Most importantly, drugs used for non-medical reasons alter brain activity, and in a very short period of time will lead to dependence and addiction. So the earlier you get involved, the better.

The Canyon is here to assist adolescents in their recovery from every level of drug dependency, abuse and addiction. We offer inpatient residential treatment, outpatient treatment, weekend family therapy, even aftercare counseling to make sure your child has all the tools at their disposal to stay strong and stay clean for life.

Parents Should Know: The Prevalence of Prescription Drug Use and Abuse Among Teens

The most recent, all-inclusive drug survey reveals 15 percent of all high-school seniors have used prescription drugs within the past year for non-medical reasons. Hydrocodone (Vicodin) is the number one pharmaceutical drug of choice, which 9.5 percent of seniors report having used to get high.

The most commonly abused prescription drugs can be categorized as follows:

1. Opioids – morphine-like pain killers such as oxycodone (OxyContin), propoxyphene (Darvon), hydrocodone (Vicodin), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), and diphenoxylate (Lomotil)
2. Stimulants – prescribed to treat ADHD, obesity, and narcolepsy include methylphenidate (Ritalin) and dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine)
3. Central nervous system (CNS) depressants – alleviate anxiety and sleeplessness, usually prescribed as pentobarbital sodium (Nembutal), diazepam (Valium), and alprazolam (Xanax)

Parents Should Know: The Common Names for Prescription Drugs

Awareness of prescription drug lingo can help clue you in to what “beans,” “candy,” or “peanuts” your teen might be using. “Dollies” refer to methadone, a synthetic opioid similar to heroin. “Miss Emma” is another name for morphine, and “school boy” is a code for codeine.

Uppers or “pep pills” are general terms for stimulants, as are:

• Black beauties
• Black hollies
• Bennies as in benzedrine
• Hearts
• Peaches
• Des or Dexies, short for dexadrine.

Downers, ludes, barbs, and “drunk pills” are general terms for tranquilizers and depressants. Others include:

• Blues or V’s ( Valium)
• Blue devils
• Pinks
• Rainbows
• Reds or red devils
• Yellow jackets
• Goofballs

Additionally, any combination of uppers and downers is, with good reason, referred to as a “set up.”

Parents Should Know: The Effects of Prescription Drug Abuse

Using opioids or CNS depressants more than once easily becomes addictive, whereas stimulants lead to compulsive use, dangerously elevated body temperature, and irregular heartbeat.

Erratic schoolwork, friendships, and loss of interest in extracurricular activities are almost certain signs of drug abuse. Paranoia, aggressive or apathetic responses, changes in grooming habits or weight can signal a full-blown addiction, which can eventually lead to overdose, respiratory depression, and death if no one intervenes to stop the destructive cycle.

Parents Should Know: When and How Drug Abuse Starts and Progresses

Research reveals some children are abusing drugs by the age of 12, starting with tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, inhalants, and prescription drugs then progressing into deeper involvement by the time they reach adolescence. Most of these children tend to have an abusive, violent, or otherwise unstable family life. Race, gender, and surroundings also have a significant impact on when and how children become involved with drugs.

Parents Should Know: Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment is Available at The Canyon

The Canyon staff recognizes the importance and need of family involvement (whenever possible) in an individual’s recovery process. We provide education about the impact of addictive behavior on the family as well as the challenges that arise for the family when a client begins the recovery process.

We treat both the emotional and psychiatric disorders that may trigger addiction as well as the addiction itself with an innovative treatment program that integrates education, therapeutic support, gentle meditative exercise, group support, and a healthy lifestyle.

If you think this approach is something you and your teen could benefit from, or if you just have questions or concerns, call us anytime at for a confidential assessment.

“This is one of the greatest drug threats we have ever faced,” Michele Leonhart, who heads the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told reporters as the study was released.

An estimated 7 million Americans abuse pharmaceutical drugs. Prescription drugs account for about 75 percent of all drug-related U.S. overdose deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And three of every four deaths from pills involve opioid pain relievers including oxycodone.

With data showing the home medicine cabinet to be a prime source, law authorities around the country face a daunting public education challenge to persuade legal drug users to dispose of medication properly before it can fall into the wrong hands.

But the epidemic has also begun to take on the characteristics of hard-core narcotics trafficking as prescription drug abusers become addicted and require a ready supply of pills.

U.S. agencies including the CDC, DEA and the Food and Drug Administration are working to educate the public, doctors and pharmacies about the epidemic.

The administration is also working on new regulations to make it easier for people and institutions to dispose of unused prescription drugs under legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama in October 2010.

Gil Kerlikowske, head of the White House campaign against drug abuse, said a national media campaign could convey the message that prescription drugs can be deadly when misused. But a program devoted to media outreach, which originated under President Bill Clinton, is no longer being funded by Congress.

“The president has requested $20 million for a media campaign that had been run successfully from this office,” Kerlikowske said. “Unfortunately, last year, Congress did not fund it.”

In the meantime, the criminal threat posed by illicit pill mills and dealers – who can include doctors and pharmacists – has begun to spread across the United States.

FLORIDA THE EPICENTER

Up to now, law enforcement officials have seen Florida as the epicenter for illicit activity. But Leonhart said that with a crackdown in that state, the problem has spread to Georgia, Ohio, Texas and California.

Violence has also begun to spread, including attacks on pharmacies and other healthcare organizations by criminals looking to steal pills that retail for as much as $80 apiece.

The crackdown in Florida has, in part, targeted distributors and pharmacies. The DEA is due to begin an administrative hearing on Wednesday in the case of two CVS Caremark Corp. stores suspected of selling the painkiller oxycodone outside legitimate channels.

The new study shows that 55 percent of prescription pain killer abusers got drugs from a family or friends for free, while 11 percent bought them from the same sources and 5 percent took them without asking. Reliance on friends and relatives is highest among new and occasional abusers.

About 25 percent of those who rank as chronic abusers of pain relievers get their drugs from doctors, while a slightly larger number buy them from dealers, over the Internet or from friends and relatives.

Among the chronic abusers, 41 percent still obtain pills for free or without asking from friends and relatives.

The data, based on the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was released ahead of DEA-sponsored public education events scheduled for Saturday at more than 5,000 collection sites under the banner, “National Take Back Day.”

written by.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-healthcare-drugs-idUSBRE83O04W20120425

Coming on the heels of cough medicine, hand sanitizer is the latest in a string of household products used to induce intoxication, and it has public health officials worried, as a few squirts of hand sanitizer could equal a couple of shots of hard liquor.

“This is a rapidly emerging trend,” Dr. Cyrus Rangan, medical toxicology consultant for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said in a news conference today.

About 2,600 cases have been reported in California since 2010, but it’s become a national problem.

“It’s not just localized to us,” Helen Arbogast, an injury prevention coordinator in the trauma program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told ABC News today. “Since 2009 we can see on YouTube it’s in all regions of the country. We see it in the South, in the Midwest, in the East.”

For more on this story, click here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/teens-getting-drunk-on-hand-san…

To watch full video click here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNFRK_4FGEw

Poisoning deaths among teenagers rose 91 percent between 2000 and 2009, primarily due to prescription drug abuse, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Prescription drug abuse appears to be replacing marijuana as a “gateway drug” that leads to the abuse of harder drugs, said Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention.

Overall, death rates from unintentional injuries of children and teenagers decreased by almost 30 percent between 2000 and 2009, in large part because of a 41 percent drop in motor vehicle deaths, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Drug poisoning deaths among teens could be reduced by appropriate prescribing, proper storage and disposal, discouraging sharing of medication, and state-based prescription drug monitoring programs, the CDC stated in a press release.

According to the agency, the percentage of poisoning deaths among teens ages 15 to 19 with prescription drugs as a contributing cause rose from 30 percent in 2000, to 57 percent in 2009.

An estimated 5 percent to 11 percent of teens have tried the choking game, the Los Angeles Times reports. Teens who play the game either choke each other, or use a noose to choke themselves. After a short time, they can pass out, which may lead to serious injury or even death from hanging or strangulation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which conducted the study.

The CDC reports at least 82 children between the ages of 6 and 19 are known to have died from the choking game. Because there is no reliable system for counting these deaths, the real number is likely higher.

The study, published in Pediatrics, found teens who played the choking game were more likely than those who did not to use drugs, to be sexually active, have poor mental health, and to have been exposed to violence. They also were more likely to be involved in gambling and to have poor nutrition.

It’s not entirely clear what people were most shocked by – the realization that kids abuse drugs and alcohol, that videos glorifying the use of drugs and alcohol appear on the Internet or simply the fact that this was done by local students.

The fact that kids abuse dangerous substances is definitely not new. Findings from the Monitoring the Future Study (2010) indicated that in the prior year alone, 1.8 million kids under the age of 18 reported using drugs for the first time – that’s almost 5,000 kids each day. In addition, 48 percent used illicit drugs. What’s more staggering is that these estimates do not include alcohol.

The existence of online media that promote drug and alcohol use is also not a recent phenomenon. Research conducted by our team at the Treatment Research Institute has catalogued hundreds of YouTube videos, chat rooms, social networking venues and other online sites that extol the virtues of drugs, provide information about how to use drugs “safely” and even teach kids how to manufacture and sell drugs.

Although most of us are aware of the influence that friends, peers, television and movies may have on our children’s perceptions of drug and alcohol use, many people are not aware of the incredible prevalence of pro-drug use propaganda and misinformation available on the Internet.

The fact that this happened in someone’s backyard may have been the thing that caught local attention, but the prevalence of these online drug threats are the issues – at the local level and nationally – that we should be most concerned about. Similar to strategies taken to safeguard our children against online predation, there are many ways to protect them from these pro-drug and alcohol use influences.

The Treatment Research Institute has developed a training program for parents that provides practical recommendations to help them defend their children from these online drug threats. Some of the most basic recommendations include:

• Setting limits on Internet use and availability depending on the age and maturity of the child. (These limits need to be discussed with the child – see below.)

• Monitoring your child’s Internet use and making use of commercially available parent controls. Placing the computer in a central area of your home can make this easier.
• Having a formal or informal contract with children about the proper use of the Internet and making clear the consequences for misuse. (Be sure to follow through with those consequences when misuse occurs.)
• Having children walk parents through the places they go online, and who they communicate with (their contacts).
• Discussing your house rules related to Internet use with the parents of the friends your child visits. Make sure that your child is not able to engage in unmonitored or inappropriate Internet use while at their friends’ homes.
• Remaining calm and having a plan as to what to do if you discover inappropriate use. (Keep in mind that children are naturally curious and there can be many reasons why they happen upon a particular website. Don’t overreact!)

Technology has made many things possible. While the Internet serves as an amazing tool that can greatly benefit our children, we must also be conscious of its potential dangers.

By David Festinger, PhD | April 17, 2012 | 1 Comment | Filed in Alcohol, Drugs, Parenting, Young Adults & Youth

A new survey finds U.S. teens think drinking and driving is riskier than texting and driving, despite research that indicates they can be equally dangerous.

The State Farm survey included 652 teens ages 14 to 17. Of the teens who intend to have or already have a driver’s license, 57 percent strongly agree that regularly drinking while driving eventually would be deadly, while 35 percent strongly agreed that if they regularly text and drive they will be killed someday.

Among teens with a driver’s license, 57 percent admitted to texting while driving, UPI reports.

The adolescents who said they did not text while driving were much more likely to report having frequent conversations with their parents about safe driving, the article notes.

Chris Mullen, Director of Technology Research at State Farm, said research indicates the  consequences of texting while driving can be as dangerous as drunk driving.

Teens who refrained from texting while driving were much more likely to report having frequent talks with their parents about safe driving. Once teenagers receive their license, there is a sharp dropoff in conversations between parents and teens about driving, the survey shows.

“The conversation should not end when teens get their license,” Mullen said in a news release. “Through this survey and other teen driver research, we know that ongoing parental involvement in the learning process is key to keeping teen drivers safe behind the wheel.”

The results of the survey are virtually unchanged from a similar survey conducted in 2010.

This was a rush process for the Legislature. But it’s too slow to keep up with the danger of this ever-changing class of drugs. They’re marketed as “legal highs,” and the state needs a rapid-response system to make these new concoctions illegal as soon as possible.

The label does make a difference. When a product is legally available, and easily accessible, casual users and especially young people assume there’s little danger in using it.

The reality is frighteningly different. Bath salts, marked “not for human consumption” to avoid tangling with the Food and Drug Administration, were sold legally at stores and online. The effects include convulsions, paranoia, hallucinations and violence.

One New Orleans doctor, reported the American Medical Association in its online publication, saw frightening and permanent changes in patients: “They would take a hit and never come back. The drugs would change something mentally” in them.

The experience in other states shows the advantage of being able to move swiftly.

Louisiana’s governor and Florida’s attorney general took emergency action in January 2011 to ban the chemicals used in bath salts. In both states, there was a drop in emergency-room visits caused by the drug.

A bill in the Legislature would let Arizona react quickly to the next dangerous “legal high.” Under Senate Bill 1073, the state Board of Pharmacy could use its rule-making process to add a drug to the list of controlled substances.

The board would have to consider seven factors, including the pharmacological effects, the potential for abuse, the risk to public health and the potential for becoming drug dependent. The board would also have to consult with the Department of Public Safety and couldn’t adopt rules related to alcohol or tobacco.

The Legislature would retain the ultimate authority to regulate controlled substances, since it could always pass a bill removing a drug from the list.

Arizona wouldn’t break new ground in allowing a regulatory board to make dangerous drugs illegal. The Alabama Board of Health and the Oregon Board of Pharmacy both have such power.

Unfortunately, drug peddlers will continue to cook up new dangerous and highly addictive mixtures. The ghastly designer drug Krokodil, popular in Russia, turns skin green and eats away flesh down to the bone.

We can’t afford delays.

SB 1073 would speed up Arizona’s ability to turn “legal” into “illegal.” We need this rapid-response legislation

•  A father who falls asleep on the couch after having several drinks three or four days a week, thereby missing out on time with his kids and wife.
• A sales executive who likes to “sip” scotch on the rocks from the time he finishes his dinner to the time he goes to bed.
• A college student who repeatedly has trouble making it to class because he was drunk the night before.
• A mother who looks forward to her daily double glass of wine to help her get through the day.
• An assisted living resident who finds that two or three brandies every day helps to relieve her boredom.

What do all of the above people have in common? They are almost alcoholics. And there are many more “almost alcoholics” like them than there are true alcoholics in the world.

A New Look at an Old Problem

For many years, health care professionals have been accustomed to thinking about drinking in terms of just two diagnostic categories: alcohol abuse, and alcohol dependence. In order to qualify for one of these diagnoses, an individual has to suffer some fairly severe and obvious consequences directly related to drinking: a major health crisis, an arrest, loss of a job, etc. To be diagnosed as alcohol dependent, a person also has to experience physical symptoms of withdrawal if he or she stops drinking. Meanwhile, men and women whose drinking is not severe enough to qualify for one of these two diagnoses have essentially been considered “normal.” A major limitation of this approach to diagnosis is that it fails to address the very real problems caused by drinking that doesn’t rise to the level needed for a diagnosis.

As it works on the first major revision of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 15 years, the American Psychiatric Association is contemplating moving from categorical thinking like the above with respect to a number of diagnoses. In its place, they are considering viewing a number of diagnoses in terms of a spectrum. This is where the concept of almost alcoholic fits in — and it may apply to you or someone you love.

Could You (or a Loved One) Be an Almost Alcoholic?

Rather than thinking in terms of just three categories (normal, alcohol abuse, alcoholism), it is probably more productive to look at drinking in terms of a spectrum like that depicted below:

This illustration more accurately reflects the real “drinking world.” What it suggests is that an individual’s drinking can range anywhere from normal social drinking at one end of the spectrum, to almost alcoholic in the mid-range, to alcohol abuse or dependence. Moreover, these different areas are not separated by sharp lines; rather, they blend into one another. Of the three “problem” zones, the almost alcoholic zone is by far the largest.

Normal social drinking is the person who has a beer or two, or a glass of wine or two, not more than a few times a month, and almost always in a social context. This is the man or woman who meets friends for happy hour after work on Friday, who joins friends to watch a game on television, or who is invited to a party. Millions of people are normal social drinkers, and many of them never go on to be more than normal social drinkers.

As the illustration suggests, there is a large “gray area” that lies beyond normal social drinking but falls short of alcohol abuse and dependence. Many people slip into this gray zone. Some go only a short distance; others venture much deeper over time, but still are not alcoholics. That said, men and women whose drinking patterns lie in the almost alcoholic zone are likely to be suffering, as are their loved ones. For example, they may be experiencing one or more of the following:

• Trouble sleeping soundly
• Mild depression
• Marital or family conflict
• Health problems that aren’t recognized as related to drinking
• Declining performance at work

Connecting the Dots

One thing that has become very clear to us — and a major motivation for writing our book — is that most almost alcoholics (as well as health care professionals) often fail to see the link between drinking and any problems these people may complain of. Being able to “connect the dots” and see the relationship between drinking and such problems allows the almost alcoholic to make a decision: to remain in the almost alcoholic zone (and risk venturing further toward alcoholism), or to “shift left” back toward normal social drinking.

Many Pathways, Many Solutions

No one sets out intending to become an almost alcoholic. Similarly, people do not become almost alcoholics for the same reason. There are many pathways into the almost alcoholic zone, and for that reason there needs to be many solutions. I will discuss some of these pathways and solutions in future posts.

For further information visit www.TheAlmostEffect.com or read Almost Alcoholic: Is My (or My Loved One’s) Drinking a Problem?

For more by Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D., click here.

For more on mental health, click here.

Follow Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NewGrief