Oregon Parents Concerned About K2

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Addiction on August 27th, 2010

A feature on StatesmanJournal.com shares concerns from parents in the Mid-Willamette Valley area regarding what is officially termed as ‘herbal incense’ that contains, as an active ingredient, a synthetic cannabinoid. Brand names of this herbal incense include K2, Spice and Buzz.

K2What parents are concerned about is the fact that Mid-Valley teens seem to have taken to using herbal incense to get high. Since, technically, the incense is not marijuana, it is legal and is being sold at smoke shops. The fact that it is legal also means that police cannot do anything if they see someone using it. Salem Police Sgt. Dennis Engel shared: “There’s absolutely nothing that we can do about it… That’s the hard part.”

Sgt. Engel has been doing research about herbal incense after hearing about it recently. Engel is the head of the street crimes drug investigation unit of the Salem police.

Some teenagers who have used herbal incense have reportedly suffered from harmful side effects due to the substance, so much so that the parents of these teens are now calling for the banning of K2. Some states have already banned the substance, including Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Ohio.

The Oregon Partnership shared that the compound JWH-018, which is the one found in herbal incense, is said to be almost four times as potent as the THC in marijuana. The Oregon Partnership is a non-profit organization that strives to put an end to substance abuse and suicide. The organization has also called for the banning of K2 in the state.

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Lindsay Lohan Leaves Rehab!

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Addiction, Drug Rehabilitation, Drug Testing on August 26th, 2010

Lindsay Lohan has been released from rehab, according to a post on the Los Angeles Times. The actress was originally ordered to spend ninety days in rehab, but has been released from the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after staying for only 22 days. Prior to her stay in rehab, Lohan served 13 days out of a ninety-day jail sentence.

Lindsay LohanMs. Lohan’s release from rehab, however, is accompanied by conditions released by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox. Fox ordered that Lindsay undergo intensive outpatient therapy for the next three months, which will include regular counseling and the need to stay in Los Angeles County. She will also be under supervised probation during this time.

The actress will have to comply with the following conditions: that she remain in Los Angeles Country for the duration of the supervised probation, that she undergo random drug testing twice a week, that she undergo psychotherapy four times a week and meet with counselors five times a week. Should Lindsay fail or miss a drug test, it will mean jail time for 30 days.

Lindsay’s lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley shared the following update with reporters after the hearing on Wednesday, where Judge Fox clarified the terms of the actress’ probation: “She has changed… She’s healthy, she’s clear-headed, she’s positive.”

Holley said further that her client’s early release was based on the fact that doctors concluded that there was no further need for Lindsay to stay in the facility: “They started their own fresh evaluation, put her through their own testing and recognized that there was no need for her to be there any longer.”

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Montana Makes Effort to Prevent Prescription Drug Abuse

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Prevention, Prescription Drug Abuse on August 25th, 2010

In a previous post, we talked about the efforts to prevent prescription drug abuse, being done by Suffolk County in New York. In this post, we share the efforts of the state of Montana, currently ranked as third highest in the country in terms of teen abuse of prescription pain relievers, according to a feature on KRTV.com.

prescription drug abuseThe feature also shared that a new report indicated that 10 percent of the state’s teenagers have abused prescription medication in the past month, and mentioned that Montana is among the remaining seven states that still does not have a prescription drug registry or monitoring program.

Now, the state Attorney General’s office is sharing its efforts towards managing the state’s teen prescription drug abuse problem. After failing to secure the approval of the Montana Legislature for a prescription drug monitoring program twice, the feature said that the bill has been revamped and will be brought forward in the Legislature’s next session.

Siri Similie of the Attorney General’s office shared: “What they see on the street and what they are able to buy from drug dealers are pills. That is the most common drug they see and we also know that we are losing hundreds of Montanans every year to prescription drug overdose, mixed toxicity, and other complications that are side effects of misuse and abuse.”

Montana has also begun to organize prescription drug collection days, where residents are given the opportunity to dispose of prescription drugs in their homes properly. This is yet another way to prevent teenagers from gaining easy access to prescription drugs that may be abused. The next prescription drug collection day is scheduled for September 25.

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What People Do to Beat Drug Tests

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Testing on August 24th, 2010

A follow-up article on The Wall Street Journal talked about, among other things, what the Wall Streeters may have done to beat drug tests. In a previous post, we featured the findings of drug-testing firm Sterling Infosystems Inc., which revealed that cocaine use in Wall Street has gone down.

urine sampleDeal Journal talked to Sterling’s director of occupational health services, John Mallios. Among the things that Mallios discussed was how people tried to beat drug tests. Making these tactics known ought to make drug-testing companies, employers and other such stakeholders be more careful about conducting drug tests, ensuring that these things do not happen.

One option taken by some people who are asked to undergo urine drug testing is diluting their sample. Dilution reduces the concentration of drugs or drug metabolites in the sample, through the addition of fluid. In order to prevent this from happening, drug-testing facilities ask people to collect specimen in a room that does not have a sink, or where the toilet water is tinted.

Others choose to substitute their urine with another person’s urine, or with a synthetic sample. Some drug testing facilities frisk those who are testing to make sure that they are not carrying anything with them into the collection area. At any rate, apparently there are those who succeed in placing another person’s sample in their collection cup, or use such things as liquid or powdered synthetic urine.

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Suffolk County Announces “Operation Medicine Cabinet”

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Prescription Drug Abuse on August 23rd, 2010

In several previous posts, we have talked about the dangers of prescription drug abuse and how the home medicine cabinet can sometimes become the unwitting source of drugs abused by teens. An interesting program has been developed and is being implemented in Suffolk County, in an effort to prevent such a possibility from happening.

prescription medicine abuseA feature on the Bayport – Blue Point Patch shared details regarding Operation Medicine Cabinet, a police district-wide program that provides parents with a means to get rid of unwanted, unused or expired medicines in their homes. A first in the state of New York, the program is open to residents 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

County executive Steve Levy shared: “Health and law enforcement professionals know that prescription opiate abuse is leading our young ones down the path to heroin use… ‘Operation Medicine Cabinet’ is designed to attack this epidemic at its earliest stage by reducing the risk that meds are unwittingly available to children and others who could use them in an unintended manner.”

The program will place secure receptacles in each of the seven police precincts in Suffolk County, where residents can anonymously drop off medicines. While this program is in no way the first medicine drop-off – other municipalities have also organized one-time medicine drop off days – it is the first program that provides residents with a permanent, round-the-clock, medicine drop off facility.

In attendance during the program’s unveiling were Levy, Suffolk Legislator Steven Stern, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, Health Services Commissioner Dr. James Tomarken and Environment and Energy Commissioner Carrie Meek-Gallagher.

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Cocaine Use in Wall Street Going Down

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Addiction, Drug Testing on August 22nd, 2010

A post on The Wall Street Journal shared that cocaine use among investment professionals at Wall Street has gone down, although they seem to have replaced coke with marijuana and pills.

This does not mean, however, that Wall Street is a drug-infested profession; for the most part, according to the feature, Wall Street is relatively clean, with only 2 percent of the industry failing drug tests annually, according to drug-testing firm Sterling Infosystems Inc.

cocaineAdam Zoia, CEO of executive recruiting firm Glocap Search LLC, shared: “I think the incidence of hard drug use is lower today than it was 10 or 15 years ago… “The banks, in particular, are pretty persnickity on background checks.”

The thing, however, is that drug testing is usually only done among new employees, and random drug testing is rarely done on existing employees; this was revealed by someone described as “a spokesman for a bulge-bracket bank” who requested for anonymity.

That being said, psychologists and counselors say that drug abuse among existing Wall Street employees is not slowing down; if anything, it seems to be peaking, due in part to the credit crisis. Clinical Director William Heran shared that the 24-bed luxury rehab facility Seabrook House in Pennsylvania has catered to quite a number of patients who worked on Wall Street. Seabrook charges $24,000 for a three-month program.

Robert Curry, founder of Turning Point for Leaders, an intervention and rehab company based in Connecticut, shared: “Investment bankers — gunslingers, as we call them — are highly prone to addiction, and there’s a lot of denial among employers. The attitude is: ‘If they can’t fix themselves, then they’re going to have to live with it. We’re not going to put any time and effort into it.”

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