure to be for told.

When I found out that I could send these in and there was a possibility they could be published, I was so excited! I know when I read them; I couldn't believe they were coming from such a young heart ~ with such an old soul. If they do get published, please send me a copy and my daughter one!

Thank you,
Deneen B"

Source: http://www.recoverytoday.net/articles/372-recovery-stories

 

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

 

 

Poppy Production in the UK - Kept "hush hush "

The UK poppy project started in early 2007, according to addiction physiology, but these projects are not as secretive as one might think after reading this article. Anyone who wants to know the location of these poppy producers can easily find out. 

"The “War on Drugs” that came soon after the “War on Terror” is being decisively lost. Ten years after the US invasion Afghanistan remains the world’s biggest opium poppy producer. Meanwhile, the UK is making inroads to the market.

As the West struggles to destroy drug production in Afghanistan, Britain harvests a new crop of poppies to plug a growing painkiller shortage. Some believe that is counterproductive.

In the rolling fields of Oxfordshire, UK, at this time of year, you will probably see wheat or barley ripening for the harvest.
But dry springs and warm summers have enabled local farmers to plant a very different type of crop – opium poppies.

They are under contract to a pharmaceutical company that turns the opium into morphine and codeine in order to plug a shortfall in strong painkillers in the National Health Service.

In fact, there is a global shortage of drugs made from poppies.

The opium grown in Britain will be put to good use, but thousands of miles away, NATO troops are wiping out existing Afghan poppies with bombing, burning and spraying.

“The main question is why are we destroying the Afghan crop and then having to grown poppies in fields in Oxfordshire? It’s been used by the American and British governments repeatedly, one of the so called soft arguments that they put, one of the liberal arguments that they put, is that they’re fighting a war on drugs. This is complete hypocrisy, it’s not true, it’s not what the war is about, and we should own up to that,” says Lindsey German from the Stop the War Coalition.

It is easy to understand why Afghan farmers grow, then sell opium to the Taliban. There’s an effective distribution network, and they can make around 17 times more profit per hectare than they can on wheat. Despite the obvious economics, farmers are still being encouraged to grow other crops.

British MP Frank Field thinks that policy has failed, but the Americans will not budge.

“America rules and we follow on behind them. It makes a nonsense of what this relationship is about, when you’re putting British lives at stake, not to be able to use this as a bargaining position with the Americans, to rethink a strategy which I think most people think over the years has failed, historically, has failed, why don’t we try a new tack?”

Frank Field and his group Poppy Relief believe that Afghan opium should be legalized instead. It would benefit Afghan farmers, raise much-needed revenue for the government’s nation building efforts, and stop the opium from falling into the hands of the drug cartels. Field also says it should be military strategy too.

“In Afghanistan we have chosen bombs, rather than brains. Anybody who would be thinking about how do we get ordinary people, ordinary farmers who see poppies as a cash crop, how do we get them to protect the backs of our troops, we would be thinking about how do we harness this crop, how do we pay them for it and how do we then use that crop to transfer it into medicines to counter pain.”

With opium being burned in Afghanistan and kept a secret in Britain, no-one wants to talk about the UK’s opium-growing program.

RT asked both the farmers and MacFarlane Smith, the company they grow for, if they would give an interview.
MacFarlane Smith said they would not allow the farmers to talk because it is a part of their contract with the Home Office that they keep the poppy growing secretive.

The Home Office also declined to comment.

While poppies are increasingly harvested in Britain, the so-called war on drugs is being decisively lost. The UN says opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since the US occupation began in 2001."

rt.com 10 September, 2011

Source: http://rt.com/news/uk-afghanistan-poppies-shortage-243/

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

Synthetic Drugs Creating a Rush Hour

As the chemical dependency counseling community predicted, synthetic drugs continue to bypass laws and spill out into the open public. People in downtown Duluth are lining up to buy these designer drugs and not only are they extremely deadly, according to addiction physiology, but they are also considered "legal highs", which is very decieving. "Legal" makes the drug sound like its not as harmful, but it is far from it...

"On many mornings, it looks like it’s the hottest business in downtown Duluth.

Dozens of customers line up in front of the Last Place on Earth head shop on Superior Street to buy designer drugs, including herbal incense — sold as a legal alternative to marijuana — with names such as No Name, Armageddon and DOA, and bath salts called Insurrection and Lunar Eclipse.

Some of the fidgety customers look like they’re waiting to get into a soup kitchen. Others look like your next-door neighbor.

The products they are seeking to buy are comprised of a class of chemicals perceived as legally mimicking cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is attempting to ban or control the synthetic stimulants because some users have reported impaired perception, reduced motor control, disorientation, extreme paranoia and violent episodes.

Last Place on Earth owner Jim Carlson expects to do $6 million in business this year on the sale of incense, bath salts and legal stimulants. He makes no excuses for what he sells.

He said he once weighed 380 pounds because of a sugar and doughnut habit. That hankering was his choice, he says. He believes a person has a right to choose what they want to indulge in for enjoyment.

On Thursday, 45 people waited for Carlson to open his store at 120 E. Superior St. The businessman said sometimes 75 customers are waiting when he swings open the front door.

What Carlson sees as a gold mine, others see as a public health and safety minefield. Police and medical personnel are seeing an increase in designer drug-related health and crime problems, and Superior Street business owners fear that their customers will be intimidated by the designer drug clientele and the associated loitering and littering. A Duluth mother says herbal incense almost cost her son his life.

A black and white Duluth police squad car was stationed in front of Last Place on Earth when it opened Thursday. Police say they were being proactive based on complaints they’ve received from other businesses about the head shop and its customers. Carlson thinks he and his customers are being harassed by police. He and his Twin Cities attorney, Randall Tigue, brought that complaint to the Duluth City Council last Monday.

Tigue said Duluth police Chief Gordon Ramsay has asked him to provide a list of specific complaints that Last Place on Earth has against police.

Carlson, whose business will celebrate its 30th anniversary in downtown Duluth in March, has tried some of his own medicine. He said he didn’t like designer drugs and doesn’t use them.

“It’s not for me, but the bottom line is everybody likes different stuff,” he said. He has a drink of alcohol once or twice a week.

“I’ve got a brother that died at 40 years old from alcohol,” Carlson said. “I think it’s the worst drug on the planet. A guy gets in his car after drinking, plows into a mother and her two kids and kills them.”

Lynn Kubiak thinks herbal incense is just as dangerous as alcohol or any other drug to her 21-year-old son, Andrew, of Hermantown. Andrew crashed and totaled his Jeep on Labor Day weekend and his mother blames the accident on his use of synthetic marijuana.

“Police had his receipt from the Last Place on Earth,” she said. “The accident happened at 5:15 p.m. that day. He wrecked his Jeep and he easily could have been killed. I’m amazed that this (herbal incense) is legal.”

The mother said her son was cited for a traffic violation in the accident. According to court records, Andrew Kubiak has had three underage alcohol consumption citations. The police report of the accident wasn’t available Friday, and no charges have yet been filed against him.

Lynn Kubiak said she’s known her son has used the synthetic marijuana for six to nine months. She said he lacks motivation to do anything other than to find a way to get his next bag of the drug.

“I’ve seen his behavior change big time,” she said. “He was the best kid. He was so thoughtful, so respectful to me. We never fought. It just seems like in the past year he’s gotten real belligerent, real defiant. He doesn’t see things clearly. He’s totally addicted and very jumpy and very crabby when he hasn’t had the drug.”

The mother provided an example of how addicted her son is. She said that the day after he totaled the Jeep he rode his bike from Hermantown to Last Place on Earth to resupply.

“I don’t know what to do right now because it’s legal,” she said. “He can just go down there and get it. I get that thrown in my face by him all the time. That’s his strongest argument — it’s legal.”

She said her son drove his point home by reminding her that police gave her back his synthetic drugs after the accident.

Andrew Kubiak was reached by phone Friday and said there was nothing he wanted to say.

His mother said she’s willing to talk about it because she wants people to know about the problem.

“When I tell my friends about this a lot of them haven’t even heard about it,” Lynn Kubiak said. “I’m going to stick by my son. I want him to get through this. I’m doing this because I love him. I want my son around. I hope this helps somebody help their son or daughter and makes parents aware of what’s going on.”

Dean Baltes, owner of Shel/Don Design & Imaging next door to Last Place on Earth, thinks police are doing a good job of trying to protect everyone’s rights.

“Police are trying to enforce the laws and trying to be sensitive to the fact that there is ambiguity whether or not this stuff is legal or not legal because it’s hard to analyze,” Baltes said. “They are trying to enforce the laws to protect my rights and other business rights.”

Baltes said he has seen customers at Last Place on Earth block his business’s entry way, park without plugging meters, double park, crush out cigarettes on the sidewalk, and simply lack respect for the neighborhood.

“It’s a problem and it’s creating a financial hardship and a financial concern for me,” he said. “My walk-in trade is dropping because they don’t want to walk the gauntlet of these individuals.”

Penny Perry, owner of Perry Framing and Stained Glass, 216 E. Superior St., credits Duluth police and the downtown Clean and Safe team for cleaning up the neighborhood, but she fears those gains are starting to be lost because of what she terms “a whole class of addiction that is very prevalent right now,” and she said it’s trickling into her business district. She said she sees certain vulnerability in those people and in the people they interact with.

“If you walk on the sidewalk in the middle of 40 or 50 people making comments, I think that is intimidating to most people,” she said. “There are pretty high numbers of panhandlers, and that had been really cleaned up. The concerns are that we don’t want to see things get out of hand, and there is also a concern for people doing a lot of harm to themselves. … Police are really reaching out. We’re just trying a whole community approach to a problem that’s not only happening here, but in a lot of places.”

Duluth police Sgt. Andy Mickus, a member of the Lake Superior Drug and Gang Task Force, said police have responded to at least 20 calls in the past several months in which police reports indicate that bath salts were involved in some way.

“They have now determined that the societal impact is big enough that they are banning it with their emergency powers, and I think that is fantastic,” Mickus said. “It’s about time. I’m surprised it took as long as it did.”

According to a U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center and chemical dependency counselors report issued in July, there were no bath salt-related calls reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers in 2009. In 2010 there were 302 and from Jan. 1 through May 31 of this year there were 2,237 bath salt-related calls reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers.

Mickus said there’s unpredictability to some of those under the influence of designer drugs.

“My personal experience is that it looks like a really bad trip on meth to me,” he said. “People hallucinate and have very erratic behavior. Paranoia. Very uncontrolled. They sometimes have violence toward themselves and toward others. Just very, very odd.”

He said most of the police reports come in as disturbances or medical calls.

Dr. Steven Hansen, an emergency medicine physician at St. Luke’s hospital, said there has been a marked increase in emergency room admissions involving the use of designer drugs. He said he’s seeing between two and 10 a week.

“People snort it, or mostly inject it, it seems, in the arm, or whatever vein they can access depending on whatever their drug history is,” Hansen said. “The last one I saw was somebody who had been using it and brought in by police. They had two (officers) to restrain him. He had high blood pressure, high pulse, screaming, really struggling with police that required him to be sedated and admitted to the hospital.”

Hansen said a higher dosage of the designer drugs can result in seizures and death. “If they are so agitated and physically active they can have muscle breakdown leading to kidney failure,” he said. “There have also been lots of reports of people being so psychotic and hallucinating that they cut themselves with knives.”

On Sept. 7, the DEA announced it planned to temporarily control three other synthetic stimulants to “protect the public from the imminent hazard posed by these dangerous chemicals.” The DEA said that within 30 days of that date it plans to control those chemicals for at least

12 months with the possibility of a six-month suspension. The final order will designate those chemicals as Schedule 1 substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no currently accepted medical use in the U.S.

Last March, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency announced an emergency ban on the five synthetic cannabinoids. Carlson’s view on that ban as told to Minnesota Public Radio and the Duluth News Tribune was included in a summary of California Senate Bill 420 in July. The bill included penalties for the sale of synthetic cannabinoids. Carlson was quoted in the bill summary as saying he would just stock brands that use still-legal substances. He said that with about 210 similar chemicals available, the manufacturers will try to keep one step ahead of the government.

Barbara Carreno, a federal Drug Enforcement Agency spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., is quoted in the California bill summary saying: “Unfortunately, he (Carlson) is correct. There are many of these substances and we chose five common ones because we don’t have the resources to study all of them.”"

By Mark Stodghill
Duluth News Tribune
September 18, 2011
Source: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/eve...cle/id/209645/

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Synthetic Web

Drug access has been gradually getting easier with more people spending time online and now it's getting worse. Chemical dependency counseling and addiction physiology have found a new site that has been found that is now only selling synthetic drugs, but also supplying new ones that havent even been indentified yet!...

"In the secretive world of online drug dealing, an underground website named Silk Road entices shoppers with a wide range of illegal substances -- from Ecstasy and other synthetic drugs to heroin and high-grade marijuana.

The site, launched in February, is one of many new online outlets fueling a sudden and dangerous surge in synthetic drug abuse in Minnesota and nationwide, a Star Tribune investigation shows.

Of 86 drug sites that were examined, 64 do not appear to have existed even just two years ago, according to Internet Exposure, a Web design and research firm that analyzed traffic data for the Star Tribune. Unique visitors to those sites soared from 122,090 in June 2009 to 404,469 in June 2011.

The sheer volume and clandestine nature of these online sales are making it difficult, if not impossible, for authorities to stop illegal trafficking of dangerous drug products in this lucrative, anything-goes virtual marketplace.

Just two months after Minnesota started enforcing a law banning many synthetic drugs, the products -- typically sold as bath salts, plant food, herbal incense and research chemicals -- remain widely available and easy to purchase from online retailers, the Star Tribune investigation found.

Minnesota lawmakers already were moving to ban the substances when a mass overdose at a house party in Blaine this spring left a 19-year-old man dead. The synthetic hallucinogen that killed him was bought online.

Last month, when the Star Tribune surveyed 20 popular websites that sell synthetic drugs, just four sites blocked sales to Minnesota and other states that have enacted bans. Many websites offered to ship their products anywhere, telling shoppers it was their responsibility to figure out whether their purchases were legal.

Other websites falsely claimed their products "were legal in all 50 states."

"You can rest assured that there are no illegal or harmful substances in any of our products," claimed ***********, which shipped a container of Bay Spice XO to the Star Tribune on Aug. 25. "We just have you and Mother Earth in mind!"

But a lab test performed for the Star Tribune revealed that Bay Spice XO contained JWH-210, a chemical specifically outlawed in Minnesota as of July 1. The website did not respond to the newspaper's subsequent inquiries.

In March, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) banned five chemicals found in synthetic marijuana, but manufacturers simply used other chemicals that produce similar results. Last week, the agency announced that it was moving to ban three chemicals found in bath salts.

'Hard to track'

Identifying the merchants who actually operate synthetic drug sites can be extremely difficult.

"Anyone who wants to cover up their involvement in a website can register a domain with false information or use a domain privacy service," said Jeff Hahn, CEO of Internet Exposure, in Minneapolis. Such privacy services specialize in concealing the identities of their clients.

A DEA official said the challenge of dealing with online drug dealers can be overwhelming, considering that "thousands" of websites sell the chemicals. If the agency finds an illegal website hosted by a U.S.-based company or server, it notifies the company and encourages it to take the site "offline," according to DEA spokesman Rusty Payne.

"Unfortunately, there are underground labs all over the world who ship their products globally to customers," Payne said. "DEA works with other countries to attack these global drug networks, but we do not have the legal authority to shut a website down immediately when discovered."

In cases where the agency has managed to terminate a synthetic drug site, officials have been frustrated by how quickly operators were able to resume operations at another site, said Will Taylor, a spokesman for the DEA's division in Chicago.

"It's hard to track down who is selling it," Taylor said ************ which sold the Star Tribune 4-Meo-PCP, an analog of the infamously dangerous drug PCP, appears to operate out of England, based on information on its website. The site ships merchandise through British Royal Mail.

But the computer the company used to conduct online sales this summer was actually located in a rural area of central France, according to its Internet Protocol address. Meanwhile, the company's website was registered by a proxy server in Los Angeles that charges a fee to shield its clients' identities from the public.

A company representative insisted that its products are "totally safe" as long as customers use them only as intended: for scientific research.

"I would like to make it clear that nothing we have done or that you have done with the product you purchased from us is dangerous," Harry Costa said in an e-mail response to the newspaper.

Shortly after the newspaper purchased 4-Meo-PCP, the drug disappeared from the website. The site said it would soon debut a "superior" version called 3-Meo-PCP.

Such tweaking of chemical compounds is routinely done by manufacturers, often to create new products that might skirt bans on existing compounds.
Silk Road's secrets

Many websites promise to protect their customers by shipping drugs in discreet packages. But for those who want to leave fewer tracks, an even more covert marketplace has appeared.

At Silk Road, which describes itself as an "anonymous marketplace," users can buy 738 different drugs, including 27 types of cocaine, 81 psychedelics and 269 varieties of marijuana, based on a recent site visit. A gram of brown heroin was recently priced at $171.34. Users can also obtain prescription drugs, including Valium, Xanax and Viagra.

The site connects buyers with independent sellers, who must promise to destroy a customer's shipping address "as soon as it is used to label their package." Sellers are advised to use "vacuum sealed bags" and take other precautions to "maintain the secrecy" of each shipment.

Instead of credit cards -- which are routinely accepted at other sites -- Silk Road accepts only "Bitcoins," an untraceable digital currency available through online currency exchange services. Recently, the exchange rate was around $7 per Bitcoin. Customers are advised to use fake names and have their goods shipped to P.O. boxes or the homes of friends to avoid detection.

Users can reach Silk Road only through an "anonymizing network" called TOR, which routes clients through a worldwide network of volunteer servers to help conceal a client's identity. Data for each Silk Road transaction are "fully encrypted and totally unreadable," according to the site's buyer's guide.

In June, two U.S. senators asked Attorney General Eric Holder to seize Silk Road's domain name and shut down the site. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has called Silk Road the "most brazen attempt to peddle drugs" he's ever seen.

Asked why the government hadn't moved to shut down Silk Road, Laura Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, replied: "The DEA takes the threat of illegal online drug markets very seriously. Although we don't confirm investigations against individuals or groups, the DEA aggressively pursues criminals using any means to sell illegal drugs."

A tangled Web

One of the biggest purveyors of synthetic drugs in Minnesota has been **********, a Golden Valley-based music and novelty chain that claims it has been "supplying what's cool since 1972."

Immediately after the state outlawed many of the new drugs, the company removed the products from its shelves and its website. The company, along with several other retailers, is now trying to overturn the ban in court.

It's not hard to see why. In an affidavit the company filed as part of its legal challenge, it revealed that the banned products generated 40 percent of the company's sales, and that it stood to lose more than $1 million in profits.

Much of that business may have come from the Web. In the first six months of 2011, the company's website -- which touted an array of bath salts and herbal incense products -- attracted an average of 12,632 unique visitors each month, up from 1,644 in the last half of 2009.

In June, someone calling himself Greg McManus posted an attack on the site saying: "HOW DARE YOU SELL CRAP THAT DESTROYS LIVES? NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION LABEL MEANS NOTHING. If you feel it's 'safe,' then you give it to your kids. KILLERS BURN IN HELL."

Steve Hyland, owner of the store, declined to speak to the Star Tribune on the advice of his attorney, Marc Kurzman.

A few weeks after the company removed the products, they started sending shoppers seeking bath salts "down the street to our sister site"

Kurzman, who represents Hyland and other retailers in their attempt to overturn the ban, said his client informed him that the so-called sister site sells only to residents of places that haven't banned its products.

"I understand there's a California corporation set up to do distribution," Kurzman told the Star Tribune. "They're not handling the products in Minnesota."

The sister site initially accepted an order for bath salts from the Star Tribune in late August, but subsequently canceled it and refunded the newspaper's money. In an e-mail, the site explained that it could not ship bath salts, herbal incense or similar products to Minnesota because of the new state law, "even if they are labeled 50 state legal."

Other online merchants have ignored Minnesota's ban, helping customers seeking a new connection for synthetic drugs.

For example, a St. Paul man turned to an Illinois website after his neighborhood smoke shop stopped selling Black Mamba synthetic marijuana.

"I haven't been around drugs in so long I wouldn't know where to find real weed," said the 45-year-old customer, who asked not to be identified to avoid legal problems. "This was just easy."

When he placed an order with the site, he asked if his purchase was legal in light of Minnesota's ban. "All of our incenses are legal even after the new law went into effect," the website assured him in an e-mail he forwarded to the Star Tribune.

When the newspaper asked for an explanation, the website sent an e-mail that showed its operators hadn't kept up with the changing legal environment.

"Minnesota currently does not have any regulations against synthetic substances," the site replied on Aug. 17 -- six weeks after the state's ban took effect.

Minnesota Sen. Katie Sieben, DFL-Cottage Grove, who pushed for the state ban, said she knows it didn't shut down all synthetic drug sales to Minnesotans. But she said she's glad that many Minnesota retailers quit selling synthetic drugs after the new law took effect.

"At least this one avenue of availability has been cut off," Sieben said. "It was crazy to see it in gas stations in Minnesota."

Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=167601#ixzz1Y3l833jp"

 

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

 

Rise of Illegal Drugs Again

There are many different arguements that come with the implications of this article, but where does the chemical dependency counseling community stand? The general population of counselors would agree in saying the Medical Marijuanna is playing a big role in the rise of illegal drug use, but what do you think? 

"A recent US government report has revealed the propensity of some adults to take illegal drugs. 

According to the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health the number of people using illegal drugs in the country has continued to increase. 

Findings based on the survey have shown 22.6 million people are now involved in drug use. 

Those people listed in the survey abused prescription medications or regularly used marijuana, cocaine, heroin or hallucinogens in 2010. 

Officials have said they believe the upward trend has been driven partly through state laws permitting access to medical marijuana. 

The study also revealed that more young adults aged 18 to 25 are using illicit drugs, especially marijuana and cocaine, up from 19.6 percent in 2008 to 21.5 percent in 2010. 

Teenagers in the survey said it had become relatively easy to access most drugs."

Source: http://www.bangladeshnews.net/story/841858/ht/Many-adults-in-US-become-drug-u...

 

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

 

148-acre Marijuana Plantation found

This is a good find I would say, for the chemical dependency counseling community, whenever these fields are stopped from production it really does have an effect on the amount of addictions and dependencies that are formed. Though it's a small number, it still counts. 

"MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican soldiers have found a series of marijuana fields covering 148 acres (60 hectares) in the northern state of Durango, the army said Monday.

The army patrol also found 40 metric tons (44 U.S. tons) of harvested marijuana at the plantation in Mexico's "golden triangle" region, an area known for drug cultivation and trafficking.

The Defense Department said in a statement that the plantation found Saturday included a processing lab and five camps, apparently for workers or guards at the fields.

The planted and harvested plants together could have amounted to 100 tons of marijuana, which the Defense Department said was worth $1.55 billion pesos ($133 million).

The discovery comes almost two weeks after soldiers found what the army describes as the biggest pot plantation ever detected in Mexico, a 300-acre (120 hectare) field in the state of Baja California."

Read more: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/world/21004932205918/#ixzz1TRdCVbcN

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

The Disease That Lies

Amy Winehouse has probably one of the most ironic deaths, but also a very sad one. She is a prime example of the disease called "Addiction" in action and what could happen if you dont see a chemical dependency counselor. Heres more on this story...

"(CNN) -- Marvin Seppala, M.D., is the chief medical officer of Hazelden, a private not-for-profit alcohol and drug addiction treatment organization.

I learned of four addiction-related deaths this weekend. Three were people I knew in Portland, Oregon, recovery circles and the fourth was Amy Winehouse.

Tragically one must get used to such news if you spend a lot of time with those who have this disease. Whenever someone with addiction dies, I grieve the lost potential and wonder about the limitations of our ability to address this cunning, baffling and powerful disease.

I am also humbled by my own experience with addiction and recovery, and grateful for the help I received.

It seems nearly impossible to believe that people with addiction would continue to use drugs and alcohol to the point of death, but that is what people with addiction do: They deny both the consequences and the risks of using. As we continue to learn about addiction, we're understanding more about why addicted people behave the way they do. But that's little solace for friends and family.

Addiction is a brain disease, and our knowledge of it has expanded significantly, which has informed our treatment programs and altered our perceptions. We know that addiction resides in the limbic system, a subconscious part of our brain that is involved with memory, emotion and reward.

We refer to this area of the brain as the reward center, as it ensures that all rewarding or reinforcing activities, especially those associated with our survival, are prioritized. The reward center makes sure we survive by eating, drinking fluids, having sex (for survival of the species) and maintaining human interactions.

In late stages of addiction we can see how reward-related drives, especially those for survival, are reprioritized when people risk their families, their jobs, even their lives to continue to use drugs and alcohol. The continued use of the drug becomes the most important drive, at a subconscious level and unrecognized by the individual, undermining even life itself.

When a methamphetamine-addicted mother makes the nightly news after neglecting her children for four days while on a meth run, we can't comprehend how anyone could do such a thing and tend to think she does not love her children. She may have been going out for groceries with the intent to return home and feed her children, but ran into a dealer and started using.

Addiction took over, and she was driven by subconscious forces even though she loves her children as much as I love mine. Her love and her natural instincts to care for and nurture her children were overridden by her own brain, the reward system reprogrammed to seek and use drugs at all costs. Unbeknownst to her, drug use has become the most important thing in her life.

When we witness the incomprehensible behaviors associated with addiction we need to remember these people have a disease, one that alters their brain and their behaviors. We tend to believe we all have free will, so it is difficult to understand how the addicts' perception has been so altered as to drive them to destruction.

We also assume they can make their own decisions, especially when it comes to help for their addiction. In so doing we are expecting the person with a diseased brain to accept the unacceptable, that the continued use of drugs is not providing relief from the problem - it is the problem, and they need to stop that which has become paramount.

They are unable to make such decisions because their brains have been altered to prioritize use of the drugs, even above survival itself.

Relief of psychic pain, the real, unimaginable pain of addiction, is part of the problem. People have many reasons for seeking relief from pain; some pain precedes the addiction, but most pain is the result of the addiction.

The addicted neglect their primary relationships and they may lie, cheat and steal to continue drug use. And they know this at some level, they recognize their uncontrolled behaviors, but they can't change, they can't stop.

Hopelessness becomes a way of life. Self-loathing, shame and guilt become the norm as the consequences of continued drug use accumulate.

They use drugs to ease the pain, but the very remedy exacerbates the problem. The answer to their dilemma goes unrecognized due to the neurobiological changes that have occurred in their brains.

The good news is that treatment is effective and specifically designed to help people recognize the problem within. Most people are coerced into treatment for one reason or another; they may be facing legal issues, job loss or divorce.

With good treatment their likelihood for recovery and abstinence is just as good as the minority who seek treatment of their own accord. Unfortunately, less than 10% of those with addiction recognize they have it and seek treatment.

This is the primary reason people don't seek help. Our largest public health problem goes unrecognized by those with the disease.

Every one of these deaths is tragic. They died of a disease that lies to them. Amy Winehouse had incredible musical talent that enthralled the masses, but she became known as much for her struggle with addiction.

We can safely watch such a tragedy, gawking as we drive by the destruction, insulated from the suffering and unable to help. But addiction is all around us and we need to respond to the rising death toll.

All of us are responsible for learning the truth about addiction, raising awareness and intervening for those who have this disease, knowing they are unlikely to be able to do so for themselves."

Source: http://www.wpbf.com/health/28673563/detail.html#ixzz1TRcnEKGB

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

Indiana marijuana prohibition has failed?

This seems to be a recurring theme with cannbis, according to addiction physiology people are claiming that the legalization of marijuana will reduce violence and crimes. I would have to disagree. Heres more on the story...

"INDIANAPOLIS — A state panel heard from a parade of experts Thursday as it began studying whether to legalize marijuana in Indiana or reduce criminal penalties on small amounts of the drug.

The experts shared a common message: The prohibition against marijuana use in the United States has failed and Indiana and its citizens stand to benefit from changing the law.

“The public recognizes that our marijuana laws have done more harm than good,” Daniel Abrahamson of the Drug Policy Alliance told the Indiana Legislature’s Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee.

Lawmakers have approved medical marijuana in 16 states and the District of Columbia. They have eliminated penalties on small amounts of marijuana in 13 other states.

Abrahamson said those changes have not met with negative consequences such as an uptick in marijuana use. And he said there is nothing standing in the way of Indiana changing its law as other states have.

“The federal government cannot require states to make marijuana illegal,” he said. In no instance, he said, has a state changed its mind and “re-criminalized” marijuana after decriminalizing personal use.

Noah Member of the Marijuana Policy Project said marijuana use is widespread despite being illegal and that laws against possession ruin people’s lives by sending them to prison for using a substance he said is safer than alcohol.

Member suggested marijuana should be regulated by the state much like alcohol. He said states that have legalized medical marijuana have seen no increase in teen use of the drug.

Abrahamson estimated Indiana could raise $44 million a year in sales taxes alone if it regulated and taxed marijuana.

Democratic state Sen. Karen Tallian of Ogden Dunes successfully pushed lawmakers to study the issue. She says the state has “draconian” marijuana laws.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has said he would like to wait and see what the panel finds before taking a position.

Indiana lawmakers this year banned the sale and possession of synthetic marijuana, also called spice."

Source: http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2011/07/28/statenews.qp-1709131.sto

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!

 

Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel

This is an interesting story about the Sinaloa drug cartel. It just goes to show the unending battle between the U.S border and the Cartel. Chemical dependency counseling and those who serve as a chemical dependency counselor continue to fight the war on Drugs on the U.S soil itself. 

"As drug smugglers from the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico sent a never-ending stream of cocaine across the border and into a vast U.S. distribution web in Los Angeles, DEA agents were watching and listening.

Never lose track of the load.

It was drilled into everybody who worked for Carlos “Charlie” Cuevas. His drivers, lookouts, stash house operators, dispatchers -- they all knew. When a shipment was on the move, a pair of eyes had to move with it.

Cuevas had just sent a crew of seven men to the border crossing at Calexico, Calif. The load they were tracking was cocaine, concealed in a custom-made compartment inside a blue 2003 Honda Accord.

The car was still on the Mexican side in a 10-lane crush of vehicles inching toward the U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspection station. Amputee beggars worked the queue, along with men in broad-brimmed hats peddling trinkets, tamales and churros.

A lookout watching from a car in a nearby lane reported on the load's progress. Cuevas, juggling cellphones, demanded constant updates. If something went wrong, his boss in Sinaloa, Mexico, would want answers.

The Accord reached the line of inspection booths, and a lookout on the U.S. side picked up the surveillance. He was Roberto Daniel Lopez, an Iraq War veteran, standing near the “Welcome to Calexico” sign.

It was the usual plan: After clearing customs, the driver would head for Los Angeles, shadowed by a third lookout waiting in a car on South Imperial Avenue.

But on this hot summer evening, things were not going according to plan. Lopez called his supervisor to report a complication: The Accord was being directed to a secondary inspection area for a closer look. Drug-sniffing dogs were circling.

Cuevas rarely talked directly to his lookouts or drivers. But after being briefed by the supervisor, he made an exception. He called Lopez.

“What's happening?” he asked.

“The dogs are going crazy,” Lopez replied.

Dots on a map

Cuevas worked for the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful organized crime group. He was in the transportation side of the business. Drugs were brought from Sinaloa state to Mexicali, Mexico, in bus tires. Cuevas' job was to move the goods across the border and deliver them to distributors in the Los Angeles area, about 200 miles away.

The flow was unceasing, and he employed about 40 drivers, lookouts and coordinators to keep pace.

The canines circling the load car that evening in August 2006 were the least of his problems. Eight agents from a Drug Enforcement Administration task force had converged on the border. Not even U.S. customs inspectors knew they were there. The agents had been following Cuevas and tapping his phones for months.

Because he was a key link between U.S. and Mexican drug distributors, his phone chatter was an intelligence gusher. Each call exposed another contact, whose phone was then tapped as well. The new contacts called other associates, leading to more taps. Soon the agents had sketched a vast, connect-the-dots map of the distribution network.

Its branches spanned the U.S. and were believed to lead back to Mexico's drug-trafficking heartland, to Victor Emilio Cazares, said to be a top lieutenant of Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, the most wanted trafficker in the world. From his mansion outside Culiacan, Cazares allegedly oversaw the network of smugglers, distributors, truckers, pilots and stash house operators.

Other DEA investigations had targeted Mexican cartels, but this one, dubbed Operation Imperial Emperor, was providing the most complete picture of how drugs moved from Sinaloa to U.S. streets.

DEA officials were in no hurry to wrap it up. In fact, they were holding off on arrests so they could continue to study the supply chain and identify new suspects.

Imperial Emperor would eventually result in hundreds of arrests, the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in drugs and money, and the indictment of Cazares.

It would also reveal a disheartening truth: The cartel's U.S. distribution system was bigger and more resilient than anyone had imagined, a spider web connecting dozens of cities, constantly regenerating and expanding.

The guy next door

As a U.S. Marine in Fallouja, Iraq, Lopez had dodged mortar fire, navigated roads mined with explosives and received a commendation for leadership. Back home in El Centro, he couldn't even get work reading meters for the local irrigation district.

But Lopez, who had two children to support, knew another industry was always hiring.

One of the Sinaloa cartel's main pipelines runs through the antiquated U.S. port of entry at Calexico, a favorite of smugglers. The inspection station sits almost directly on the border, without the usual buffer zone of several hundred feet, so inspectors have difficulty examining cars in the approach lanes. Drug-sniffing dogs wilt in summer heat that can reach 115 degrees.

California's southeastern corner, a region of desert dunes and agricultural fields with the highest unemployment rate in the state, offered fertile ground for cartel recruiting.

Smugglers were your next-door neighbor, the guy ringing you up at Wal-Mart, the big tipper at Applebee's, the old friend at your high school reunion.

Lopez was friends with a man named Sergio Kaiser, who had married into his family. Kaiser said he owned a body shop, but his tastes seemed too flamboyant for that. He was building a house with a grand staircase modeled on the mansion in the movie “Scarface.”

In reality, Kaiser was Cuevas' top lieutenant, and he told Lopez he could help him with his money troubles. There were several possibilities.

For a night's work driving a load car from Mexicali to Los Angeles, a driver shared $5,000 with his recruiter and got to keep the car.

Another entry-level position was as a lookout. One kind of lookout followed the load car from the stash house in Mexicali to the border. Another stood watch at the port of entry and reported when the car had cleared customs. Yet another tailed the load car up the freeway to Los Angeles.

Lopez accepted Kaiser's offer. Being a lookout was harmless, he figured: Just stand there and watch a car cross the border. “[He] didn't say it involved drugs, but I knew,” Lopez said. “I thought, 'What's the big deal?'“

Tricks of the trade

Cuevas owned a large tract home in Calexico and drove a late-model BMW 323. A gold chain dangled from his thick neck. Married with two children, he enjoyed the cliched perks of a smuggler's life. He went through several mistresses, treating them to breast-enhancement surgeries and trips to Disneyland and San Francisco.

He would ride his pricey sand rail in the Baja California dunes, and he always picked up the tab at restaurants or on wild weekends across the border in Mexicali. 

At Emmanuel's barber shop, Cuevas would jump the line to get his “fade” haircut, then pay for everybody else's trim. He took care of friends' hospital bills and lent people money, no strings attached.

“When you think of drug cartels, you think violence, guns, killing,” Lopez said in an interview. “This guy was nothing like that.”

He didn't carry weapons or surround himself with enforcers. Constantly juggling phones and buying packaging materials from Costco, he seemed more stressed out than intimidating. Cuevas had a stutter, and it worsened when his boss Cazares called from Sinaloa. He took antacids to calm an anxious stomach.

To get drugs across the border, he deployed a fleet of SUVs and cars with custom-made hidden compartments. He favored Volkswagen Jettas and Chevrolet Avalanches. Both were manufactured in Mexico, and the DEA believes cartel operatives were able to study the designs to identify voids where drugs could be concealed.

Cuevas sent the cars to a mechanic in Compton who outfitted the compartments with elaborate trapdoors. The jobs took two weeks and the mechanic charged as much as $6,500, but it was worth it. Only a complicated series of actions could spring the doors open.

One front-bumper nook could be accessed only by connecting a jumper cable from the positive battery post to the front screw of a headlight. The jolt of electricity would cause the license plate to fall off, revealing the trapdoor.

Cuevas picked his drivers with great care, rejecting people with visible tattoos or serious criminal records and sending those he hired on dry runs to test their nerves. He kept the Calexico border crossing under constant watch, focusing on the mobile X-ray machine that could see inside vehicles. It was used sparingly, and the moment inspectors drove it away, his crew went to work.

Over the years, his cars consistently eluded detection.

“I was great at it. I had never lost a car in the border,” Cuevas said. “Dogs never hit it or nothing.”

In mid-2006, however, he seemed to lose his touch.

In June, authorities had followed one of his drivers to Cudahy, near Los Angeles, and seized 163 pounds of cocaine from a stash house.

A month later, police outside El Centro stopped his best driver, a hot dog vendor from Mexicali, and found $799,000 in a hidden compartment.

Cuevas had to make the cartel whole, either in cash or by working the debt off by supervising shipments without receiving his cut. Hundreds of pounds of cocaine, meanwhile, continued to pour in every week from Sinaloa, and he was under intense pressure to keep the goods moving.

Now, on this August evening, a customs inspector had pulled his load car, the Accord, into the secondary inspection area.

“Dude, I think your guy got busted,” Lopez told Cuevas over the phone. “They've got him in handcuffs.”

Behind the dashboard and in a rear-quarter panel of the Honda, inspectors found 99 pounds of cocaine. The driver was arrested. Everybody else scattered. Lopez drove home, unconcerned. He had spent only 15 minutes at the border crossing and never got near the drugs.

Cuevas ordered his crew to dump their cellphones, in case anyone had been listening in. At the DEA's bunker-like surveillance post in nearby Imperial, the wiretap chatter went silent.

DEA agents had not expected a bust and were not happy about it. The agents had planned to let the driver cross the border and then follow him to his Los Angeles connection. Now they would have to regroup.

Waiting in the dark

Two days later, the agents sat in a van down the street from Cuevas' two-story home in Calexico, waiting for the lights to dim. Cuevas' neighbors in the subdivision of red-tile-roofed tract homes included firefighters, Department of Homeland Security officers and state prison guards.

After months of tailing Cuevas, the agents knew he favored Bud Light beer, burgers at Rally's and tacos atJack in the Box.

They once pushed the cocaine-filled car of one of his drivers to a gasoline station after the man ran out of fuel on Interstate 5. The driver never suspected that the good Samaritans were helping so they could continue tailing him to his destination.

After midnight outside Cuevas' home, the agents started digging through his garbage cans. They were searching for a notepad, a receipt, a business card, anything with a phone number on it.

There was enough evidence to arrest Cuevas. But the goal was to expand the investigation, and that required resuming the phone surveillance. Agents hoped Cuevas had thrown away the numbers of some -- even one -- of the 30 new cellphones he had just distributed to his crew.

Sifting through trash was always a filthy chore, especially so in this case. Cuevas was the father of a newborn. The agents were elbow-deep in dirty diapers.

Finally, they pulled something from the muck. It was a piece of spiral notebook paper with numbers scrawled on it. Phone numbers."

Richard Marosi 
Los Angeles Times 24th July 2011 

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/ca...9.story?page=1

Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=164872#ixzz1TRc5Gwob

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Poppy crop in Helmand down 15PC

Ever since the border bans that I posted about, in a chemical dependency counseling catagory, the Afganistan poppy cultivation has fallen 15percent. The impact that number has on the amount of people that would of formed dependencies is huge! 

"LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan: Poppy cultivation may have fallen up to 15 per cent this year in the province that produces around half of Afghanistan’s opium, due to a programme of crop substitution, eradication and enforcement, an Afghan official said. 

But an increase in cultivation in northern Afghanistan, driven by high prices for opium, will partly offset the lower output in Helmand, a critical southern province, the United Nations said recently. 

“We hope we will have a 15 per cent decrease this year in the total cultivation of poppy (in Helmand),” Hamdullah Noori, counter-narcotics adviser to the provincial governor, Gulab Mangal, told Reuters in an interview. Noori and western officials credit this to Mangal’s “food zone programme” that has a carrot and stick approach to stopping poppy cultivation — eradication of some crops combined with support for farmers who chose to grow alternatives like wheat. 

Western experts in Helmand also expect poppy cultivation in the province to be down by between 10 and 15 per cent this year and said improved security after heavy fighting last year has helped as well because it allows farmers of alternative crops to get their goods to market. Afghanistan has long been the world’s leading supplier of opium in a thriving trade worth billions of dollars. 

Taliban-led militants are believed to derive $100-$400 million a year from production and drug trafficking, fuelling insecurity. 

Foreign troops fighting a decade-long war against a Taliban-led insurgency have largely abandoned eradicating poppy crops themselves because of the hostility it generates among poor Afghan farmers whose support they are trying to win. 

Fields under poppy cultivation in Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and the deadliest province for foreign troops of the war, quadrupled between 2005 and 2008 to 103,590 hectares. Last year, the area dropped to 65,045 hectares, down 7 per cent from2009, said the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)."

The News 23rd July 2011 

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrin...1&dt=7/23/2011

If you are interested in getting your counselor degree extremely fast to become a chemical dependency counselor, then feel FREE to visit CentaurUniversity.com!