The Craig Daily Press

Meth users turning to cocaine

GRAMNET officials say people view drug as a safer alternative

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Law enforcement agencies and community service groups are adequately
spreading the word about the ill effects of methamphetamine. So much so,
that people experimenting with drugs are sometimes choosing a narcotic just
as dangerous.

Cocaine.

"The interesting thing we're seeing now is, with meth getting all the bad
publicity, the view is it's a safer alternative," said Dusty Schulze, task
force commander of the Greater Routt and Moffat Narcotic Enforcement Team.
"In reality, it's just as dangerous.

"It's almost accepted. (Users) first response is at least I'm not doing
meth.'"

An interesting statistic in GRAMNET's annual enforcement report, recently
released to municipalities in Craig, Hayden and Steamboat Springs, was that
the task force seized nearly three times as much cocaine in 2006, about
25.96 ounces, or $52,000, than it did methamphetamine, about 9 ounces, or
$17,800.

Read more

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Recruiters seeking volunteers to help stop the spread of HIV
Pair visit bars to enlist participants for vaccine trial

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

By CHERIE BLACK
P-I REPORTER

Jarred Lathrop and Patrick Carr walk into R Place bar on Capitol Hill and check in with the bartender.
He nods, and the pair split up, information cards in hand. Carr, 28, begins at one end of the bar, adorned with a decorated upside-down Christmas tree hovering from the ceiling. He chats up patrons and begins handing out information. Lathrop, 25, is on the other side doing the same.
On a brisk Thursday night in December, the men aren't at the bar to have a drink or shoot pool in the upstairs lounge. They are recruiting for an HIV vaccine trial.
Lathrop and Carr are among six recruiters involved with the Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit. They visit gay and straight bars throughout Capitol Hill, encouraging people to volunteer for trials testing an HIV vaccine. They have focused on Capitol Hill for now, because the community is young and has a large gay population.
Seattle is one of 27 sites on four continents testing for the vaccine. Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the trial is conducted locally through the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington's Division of Infectious Diseases.
Over nearly a decade, more than 20,000 volunteers in 94 clinical trials nationwide have tested more than 56 possible vaccines. None has been successful. While drugs are helping HIV-positive people live longer, they are expensive and often come with serious side effects. Some patients also develop a resistance to the drugs over time. Health officials believe finding a vaccine to prevent HIV in uninfected people is the best way to control and eventually end AIDS.
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http://www.fremontneb.com/articles/2006/12/26/news/news1.txt

Freemont Tribune
12/26/06
How will we handle meth users?

OMAHA (AP) — The state’s new tough-on-meth law is fueling an expensive surge in Nebraska’s prison population, causing some lawmakers to push for more community corrections programs as an alternative to prison for some drug offenders.

In a pre-session survey of Nebraska’s 49 lawmakers by The Associated Press, 39 supported expanding such programs rather than building and expanding Nebraska’s prisons. New and expanded prisons would cost an estimated $384 million by 2025 if the prison population grows at the current rate.

No lawmakers supported building and expanding prisons, five were unsure or did not answer the question and five did not participate in the survey.

“These (community programs) should be tried first as these programs will be less expensive than prisons, and may serve the same rehabilitative end,” said Sen.-elect Tony Fulton of Lincoln.

“We should not, however, allow these programs to cause us to be complacent in recognizing the potential need for building prisons,” Fulton said. “It is clearly a threat to public safety when truly dangerous criminals walk free for lack of room.”

A study done for the Department of Correctional Services said the law that took effect last year, coupled with normal prison population growth, could require an additional 4,726 prison beds by 2025 — a 90 percent increase from present capacity.

Sen.-elect Tom Hansen of North Platte said a new prison would be filled within one or two years.

Gov. Dave Heineman decided against ordering the early release of some inmates to relieve prison crowding in June. The governor has the power to declare an emergency under state law if the system reaches 140 percent of capacity, as it did in May.

As of July, there were 4,135 inmates in the Nebraska prison system — 130 percent of design capacity.

The state system is designed to hold 3,175 inmates in 11 institutions.

The 2005 law cracked down on those who make, sell and use methamphetamine.

“Nebraska needs to provide better substance abuse and treatment in our prisons,” said Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk.

There are an estimated 20,000 people in Nebraska with a meth problem. Experts say meth is as harmful to users as heroin and cocaine.

Law enforcement officials have seen methamphetamine production skyrocket in recent years.

Where they stand

Nebraska’s 49 state senators were asked the following question about the state’s new tough-on-meth law and prison expansion:

A new tough-on-meth law could more than double the rate of growth of Nebraska’s prison population, requiring $385 million in new or expanded prison facilities by 2025. Should the state expand community corrections programs to keep more offenders out of prison to avoid this, or plan on building such a facility?

* More community-based programs: 39 (including Ray Janssen, 15th District; Chris Langenmeier, 23rd District; Mick Mines, 18th District; Dwite Pedersen, 39th District; Kent Rogert, 16th District).

* Build or expand prisons: 0.

* No response: 5

* Did not participate: 5 (including Carol Hudkins, 21st District).

Copyright © 2006 Fremont Tribune

27 December 2006

Prevention Programs CAN WORK
Prevention Programs for Young Rural Teens Can Reduce Methamphetamine Abuse
Years Later

New research supported in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse
(NIDA), National Institutes of Health, shows that prevention programs
conducted in middle school can reduce methamphetamine abuse among rural
adolescents years later. Because methamphetamine Addiction leads to problems
with social interactions and a wide range of medical conditions, research
into early interventions such as this is critical to protecting the Nation's
youth. The paper is published in the September issue of Archives of
Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

read more

Strokes in Young People Could be Due to Meth
Discovery that methamphetamine and related drugs lead to tears in major arteries could change how doctors handle such cases
by Charles Q. Choi
Scientific American
December 26, 2006

The drug known on the streets as crystal meth could increase the risk of stroke and major tears in neck arteries, neurologists report.

With help from his colleagues, neurologist Wengui Yu, now at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, examined two women, ages 29 and 36, both of whom used methamphetamine and then suddenly experienced weakness and difficulty in speaking. Brain scans revealed both women had suffered severe strokes from tears in the inner lining of one of the major arteries in the neck, an injury known as carotid artery dissection.

read the rest...

Meth: fiercest and most dangerous of all illegal drgus?

City Weekly, Salt Lake City's alternative weekly December 21 edition included an editorial from Ben Fulton that describes methamphetamine as the "feircest and most dangerous of all illegal drugs." We posted this response in a letter to the editor:

Thanks to Ben Fulton for recognizing Governor Hunstman’s commitment to battling methamphetamine addiction in Utah. I agree that it is time to take a holistic and compassionate approach to meth – and any other drug use – by emphasizing treatment and family unity. But I do take exception to the characterization of meth as the “fiercest and most dangerous of all illegal drugs” that is not only physically and psychically devastating but that is also nearly impossible to treat. There is new research in the January 2007 Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment that reveals that there is little difference between treatment outcomes for users of methamphetamine and other hard drugs.

Inflammatory language reinforces the image of methamphetamine as America's latest drug bogey-man, and it is not supported by the research literature, much of which can be accessed on the Harm Reduction Project’s website (www.harmredux.org). It is so easy to portray meth and the people who use it as dirty, disgusting, and dangerous. There is a real risk that such portrayals will cloud our decision making causing us to rush to create policies that will backfire or have disastrous unintended consequences.

The response to meth in America is taking a course that is not dissimilar to that of crack cocaine: it is the latest epidemic destroying our children and creating crime. Thanks to the “crack epidemic” we have mandatory minimum sentencing, children taken from their families, an emphasis on incarceration instead of treatment. None of these policies stopped crack and they won't stop meth. They will cost a lot of money and destroy a lot of families.

There is one big difference between crack and meth, however, and that is the communities it typically affects. Crack was the drug of poor, mostly Black urban areas. Meth is the drug of white and rural communities, mostly low-income areas, and is primarily in the middle of the country although it is rapidly making itself known across the nation and in diverse populations. The demographics of meth may change how we respond to it, which says a lot more about race and class in America than it says about the drug itself.

Methamphetamine is dangerous and difficult to treat but let’s put it into perspective. Meth is not new - it is the most widely used drug in the world after cannabis. In the good old days immediately following WWII it was aggressively marketed to American women as "mother's little helper." The American military used methamphetamine-like drugs to keep soldiers moving through the boredom and exhaustion of combat. It is a powerful stimulant that makes you feel on top of the world at least for a little while.

Meth is perfectly suited to our culture where production and performance - sexual, work, social, and parental - drive us to long work days and a belief that we have to do it all. The pressures on women, for example, are intense to stay thin, keep up the house, take care of children, work a full time job, and stay sexually attractive and active. Meth will do all of that and more in the beginning.

Yes, long term use will rot your teeth. Yes, it will mess with your brain wiring and can make you act crazy. And yes, it is a tough drug to beat especially since residential treatment beds are scarce and people face the threat of incarceration or the loss of their children if they ask for help. But many people who use meth give it up on their own when the benefits of using it are outweighed by its negative consequences. Those who successfully quit on their own typically have a support network, families and friends who care for them, and something to live for be it a good job or meaningful place in a community.

Those are the ingredients of any successful life. Problematic meth use is often, particularly for women, closely related to trauma, violence, poverty, mental illness, and dependence on a male partner who is probably also using meth. Meth use is one piece of the puzzle. These women are not demons roving our streets, neglecting their children, and selling themselves to buy their next fix, although all of those can happen when people are in the grips of addiction. We need to distinguish between the drug and the drug user and address the complexity of the latter’s life without hyperbole, distortion, and scare tactics.

All of this is to make the point that we cannot use meth as the next convenient dumping ground for our fear of drug use or our need to meet out tough punishments to those who don’t measure up. Meth, like other drugs, is used to cope with life or for enjoyment, plain and simple. Like any other powerful and addictive substance it has the ability to destroy lives. But the people who use it are not throw-always nor are they beyond help, and they deserve a chance to find a decent life. Let’s remember, less than 5 percent of us use illegal drugs like meth on a regular basis.

Yes, let’s applaud Governor Hunstman for recognizing that treatment that keeps families together is a great step in addressing what is undeniably a disturbing fact of life in Utah. But in the process of congratulating ourselves for getting serious about meth, let’s not forget our past or the world in which we live where expectations to do it all can overwhelm the strongest of us.

Treatment response by primary drug of abuse: Does methamphetamine make a difference?
doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2006.06.007

Bill Luchansky Ph.D., Antoinette Krupski Ph.D. and Kenneth Stark M.B.A
Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine the outcomes of a sample of patients receiving publicly funded substance abuse treatment in Washington State and to compare the outcomes of those using methamphetamine (MA) with patients using other drugs of abuse. All data for this study came from administrative systems in Washington State, and the outcomes included completion of and readmission to treatment, employment, and various forms of criminal justice involvement. Treatment records were linked to outcome data using both deterministic and probabilistic matching techniques. Patients were tracked for 1 year following their discharge, and analyses were performed separately on a study population of adults and a study population of youth. For both adults and youth, the results showed that across outcomes, there were few differences between MA users and users of other hard drugs, whereas there were consistent differences between MA users and users of alcohol and marijuana. Alcohol and marijuana users tended to have more positive outcomes than the other groups. Future research should focus on more detailed analyses of the type of treatment received by patients, particularly for MA users.

Jonathan Caulkins:
A mathematician looks at what works and what doesn’t in America’s war on drugs
Posted on Carnegie Mellon Today, Dec 18, 2006

For more than 15 years, Professor Jonathan Caulkins has turned his mathematical model-building talents to one of the most intractable and emotion-laden social questions of all: drug abuse.

“America’s drug problem is more severe than that of any other developed country,” Caulkins says. “America has more drug dependence, more overdose deaths, more drug-related HIV-infections, and more drug-related violence. Its impact is widespread and costly; it taxes our criminal justice system, our hospitals, our schools. The cost in dollars and in lives is enormous.”

Yet, despite these high stakes, Caulkins believes that much of U.S. policy is distorted by wishful thinking, bureaucratic silos, and simple misinterpretation of the data. “When you have such a long term and costly problem as drug use has been, it makes sense to root strategies in objective evidence of what works and what doesn’t,” Caulkins says. “We have not always done that.”

After leading the Drug Policy Research Center at the Rand Corporation and designing innovative and influential efforts to assess cocaine control strategies, Caulkins became concerned that the lessons from cocaine were being generalized too broadly to other drugs at different stages in the cycle of adoption. When experts in dynamic modeling approached him about marrying methods from mathematical biosciences, epidemiology, and product diffusion modeling with traditional drug policy analysis, Caulkins jumped at the opportunity.

He now brings this dynamic modeling perspective to a range of problems pertaining to drugs, crime, violence, delinquency and prevention to understand the effect of policy initiatives on those problems as they evolve over time.

The markets for drugs are in some crucial respects not really that different from markets for other types of consumer products. Consumer product marketers, of course, want to expand product sales, while drug policy makers want to curtail them, but the underlying math of the models is the same, Caulkins says.

Drug use follows well-documented cycles of introduction, growth, and maturity. A newer drug, such as methamphetamine, requires a different response than does a “mature” product such as heroin or cocaine. Just as marketers use different tactics with brand new products and established brands, so the approaches to curbing drug use must differ.

“We need to make data-driven decisions about when to emphasize prevention and when to emphasize enforcement,” Caulkins says. “No one approach is the single right answer at every point. In the early phase of a drug epidemic, for example, treatment programs are not as important as they are in the later stages, when users are older, have more health problems, and may be more compliant with treatment. On the other hand, law enforcement has a much more dramatic impact on containing the spread of a drug early in the cycle, but almost none once a drug is in widespread use.”

Caulkins’s fresh approach is attracting attention. He was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in 2006, which is supporting his current project, “Synthesizing Lessons for Drug Policy and Policy Research.”

“We will not have more success in coping with drug abuse until we have a more dispassionate debate,” Caulkins says. “We must look more systematically at what has worked and when it has worked.

“Let’s take a more dynamic approach to respond to a dynamic problem.”

AIDS Group Asks Viagra Maker to Halt Ad Campaign
Advocacy panel says the marketing effort promotes the drug's recreational use. Company denies claim
Los Angeles Times
By Rong-Gong Lin II
Times Staff Writer

A Los Angeles-based AIDS advocacy group is calling for the manufacturer of Viagra to halt a marketing campaign that the group says promotes the drug's recreational use, increasing the risk of acquiring HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation will run advertisements in publications in New York, San Francisco and South Florida, with the first in Southern California to run today in the L.A. Weekly. The group is particularly concerned that Viagra, manufactured by Pfizer Inc., has become popular among gay and bisexual men who use methamphetamine, which has been associated with risky sexual behavior and HIV infection.

"We call on Pfizer to exercise responsibility by discontinuing marketing to men with mild erectile dysfunction, and by initiating an educational campaign on the dangers of Viagra and meth targeting men who have sex with men," the ad said.

Pfizer denied the AIDS group's claim that its advertising encourages recreational use of the drug, and said its advertising already states that Viagra does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

"We've always been committed to the safe and appropriate use of Viagra," said Shontelle Dodson, Pfizer's senior medical director. "We always encourage men to see their physicians for the proper diagnosis."

Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said Pfizer has one ad showing an attractive, smiling man holding a football with the tagline, "Be this Sunday's MVP"; and another with the line, "What are you waiting for?" as a heterosexual couple, after hearing their movie is sold out, smile at each other.

"This is like saying, 'Have a party. Have a good time. Use Viagra,' " Weinstein said.

"Such marketing could make Viagra sound like a party drug, and for a drug to be used when one wants to take risks," said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, deputy health officer for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Pfizer to stop running TV ads for Viagra that featured a middle-aged man looking at his wife, with an announcer saying: "Remember that guy who used to be called Wild Thing? He's back."

The FDA said the TV ads implied that Viagra promised "a return to a previous level of sexual desire and activity," which the agency called an unsubstantiated claim.

Needle Exchange and Drug Treatment More Effective HIV Prevention
By Yale School of Medicine
Dec 18, 2006, 07:00

(HealthNewsDigest.com).. New Haven, Conn.- For injection drug users, the
most productive and cost-effective approach to managing the spread of HIV is
expanding syringe exchange and drug treatment, as well as promoting
antiretroviral treatment for those already infected with HIV, according to a
new study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine.

Published in the January issue of American Journal of Public Health, the
authors, led by Yale Public Health professor Robert Heimer, found that the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) new approach of promoting
HIV testing, "Advancing HIV Prevention," may not be best for injection drug
users.

Heimer, professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at
Yale School of Medicine, said the CDC policy is based on the presumption
that the HIV epidemic can be curtailed in great part by promoting HIV
testing and that more resources should go to expanded testing of high-risk
populations. However, the results reported in this study revealed that
testing was already widespread for urban injectors.

Heimer and co-authors analyzed interviews conducted with 1,543 injection
drug users in five cities, including New Haven and Hartford, CT,
Springfield, MA, Chicago, IL, and Oakland, CA. Access to sterile syringes
through syringe exchanges or at pharmacies with a prescription was not
available in all cities. Injection drug users who participated in the study
were asked if they had been tested for HIV and if they had ever been told
they were HIV positive. From this, the research team estimated what
percentage had never been tested and what percentage did not know their
status.

Ninety-three percent of injectors had been tested, and of those currently in
need of testing, 90 percent were tested in the past three years and 70
percent within the past year. Less than three percent were infected with HIV
without their knowledge. Women and syringe-exchange participants were more
likely to have been tested at least once, and in the recent past. The team
estimated the number of undetected infections among urban injection drug
users in the United States to be fewer than 40,000.

"Our results highlight the need for shifting prevention dollars for urban
injection drug users," said Heimer, who is also an associate professor of
pharmacology at Yale. "It is more important to expend scant resources on
effective primary and secondary preventive programs including access to
clean syringes and helping users get into treatment for their addiction."

Heimer emphasized needle exchange programs, substitution therapy like
methadone and buprenorphine, and engaging those injection drug users already
infected with HIV in supportive anti-retroviral therapy. He said these
approaches have been shown to decrease the incidence of new infections at
rates sufficient to save money.

"When it comes to urban injection drug users, money will be wasted on
low-impact, low-yield counseling and testing programs," said Heimer.
"Prevention programs should not be compelled to generalize and accept a
single approach to preventing disease transmission. Injection drug users
should not be lumped in with other high risk groups. Instead, tailored
programs designed with their unique needs in mind will yield better
outcomes."

Since the study was conducted, Heimer and his colleagues have been working
to immunize injection drug users against hepatitis B, as well as developing
other interventions designed to reduce HIV infections in drug using
populations.

Other authors on the study were Lauretta Grau, Erin Curtin, Kaveh Khoshnood
and Merrill Singer.

Citation: American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 97, No. 1 (January 2007)

Barack Obama's Meth Menace
The Huffington Post
by Maia Szalavitz

Barack Obama is a dream candidate in so many ways. The mere idea of someone who can write (and presumably therefore think) in a complex yet compelling fashion is almost irresistibly seductive, especially now. Unfortunately, in terms of drug policy, despite his candid and refreshing discussion of his own use, he apparently remains part of our on-going national nightmare.

While no politician is perfect on every issue, Obama's support of the Byrne grant program to fight methamphetamine-- which is prominently highlighted on his website-- is deeply troubling. This program is opposed by both Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and the American Conservative Union on the right-- and the ACLU and George Soros' Open Society Institute on the left. Arianna covered it here.

Even the government's own watchdog Office on Management and Budget doesn't support Byrne grants: it gave them a 13% rating for results and accountability. Randomly answering the questions on a standardized multiple-choice test would likely produce a better grade than that! The Bush administration pushed to eliminate Byrne funding last year-- but Obama supported a Senate bill which provided $900 million dollars.
read the rest...

Drugs: why we should medicalise, not criminalise
The TimesOnline
December 14, 2006
Mary Ann Sieghart

If you are a desperate drug addict and you are neither a trust fund babe nor a doctor with a prescription pad, you really have only three ways to pay for your habit: you steal, you deal or you sell your body. For those poor young women who have too many scruples to steal or deal, prostitution is often the only answer. Some 95 per cent of prostitutes, according to a Home Office study, are what they call “problematic drug users”.

And now five prostitutes in Suffolk have been murdered and the rest fear for their lives. One of the victims, Gemma Adams, an intelligent, piano-playing, pony-riding, middle-class girl, had turned to prostitution, like many other such women, after becoming addicted to heroin and crack. This week her parents issued photos of her in happier days, to help people understand that she was a person, not just a prostitute.

Yet even the law degrades prostitutes, valuing their lives at less than that of a middle-class, piano-playing girl. When Dianne Parry’s daughter, Hanane (another heroin addict turned prostitute), was murdered and dismembered in 2003, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority offered Mrs Parry only half the money that a parent of a non-prostitute would receive. It wasn’t the £5,000 that Mrs Parry cared about, but the devaluing of her daughter’s life.

And it is not just the law on compensation that should be changed. It is the law on drugs themselves. Drug addiction is a medical condition; it should not be treated as a criminal offence. The crime that results from drug addiction is a direct result of the drugs’ illegality. The organised criminal gangs, with their violence, corruption and money laundering; the street gangs, with their gun crime, stabbings and intimidation; the muggers, burglars, car thieves and shoplifters, who steal to fund their habit; the dealers who try to create new addicts; and finally, the prostitutes who put their health and lives at risk; all this crime and suffering could be wiped out if the drugs were available, free, on prescription. Some 50 to 80 per cent of prisoners are in jail for crimes related to raising money to buy drugs. Nearly half of women prisoners are there specifically for drug offences and nearly three-quarters have had a drug problem. The cost to the criminal justice system is huge. The cost to the individuals, their families and wider society is greater still.

In European cities, where heroin is available on prescription, property crimes by drug-users have dropped by as much as a half. And think of the effect that widespread prescribing would have on turf wars, gang violence, gun crime, street dealing and prostitution. An excellent report from the Transform drug policy foundation* also points out: “The largest single profit opportunity for organised crime would evaporate, and with it the largest single source of police corruption.”

Transform estimates that the prison population would fall by between a third and a half, ending overcrowding and the need to build more jails. Billions of pounds spent enforcing prohibition and coping with its consequences would be saved. Hundreds of thousands could be treated as patients rather than criminals. The number of drug-related deaths would fall dramatically. And desperate young women could be rescued from pimps, potential rapists and murderers.

At the same time, unstable countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia, which have become almost ungovernable thanks to the distorting and corrupting effects of the drugs trade, could sell their products legally to Western governments for medical use.

Of course we should try to get drug addicts off their drugs. It is good that waiting times are now shorter for rehabilitation. But treatment doesn’t work unless users really, really want to give up. And even then, they often relapse because the cravings are so strong. So it is not surprising that enforced treatment and rehabilitation is so unsuccessful. A National Audit Office report on the Government’s Drug Treatment and Testing Order, a court-administered mandatory programme for addicts, found that 80 per cent of offenders were reconvicted within two years.

It is much more sensible to prescribe a maintenance dose for addicts, which they must take under supervision so they cannot sell it on, until they are ready to try to give up. That way, they can attempt to lead a normal life, to refrain from crime, to stay off the streets, even to hold down a job, until they can wean themselves off the drugs.
read the rest...

Check these out...

Methamphetamine.org: new and integrated approach to dealing with methamphetamine from UCLA.
Prototypes.org: integrated approach to providing services to women

Huntsman makes tackling meth epidemic a top priority

Deseret Morning News, Friday, December 15, 2006

By Dennis Romboy

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his wife have made friends with the people in their neighborhood, including some hooked on methamphetamine.

A residential treatment center called House of Hope is a couple of doors down from the Governor's Mansion on South Temple. Their neighbors are moms who are trying to fight meth addiction, said Mike Mower, the governor's spokesman.

The Huntsmans visited women in the house and Mary Kaye Huntsman had them over for a tea party.

"The governor realizes the insidious nature of meth use and its disproportionate use among young women, often young mothers," Mower said.

To turn that tide, Huntsman's proposed state budget includes $5.1 million a year (half from Medicaid) to place 600 more women in treatment programs, giving priority to those involved with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
read the rest...

Women, Meth, and Children
by Terri Hurst, MSW

Women are often overlooked when it comes to treatment for meth use, especially women with children. Women usually enter treatment through the criminal justice system and by that time, CPS (Child Protective Services) has intervened.

Women who are not allowed access to their children while in treatment have a greater likelihood of relapse and are not as successful in completing treatment. It is also important for children to remain connected to their mother, unless severe abuse has taken place. Just because a mom uses meth, it does not make her a "bad" mother.

With the prevalence of ice in Hawaii, many women have lost their children due to harsh laws that are not focused on keeping families together. This goes against the Hawaiian principle of "ohana" or family and the importance of family within the Hawaiian culture. While ice use is inter-generational in the islands, it is even more important that children of meth users see that their parents can recover from drug use and that parents teach their children about ice so that they can stop the cycle of use. Women's Way, which is located on the island of Oahu, is a residential treatment program run by the Salvation Army - Family Treatment Services. Women's Way is the only subtance abuse treatment program on the islands that works with women and children. The program targets women who are pregnant and using or who have children between the ages of 0 - 3 years of age. For more information, call: (808) 732-2802 x 39

In Utah, where meth rates are also extremely high for both men and women, there are two programs that work specifically with women and children. The Volunteers of America, Center for Women and Children works with women who have children aged 10 years and younger. The Program Director stated that "meth is the number one problem we see." For more information call: (801) 261-9177

Also, Valley Mental Health offers the Cottonwood Family Treatment Center, which is a residential treatment program geared specifically for meth use among women with children. For more information call: (801) 263-7225

Satan's son?
Montana Meth Project advertising does one thing well - it inspires creative writing.

Thanks to the aggressive, slick, and lurid advertising campaign mounted by the Montana Meth Project high school students are thoroughly versed in the purportedly inevitable consequences of meth use: a disgusting, rotting mouth; cheap sex in dirty bathrooms; scabs and oozing wounds; and crime.

Evidence of the campaign's success to scare kids straight was printed in the Billings Gazette in the form of a letter from "crystal" penned by a local high school student.

"I have very serious long-term affects. Signs that you have been hanging with me could be rotten teeth, nasty oozing scabs and a disgusting odor coming from your body. I can be injected through your mouth, nose or veins."

What appears to be a creative writing project probably in response to yet another "horrors of meth" news story is family values-inspired drug porn. Meth provides, like marijuna, heroin, and crack before it, the chance for Americans to indulge their need to be voyuers and peer into the world of the nasty "other." This time around, we feed our desires with scenes of sweet young kids being turned into thieves and whores by methamphetamine.

All of the kids featured in the Montana Meth Project video and print ads are actors. They get paid to portray drug users. The women who are all too often exposed on drug and law enforcement websites, however, are real. Their lives are summed up by mug shots, which are arrayed in chronological order typically progressing from a shot of a pretty blonde who becomes, over the course of ten years and ten busts, a haggy old crone with no teeth because she couldn't kick the habit.

In the act of laying out a woman's life in her mug shots and summing it all up to drug use is a convenient, and apparently legal, way of stripping drug users of their humanity and privacy. Like the portrayals of young users in the Montana Meth Project ads, they become part of a public peep show and the poster children of the drug warriors.

What the Montana Meth Project ads and the mug shots don't do is talk about the many reasons people turn to drugs, and they certainly don't address the realities of our world where the pressure to perform and produce and stay skinny and take care of the kids can be overwhelming.

A better use of our ad space and air time would be to engage young people in an honest conversation about turning complex problems, like methamphetamine use, into lurid stereotypes and why we find it so hard find the humanity in others.

Consequences of Behind-the-Counter Rules: Sniffles may not stop
Medicines on shelves called weaker
The Charolette Observer
12/18/06
Andrew Shain

Stuffed up?

You might want to check the label before grabbing your favorite medicine off the drugstore shelf.

In response to new laws to curb illegal methamphetamine production, the makers of Sudafed, Tylenol and other drugs have reformulated their cold medications this winter to eliminate the decongestant pseudoephedrine.

Its substitute, phenylephrine or PE, isn't as effective and must be taken more frequently, experts say.

read the rest...

African American Safety Counts Group
John Cottrell

Since March 2006, HRP has been holding a Safety Counts Group specifically for African American substance users. What started out as a small group of 3 attendees, has blossomed into an engaging experience for all participants ranging from 9 to 12 participants each week. How did this happen?

Coming on earlier in the year as a health educator to run this group, personally, I was a bit nervous about being able to get people to attend……more specifically BLACK people to attend. I started with asking the people that I knew to make referrals: Sarah McClellan with the Northern Utah Coalition, Ernest Timmons from the Calvary Baptist Church, Janine Hansen from Project Reality, and others. I only hoped that we would have a few people. Outreach workers from HRP passed out flyers at the Weigand Center, Road Home, and Pioneer Park. I only hoped that we were covering our bases.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. On the first day, we had 6 people attend. All seemed enthusiastic, they participated well in the group as we discussed ways to prevent getting HIV and hepatitis. And I do believe the $10 cash incentive helped, too!! After that initial group, though, the numbers dwindled to 2 or 3 each week. I got worried. So I asked the members if they knew people who might benefit from this type of class specifically for African Americans. Current members were only eager to bring more people. Since then, our numbers have grown.

It’s not so much that our numbers have grown or that each class is dynamic with each participant sharing their personal stories and triumphs. An interesting piece to this entire scenario is WHO the members are. This group was designed for African American drug users. Those that are attending happen to be all men. Interesting. And the average age of the group is 50 years of age. Also interesting. Where did these guys come from? Why do they keep coming? What are they getting from this group (besides some cash and an occasional clothing voucher)? And where are the women? These are the questions I have asked myself. It got me thinking about this particular demographic which is statistically and historically difficult to engage in services sometimes. When we look at HIV prevention in Utah, for example, this group is one that is not directly targeted. Perhaps HRP has fallen on to something here. Maybe we’re getting some of those “hard-to-reach” individuals.

The guys that have been coming, especially the new ones, are all brought by current group members. Some have said that they didn’t know they would get an incentive for attending. Some just heard that “there is a great class you should attend.” As mentioned, the classes are informative and definitely lively. We share knowledge with one another. I provide information about HIV and hepatitis, but we go further than that. We set goals to change their thinking or behavior about their drug use. We seek ways to increase their self esteem. We encourage one another. I think this is what the group does and the reasons why the guys keep coming back. It is an atmosphere where these gentlemen can speak their minds openly and honestly. They are among friends and peers. One of my mottos in the group is “stay aware, be conscious.” This relates to the knowledge they already possess. Be sure to bring that knowledge to the surface and use it.

We’ll see how things continue with this group. Will the same members keep attending? Will there continue to be new members? We’ll see.

Treatment v. incarceration
by Wyndimarie Anderson
Harm Reduction Project
You hear this debate all the time. The truth is for some people it can feel like one and the same for many reason and the recent tragedy in Russia reminds me that we have to make sure our treatment centers do not become prison like (again)….

In Moscow this week, 46 women were killed in a fire in a drug treatment facility.
Apparently, the 44 patients and 2 staff were trapped between the fire and a locked gate which led to their deaths.

Locked gates in a drug treatment facility? From everything I have been able to read so far this was not a facility housing inmates from the criminal justice system. Why were there locked gates? And why didn’t the staff have the keys to open the gates?
Our work to educate people about the need for health care and drug treatment includes making sure that the programs and facilities offered are not substandard or just one step removed from jail. We don’t need steel bars to treat a drug addict. We need treatment. And we need access to that treatment.

(Yes, we need a lot more, but for the sake of this posting I’ll stay focused on that)
Here is a comment from the Russian Harm Reduction Network calling for an investigation into the fire: http://www.healthdev.org/viewmsg.aspx?msgid=9E66ED94-2DD4-4D97-AFFA-5CC7B380CA3F

The Russian Harm Reduction Network (RHRN) and the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition / Region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ITCPru) express deep condolences to the families of people who died in the fire in the drug treatment hospital #17 in Moscow, as well as to those who were injured during the fire and to the hospital personnel.

On December 09, 2006 the Office of the Procecutor General of the Russian Federation announced initiation of criminal cases under two articles: malicious destruction of property and disregard of fire safety resulting in death. While we support the need for a just an unbiased investigation into this tragedy, our collective expertise as activists and professionals working in the areas of drugs and HIV/AIDS shows that the problem is as systemic as it is individual. RHRN and ITCPru assert that the cause of the tragedy is rooted in the inhumane and ineffective organisation of drug treatment in Russia, and is not merely due to the negligence of separate individuals.

"Conditions within drug treatment facilities in Russia remind more of prisons than hospitals," - says Vitaly Djuma, the Executive Director of the Russian Harm Reduction Network, which unites providers of harm reduction services to drug users from all over Russia.
"In the rest of the modern world this approach to treatment was banned decades ago. Cells, bars, insensitive personnel, indifference to the lives of their patients - all these add up to cause of the tragedy. The problem is not of a just one particular hospital, this is the problem of the whole system."

Specialists and activists agree that whatever the results of the investigation, we shouldn't blame selected individuals be them patients or personnel of the hospital. We especially denounce placing the blame on a woman in severe pain and suffering, for breaking the fire. The distribution of discriminative and speculative disinformation in press before the end of the investigation is yet one more part of the systemic problem that creates general public antipathy towards the victims.

"Blaming separate individuals means closing one's eyes on the fact that the whole system of drug treatment in Russia is absolutely ineffective, inhumane and discredited, - says Gregory Vergus of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, an association which unites HIV activists from around the world, including those from Newly Independent States and the Baltics.

"What is called 'narcological assistance' in this country in fact isn't assistance at all.

Join the Harm Reduction Project in signing this petition asking for a full investigation of what happened to the clinic in Russia. Treating addicts like throw aways or criminals cannot go unnoticed in any part of world… the deaths of these 44 women do matter.

Methamphetamine Myths
from P. Bench at Addiction Help-Blog
Sometimes the right information can turn on some lights. Read this carefully, it may just brighten you. As methamphetamine continues to spread across the U.S., the crystalline powder attracts new users in new areas. Various myths about meth may have helped alert the community to the problem and have even prompted Governmental action. Regardless, these myths have also misled uncountable Americans, including various law enforcement and substance abuse professionals. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
read the rest...

AG Proposes Program to Treat Meth-Exposed Officers

KSL-TV
December 14th, 2006 @ 12:50pm

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (AP) -- Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is proposing a treatment program for police officers exposed to methamphetamine that he'd like to be available for free.
Shurtleff met with some 150 police officers and firefighters here Wednesday about the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Program.
Earlier, Shurtleff said such a program might be paid for by donations, but now the Legislature, which convenes in January, is likely to get involved.
"It's all about competing for money," Shurtleff said, adding he'd talked to Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, who indicated the Legislature would be interested in looking for funding for the project.

read the rest...

Treatment trial for ice users
The Sydney Morning Herald
December 15, 2006

NSW [New South Wales] is planning to conduct small-scale trials of a new treatment for methamphetamine addiction as part of its fight to stem the rising tide of harm caused by heavy use of drugs. The treatment most likely to be used is dextroamphetamine, a synthetic substitute for methamphetamine, the Health Minister, John Hatzistergos, said. "They will be very small trials for extreme-end users for whom other sorts of treatments have not been successful," he said at the National Leadership Forum on Ice yesterday.

read the rest...

2007 Highlights

• Ryan King of The Sentencing Project will be roaming the conference talking with participants and garthering their comments into a presentation for the last day of the conference.
• Dr. Patricia Case will wow the crowd with Part II of Meth in America which picks up where her Part I left off in 2005.
• Jeanne Obert of the MATRIX Institute will present on methamphetamine treatment.
  
• Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who received a standing ovation in 2005, will once again open the conference. Rocky is leaving office at the end of his term in 2007.
  
• Yoga with Dr. John every morning
  

Speed, a promising treatment for ice addiction
John Stapleton
The Australian
December 13, 2006
THE street drug speed could be the best treatment for abusers of the popular party drug ice, a visiting expert claimed yesterday.
read the rest...

"What Do the 2006 Election Results Mean for Drug Policy Reform?"
Analysis from Drug Policy Alliance
Democrats have taken control of the U.S. House for the first time in 12 years, picking up at least 27 House seats from Republicans. And Democrats picked up at least five Senate seats and may win the other seat they need to take control of the Senate (Virginia is still undecided). Ten local marijuana law reform initiatives also won big yesterday. But voters rejected three important statewide marijuana initiatives, and approved a measure in Arizona that will undercut the state’s successful treatment-instead-of-incarceration law. What does all this mean for drug policy reform?
read the rest...

Just the Facts...

• Percentage of global HIV infections that occur outside Sub Saharan Africa: 30
• Percentage of these infections outside Sub Saharan Africa that involve injecting drug users: 30
• For every new global HIV infection, chance that it involves an injecting drug user: 1 in 10
• Of the 144 countries worldwide where injecting drug use has been reported, percentage of which HIV has been reported among injecting drug users: 88
• Number of new HIV infections outside of Africa which are attributed to injection drug use: 1 in 3
• Age of which the majority of those infected: under 30
• Percent of new AIDS cases in the US which can be attributed to injection drug use and/or sex with an injection drug user: 23
• Percentage of those needing treatment in the United States, for drug abuse, as of 2000, but did not have access to it: 80
• Number of federally-funded reviews and reports conducted by public health officials, researchers, and U.S. government agencies that have concluded that syringe exchange programs are effective, safe, and cost effective: 7
• Ranks of U.S. in terms of funding global HIV/AIDS programs around the world: 1
• Federal spending on so-called drug control programs in 1981: 1.5 billion
• Federal spending on so-called drug control programs in 2000: 18.5 billion
• Number of Americans in prison for drug offenses in 1980: 41,000
• Number of Americans in prison for drug offenses in 2000: 458,000
• Percentage of American teenagers who will have used an illegal drug by the time they graduate high school: 50
• Most effective method of HIV prevention for injection drug users who cannot or will not stop using drugs: Use of sterile syringes

Notes from the Field
Corinne Carey, Deputy Director
Break the Chains
For so many reasons, I am very excited about getting together with so many people who are thinking intently about how to address the problems that people have with methamphetamine. I've worked with drug users for well over 12 years now, mostly dealing with the aftermath of what is known as our last "epidemic," the "crack epidemic" of the 80s, and I know that we are desperately in need of a new response to drug problems. I've counseled women who've lost custody of their children forever, fathers who can no longer find housing for their families because of housing laws that impede access for former drug offenders, and people who can't get hired anywhere because of their criminal records. All because we turned to incarceration as the solution. I think we're at a point in this country where we know we can't make the same mistakes. The cost of reentry to communities, not to mention the misery inflicted on families, is simply too high. I'm hopeful that bringing together the brightest minds in the fields of addiction treatment, harm reduction, criminal justice, and child welfare, we can start imagining a response that can incorporate the dual aims of increasing public safety and providing compassionate care for those who struggle with meth use. I am particularly interested in the effect that punitive policies have on the children of users. Having just visited Hawaii, where they have been dealing with meth for longer than anywhere else in our country, I'm encouraged by the innovative thinking of people like Dr. Tricia Wright, who recognized the need for a program for pregnant women using meth and made it happen by collaborating with people in other fields to write legislation and get the funding to open a first-of-it's-kind program in Oahu. Sharing that information, and fostering these types of collaborations are the best reasons to have conferences like this one.