Sadly, as a referral resource helping addicts and their loved ones find effective drug rehab in Georgia, I’m often at a loss to help my Clients. Sometimes I’m at a loss finding the right program to treat a difficult case with unusual circumstances. More often, I’m at a loss finding the right words to say to someone who can afford to pay for private drug rehab but won’t. Too often people seeking treatment for drug addiction consider only the cost of rehab without considering the cost of addiction.

Not long ago, a young mother hooked on methamphetamines called Georgia Alliance for help. I knew the right program for her immediately. A holistic drug rehab program with a thorough detoxification component. I’ve referred a host of addicts to them before and have always been happy with the results they’ve achieved on my Clients.

Cindy needed to cleanse her body of the drug residues which had accumulated, contributing to an incessant craving for drugs and routine relapses. So I recommended this particular Georgia drug rehab program to her, describing it in detail. She was ecstatic. Cindy knew it was the right program. Unfortunately, she never went. She was picked up for violating her probation, ironically because she hadn’t entered a drug rehab program despite a court order to do so. And why wasn’t she in rehab despite the court order and despite knowing which program to attend? Because her mother didn’t consider the costs of Cindy’s addiction. She considered only the cost of the drug rehab program which she felt was too expensive.

True enough, Georgia drug rehab programs can be expensive. The one I referred Cindy to charges about $1000 a week, including room and board. But that cost paled in comparison to the cost of Cindy’s addiction, particularly if her family had taken in into account all the costs associate with being an addict. Economic costs, health costs, relationship costs.

A quick summary of what Cindy’s addiction or any addiction for that matter costs is instructive.

1. Family strife. Addiction’s first and often highest cost is the toll it takes on the family. Addicts lie to and steal from their family members. And as addiction grows or even just sustains, discord and turbulence grows like a cancer in the family unit. Husbands and wives disagree on how to handle the addiction. Sisters and brothers are left cold hearted by it.

2. Legal. Legal boundaries do not matter to addicts; only drugs matter. They will do whatever they have to do to get high. If drug addiction is not addressed early, legal complications typically follow. Knowing that he’s not likely to be turned into the police, an addict commits his first crimes against his family, stealing from his parents or grandparents. Next he turns on his friends. As he comes to be known as a thief, family and friends cut their ties. An addict is forced to the streets to fund his habit. Boys and men rob cars and homes; girls and women shoplift or whore themselves.

The first offense doesn’t cost much. Perhaps a few thousand dollars in attorneys fees and court costs. But the legal costs can escalate rapidly from there. Lawyers fees and court costs can mount into the tens of thousands of dollars.

3.  Poor health. Addiction to toxic drugs degrades an addict’s physical well being in two ways. It depletes essential nutrients and damages cells, tissue, organs and biochemical processes by overloading the body with toxins. Heroin hollows out once robust young men. Crystal Meth disfigures nubile young women. Methadone stoops its users, aging them by years beyond their actual use. The cost of illness over time in lost wages and health care is substantial.

4. Shortened life span. Just as eating nutritious food extends life span, ingesting drugs shortens it. Researchers have estimated that drug addiction shaves five to ten years off an addict’s life. Even if that time was spent earning meager wages, the income lost can tally $50,000 to $100,000.

5. The drugs. Of course, beyond these tangential costs, drugs cost real money to buy. I’ve spoken to cocaine addicts who have burned through $8,000 in a binge, and heroin addicts who shoot $150 a day. An addict’s inventory costs are high. Taking drugs like heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and benzodiazepines regularly can run double what it costs to enter an effective drug rehab in Georgia program.

6. Mental illness. Psychiatrists and many drug rehab centers are too quick to blame drug addiction on an underlying mental illness. No objective evidence exists to link addiction with mental illness. Yet many addicts are labeled bi-polar or diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and treated for these imagined illnesses rather than the physical dependency to drugs which is evident and provable.

There is no doubt however that drug addiction affects an addict’s behavior and his mental function and outlook. As well it should. When an addict has lost everything good in his life and tells me he’s depressed, I tell him “Good. Means your emotions are working just fine.” If an addict has lost his family, his job, his health, his home, his freedom or even his dignity, he should be depressed. The correct way to rehabilitate an addict is to treat his physical dependency first. Once his body and mind are clear of the toxic effects of drugs and once he’s no longer thinking of nothing but drugs, you can then and only then treat mental and emotional factors which are likely side effects of drug addiction.

As you can see, drug addiction costs substantially more than drug rehab. If you or a loved one suffers from addiction, whatever you spend to rid your life of the addiction will be well worth it, assuming of course you choose a drug rehab program that works. To ensure that, call us. I wish you well.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance.

The idea of drug testing a minor where no evidence exists to prove that he is abusing drugs chafes teens and civil libertarians alike. After all, in a free society, people are free to do as they wish as long as what they wish to do is not illegal. Or as long as it does not prevent the pursuit of someone else’s happiness.

But this doctrine applies to adults not to minors. Though drug testing a minor may appear to violate their civil rights, it doesn’t.  Minors do not have the same civil rights adults enjoy, not at least until they  turn eighteen, the age of consent.

A minor cannot be held to a contract they sign nor be tried as an adult for violating most laws until reaching eighteen years old, that arbitrary age of adulthood. No, legal responsibility still remains with their parents. If your sixteen year old drives into another car while he is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, your insurance rates rise. Not his. And worse yet, you could even be sued.

More important to this issue of whether a parent has a legal right to drug test their child is whether they have a moral responsibility to do so. To keep their children safe.

Children are beset by an environment today that is more dangerous than ever. Drugs are openly peddled in school yards and playgrounds. Prescription painkillers, heroin and crystal meth, among others, are highly addictive, even deadly. There is no recreation in their use and little room for error. Once abused, these drugs can turn even a fresh faced, church going teenager into an addict, a criminal, a prostitute.

Teenagers have always gotten into trouble and they always will. It’s the nature of their nature. But the kind of trouble that a mistake can land them in today can be nearly irreversible. It would be irresponsible of a parent not to take suitable precautions. A home drug test kit is an effective and suitable precaution.

So if you ask me, should I drug test my child? I would answer, why haven’t you been doing so already? I have linked the following site not as a referral (I haven’t used them before), but as a source of information, to give you an idea of the type of kit a parent you should use to drug test their children. http://www.drugtestingworld.com/13-panel-drug-tests-screening-cup-p-87.html?zenid=58e371aa98d3716f28f35700f28365e5

Make sure your tests are regular and random.
Fritz Alders,
Managing Partner Georgia Alliance

With the 18 year old, drug rehab is your only option. You’ve already tried badgering him, grounding him, threatening to take away everything he owns, even the roof over his head to no avail. He promised he’d quit on his own. Many times. He’s tried, but failed time and again. Perhaps you’ve even tried to send him to a 12 step program. It didn’t work. Twelve step programs never do with hard core addictions to heavy weight drugs like painkillers.

Sadly, for your eighteen year old, you’ve got few options. With addiction to painkillers, most drug rehab doesn’t work.  The latest research on traditional drug rehab’s gold standard approach, a combination of Suboxone and counseling, proves this point. Ninety percent of the patients treated with Suboxone and counseling relapsed once treatment stopped.

According to estimates, programs that blend long term detox with cognitive behavior work much better, more than 5 times better.  One Georgia drug rehab program that I refer Clients to often reports that eighty percent of its recent graduates are free of their addiction to drugs.

Even though the circumstances are far better for your twelve year old, you have just one viable option to prevent him from falling victim to the same fate that now traps his hapless brother.  Education. Knowledge about drugs, what they are, how they work, what they will do to his life if he abuses them is your best weapon.

Parents make the same mistake that governments make. They try to curb supply. Setting curfews and telling yourr kids who they can date and who they can hang around with in the end is a losing strategy. You won’t be able to ward off the enemy forever or even for long.  Remember the scene from the Indiana Jones movie, where the character brandishes a torch to stave off an army of small voracious predators. It didn’t work out well for him, and adopting a similar defensive strategy won’t work out well for you either.

Trying to curb supply is like trying to stanch the loss of water from a hose by pressing putty into a hole.  The leak stops for the moment, but pressure rebuilds elsewhere and a new leak springs forth.

Due to the remarkable profits to be made at every level in the drug trade, too many pressure points exist in the hidden drug pipeline to block supply fully. An unlimited number of people grow, manufacture , distribute and sell drugs.  And borders are porous. Getting dangerous drugs to your children  is a breeze.

Moreover, the drug pipeline has moved into the open. A chemist working in a college lab formulated a psychoactive agent which is now used as an ingredient in a brand of incense sold over the counter in head shops. This psychoactive agent is four times more powerful than THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana.

Officials have tried to remove such agents from the market. Their efforts have proven futile. http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=100051 Chemists can alter the chemical composition and thwart legislation which must be drawn narrow to begin with.

Educating potential users when they’re still young remains the best way to curb demand for drugs. Just as adults do, children use their minds to evaluate and decide. The more information they have about drugs and the more accurate the information is, the better their decisions will be.

You’ve heard the old expression: “garbage in, garbage out”. It’s true. If your twelve year old learns about drugs from his friends, some of whom are probably doing drugs, he will base some of the most critical decisions of his life on garbage in. And he will make bad choices.

His friends may tell him that “taking drugs is cool”. That if he takes drugs, “he will be popular with the girls”. That “everybody’s doing it”.  They won’t tell him that marijuana is 2 ½ times more powerful today than it was a generation ago. They won’t tell him that if smokes Spice that he may go insane. They won’t tell him that if swallows even a few painkillers that he may die or become hooked for good. The marketing blitz promotes the benefits of taking drugs and omits the consequences which are certain and disastrous. How can we expect your twelve year old to survive an addiction that kills thousands every year? Even if he does, imagine the lost years, the missed education.

In the good old days, making a bad choice would give you a hangover. Today with painkillers, the hangover is a desperate addiction as difficult to beat as swimming against a riptide.

Without the truth, kids can make terrible mistakes. Georgia drug rehab programs are witness to the terrible mistakes kids make every day because of what they know or rather what they don’t know about drugs. If the only information your children receive comes from drug dealers and their “no-good” friends, they’re in trouble. Get them educated on the subject of drugs. Here’s a link that can help. www.drugfreeworld.org

I wish you much success,

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner
Georgia Alliance

Ps. If you know someone already addicted to drugs, please call 1 877 759-9766,   we can help them find drug rehab that works.

Over a twelve week period, Suboxone, the trademarked name of the combined prescription drugs buprenorphine and nalaxone, was given to a group of addicts along with counseling. These addicts formed an ideal treatment pool. They had never been to rehab before, and they were employed.

Researchers no doubt expected good results. They must be alarmed by what they found instead. No doubt. Fifty per cent of the addicts participating in the study continued to abuse drugs. Even worse, virtually all of the participants relapsed once they were no longer taking the drug. In my mind, the results of this large scale study of Suboxone to treat addiction are clear, conclusive, disastrous.

Suboxone works on a number of fronts. It mimics some of the opioid effects, reduces cravings, controls withdrawal symptoms and debars abusers from getting high if they abuse opioids while taking Subaxone.  The drug has been accorded vaunted status in the rehab community because of these multi faceted effects.

But though as a chemical agent its effectiveness is indisputable, as a drug addiction therapy its ineffectiveness is likewise now indisputable.

Across America, opiate addiction is spiraling out of control. The CDC reported recently, for example, that within the past decade overdose deaths from opiates have quadrupled. Opiates wither the health of their abusers and weaken their moral fiber. Good young men turn into thieves; good young women into harlots. We must apply an effective solution to end this crisis before its toll becomes too horrific to bear.

If Subaxone were the only solution, as the traditional drug rehab community would have us believe, society would be in a terrible fix. Fortunately, it’s not. An effective, holistic solution to opioid and opiate addiction has existed for years. It’s just been ignored by a drug rehab community which is bent on asserting an unproven theory of drug addiction, namely that addiction is a disease.

Despite the lack of evidence for this theory, drug rehab programs around the country, and drug rehab in Georgia where I practice, model their programs on this notion: addiction is a disease. A very few programs treat addiction as a condition which can be reversed.

Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of a drug rehab treatment is in its effectiveness. A vast disparity exists among the programs. Relapse rates can run as high as ninety percent at traditional drug rehab programs, those basing their treatment on the unproven notion that addiction is a disease. In contrast, relapse rates drop to just twenty-five percent when addicts are treated with a drug free approach combined with cognitive behavior study and exercises.

This data isn’t so much being suppressed; it’s just not being reported. You see, big pharmaceutical companies stand to lose billions if drugs are removed from drug rehab.

Now lest you assume otherwise, I do believe that Subaxone has its place in drug rehab. A short course of treatment can help an addict wean himself from these powerful drugs which create a physical dependence as gripping as a riptide. But as the McClean study shows, long term Suboxone treatment even with counseling just isn’t effective.

Besides, who’s kidding whom? If an addict is put on Subaxone to replace heroin, isn’t one addiction being traded for another? Remember, Subaxone treatment carries its own health risks and side effects.

Science has delivered many good things to society. But among the good, in its quest to rid us of all our ills, it has delivered some evil. Opioids conceived to dull our aches and pains have created addicts by the millions. What hell Science has wrought, it feels it can fix with yet more miracles of modern medicine. If the latest research on the handling for opiate addiction is evidence, Science is failing us miserably.

Fritz Alders
The Drug Rehab Guy

By ABC News

Nov 8, 2011 7:00am

For Painkiller Addicts, Suboxone Means Freedom, Dependence

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ABC News’ Dr. Mirjana Jojic reports:

The first-ever large-scale study to look at treatment options for prescription painkiller addiction has shown that these treatments – much like painkillers themselves – can be a double-edged sword.
The psychological effects of painkillers are one of the reasons 5.3 million American abuse them, according the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Researchers at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, conducted the first large-scale study to look at treatment options for this growing problem.
“What made this study different was the population,” said Dr. Roger Weiss, lead author and chief of the division of alcohol and drug abuse at McLean Hospital. “This is the first study that focused exclusively on people dependent on prescription opioids, not heroin.”
Tooth extractions, chronic pain, illness and other painful surgical procedures are the major reasons Americans are prescribed painkillers. These medications, branded Percocet or Vicodin, are classified as opiates, and in addition to pain relief, they can produce the same feelings of euphoria and relaxation as heroin does.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/11/08/for-painkiller-addicts-suboxone-means-freedom-dependence/

With many drug rehab in Georgia programs, they’re right. Not much hope exists. The typical twelve step program, for example, fails heroin addicts more than eighty per cent of the time.

The story I’m told by heroin addicts or their parents begins innocently and always the same. He drank a little alcohol with friends when he was a young teen. She smoked a little pot with her boyfriend when she was a little older.

At some point whether because of peer pressure or curiosity or even sometimes just boredom, the addict moved on to a substance with a bigger kick. Like a prescription painkiller. Percoset, Loritab, Hydrocodone, Oxycontin. The drug made them feel like they’ve never felt before. Good and powerful.

And addiction begins as simply as that. People take drugs to feel good; the drugs create a physical dependence; and the drug abuser is hooked.

The first high a drug abuser experiences is the best. The body habituates to the chemicals in the prescription painkillers, requiring more and more to produce the same result.  Which results in physical dependence. Addiction.

Addiction to prescription painkillers begins for most drug users with pills. Taking a pill is easier than shooting up and more socially accepted. After all, a drug abuser has taken  pill many times before. When she’s ill; when he doesn’t feel good. Taking a pill to feel better seems normal, no different than taking a pill for a headache or a problem with the sinuses.

But pills are expensive, more so these days because the authorities have wised up to the prescription painkiller racket many doctors were running. Patients came to pill mills complaining of pain and were sent away with prescriptions for hefty doses of painkillers. Clearly more than one person in pain would need. Patients, who were really drug dealers cloaked in patient’s garb, sold their excess prescriptions for big money. For years, everyone knew what was going on. Doctors, the big pharmaceutical companies, the authorities.

Eventually, the rising toll of people victimized by this illicit trafficking grew to such a degree that the authorities were forced to clamp it down. The price of prescription painkillers exploded.

The unintended consequence of applying a tourniquet to the one artery is that blood began to leak from another. Prescription painkiller addicts turned to heroin which is cheaper, easier to get and plentiful. Heroin addicts in the Georgia drug rehab centers I refer Clients to make up the largest percentage of the population.

There is a solution to our burgeoning drug crisis:
1. Educate children about drugs early and often. The Foundation for a Drug Free World has created a slew of hard hitting, hip materials perfect for kids.
2. Fund the few effective rehab programs that exist. We continue to waste millions of dollars on drug rehab programs that don’t work. Methadone clinics. Twelve step programs. Medical detox. This money can and should be better spent. Spent on drug rehab programs that work. There are a few after all, and they’re well known. Call us if you need help for someone addicted to heroin.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Maybe you’ve seen Brian, early 20s, good-looking, drives a nice car. Maybe you’ve talked to him at his job or stood behind him in line at the convenience store near his house. Nice kid, very polite, lives in a suburb of Harrisburg with his Mom and Dad. Holds down a full-time job.

Nothing about his outward appearance offers a clue that Brian is a heroin addict. His life revolves around his physical craving for an illegal drug. Because he fears the law, he agreed to share his story, but not his real name.
Brian buys his heroin in bundles that generally consist of 10 doses. Convenient, like buying a carton of cigarettes, he notes. A bundle can cost as little as $70 or as much as $160 on the corners in Harrisburg, he said.

It’s cheaper in Philadelphia, and more expensive in small towns, like Lewistown or State College, where he’s also bought, he said.
At his worst, he was burning through four bundles a day, meaning, at a minimum, every day he needed $280 to feed his habit. He offers his arms for inspection. Scar tissue prevented him from shooting into the bend of his arms, so he turned to injecting the heroin into the back of his hand, where scar tissue has begun forming.
He seems almost proud when he says he can prepare the heroin, tie off his arm, shoot and clean up in under three minutes. He can do it in a public restroom stall.
Brian’s bright. He knows the risks. “Every single time you do it, you’re pretty much risking your life,” he said. “I know that’s a good possibility but, especially when I’m in the moment, I don’t believe that will ever happen to me.”
He’s seen what can happen up close and personal. He and his girlfriend were shooting in his car when she collapsed and turned blue. Unable to find her pulse, Brian rushed her to the hospital.
Emergency personnel revived her and sent her home. The next day, they used again.

“It’s insane,” Brian said. “That’s how powerful and controlling it is. One day you’re dying and the next day you’re using the same thing again.”
Unfortunately, Brian’s story isn’t unique. In fact, his age and living in suburbia make him typical of those who fall into heroin addiction. Heroin has become the next step for young people addicted to pain pills.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/10/heroin_addict_i_dont_even_care.html

Time and again, I’ve counseled a Client to choose a particular drug rehab in Georgia program because I favored its approach only to have the Client select an alternative. “It cost a lot less”, I would hear. Usually that was  because the program I referred them to was out of network.

When a client ignores  my advice I always ask the same question. Did you factor in the relapse rate of the program you’re sending your heroin addicted son or meth addicted daughter to? A period of silence always follows this question.

With many Georgia drug rehab programs, relapse rates run as high as 90%. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a really good program might have a relapse rate as low as 25%. At first blush, it looks like you can cost out the relative differences. Run a spreadsheet and determine when the cost of one program exceeds its relative benefit.

But tell me, what is the price of being freed from  drug addiction? If a program produces fractionally better results even at substantially higher costs, isn’t it worth paying the difference? After all, there are a number of expenses that one incurs with a failed attempt at rehabilitation: the cost of additional rehab, the lost income from being unemployed while in rehab, the social costs.

A few minutes ago, I  spoke with a nice Russian woman whose son is addicted to Methadone. When she discovered that her son had fallen prey to one of the worst addictions on the planet, she was crushed. She called me looking for rehab options. Her son is taking 100 mg a day and suffering badly on his methadone, yet he’s still craving street drugs. Dmitri works but his mother worries and rightly so that  that he won’t be able to hold his job for long.

These days methadone is commonly prescribed to treat addiction to heroin. Doctors like that it can be dispensed in their clinic once daily. But there’s a dark side to methadone. Georgia drug rehab program directors suggest that treating a heroin addiction with methadone is just  trading one drug addiction for another. In fact, it’s common for people who take methadone to kick an addiction to heroin to continue to use methadone for years after they’ve quit shooting heroin. Methadone is that addictive. To see just how addictive, read the stories from this article. http://www.heroinaddiction.com/heroin_methadone.html.

Anyway, I called several programs to see what I could do for the guy. Most offered no help. They would take him. The few programs that would, offered little hope for his recovery.  Eventually, I found a program. It costs a small fortune. But he has a 65% chance of beating addiction at the program forever, a far better chance than he was offered at his other options.

Dmitri’s mother will spend about $7,000 more for the program compared to others she could have selected. The economics clearly favor spending the extra money. The old adage that you get what you pay for is not entirely true with rehab. Some types of programs are more effective than others. But when you find the right program, money should be the last of your concerns, particularly with a horrible drug like methadone whose long term effects include loss of sex drive, nausea, vomiting, tooth decay, sore muscles and joints and abdominal pain among others.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

I jumped out of my Volvo, ran over the woman and asked if she needed help. “He’s my son,” she yelled. “And he’s high on heroin!” The words slithered from her lips with contempt.

I pivoted rapidly facing the young man. I looked him squarely in his eye.  “Son, are you high on heroin?” I asked. “No man, I just smoked some pot,” he answered. I could tell he was lying. The young man was disoriented; his words slurred; his pupils were constricted. “Look buddy. When I was your age a lot of my friends smoked pot. I know what being high on marijuana looks like. And it doesn’t look like what you look like”, I told him.

I moved in closer to him so he could speak without his mother hearing what he was telling me. That’s when he revealed that he had injected a potent combination of heroin and speed, which addicts call speedballs.  His body rocked like a buoy on a choppy bay water. He couldn’t stop moving. Or talking.

The kid’s mom had given him a few bucks to buy the family a pizza for dinner. He spent the money on drugs instead.  Heroin in Georgia is remarkably cheap, readily available, easy to obtain. A single dose can cost as little as $10 on the street and even a hard core addict can support his addiction working a menial job or stealing a little here and there.

When I was this young man’s age, heroin addicts were young, African American and living in the slums. Today a typical heroin addict is still young, but he’s white and from a middle class family.

Heroin addicts crowd Georgia drug rehab facilities and prisons. For many, their addiction to heroin began with prescription pills.
Percosets, hydrocodone, Oxycontin.  Taking pills is more socially accepted than injecting drugs into your veins.  But pills have become harder to obtain and more expensive with the recent crackdown by states and local governments on doctors who overprescribe pain medication and on their “pill mills”.

In reaction to the spiraling cost, opiate addicts turn to heroin. “China White”, “Mexican Brown”, “Black Tar”.

Heroin can be snorted or smoked, but addicts prefer to shoot or as they call it mainline the drug. The rush is faster, the high more intense. Heroin, which is derived from morphine, quickly creates a physical dependence. And as the dependence grows so does the amount an
addict will consume. Heroin creates such an intense physical dependence that addicts will do whatever they need to obtain enough drugs to maintain their addiction. Men will steal; women will sell their bodies. All will sell their souls.

To beat a long term addiction to heroin requires a long term, in patient drug rehab program. The most effective of these Georgia drug rehab programs focus on detoxification. Cleansing the body of accumulations of drug residues which lodge in the fatty tissues is essential to beating the relapse cycle.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Times have changed. A friend of mine’s son journeyed to Europe last Summer after graduating from college. Ronnie and his friends flew to Holland, lodged in a youth hostel and spent two dissipated days having sex with prostitutes and getting stoned in “coffee shops”. Both are legal in Holland, though as the author below comments the Dutch authorities have just passed a law to ban “hardcore” marijuana.

The Netherlands’ drug policy has been lauded by liberals, libertarians and libertines alike. “Most policymakers in the Netherlands believe that if a problem has proved to be unsolvable, it is better to try controlling it and reducing harm instead of continuing to enforce laws with mixed results. By contrast, most other countries take the point of view that recreational drug use is detrimental to society and must therefore be outlawed.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands

Long ago, Dutch authorities responded to the rising abuse of marijuana and legalized it, to an extent, licensing “coffee shops” to sell it over the counter to locals and to the hordes of tourist who now visit the Netherlands to get high. For years, patrons in these establishments have been able to sip their coffee while smoking a little white willow, super skunk or silver haze, some of the many varieties of marijuana available in Dutch coffee shops.

The problem for Dutch authorities is that marijuana growers discovered how to produce ever more potent marijuana. Today’s Dutch pot contains fours times as much of the psychoactive ingredient, THC, as it did in the 1970’s. So in August of this year, Danish authorities concerned by the threat to public health responded by banning the sale of hard core marijuana.

Advocates of legalization of drugs often argue that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. The argument resonates among many former users who believe its only pernicious side effect was getting the munchies. But if marijuana was relatively harmless then, it is not today. The cannot be said that people don’t feel is addictive. And that’s because people remember pot as it used to be, not as it is today. The percentage of THC in Dutch pot now runs almost 18%. The percentage in pot smoked in the United States is over 10% and growing.

Georgia drug rehab programs have yet to see an influx of pot addicts. Just wait. If the marijuana grown or coming in to the United States continues to become more potent, we will face a public health crisis on the order of what the Dutch are experiencing. I hope that day never comes, but I expect it will all too soon and we who work in drug rehab in Georgia must be prepared.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

AMSTERDAM – The Dutch government said Friday it would move to classify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country’s ongoing reversal of its famed tolerance policies.

The decision means most of the cannabis now sold in the Netherlands’ weed cafes would have to be replaced by milder variants. But skeptics said the move would be difficult to enforce, and that it could simply lead many users to smoke more of the less potent weed.

Possession of marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but police do not prosecute people for possession of small amounts, and it is
sold openly in designated cafes. Growers are routinely prosecuted if caught. Economic Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said weed  containing more than 15 percent of its main active chemical, THC, is so much stronger than what was common a generation ago that it should be considered a different drug entirely.

The high potency weed has “played a role in increasing public health damage,” he said at a press conference in The Hague.

The Trimbos Institute says the average amount of THC in Dutch marijuana is currently around 17.8 percent. It has been declining since
2004 after increasing steadily from 4 percent or so in the 1970s.

By comparison, in the United States the average level of THC in marijuana is around 10 percent and rising, according to the last measure
released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2009.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44816915

Sure young people still smoke pot. Which is bad enough. Today’s marijuana contains significantly more THC, the psychoactive ingredient, than did the marijuana you used to smoke.  Increasingly, however, kids are abusing opiates like Oxycontin, Percoset and Hydrocodone. And if they can’t get prescription painkillers, they shoot heroin which is cheap, plentiful and easy to find.

Here’s the difference your kids might not get. Smoking marijuana gave you the munchies; shooting heroin will give them irresistible cravings. A bag of Kristy Kreme donuts could satisfy your munchies. Nothing satisfies heroin’s unrelenting  cravings. Only more heroin will. It’s a vicious cycle.

Last night I was face to face with the face of heroin.  I was on the phone with my friend Christina as I drove into the parking lot of my neighborhood grocery store. We were jabbering away.  At first,  I was oblivious to thealtercation taking place a few feet in front of the hood of my Volvo. A couple argued. He paced back and forth ranting at her; she screamed back.  I thought it was a quarrel among lovers.

When things escalated, I jumped out of my car and barged into the fracas. “Can I help you miss?” I asked.  “My son is high on heroin!”, she fumed. I looked into the eyes of the young man who was reeling in front of me. His pupils were obsidian pinpricks. He was stoned out
of his mind.

Between recriminations which flew back and forth between mother and son, I pieced the story together. On his way from picking up pizza for the family, Jonathan had detoured to downtown Atlanta to meet his drug dealer. “I do speedballs”, he admitted. He scored a dose of heroin and cocaine, shot up and then drove to Dominos for a large pepperoni pizza.

“And he just got out of a stabilization program a couple of days ago”, his mother griped. Her words seared like acid. She was disgusted with Jonathan. And Jonathan was disgusted with her. And with himself as well, as I soon discovered.

I spoke to Jonathan a few days later. As it turns out, he’s a talented guitarist, still bright when he’s sober, well educated. But Jonathan’s a heroin addict, and Janet is on the verge of kicking him out, disowning him for good. “He’s killing himself and he knows it, she said, as if she were berating me. “He’s been to drug rehab in Georgia program three times already and so many “stabilization” programs that I’ve lost count.”

Jonathan relapsed after every attempt at drug rehab. Which has left Janet sad but also bitter, upset , distrusting and, worse yet, skeptical that anything can be done to cure his addiction. After all, Jonathan’s been to every program imaginable and relapsed.

I know of only one type of drug rehab program that can wrest an addict out of the vicious grip of addiction. Biophysical drug rehab. A biophysical drug rehab facility treats physical dependence first by detoxifying the body of residues of drug metabolites , the byproducts of metabolism, which the body stores in its fatty tissues. Drug residues cause cravings and relapse. Rid these residues from an addict’s body, and you eliminate their drug cravings or at least greatly reduce them.

Once the body is detoxified, the mind clears and an addict is ready to address the mental and emotional issues which have led to his or her addiction to heroin.  Without a thorough detoxification, an addict does not feel good enough to confront his “issues” and doesn’t think clearly enough yet to be able to resolve them.

The one problem with biophysical drug rehab in Georgia is that only one program exist. Which means you better get your kid to get it before he or she gets hooked.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

But this year drug abuse surpassed automobile accidents on the list of doom and dread. Drug abuse now kills more Americans than traffic accidents. Each year tens of thousands of people lose their lives to this scourge. If war is hell, then drug abuse must be Dante’s Inferno.

 The grim statistics owe to the nature of the drugs abused these days. They are not your grandfather’s marijuana. Prescription drugs, crack cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin grip their users in morbid addiction. The relapse rate from drug rehab in Georgia programs, for example, is extraordinary. It runs as high as 95%.

 We are losing the war on drugs for two reasons. First, we are not educating are youth properly about drugs. And secondly, the drug rehab programs extant use unproven and unworkable methods to treat drug addiction. One can fairly conclude by the reported statistics alone that we are fighting this war poorly.

Yesterday the mother of a 23 old called me. Her son has been to drug rehab three times. He’s relapse every time. Her insurance policy will not pay for a fourth visit. Her son feels worthless, his life hopeless. He’s threatening suicide. She’s desperate for help. And there is too little help to offer her.

The heroin he shoots into his withering veins twice a day is killing him. But as statistics go, he probably won’t die. Instead life will slowly leak out of his body. He will die much younger than he would have otherwise. And his life will be a series of consistently lower lows, his spirit drained, his body ravaged, his family ties broken.

Though it is still limited, effective drug rehab in Georgia exists and continues to grow particularly in biophysical programs. That’s the good news on the war on drugs.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Drugs killed more Americans than traffic accidents in 2009, the Los Angeles Times reports. 37,485 fatalities were attributed to overdoses, compared with 36,284 automobile deaths.

According to the Times’ analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control, the numbers can largely be blamed on climbing prescription-drug abuse, including OxyContin, Vicodin, and Xanax. And while preventable deaths have been decreasing rapidly in the U.S., drug fatalities have increased because of the availability of these pills, which kill more people than heroin and cocaine combined. From the LAT:

In some ways, prescription drugs are more dangerous than illicit ones because users don’t have their guard up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Opferman, head of a county task force on prescription drug-related crimes. “People feel they are safer with prescription drugs because you get them from a pharmacy and they are prescribed by a doctor,” Opferman said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/people-die-drug-overdose-traffic-accidents-2011-9