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In 2010, a group of 10 experts led by Professor T.F. Nelson of the University of Minnesota considered the issue of identifying the basic US Alcohol Control Policies and the depth and breadth of their efficacy. They identified a total of 47 national and state policies, many of them having to do with young and underage drinkers.

The website of the Alcohol Epidemiology Program of the University of Minnesota School of Public health has identified the following broad categories of public alcohol control policies:

• Policies to reduce youth access to alcohol
• Policies to restrict alcohol advertising
• Policies to reduce sales to intoxicated patrons

Policies to Reduce Youth Access to Alcohol

These policies include the following:

• Social access to alcohol. Underage drinkers can obtain alcohol in a number of ways socially. Policies involved in preventing this form of access focus on beer keg registration, monitoring of beer consumption at public events, and the enforcement of social host liability.
• Commercial access to alcohol. These policies include underage drinking laws, compliance enforcement of bars and restaurants, server training of bar and restaurant staff, ID verification, banning of home delivery of alcohol products, age enforcement of seller as well as buyer, and placement of alcohol warning posters in establishments that dispense alcohol.

Policies to Restrict Alcohol Advertising

Alcohol advertising often encourages teenagers to consume alcohol. Policies have been enacted to restrict advertising, particularly in venues that might be directed at those who are underage. These policies fall into two broad categories:

• Alcohol advertising restrictions. Restrictive policies are in place widely to reduce or prohibit alcohol advertising in virtually any area where youths might reasonably be expected to be exposed, including buses, shopping carts, billboards, television, radio, the Internet, and newspapers.
• Alcohol sponsorship restrictions. Community events, such as festivals, races, athletic events, and so forth, are often sponsored by beer companies especially. This category of restrictive policies is aimed at reducing the exposure to teens.

Policies to Reduce Sales to the Already Intoxicated

These policies are aimed at seller education combined with appropriate administrative penalties, to prevent drinkers who are already intoxicated from continuing to drink and thus becoming more of a danger to themselves and the public. This category represents policies that reinforce the rules covered in “Commercial Access to Alcohol” above.

What the Study Found

The panel rated the efficacy of these policies and others. They found that policies relating to the pricing of alcoholic beverages were the most effective, in both restricting access in the underage and in the general population. Further, they also rated highly policies aimed at curbing binge drinking, particularly among younger drinkers.

Alcohol Rehab Is a Phone Call Away

Drinking continues to be a problem in America. Most state and local governments are doing their part to manage the issue, but they cannot do it alone. If your loved one has a problem with alcohol, please contact us at Alta Mira today.

US National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske has told an international meeting that simply legalizing drugs will not make organized crime vanish. At a meeting of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime held in Vienna, Austria, Kerlikowske called that suggestion a “distraction” from US efforts to address the combined drug and crime problem throughout the world.

Long an article of faith for some who base their conclusions on the experience the US had with its attempt to enforce alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and some Latin American countries’ experience more recently, the idea of eliminating crime by legalizing drugs is fallacious, Kerlikowske said. He also remarked, on the other hand, that building more prisons and arresting more drug offenders in a “war on drugs” had not worked either.

A Third Way

Instead, he said, the United States has embarked upon a “third way,” neither the draconian “war” nor the “surrender” that legalization would represent. The new way will not legalize hitherto illegal drugs but will instead treat their use as a medical problem and addiction as a disease of the brain. They will emphasize treatment, not punishment, for users. As for illegal manufacturers and distributors, the US plans to continue its efforts to oppose them energetically, at home and throughout the world.

Legalization Advocates

Other governments, both in America or elsewhere, are beginning to look more favorably on legalization. No fewer than 20 states have made legal the use of marijuana in at least some amounts for at least some purposes:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• DC
• Delaware
• Hawaii
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Montana
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• Washington

The central US government, as noted above, has remained firm in its opposition to legalization. Berit Hallberg, a spokesman for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDPC), recently told Fox News Latino: “The US continues to oppose drug legalization because evidence shows our shared drug problem is a major public health and safety threat, and drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated.”

Other nations represented at the UN conference, many of them from Latin America, have also toyed with the idea of legalizing marijuana, among them:

• Uruguay
• Mexico
• Costa Rica
• Honduras
• Belize
• Guatemala

Guatemala president Perez Molina has been especially supportive of a move toward legalization. He was quoted recently as saying, “Something about what we are doing is not working. I find that drug trafficking has increased; that crime has increased; that violence has increased.”

Help Your Loved One Begin the Healing Process Today

Whether legal or not, as long as drug abuse and its resulting addiction are with us, there will be individual and social problems that must be addressed. If drug dependency has struck your family member, reach out to us at Alta Mira today and learn more about our intensive addiction treatment programs and how they can help.

Most women long for the day they have a baby. Some, however, find themselves living in a world controlled by addiction and unexpectedly find that they are pregnant. Scared and unsure whom to trust, many new mothers unfortunately don’t seek help. But drugs like morphine, oxycodone, and tramadol are powerful opiates, and their use during pregnancy can cause serious effects to both mom and baby.

Mothers who are hooked on opioids and pregnant are 80 percent more likely to have a baby that is born addicted to the drugs as well, says Business Week. The good news? Researchers are working to better understand the issue and aid addicted mothers in protecting their unborn children and mitigating the harm done on all fronts as a result of active opiate drug addiction during pregnancy.

The Study

Babies with certain genetic variants, who were exposed to opioids in the womb, may be protected from the effects of these drugs which can lead to shorter hospital stays and less treatment, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Infants who had certain variants of the two genes had less severe symptoms of withdrawal from opiates compared with babies who did not have the variants.

All babies in this study had NAS, or neonatal abstinence syndrome, meaning they experienced drug withdrawal syndrome due to being exposed to opioids in the womb. The mothers of these infants had been taking methadone or buprenorphine to treat their addiction during their pregnancy.

Hope Begins with Healing Through Effective Treatment

Women with medical conditions, including pregnancy, can ensure that they receive the medical care they need while also beginning the process of addiction treatment. The sooner treatment begins, the more likely it is that their baby will not be addicted. Rehabilitation that emphasizes treatment from addiction for the mother as well as optimum medical health for both mother and child provides:

• Round-the–clock care and support
• Nutritionists who can aid with optimum nutrition
• A long-term treatment plan that addresses detox needs and ongoing treatment after the baby is born
• Spiritual guidance
• Peer support
• Aftercare assistance and support

Learn More About Alta Mira Today

At Alta Mira, we offer comprehensive care that addresses all the needs of our patients in order to help them become as strong as possible in recovery. Learn more about our evidence-based program when you contact us at the phone number above today.

A new study using mice suggests that, biologically, stress can make drug withdrawal in human subjects more difficult and can increase the likelihood of addiction relapse. The study, by a team of researchers led by Nayla N. Chaijale, exposed a test group of mice to systematic stress five times daily. A control group was shielded from stress during the research period.

The LC Discharge Rate

In mice and humans, secretions of norepinephrine in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus (LC) indicate the level of stress generated. As more norepinephrine is produced, something that is the called the neuron “LC discharge” is reduced. (The locus coeruleus neurons are neurotransmitters.) The results of the study suggest that subjects (in this case, mice) that have been stressed might be less able afterwards to readjust to a normal kind of equilibrium.

Other Studies

Other studies have also been performed that give the stressed mice the option to self-administer drugs. An article entitled “The Role of Stress in Alcohol Use, Alcoholism, Treatment, and Relapse,” by Drs. Kathleen T. Brady and Susan C. Sonne, published in the journal Alcohol Research & Health in 1999, discusses an experiment in which mice under stress were allowed the option of self-administering alcohol, following a period of abstinence.

The researchers in that study found that in some cases, the administration of only a single stressor event (such as an electric shock) was sufficient to send a hitherto sober mouse back to the use of self-administered alcohol.

Other studies have shown that exposure to alcohol prior to any application of stress handicaps to a degree an animal’s ability to cope with stress when it does occur. In one experiment, a group of test mice were given alcohol in their water for a period of time. A control group received plain water. When stress was administered to both groups, both groups experienced diminished appetites. Within a short time, however, appetite and food intact had returned to normal in the control group, but remained depressed in the test group, suggesting they were less able to handle the stress.

What This Means for People

Extrapolating from lab experiments with mice to the real-life situations of people is always difficult and fraught with risk. Assume that relapsed addicts have a high correlation with stress. What does that mean? That stress has caused the relapse, or that the relapse caused the stress? Some surveys have been done to evaluate the effect of stress maintenance on recovery. They have in general shown that recovering addicts do better in recovery if they exhibit the following characteristics:

• High self-esteem
• Good quality of support
• High level of satisfaction from their social support

Not surprisingly, those with these qualities were more likely to relapse:

• Fewer problem-solving skills
• Poor coping strategies
• Less self-assurance

Are You Ready to Begin the Recovery Process?

An addict may find that their ability to cope with stress has been damaged by the addiction, but that ability can be restored. For more information about this important aspect of recovery, call us at Alta Mira at the number listed today.

The brain consists of two basic types of matter:

• Gray matter, which is involved in learning and cognition
• The less well-known white matter, long thought to be inert but which we now know is active in transmitting signals to and from the brain.

In researching the function of white matter, scientists have discovered that brain-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s are associated with changes in both white matter and gray matter. Researchers have also learned that alcoholics’ brains tend to have reduced amounts of white matter. In other words, alcoholics — at least those who consume alcohol very heavily — are likely to suffer brain atrophy.

Studies show that very heavy alcohol use affects men and women differently. Brain atrophy results more quickly and at lower levels of consumption in women than in men. Moreover, men naturally have slightly more white matter in the brain than women in the first place.

As chronic alcohol abuse reduces the amount of white matter in the brain, it tends to disrupt the behavior of the excitatory neurotransmitters – those neurons within the white matter that manage neural communications. Amino acids called glutamates are the most common neurotransmitters in the human brain. There are two kinds of glutamates:

• Synaptic
• Non-synaptic

Ideally, these function in a state of equilibrium called homeostasis.  A new study by a group of researchers headed by Gabriele Ende has revealed that when glutamate homeostasis is disrupted by alcohol, the subject tends to lose control over his or her ability to handle the consumption of alcohol. Any semblance of free will disappears.

How Control Is Lost

What happens is that in the absence of alcohol, the glutamates, no longer in homeostasis, begin to overreact. The subject becomes more and more agitated and begins to get what are commonly called the “shakes” or “jitters.” The subject literally, in a physical sense, loses control over his or her impulse to drink. His brain has begun craving alcohol chemically. Should a drink not be forthcoming, in severe cases, what is called delirium tremens (DTs) will occur. Once consumption is resumed, the brain continues its biological spiral.

Is Damage to White Matter Reversible?

The good news in regard to white matter damage and atrophy is that white matter disorders tend to be more reversible than gray matter. The irreversibility of damage to the brains of Alzheimer’s victims, for example, comes largely from damage to their gray matter. White matter damage, if arrested early enough, can be reversed, and the alcoholic or other victim can expect to make a significant recovery.

The Key to Recovery

“Brain damage” is, of course, a frightening expression, but understanding the effects of serious alcoholism and other drug abuse on the brain can help the patient and the clinician to understand the totality of the problem and at the same time provide hope for a recovery to a healthy life, given proper treatment. Call the number listed above to speak to us here at Alta Mira about our evidence-based treatment services today.

Every day, 18 women in America die of a prescription drug overdose. For every death, 30 more women go to a hospital emergency room with symptoms of a prescription drug overdose. Women in such overdoses enter an ER every 3 minutes. Between 1999 and 2010, 48,000 women in America died from prescription drugs. During that period, the rate of deaths among women rose by 400 percent, compared with an increase of 265 percent among men. According to The New York Times, American women are more likely to die from painkillers such as OxyContin than they are from cervical cancer or murder.

These figures, from the Centers for Disease Control, are shocking, and they point to a growing health problem in this country.

Why Is This Happening?

While men still die at higher rates due to opiate abuse than women (10,020 male deaths in 2010 compared with 6,631 female), women seem to be catching up. While no one is exactly sure why, physicians and sociologists have offered various suggestions as to the cause:

• Women are more susceptible to chronic pain, such as fibromyalgia.
• Women are more likely to be treated for depression or anxiety and thus more likely to mix medications.
• Women are quicker to become dependent on prescription drugs than men.
• Women are more prone to engage in “doctor shopping,” (i.e., seeking out multiple practitioners to obtain multiple prescriptions).
• The responsibility of maintaining a single-parent household, while often at the same time functioning as the sole breadwinner, has increased stress on women.

What Women Can Do

The CDC has issued guidelines for patients to try to deal with this problem. Women are urged to take the following steps:

• Discuss with their clinician all of the medicines they are taking, including non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines.
• Use only those prescription drugs prescribed specifically for them by their clinician.
• Properly dispose of all drugs no longer needed.
• If pregnant or planning to become pregnant, discuss with their clinician before beginning a course of drug therapy.
• Get help with any substance abuse problem promptly.

What You Can Do

If you are suffering from painkiller dependency or if you are concerned that someone you love has developed an addiction to his or her prescription medication, please don’t ignore the problem. At Alta Mira, we offer a comprehensive drug detox and addiction treatment program that can help your loved one find his or her way back to a life of balance. Call now for more information about our programs.