One of the fastest growing segments of the population suffering addiction issues are those in their 50s. yes, that is true. The number of people over the age of 50 who are being treated for addiction is drastically on the rise.

According to the Sacramento Bee, in a recent study, older adults who reported using illegal drugs within a year, nearly doubled between 2002 and 2007, while use of nonmedical pharmaceuticals increased from 2.2% in 2002 to 3.9% in 2009.

This is quite terrifying given the extreme expense of medical care. A vast majority of this group will be on public benefit medical insurance, or at least publically-subsidized care in the coming years.

Why are older adults becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol? The study found depression or anxiety to be the number one reason older adults abuse drugs or alcohol. Additional factors such as economic and financial stress and retirement were also cited as contributing factors to dependency. Nearly half of the respondents named prescription drugs and alcohol as their substances of choice.

Society has made strides with educating young people as to the dangers of drugs and alcohol. We would like to think our older generations would know how bad they are. Their reasoning behind addiction is a psychological study for another blog. But we have to see if we can offer them drug classes that will keep them from stepping off the path of righteousness in the future.

So many artists and musicians waste their lives due to drug use and drug abuse. Many die from their afflictions. Others live severely shortened, drug-addled lives. A few become clean and sober and thrive.

Hopefully, that will be the case for Shelly Moses Collins, as reported by TheNorthwestern.com.

Collins is a true gift. A powerful voice with a beautiful face and warm aura helped propel her to a country music star. At her peak she opened for such acts as Barbara Mandrell, Hank Williams Jr. and Willie Nelson.

Cocaine Arrives, Conquers and Destroys

The 47-year-old became painfully addicted to cocaine in her early 20s. It was a habit that consumed all of her time and all of her energy. She admits that she was completely lost to her addiction.

In one surprisingly responsible act, Collins said she entered rehab each time she became pregnant and stayed off cocaine until the babies were born, and never used drugs in front of her children.

In Missouri, Shelley Collins cooked crack for the local drug kingpins, who, to safeguard their dope, would lock the basement she worked in.

It was the first in a series of stints in jail for Shelley Collins — sentences of 2 1/2 years, 12 months, nine months and six months — that followed after she'd fail mandated drug screening on parole, and go back to jail.

Clean and Sober

She has been sober for more than 2 and a half years. Collins credits her faith in The Lord with helping her conquer her addiction. She is using her faith to help others overcome the demon of addiction.

While not singing professionally, she's back in business as a beauty salon owner — a career that cocaine had taken away from her — with her younger sister. She also has formed a 12-step support group.

It is always nice to hear a success story. It is a true shame that she wasted more than half of her life to cocaine. Hopefully, her efforts will continue to fuel my faith that we will curb drug addiction.

Drugs are a global problem. In no place is it more prevalent than Russia.

As reported in the New York Times, it is common knowledge that illicit drug use in the Russian Federation has reached critical proportions. It is also common knowledge that people who use drugs are among those most at-risk of infection with H.I.V. And it is common knowledge that since the beginning of the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic three decades ago simple tools such as Medication Assisted Therapy (methadone, buprenorphine) and clean needle-exchange services have proven very effective in decreasing drug abuse and reducing risk of infection with H.I.V., Hepatitis C and other diseases.

Russians Shoot Up

Russia has one of the world’s highest levels of injecting drug use. There are almost 2 million injecting drug users, and over 1.6 million opiate users. The number of HIV users has grown from 100,000 people to over a million in the last 10 years in Russia. Today there are over 1 million, and injecting drug users represent some 78 percent of all H.I.V. cases in the country.

This means that more than one third of all injecting drugs users are H.I.V.-positive — with peaks at three-quarters in some cities — and three-quarters of them are also living with the Hepatitis C virus. The human cost is devastating, and the social fallout is appalling: Russia now accounts for two thirds of the Eastern Europe and Central Asian H.I.V. epidemic, the fastest growing in the world.

Russia restricts such measures as needle and syringe exchange programs. The new National Drug Strategy proclaims a “zero-tolerance” approach to drug use in a country that already incarcerates enormous numbers of young people for substance use — and does so without drug treatment for those who need it.

These policies fuel poor treatment, discrimination and vulnerability to disease among drug users. They are contrary to WHO and U.N. recommendations, and go against the “E.U.-Russia Roadmap on the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice,” which emphasizes the principles of nondiscrimination and respect for human rights. They also contradict the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on H.I.V./AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on H.I.V./AIDS, both of which have been signed by the Russian Federation.

Yet the policies implemented by the Russian authorities have resulted in desperate situations for most of the people who use drugs in the country.

Russia’s national policies have driven drug use underground, and only made people who inject drugs harder to reach — with only 25 percent of them having access to anti-retroviral treatment. Drug offenses now account for 20 percent of the prison population.

Russia has the means to enshrine health as a human right. Combination prevention is the future. For injecting drugs users, this means clean needles and syringes, Medication Assisted Therapy for those who want drug treatment, and access to anti-retroviral therapies for all H.I.V.-positive drug users. That combination works.

The country cannot stop trying to educate and rehabilitate their drug users. Nobody wants to stay addicted to drugs. Nobody wishes their addiction on their children or those they care about. Russia must continue to provide drug classes and work toward reducing use.

Usually with government you know exactly where they stand on drugs and their legality. However, this changed with current US President Barack Obama when he announced that his government would not go after the medical marijuana industry in states where it was legal. Now, that unpopular decision is turning course (like most political issues) and the medical marijuana industry is struggling for survival.

The Obama Administration is not talking about undertaking some unprecedented approaches to addressing drug addiction.

The Department of Justice released new data showing that drug use cost our society about $193 billion a year. Fifty six billion of those dollars can be traced directly back to costs associated solely with the criminal justice system.

Contributing to this immense cost are the more than seven million people in the United States who are under the supervision of the criminal justice system with more than two million behind bars.

For states and localities across the country, the costs of managing these populations have grown significantly. Between 1988 and 2009, state corrections spending increased from $12 billion to more than $50 billion per year.

Breaking the Cycle

Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy outlined unprecedented actions being undertaken by the Obama Administration to address this challenge by breaking the cycle of drug use, crime, incarceration and re-arrest.

The Obama Administration’s approach to criminal justice drug policy is guided by three facts; that addiction is a disease that can be treated; people can recover and new interventions are needed to appropriately address substance abuse and drug-related crime.

This last fiscal year, the Obama Administration spent $10.4 billion on drug prevention and treatment programs compared to $9.2 billion on domestic drug enforcement. 

Do You Agree With These?

The administration is implementing the Second Chance Act, which provides funding for programs that improve coordination of reentry services and policies at the state, tribal, and local levels, including demonstration grants, reentry courts, family-centered programs, substance abuse treatment, employment, mentoring and other services.
Expansion of drug courts, which place non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prison.

Last year, the Department of Justice awarded $100 million to support 178 state and local reentry grants to provide a wide range of services and in late September awarded another $83 million to 118 new grantees.

Encouragement to housing authorities nationally to lease to offenders returning to the community and to ensure that they understand that they have the discretion to lease to all but two specific classes of felon.

I applaud any thinking outside the box when it comes to stopping America’s addiction problem. I respect any feedback any of you loyal readers would like to contribute.

Prescription medication addiction is becoming a problem of epidemic proportions in this country. Add fetuses to the growing list of those addicted to prescription medication. No, that is not a typo, and really the only surprise is that obviously fetuses cannot access the Internet – yet!

Medical authorities are witnessing explosive growth in the number of newborn babies hooked on prescription painkillers, innocent victims of their mothers' addictions.

A Long History of Addicted Babies

Health professionals have dealt with addicted mothers and drug-exposed babies for decades.

In the 1960s and 1970s, heroin emerged as a problem. That is when neonatologist Loretta Finnegan, who has studied substance abuse, developed a scoring system of symptoms to diagnose neonatal abstinence syndrome or drug withdrawal in the infants. By the 1980s, the problem had shifted to cocaine and crack. In the past five to 10 years, doctors say they have treated growing numbers of babies hooked on prescription opioid painkillers.

While abuse of many street drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, is declining, painkiller abuse is growing. About 7 million people abuse prescription drugs, including painkillers, according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses have more than tripled in the past decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

The epidemic of drug-addicted newborns really follows exactly from the spread of the pill mills, the ability to buy prescription drugs like OxyContin on the street, to get them on the Internet. It's staggering to think of the financial, emotional and social costs of this problem.

Do you think legal remedies are the answer? Should law enforcement charge addicted mothers who give birth to addicted babies with a crime? If not, what is the answer? One thing that cannot hurt is for doctors to make sure all pregnant are educated to the dangers of prescription medications on pregnancies.

Over the course of this blog series on addictive drugs we have examined nine of the top 10 chemical substances with respect to use and addictive nature. Now we have come to the king of all addictive drugs – heroin. This is a drug that is so highly-addictive that a user can become addicted with just one use!

What is Heroin?

Heroin, also known as diamorphine or, especially in older literature, as morphine diacetate, is an opioid drug synthesized from morphine (is a legal pain reliever used in hospitals every day-very strong and also very addictive), which is a derivative of the opium poppy. The white crystalline form considered "pure heroin" is usually the hydrochloride salt.

Heroin is used as a recreational drug for the transcendent relaxation and intense euphoria it induces. Tolerance quickly develops, and users need more of the drug to achieve the same effects. Its popularity with recreational drug users, compared to morphine, reportedly stems from its perceived different effects. In particular, users report an intense rush, an acute transcendent state of euphoria.

It is Extremely Addictive!

Short-term addiction studies by the same researchers demonstrated that tolerance developed at a similar rate to both heroin and morphine. When compared to the opioids hydromorphone, fentanyl, oxycodone, and pethidine/meperidine, former addicts showed a strong preference for heroin and morphine, suggesting that heroin and morphine are particularly susceptible to abuse and addiction.

Morphine and heroin were also much more likely to produce euphoria and other positive subjective effects when compared to these other opioids.

An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction. In this article, heroin was the #1 drug for addictive nature. It scored a 3.0 for both physical and psychological dependency, meaning it hits you from all angles. Again this drug is so addictive that just one use can cause addiction!

If there is a “poster-child” for addictive drugs to steer clear of – heroin is it!

Heroin should be avoided at all costs. There should never be any experimentation with this danger and highly-addictive chemical substance.

We have looked at number 10 through 3 on the top 10 most abused chemical substances and their addictive nature. Now we are down to #2 – cocaine. Do you know anyone who uses cocaine? If so, more than likely you know someone addicted to cocaine.

What is cocaine?

Cocaine is a drug derived from the leaves of the coca plant. Believe it or not, just a little more than 100 years ago it was used for medicinal purposes and was one of the ingredients used in the original formula for Coca-Cola!

Cocaine is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic. Specifically, it is a serotonin–norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor, which mediates functionality of these neurotransmitters as an exogenous catecholamine transporter ligand.

Cocaine is a powerful nervous system stimulant. Its effects can last from 15–30 minutes to an hour, depending upon the method of ingestion.

Cocaine increases alertness, feelings of well-being and euphoria, energy and motor activity, feelings of competence and sexuality. Athletic performance may be enhanced in sports where sustained attention and endurance is required. Anxiety, paranoia and restlessness are also frequent. With excessive dosage, tremors, convulsions and increased body temperature are observed

How Addictive is Cocaine?

Let’s just say it is very addictive. Basically, cocaine does things to the brain and central nervous system that make it more enjoyable, and more is needed all the time, making it highly addictive. Because of the way it affects the mesolimbic reward pathway, cocaine is addictive.

Unlike most molecules, cocaine possesses both high hydrophilic and lipophilic efficiency, violating the rule of hydrophilic-lipophilic balance. This causes it to cross the blood-brain barrier with vastly superior reinforcement than to other psychoactive chemicals.

An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 (with 3 being the most addictive chemical substance) for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction.

In this study, cocaine was the second most addictive substance, with only heroin more addictive overall. With respect to physical dependency, cocaine scored only a 1.3, which actually makes it less physically addictive than tobacco (1.8) and alcohol (1.6).

However, cocaine is extremely addictive psychologically. Cocaine scored a 2.8 for psychological dependency, only behind heroin (3.0). No other chemical substance was even close to these two – except tobacco (2.6).

Cocaine dependence is psychological dependency on the regular use of cocaine. Cocaine dependency may result in physiological damage, lethargy, psychosis, depression and fatal overdose.

This is a drug that should be avoided at all costs. Do not experiment with it. If someone you know or care about suffers from cocaine addiction please have them seek help immediately. If they want total anonymity, there are online drug classes as well.

If you have been reading this blog series on addictive drugs, you know I always ask how many people you know are using the drug subject to the blog. Because it is both legal, and arguably, widely-accepted, tobacco is one of the “Big 2” with tobacco for most used and people addicted.

Alcohol is a psychoactive drug that has a depressant effect.  Many consider alcohol to be an “upper”; however by acting to slow the central nervous system alcohol most definitely is a “downer.”  Combined with clinically-diagnosed depression, alcohol can have very serious negative effects.

A high blood alcohol content is usually considered to be legal drunkenness because it reduces attention and slows reaction speed.

But How Addictive is Alcohol?  How about more physically addictive than cocaine!

How many kids would take their first drink knowing that alcohol ranks third, behind only heroin and cocaine, for the most addictive of used and abused chemical substances?  Those first two are pretty hard core and just the mention of alcohol sharing the top three with those two demonic substances might scare off a lot of would be drinkers.

An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 (with 3 being the most addictive – heroin) for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction.

With respect to physical dependency alcohol scored a 1.6, just slightly less addictive than tobacco, but more physically addictive than cocaine (1.3). How many would-be drinkers would that deter?  More physically addictive than cocaine.

Alcohol is also psychologically addictive scoring a 1.9, about even with amphetamines and more than cannabis.

Man, don’t start drinking. Alcohol is highly addictive and very hard to quit. Of course, thousands of people quit every day, so if you abuse alcohol, it is never too late to quit!

If you have been reading this blog series on addictive drugs, you know I always ask how many people you know are using the drug subject to the blog. Because it is both legal, and arguably, widely-accepted, tobacco is one of the “Big 2” with alcohol for most used and people addicted.

It is most commonly used as a recreational drug, and is a valuable cash crop for countries such as Cuba, China and the United States.

In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or dipping tobacco. Upon the arrival of Europeans in North America, it quickly became popularized as a trade item and a recreational drug. This popularization led to the development of the southern economy of the United States until it gave way to cotton.

How Addictive is Tobacco?

Let’s put it this way, the odds are heavily in favor that if you know one smoker, you know one tobacco addict!

Because of the addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence develop. Absorption quantity, frequency, and speed of tobacco consumption are believed to be directly related to biological strength of nicotine dependence, addiction, and tolerance. The usage of tobacco is an activity that is practiced by some 1.1 billion people, and up to 1/3 of the adult population.  Over 1,000,000,000,000 addicts and growing!!

An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 (with a 3 being the most addictive substance like heroin) for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction.

On the list of top 10 most abused and addictive drugs tobacco finished fourth, right behind alcohol, cocaine and heroin which ranked 3 to 1. Tobacco scored a 1.8 for physical dependency, equal to benzodiazepines and more physically addictive than both alcohol and cocaine!

Tobacco is also highly psychologically dependent scoring a 2.6, which was significantly higher than alcohol (1.9) and benzodiazepines (2.1).

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports it to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and estimates that it currently causes 5.4 million deaths per year. Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in developed countries, but continue to rise in developing countries.

Man, don’t start smoking or dipping or using tobacco products. They are highly addictive and very hard to quit. Of course, thousands of people quit every day, so if you use tobacco, it is never too late to quit!

You may have heard this question before, but how many people do you know currently taking benzodiazepines? Because they are taken in pill form, odds are people all around you are taking them and you don’t know it.  I would venture to guess two or three of your acquaintances are using this prescription medication.

This is part of our blog series on addictive drugs. But what exactly are benzodiazepines and are they addictive?  Benzodiazepines are psychoactive drugs whose effects include acting as a sedative, hypnotic (sleep-inducing), anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), anticonvulsant, muscle relaxant and amnesic action. These properties make benzodiazepines useful in treating anxiety, insomnia, agitation, seizures, muscle spasms, alcohol withdrawal and as a premedication for medical or dental procedures.

Benzodiazepines are categorized as either short-, intermediate- or long-acting. Short- and intermediate-acting benzodiazepines are preferred for the treatment of insomnia; longer-acting benzodiazepines are recommended for the treatment of anxiety.

I can tell you from experience that I have known hundreds of alcoholics who give up alcohol and then become very addicted to benzodiazepines.

How addictive are they?

How about as addictive as tobacco and barbiturates?  An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 (with three being the most addictive substances like heroin) for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction.  Benzos scored 1.8 the same as two drugs previously mentioned in terms of physical addiction.  Benzodiazepines scored a 2.1 for psychological dependence, more than amphetamines and barbiturates and just less than tobacco.

Chlordiazepoxide (Librium) was the first benzodiazepine produced. Diazepam (Valium) was the next to be developed and until the early 1980s this was the most widely prescribed tranquillizer in the world. Today, newer benzodiazepines such as alprazolam (Xanax) and lorazepam (Ativan) account for most tranquillizer prescriptions.

While they no doubt hold some medicinal value, they are highly addictive and should be used in only extreme cases, and then only the care and guidance of a doctor with a strong knowledge of your personal health history.