Addiction Blog

ABC News has a new series called “Coming Home: Soldiers and Drugs” that is worth checking out. ABC reporters have interviewed dozens of solders at Fort Carson, Colorado about issues of drug use and dependency.

The article follows several individuals who were under battle stress in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait and turned to drugs for relief. The military’s response has varied from treatment to jail time to dishonorable discharges.

The U. S. Army has denied that soldiers coming home from battle are facing drug problems in increasing numbers. Hospitals and drug counseling centers near Fort Carson are saying different as they have seen dramatic increases of soldiers seeking help.

According to a recent study, 21-percent of students in Ontario, Canada take painkillers without a prescription. Of this amount, 72-percent say that they get the painkillers from their parents.

The Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey was given to over 6,000 kids and teens grades 7 – 12. Also significant are the findings that Oxycontin use has jumped from 1 to 2-percent in just 2 years.

In addition, the Internet has added to the non-prescribed drug problem as teens are blogging about what drugs to take for stress, menstrual cramps or sports injuries. Alcohol and marijuana still lead the list of the most abused drugs however, coming in at 61-percent and 26-percent respectively.

Police in San Francisco have arrested 104 drug dealers and others in the second large-scale drug bust in a month. Over 100 police officers were involved in the buying of methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine plus other drugs primarily from the Tenderloin district.

The San Francisco Police Gang Task Force and Narcotics Division were involved plus officers from visiting departments in making the arrests. The Tenderloin district was targeted because of rampant drug use and violence. In October, 103 drug dealers were nabbed in the Mission district and Market Street areas and these two areas were also targets for the current drug bust as well.

This week, two stories about meth popped up that cannot be ignored. First, three Nigerian men in Japan checked into an emergency room for severe abdominal pains. One of the men had a half a kilo of methamphetamines in his stomach in pouches, which ruptured, killing him. The pouches had been too large to pass through the man’s intestines and ended up leaking and leading to an overdose.

Second, in Illinois a new law has been enacted to try to take a bite out of meth use. The law makes it a Class 4 felony to transport, steal or store anhydrous ammonia used to make methamphetamines. Those who cook meth may face a $25,000 fine and three years in jail. Two years ago, Illinois enacted another anti-meth law, requiring people to sign for pseudoephedrine products and have seen positive results from this law going into effect.

In what is being billed as one of the biggest drug busts ever, Mexican police and customs agents have seized over 11 tons of cocaine. The bust was made from the Manzanillo port aboard a ship coming from Colombia. The haul is so large that officials are still counting the packets that number over 10,000.

According to Mexican officials there have been over 2,000 people killed this year involving the government and rival drug gangs. President Felipe Calderon has been outspoken in regards to Mexico’s commitment towards fighting drug trafficking. The U. S. has proposed aiding Mexico with $1.4 billion in order to fight drug trafficking.