As we approach the New Year, it is important to step back and assess our holiday celebration. In the United States, it is a New Year’s Eve tradition to celebrate with parties, great food, and alcohol. The New Year should not be escorted in with tragedy, which may include a loss of life, permanent disability, or legal problems, so it is essential that alcohol intake be monitored –especially if someone is driving. Let’s revisit some issues with increased alcohol intake and problematic drinking.
The recent tragic death of a central Wisconsin 14-year-old boy, due to prescription medicine and alcohol abuse, brought to the fore a harsh reality – small communities are not immune to such events.
A growing national concern. In fact, prescription drug abuse has become a national problem. An estimated 20 percent of our population, aged 12 and older, have abused prescription medications for non-medical reasons.
In 2004, a national study evaluated prescription drug abuse by eighth, tenth and twelfth graders. The results revealed that by the twelfth grade, 10 percent of the population had abused Vicodin –a painkiller composed of hydrocodone and acetaminophen - and 5 percent had abused Oxycontin, an opiate commonly used to treat the pain of cancer patients. Both of these medications are controlled narcotic substances that are very potent and highly addictive. Other medications that are frequently abused include the benzodiazepines such as Valium, Ativan, or Xanax.
What do an Eric Clapton song and the movie “Scarface” have in common? Kids of the 60s will probably be able to answer this one right off the bat: cocaine. Now, after you get done singing a few bars of the song or picturing the scene of Al Pacino cleaning off his desk with his nose, come back to reality and remember that this fashionable drug of the 70s is not all glamour. Now replaced by ecstasy, crack and crystal methanphodime, cocaine’s popularity has faded, but never gone away.
Snorting, shooting or smoking, there are many forms and ways to use cocaine, and we should never forget the seriousness of this chemical. It may not get the media attention it once did, but the danger is still there. The addiction is one of the most difficult to recover from and the ramifications can have life-long implications, particularly to the heart. Let’s look more closely at cocaine; the use, where it came from and how it affects the heart.
Seems like every time we turn on the news we’re hearing about celebrities either getting arrested or entering rehab for drug use. The most recent “admission” was radio personality Rush Limbaugh who came clean about his addiction to both OxyContin (Hillbilly Heroin) and Hydrocodone, which will have him in rehab for the next 30 days.
If OxyContin is sounding familiar, it could be because MTV star Jack Osbourne recently completed rehab due to his addition, which he said started with the help of singer-actress Courtney Love. If you are still keeping track, Love was recently arrested after allegedly breaking the windows of her former manager’s home, and then after the arrest, overly medicated herself on a controlled substance, which got her an overnight stay at a local hospital.
Pills, pills, pills. People just can’t seem to stop popping pills. The problem is that this popping can be a disease and is not limited to high-profile TV personalities and athletes, but to all people from a variety of socioeconomic levels. Today, let’s focus on narcotics addiction and dependence.
Close your eyes, picture the Mr. Yuk sticker and sing along with me: “Mr. Yuk is mean…Mr. Yuk is green.” We all remember the green label with the eyes squinting and tongue sticking out, don’t we? Created in 1971 by the Pittsburgh Poison Center, Mr. Yuk educated children and adults about poison prevention and continues to promote poison awareness. Now more than 30 years later and combined with many companies eliminating lethal chemicals in their products, the country has seen a drastic drop in children’s deaths caused by poisoning.
We aren’t out of the woods yet. Although less than 25 childhood deaths occur each year due to accidental ingestion, there are still more than one million cases of accidental pediatric poisonings annually.
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