Principles of Effective Treatment
Scientific research since the mid–1970s shows that treatment can help patients addicted to drugs stop using, avoid relapse, and successfully recover their lives. Based on this research, key principles have emerged that should form the basis of any effective treatment programs:

• Addiction is a complex but treatable disease that affects brain function and behavior.



• No single treatment is appropriate for everyone.



• Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug abuse.



• Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical.



• Counseling—individual and/or group—and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of drug abuse treatment.



• Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies.



• Medically assisted detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long–term drug abuse.



• Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective.



• Drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously, as lapses during treatment do occur.
  
  

Effective Treatment Approaches
Medication and behavioral therapy, especially when combined, are important elements of an overall therapeutic process that often begins with detoxification, followed by treatment and relapse prevention. Easing withdrawal symptoms can be important in the initiation of treatment; episodes of relapse may require a return to prior treatment components. A continuum of care that includes a customized treatment regimen—addressing all aspects of an individual's life, including medical and mental health services—and follow–up options (e.g., community – or family-based recovery support systems) can be crucial to a person's success in achieving and maintaining a drug–free lifestyle.

My comment

I think that effective treatment is very important. for example people who give therapy should always have the training appropriate to be able to follow and give advice to people who try to become addict free. The thing is that I do not think that every "therapist" have the right training and the therapies that they give are probably not the best ones, not that they cannot help people but in an effective way? not sure about that yet.

For more information: http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/treatmeth.html

Too often, addiction goes untreated

Too often, addiction goes untreated
According to SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)

23.2 million persons (9.4 percent of the U.S. population) aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use problem in 2007.

Of these individuals, 2.4 million (10.4 percent of those who needed treatment) received treatment (hospital, drug or alcohol rehabilitation or mental health center).

20.8 million persons (8.4 percent of the population aged 12 or older) did not receive treatment.

My comment

I think that 8.4% of the population who needs treatment and did not receive it is to much! This tells me that drug use is not look closely enough I mean in these statistics 12 years old are listed. these 12 years old did not just try the drug they NEED treatment they have past the stage of just trying they are addicted.

For more information:
http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/treatmeth.html

Do You Know Your Drug Facts?

Cocaine: 8% of high school seniors have tried cocaine in one of its several forms. Everyone knows that cocaine is a hard drug, but you’ve probably also heard that it’s an amazing high. Cocaine is extremely addictive because the euphoria tends to wear off quickly and even irregular use can cause strokes and heart attacks, since it constricts the blood vessels.

Ecstasy: This common party drug might seem harmless, but 43% of users are actually addicted to it and 34% are considered to be abusing ecstasy. In addition, this drug, which acts as both a psychedelic and a stimulant, can have serious effects on the brain and body. It tends to raise blood pressure, which can cause strokes or heart problems, even in young people, and also makes it so the body can’t cool itself, often resulting in organ failure and death. Repeated use can also build up toxic levels in the body.

Heroin: Another hard drug, heroin is probably not something many people expect to find in a high school, but 1.5% of 8th graders have tried it. Heroin has one of the highest rates of overdose deaths and is extremely difficult to quit. The body rapidly builds a tolerance to this drug, resulting in higher doses each time. Repeated abuse causes infections in the heart and lung problems.

Inhalants: Some of the most popular drugs for teens aren’t drugs at all, but common household items. Gasoline, glue, spray paint, and cleaning products are often used as drugs. However, the ingredients in inhalants tend to cause permanent effects like deafness, jerking hands and legs, and brain damage. It’s not uncommon for users to die after a single session.

LSD: This is a hallucinogen, a drug that makes you experience things that feel completely real, but are really all in your mind. A bad trip can cause the user to commit suicide or do something very stupid that results in injury or death. 9.7% of American teens have tried LSD at least once.

Marijuana: This is considered to be a pretty mild drug and many teens see nothing wrong with smoking pot as a recreational drug. It does have some nasty effects though, and is the third most common drug that lands teens in the hospital (after cocaine and alcohol). After just one hour of smoking marijuana, the risk of having a heart attack rises 400% and it can also cause serious brain damage.

My comment

I think that the facts are interesting. I did not realize that 8% of high school seniors had tried cocaine! or that 1.5% of 8 grade students had tired heroin I think that 1.5% is a lot when you think that heroin is a drug that you get addicted to very easly. I also found interesting that after 1 hour of using marijuana you incfrease your chance to have a heart attact of 400% I do not think that a lot of people no this because marijuana is percieved as a mild drug.

For more information go on : http://www.teenzeen.org/drug-facts.html

Kyla

Legalization in the US

What do you think about those videos?
Those videos are quite long but very interesting!!! If you do not want to look at all them, please look at the part #6, the last one.

My comment:
If you want to have my point of view, those video shocking me! I just do not understand what is the reasons why this man in the church let the people use those HARD drugs in his church?!?!?!

Heroin addiction

Heroin

Here people can see the effects of Heroin on a young girl of 18 years old. It is very interesting to see how it affected her, Heroin is a hard drug!

Paul McCartney already used drugs...

I found it very interesting to have a video where people can see how many celebrity already take drugs. Here, Paul McCartney from The Beatles defend his point in an interview, very intereting!
Enjoy it!

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (The Beatles)

Lyrics
Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high

Newspaper taxies appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Picture yourself in a train in a station
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds

My comment:
I decided to put this video because the song "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" from The Beatles was principally made to talk about the effects of one drug: LSD. During an interview in 2004, Paul McCartney said openly, in front of the media, that his group and himself used drugs when they were young and also he admits that they used drugs such as marijuana and LSD in their songs.
I found it interesting to put a video about a popular group of music to show that many groups, who are the models of the youth, they often influence them. By taking some drugs and talk openly about it can put the youth in confidence to use those drugs.  

How it cost?

Here we can see the reason why many youth use marijuana in canada. It is easily accessible and it is cheap.

Effects of Cocaine

As many strong stimulant, many negative effects can occur. A cocaine psychosis described that some hard drugs addict can experiment hallucinations, rigid or repetitive behaviours, paranoid delusions, and a tendency to violence. Tolerance to the effects of cocaine in people seems not to occur, there is tendency to increase the dose.

Smart, Reginald G. Forbidden Highs - the nature, treatment, and prevention of illicit drug abuse. p.81

A reduction of injections

Specialists found a solution to reduce the injections from people who suffer from drug addiction, they call it substitution therapy. That therapy can move drug users away from injecting drugs such as heroin to an oral administration of an opiate substitute. This substitution is not the best one but it is better than using heroin because to use syringe can be very dangerous of contracting HIV and other blood diseases.

Buxton, Julia. The political economy Narcotics production, consumption, & glocal markets. p. 157

What does Ecstasy look like?

Ecstasy

Another hard drug that is use from many youth now is ecstasy.
This drug make them feel more their five senses: the sense of smell, the sense of touch, their sense of tasting, sight and hearing.
Since many years, scientists did research on ecstasy.
After many research on ecstasy, made by Ricaurte's team in 2002 for the journal Science, they conclude that, one tablet of ecstasy, could damage the functioning of the brain and create symptoms of Parkinson diseade in the users. 

Buxton, Julia. The political economy Narcotics. Production, consumption, & global markets. p.119

Resources

In the region of eastern townships there is many resources for people who have an addiction to drugs or alcohol. However a resource will be good for a individual and innapropriate for another individual. This may depend on the goal of the organization and the approches that are use as well as the the individual itself, how he/she see things, religion background etc.

Centre Jean-Patrice- Chiasson/ Maison st-George


1930 rue king Ouest
Sherbrooke
Phone Number : 819 821- 2500

• It is a public resource;


• They offer in-house and externe services;


• Services both in french and english;


• Offer rehab for people who are addicted to drugs or/and alcohol


• help people reintegrate society


• Give support to the family and friends

I decided to talk about Jean-Partice-Chiasson because it seems to me that it is the center that welcomes the Sherbrooke population the most.

Kyla

http://www.dependance.gouv.qc.ca/index.php?ressource-en-dependances&nofiche=44

The history of Cocaine

I found it interesting to found the historic of cocaine because I wanted to know where and when it came from. It seems that people use cocaine since 3000 years before J.C. It is the South Americans that chewed the leaf of the coca tree, they considered those trees like a donation from god. Those leaf were used as stimulants and it gave the workers the energy that they needed to do their tasks. People began to do experiments new things with the coca leaf that create crack. Cocain begins to be more popular and after many years later, in 1970, people found a manner to smoke it. Drug addict also buy it in little rocks that they put in powder to sniff. Crack easily destruct many lives even if it is a relatively new drug compared to heroin and opium, it is use since 150 years.

My opinion is that drugs are too modify. Naturally, they can provide a "feeling" that is not so bad for the people who want to consume but the problem is that drug addicts modify the drugs by adding many different things to have a higher "feeling". Durg addict always want more and more, at a certain time the drug is not enough hard for them so they take another that is harder and dangerous.

http://www.treatmentsolutionsnetwork.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/24/the-history-of-cocaine/

Statistics

What is this drug?

Heroin

This drug is made from morphine. When it is pure, heroin is a white crystalline powder. When it is sell on the street, it can be present in many colours because of the many substances that can be add to it. When it is transform, it can look like at a dark brown sticky gum.
Other names: diacetylmorphine, diamorphine, black tar, dope (heroin), dust, H, horse, junk, smack, scag 

What is this drug?

Cocaine and Crack Cocaine

 

Cocain is a stimulating drug that comes from the leaves of a tree, the coca bush in the South America.

Drug addict use it as a powder that is snorted or dissolve in water to be injected.

Other names: angie, blow, C, Charlie, coke, crack, flake, freebase, hard, Henry, nose candy, rock, snow, stardust

Different Drugs

Legalizing Drugs Decreases Use - Proof In Portugal, Netherlands

Heroin Addicts Speak

The history of Heroin

For that research about hard drugs, to begin, I decided to search about the historical aspect of it. To know what I researched on, I found it interesting to know where it comes from and why. One of the hard drugs, that is use from some drug addict is the heroin created in the 1800 century. That drug was made from morphine, a medical product that was often use as a drug. At first, the heroin was created to stop the addiction to the morphine. In those years, scientifics were not conscious of the different side effects that those drugs could have on their patients, an example of that is Freud, who prescribed cocain to his patients before knowing all the after-effects that it could have on them. At the beginning, heroin was sell on pharmacies tablets, it is years later that they remove the drugs from pharmacies because it was forbidden. The first producers of heroin was the Afghanistan, it was still legal to produce it but it was more control.

I am very surprise about that historical fact, to see that the scientists do not looked at the side effects before giving it to their patients in need.

http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/heroin-history.html

5 myths

There is many myths related to drug use and the treatments. These are five myths that may help people who are addicts to seek for treatment.

1. Overcoming addiction is simply a question of willpower. You can stop using drugs if you want to. Prolonged exposure to drugs affects the brain in a way that it results in big cravings and a compulsion to use. Because of that it makes it difficult to stop.

2. Addiction is a disease, there is nothing you can do about it. Experts agree to say that addiction is a brain disease however it does not mean that the person that uses is a helpless victim. Addiction can be treated.

3. Addicts have to hit the bottom befire they can get better. Recovery can beging at any point in the addiction however the earlier the better.

4. You cannot force someone into treatement; they have to want help. People who are forced into treatement by their family, firneds or employe can benifit from treatment as much as someone that is vulonteer. When they are clean they often decide to stay in tretment.

5. Treatement did not work before, so there is not point in trying again. Recovery from drug addiction is a long process and in the process relapes are normal. A relapes does not mean that treatment did not work it is a signal to get back on track.

Kyla

http://www.helpguide.org

Why some become addicts and other do not?

Vulnerability to addiction doffers from person to person. From genes to the age the person start using, family and social environment all play a role in addiction.

The risk factors that may be seen:

• Family history of addiction


• Abuse, neglect or other traumatic experience


• Depression and or anxiety


• early use of drugs

Yhe first reason for starting to use may also affect the vulnaribility, was it to forget something painful or was it to try it one, or to be accepted by a social group?

Many people use drugs to escape physical and emotional problems/ discomfort. For example relying on cocaine to boost ones energy and confodence. Unsing sleeping pills to control panic attacts.

Kyla

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/drug_substanse_abuse_addiction_signs_effects_treatement.htm

Hard drugs

Hi! For our Sociology class, Kyla and I decided to do our research on hard drugs. We found that subject very interesting to search on because it has an increasing of people who uses drugs and it is very dangerous. People are not always aware of the bad effects that it can have on their life. My partner and I decided to do our research more specifically on Cocaine and Heroin. Kyla will develop more on the prejudices and discrimination, comprehending exclusion, and social support and me on the demographics, the history and the society. We want to learn as many things as we can about hard drugs. We hope that we will inform you as better as we can about the dangers of those hard drugs and about the people who consume those drugs, about the fact that they are consider minority, why?