Posted by azdrugrehabctr on October 22, 2016 under Addiction Trends, Opiate Abuse, Prescription Drugs | 
In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers in the Division of Rheumatic and Autoimmune Diseases at the University of Minnesota have found that patients with lower back pain are more likely to have a prescription for painkillers as well as use drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. While additional studies have to be conducted to find out more about the connection, this information may be a first step in developing more effective prevention tools for future prescription painkiller abuse.
The researchers compared questionnaires filled out by patients with chronic lower back pain and people without back problems. Volunteers were asked to answer questions regarding the frequency in which they used marijuana, heroin, prescription painkillers, cocaine and methamphetamine. It was found that 22.5% of adults with chronic lower back pain used prescription painkiller regularly compared to 15% of adults without the pain. This in itself isn’t that surprising, though there may be other forms of treatment that would be much better suited, depending on the severity of the pain.
“Americans with chronic low back pain are more likely to use illicit drugs than the general population, particularly the ‘hard’ drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. There are several ways to interpret this relationship. It is possible that illicit drug use makes chronic pain more likely or leads individuals to seek a chronic pain diagnosis to obtain prescription narcotics,” explained Anna Shmagel, MD, MS, and lead author of the study. Shmagel also cautions that there could be a common underlying reason for prescription painkiller addicts and patients with lower back pain, like depression.
Opening up the research to include a more in depth look at if depression plays a role in prescription painkiller addiction is a relatively new avenue for researchers. In the past, the focus has mainly been on patients who have accidentally become addicted to painkillers. However, chronic pain has been shown to cause depression and illicit drugs have long been sought out by people looking to escape or fix their emotional problems.
As more and more research is conducted regarding prescription painkiller use and misuse it is becoming clear that preventing the reasons for taking the drugs in the first place is vital. This means that the medical profession is likely to come up with ways to improve chronic lower back pain treatment in addition to finding new methods to intervene before the back pain requires narcotic painkillers.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on January 8, 2016 under Addiction Trends, AZ Drug Rehab News |
For several decades public officials have been waging a war against drugs, drug users and drug dealers. When the war on drugs was proposed by Richard Nixon it was heralded as the ultimate solution to the problem that was wreaking havoc on the country. Anyone caught using drugs, selling drugs or possessing drug paraphernalia would be subjected to legal action. This hard line approach was thought to be the best way to deter people from getting started on drugs at that time. Punishing those who were already using drugs was also thought to be the most beneficial. However, as time has passed, it has become very evident that punishment and scare tactics are not as effective as once was thought.
In fact, countries all over the world have begun to take a different approach to the drug abuse problem, and even the United States has come around to see that help is better than punishment. The United States, Canada and several European countries have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, and sometimes even recreational purposes. Some people hope that by decriminalizing marijuana, the focus can be shifted to helping those who have serious drug problems, whether they are addicted to marijuana, heroin, alcohol cocaine, methamphetamine or other substances. Funneling resources that were once reserved to catching and prosecuting marijuana offenders into programs that are designed to help addicts get treatment may be more successful than prosecuting individuals.
Another significant change that is occurring throughout the world regarding the drug problem is that the United Nations is getting more involved. The UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs is expected to convene in the Spring. In 1998 the world political agency met and decided on universal policy that mirrored the United State’s War on Drugs. Now, in 2016, it is believed that much of the talks will be geared towards helping individuals and shaping policy that is designed to assist in treatment and recovery, rather than punishment.
Public understanding has also changed throughout the years. As more and more people become affected by drug use, either personally or through a loved one, it is becoming clear that more help is needed. When the War on Drugs began, many of its supporters were not dealing directly with drug use. Addiction appeared to be more of an inner city problem. Now that drug use has pervaded much of the country, more people are beginning to speak out against ineffective policies.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on July 22, 2015 under Addiction Trends, AZ Drug Rehab News |
Despite the fact that a handful of states have approved marijuana for recreational use, youth perception of the drug has decreased overall. A recent study was published in the The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse looked at marijuana use statistics and youth attitudes about the drug.
According to the report, about 75% of adolescents aged 12-14 reported strong disapproval of the drug. There was also a 6 percent drop in usage for that age range. Meanwhile, teenagers aged 15-17 showed a decline in usage from 26% to 22%.
Our nation currently faces some interesting developments in the realm of substance abuse and treatment. On one hand there are more states voting to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults and regulate its sale. On the other, there are more people gaining access to treatment and drug courts and other treatment-oriented diversion programs are being used.
While some people get caught up in the debate over which drugs are worse, we choose to instead discourage people from seeking an escape through addiction and are advocates of treatment, intervention and prevention programs that work.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on June 19, 2015 under Addiction Trends, AZ Drug Rehab News |
A new report in Clinical Pediatrics shows that children under the age of five are being exposed to marijuana more than ever, with an increase of 147.5% from 2006 to 2013. There was an increase of 610% in states that had legalized medical marijuana before the year 2000.
According to the study, in states that have recently legalized marijuana, young children have an even higher rate of exposure than where it is not. Children under 6 years of age are exposed to marijuana 63% more than in states where it is still illegal. Perhaps even more alarming is the amount of children who are actually ingesting the drug. Researchers found that while most children were indirectly exposed to the drug, but it has been reported that many children actually ingest the drug. This is often because of the growing market of marijuana edibles.
“The high percentage of ingestions may be related to the popularity of marijuana brownies, cookies and other foods. Very young children explore their environment by putting items in their mouths, and foods such as brownies and cookies are attractive,” explained Henry Spiller, the co-author of the study.
A common argument for the legalization of marijuana is that the substance is not as dangerous as some other substances. However, the increase in exposure for young children may not have been predicted, and the harm done to developing brains hasn’t fully been understood yet. For people against legalizing marijuana, these represent valid enough arguments in themselves.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on February 26, 2015 under Addiction Trends, AZ Drug Rehab News |
People often crave all sorts of foods and snacks after they have smoked marijuana. Scientists have recently looked into this phenomenon to find out why the brain gets affected in this way. Since marijuana is becoming legal in some states and has started to achieve broader acceptance, it is vital that more research is conducted on the drug and how it reacts with the body and what the long-term effects of using marijuana are.
Researchers from Yale University noticed that when people consumed marijuana an interesting thing occurred in the brain. There are neurons that are responsible for telling the body to stop eating. This prevents people from overeating and maintaining a healthier lifestyle. However, when marijuana enters the body the neurons change their job function. Instead of telling the body to stop eating, they tell the body to continue eating.
“It fools the brain’s central feeding system. We were surprised to find that the neurons we thought were responsible for shutting down eating were suddenly being activated and promoting hunger, even when you are full,” explained Tamas Horvath, the lead author on the study.
While this research may not be groundbreaking, it does highlight that the drug has a significant influence over brain chemistry. Altering the job of neurons is a powerful task, and marijuana seems to do it with ease. Many in the science community are calling for more research on the drug to understand all the implications of its use.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on January 28, 2015 under Uncategorized |
The federal government may still see pot as an illegal substance, but the people selling it still have to pay their taxes in those states that have passed legislation approving the sale of the drug.
Owners of recreational marijuana operations in states like Colorado and Washington are learning some hard lessons while preparing to file their first federal tax returns. The main one being that usual business deductions under section 280E are not being allowed for the business owners designated as potrepreneurs. The cost of selling marijuana is not deductible under the federal tax code, but not the cost of growing marijuana is deductible.
Business owners, CPAs, and tax attorneys in the marijuana industry gathered in San Diego at a marijuana tax symposium put on by the National Cannabis Industry Association to find ways to file the business tax returns for those legally selling marijuana for medical and recreational use.
“Labor for rolling joints is deductible,” said Denver CPA Jim Marty of Bridge West, but he said that retail rent, labor and advertising are not deductible. He added that the IRS differentiates between the two because, “They just are making it up.”
Marty admits that pretax profits in the legal pot industry are very good, but he added that without deductions for retail expenses business owners are, at best, put in the 60-70 percent tax bracket. The worst case scenario on retail pot business owners’ tax bracket is that it can actually exceed 100 percent.
Henry Wykowski, a former federal prosecutor, is now an attorney for the marijuana industry in California. He has gone to court twice against the federal government regarding the tax code. His efforts resulted in some legal workarounds for not being able to take advantage of the usual deductions. Wykowski says that if businesses in the legal marijuana industry do not handle deductions properly, “There’s no way you can make enough money to remain in business.”
As legal pot businesses are trying to figure out how to pay taxes to the federal government, others are estimating just how much the IRS has to gain from this newly formed business sector. Personal finance site NerdWallet took numbers from the United States census and other research to estimate how much money that would be collected by the government if pot was legalized nationally. NerdWallet estimates that the government could collect more than $3 billion in taxes annually. In California, where voters may decide to legalize all pot use in 2016, the federal government could collect over $500 million each year.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on January 13, 2015 under AZ Drug Rehab News |
Border Patrol Agents working near the state line in Arizona were busy in 2014. The law enforcement agents spent their days policing the border and ensuring that illegal drugs like marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine did not get into the country. Public officials have known for a long time that most of the drugs consumed in the U.S. originate in Mexico and other South American countries and have set up agents all along U.S. borders to prevent as much drugs from getting into the hands of U.S. citizens as possible. By the end of the year, the border control agents had seized more drugs at the Arizona state line than in any other year prior.
Marijuana is one of the most popular drugs that the drug cartels attempt to smuggle into the country. In 2014 border patrol was ready, and seized more than 2,183 pounds of marijuana. When officials divided the pot up in dosages (the amount an average user would consume) it was found that the marijuana that was seized equaled almost one million dosages.
“I think it’s important to note how many dosages this involves. When you see how many doses, you get an idea of how many people would have been using these drugs,” explained Randy Moffit, a lieutenant in Arizona. While it is unclear how much marijuana actually made it into the country, officials can say that the amount of weed that was seized this year added up to a street value of almost $4 million dollars. Agents were pleased to announce that they seized more than twice the amount that was intercepted in 2013.
In addition to marijuana, agents seized heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. In Arizona alone, fourteen pounds of heroin was taken before it could hit the streets and be dispersed to other states in the country. In the past, methamphetamine was manufactured in the United States, however 2014 saw much of the drug being made in Mexico and smuggled into the U.S. Agents were able to prevent 177 pounds of the drug from making it to users, this is more than four times the amount that was seized in 2013.
Preventing illegal drugs from coming into the country is a vital part of Arizona border patrol agents jobs, and in 2014 they managed to exceed almost all numbers from the previous year.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on October 28, 2014 under Addiction Trends |
Despite the belief of some people that marijuana is harmless and that more states should legalize the drug, studies are showing that marijuana really does have many negative effects. One major discovery of marijuana abuse among teenagers is the large number of teens who drop out of high school.
A recent study shows that teenagers who smoke marijuana on regular basis are 60% less likely to finish high school. Additionally, young people who abuse marijuana regularly are 60% less likely to finish college. The suicide rate for youths who abuse marijuana is higher as well, as teens who smoke weed are reportedly seven times more likely to attempt suicide than those who do not abuse marijuana. Also, despite some assertion that marijuana is not a gateway drug, this study shows that regular users of marijuana are eight times more likely to use other, harder drugs.
The research looks into three multi-year studies that were conducted on teenagers in New Zealand and Australia. Researchers used the data because it provided them a large pool of people and therefore made the results more accurate. They were confident with stating the negative correlation between marijuana use and all negative outcomes of a teenager’s life because of the overwhelming information gathered from the studies.
These studies, among others that have been conducted, are proving to many people in government that protecting children from marijuana is vital, especially now that many states are entertaining the legalization of the drug. Studies like this show that although some people may think that marijuana is safe, no one really knows how it affects growing, developing brains and the decisions that children make. Currently there are several studies in the works to investigate teen marijuana abuse, addiction and the effects of marijuana on teen’s bodies and lives.
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on September 24, 2014 under AZ Drug Rehab News |
In August, $1.6 million worth of drugs were seized within just a week at the Arizona-Mexico border. Law enforcement recently stepped up their drug-searching methods, a move which has been paying off handsomely. Once the drugs were seized, the suspects were turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations for further questioning. Drug-sniffing dogs were paramount to the cause.
In one seizure of many this week, officers working with drug dogs searched a woman’s car shortly after attempting to cross over from Mexico. They found 20 packages of marijuana under her floor weighing nearly 139 pounds. The drugs had a street value of $69,000.
During another incident, officers arrested an elderly man attempting to smuggle in 14 pounds of methamphetamine. After officers took a closer look at the vehicle where drug dogs had indicated, they found the meth, which had been hidden in a secret compartment between the two front seats. Later that day at the same checkpoint, officers found 22 pounds of cocaine hidden behind another vehicle’s airbag.
During a single week, seizures at the border added up to around $1.6 million. For border control, the battle against drug smuggling is a constant game of cat and mouse. Drug traffickers are always looking for different ways to smuggle the drugs into the country and border control is challenged to stay one step ahead if they want to succeed in controlling the border.
At the end of the week, officers had confiscated drugs hidden in several different places: above a vehicle’s front fender, hidden compartments between seats and behind airbags, inside car seats, inside a vehicle’s doors, under the floor of a vehicle, in suitcases, under a truck bed, and in the crotch area of a woman’s pants.
With the high demand for drugs in our country, it is unlikely that drug smugglers will stop trying to get drugs into our country anytime soon. If we, as a nation, can get to the root of the problem and lower the demand for drugs, perhaps we can make more headway in the fight for the border.
