Substance Abuse News

New Hampshire Adopts Vertical Drivers’ License Law

NH drivers under 21 will have vertical licenses starting in January 2008. The licenses provide an instant visual cue that the driver is under age. At least thirteen states have adopted vertical drivers’ license laws.

Walgreens’ Drug Tracking System

An electronic database designed by Walgreens is used to track sales of medications that can be used to make methamphetamine. The Illinois AG says the system has been effective in enforcing laws limiting the amount of drugs containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine that can be sold to customers.

A “Tidal Wave” of Underage Drinking Costs

A newly published study shows that underage drinking costs America nearly $62 billion a year.
Consider these facts:

• More young people drink alcohol than use illegal drugs.
• Alcohol kills four times more kids than illegal drugs combined.
• Federal funding for preventing drug use is about 25 times greater than spending on underage drinking prevention.
•  Each year, underage drinking leads to almost 3,200 deaths and 2.6 million other harmful events, from serious injury to high-risk sex among youth, according to the study.

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Staggered Sentences Cut DWI Offenses in Half

Judge James Dehn, a Minnesota district court judge, has developed a way to reach the state’s most dangerous drunken drivers and to cut their repeat offenses in half. His methods are gaining interest nationwide. Instead of diving drunken drivers a traditional jail sentence, he spreads that sentence out over years, jailing them in July and December. Before each jail term, drivers must appear in court. If they can convince Dehn they’ve been sober, employed and otherwise reformed, he can allow them to skip the month in jail until the next time. In Minnesota, one third of the state’s 300 or so district judges have used it.

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Two New Reports on Drug Courts

Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse

From the Urban Institute, this book is the first to examine the ideas behind juvenile drug courts and explore their history and popularity. Edited by Jeffrey Butts and John Roman, the publication brings in top policy experts to assess the evidence supporting juvenile drug courts and to guide the next generation of evaluation research.

Drug Courts: The Second Decade

The Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs has released this special report on drug courts that includes a section on juvenile drug courts. 38 page pdf file.

Study That Says Meth Use Is Not a National Epidemic is Qualified by Its Author

Ryan King, the author of the Sentencing Project report that found meth use has not increased significantly since 1999, says the research should not be used to minimize local meth problems that fall outside the national norms. The study has been harshly criticized by some local officials from regions heavily affected by meth use. (To see the report go to last week’s issue of Brevity in the Archives section on the left side of your screen.)

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Special Report on Meth

The Reno Gazette-Journal, in a three-month investigation, has found that meth’s grip on Northern Nevada has become a stranglehold, destroying families; clogging up courts, jails and treatment centers, and fueling a boom in petty crime as desperate addicts steal to feed their habit.  This is a very good investigative report which, with all its sidebar articles, is about 50 printed pages in length. You can read the report on line at the link above, or you can have it in hard copy from me by sending me an email with your USPO mailing address. I’ll send you a copy at no charge. Our community is apparently one of those that fall outside the national norms.

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Illicit Drug use by U.S. High School Students Declining

From the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland, a one-page report on the decline of illicit drug use by high school students. See June 12, 2006 issue

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Prescription Drug Use Among Teens

While illicit drug use may be declining (see article above), the use of prescription drugs among teens is increasing. Drug counselors across the country are beginning to hear about pill-popping parties which are part of a rapidly developing underground culture that surrounds the rising abuse of prescription drugs by teens and young adults. Vicodin and OxyContin are now more popular among high school seniors than Ecstasy and cocaine.

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New Study Disproves the Methamphetamine Epidemic in the U.S.

A major study released by The Sentencing Project reveals that methamphetamine is actually one of the rarest illegal drugs used, with its use declining among youth, stabilizing among adults and demonstrating no increase in first-time users. “The Next Big Thing? Methamphetamine in the United States” documents the media coverage of meth that distorts national trends of the drug’s actual prevalence, growth, dangers and treatment.

Read/download the report (45 page pdf file)
Read a newspaper article that questions some of the report findings.

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Meth Takes a Toll on Indian Reservations

The rate at which Indians use meth appears to have dramatically increased in the past five years. An administration survey found in 2004 that almost 2% of the American Indian population was using meth.  The drug has torn apart families, led to increases in crime and raised mortality rates. Now it is affecting Native American housing.

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Alaska Native Leader Says Culture Aids Suicides

William Martin, chairman of the Alaska Suicide Prevention Council thinks he knows why Alaska Native villages tend to suffer waves of suicide. Martin says the problem is entwined with family violence, alcohol and drug use, and cultural disconnection. Approaches that address these broader issues are more effective. He praised the behavioral health aide program as an effective way to establish mental health services in distant communities.

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SAMHSA Alert About a Deadly Heroin Mix

Since early April, more than 100 deaths have been linked to heroin mixed with fentanyl, a narcotic considered 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Chicago has seen about 600 overdoses since April and 62 people have died from a mix or heroin and fentanyl. In one week Detroit authorities reported that 33 people died from the mix.

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Baltimore Sees Steep Decline in Drug Overdoses

Here’s some welcome news from Baltimore, a city from which the news is consistently dreary. Baltimore reports a dramatic change in crime and drug overdose rates. Both are at decade lows. Officials credit huge spending increases on drug treatment and improvement in policing, efforts drug treatment specialists say could serve as a national model for reducing the effects of illegal drugs on communities.

 Financier George Soros, whose foundation gave the city $25 million to rejuvenate local treatment programs in 1997, is so pleased by Baltimore’s results that his foundation is offering $10 million in grants to cities that want to copy Baltimore’s program.

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Parental Substance Abuse, Child Protection and ASFA: Implications for Policy Makers and Practitioners

This study was designed to explore how dependency courts are making permanency decisions under ASFA for children of parental substance abusers. Through mail and telephone surveys, legal analysis and five case studies of courts that have implemented special strategies, four policy and practice implications recommendations were derived. The link above is to the report’s executive summary, a 22 page pdf file.

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Many School Drug Prevention Programs Don’t Help

A growing body of evidence says that one-size-fits-all lessons do little to prepare kids for the real drug choices they’re likely to face. By condemning all drugs as bad and not distinguishing between legitimate medications and, in moderation, alcohol – such programs can confuse kids and ultimately cheapen their own messages.

The few programs shown to be successful are often not the ones used in school. A 2002 study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that although 82% of schools used some kind of program, only 35% of public schools and 13% of private schools were using a program that researchers had found effective.

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“Starter Heroin” in Texas Schools

A heroin-laced powder known as “cheese” is popping up in middle and high schools in Texas where dozens of youths have been caught with the drug. So far the problem has been focused on schools in Dallas, where police first reported kids snorting the mixture of ground-up cold medicines and heroin at the start of this school year.

Cheese is a tan powder made mostly from acetaminophen and diphenhydramine HCL - the ingredients in Tylenol PM - with a little heroin mixed in. The drugs are crushed together and typically folded into notebook paper. A quarter-gram sells for $5 and a single hit usually sells for $2.

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