Clockwise from top left: Carole Ann Whitney,
Leslie Whitney, Mary McCabe, Paul Whitney and
Matthew Mayor. Photo via

Thirteen members of a notorious crime family—who dealt heroin and crack around the clock in Liverpool and dominated one area of the English city—have been jailed for a total of 82 years after several dramatic police raids. “Matriarch and banker” Carol Whitney, 53, hid 500 wraps of heroin in a hanging plant in her back yard when cops arrived. She was claiming government benefits despite making a fortune from drugs. Nearby, police chased her estranged husband Leslie through his house and into the back yard as he tried to destroy his own stash. More extended family and associates were arrested elsewhere; young mom Emma McKenzie, 29, tried to hide her dope in a diaper bag. Her baby, meanwhile, was being used as a decoy by McKenzie’s own mom, Mary McCabe: the 53-year-old grandmother’s car was pulled over and cops found drugs and ammunition under the seat her granddaughter was strapped into. There was also a military assault rifle in the trunk. One family associate, 37-year-old Matthew Mayor, was filmed tossing large packages of heroin from his car window during a high-speed police chase—plumes of powder billowed behind him as the packs burst. Cops say just one of the packs contained dope worth around $75,000. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition, thousands of ecstasy pills, a canister of CS military tear gas, several sets of body armor, and yet more weaponry and heroin, were also seized from the Whitney family hoard. “This was a very dangerous family whose daily business was drugs and guns,” says Liverpool Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Doherty. “They dealt with drugs near to schools. They have nice holiday homes, they go on exotic holidays…My description of them would be ‘parasites.'”

A pilot and possibly some passengers abandoned a small, unscheduled twin-engine airplane that crash landed at Houston Executive Airport Monday evening, carrying a large quantity of marijuana. The unknown number of occupants made no prior contact with airport officials and ditched the plane after its nose landing gear collapsed as it touched down on the runway. Witnesses describe seeing the “shadows” of a person or people fleeing from the wreck. It’s mystifying that no one was caught: the small airport is surrounded by a ten-foot chain link perimeter fence, with three layers of barbed wire on top. Yet the occupant(s) vanished, with no hole discovered in the fence. “You could certainly classify [the marijuana on board] as a lot more than just personal use,” says John Kremmer, chief deputy of the Waller County Sheriff’s Department, without disclosing the exact amount. He adds, “We have no idea who the pilot was or where it came from.” The incident comes as the US Senate considers an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to crack down on smugglers who use ultralight aircraft (ULAs) to move drugs. A loophole in the current law punishes traffickers using ULAs less severely than those who use cars or larger aircraft, like the one abandoned in Houston. In any case, you have to find them first.

Obama Commutes Crack Prisoner’s Sentence, Addicted Doctors Do Better Than Average in Treatment, and New York Vodka Ad Accused of Anti-Semitism.

Long term drug rehab, Back 2 Basics is providing services to young men by using the outdoors as well as effective therapeutic modalities to treat young men suffering from drug addiction or alcoholism.

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) November 22, 2011

Back 2 Basics, a long term drug and alcohol treatment facility, is providing young men a new chance at life with some unique approaches. Drug and alcohol rehabs have historically taken place in a hospital like setting with florescent lightening and for a maximum of a 30 day treatment. Statistically, this method has been proven to be “not enough” as less than ten percent of clients of these rehabs stay sober more than a year. However, statistics regarding drug use show that 90 to 180 day treatment centers have proven to be effective for addicts and alcoholics.

The Back 2 Basics model is both therapeutic and experiential. It’s based firmly in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and emphasizes established modes of recovery. But its founders also believe that in addition to just getting sober, residents must be introduced to a full and active sober life in order to succeed.

As a case in point, the Spanish Immersion Program, which is a curriculum of Back 2 Basics focuses on sobriety, but also emphasizes cultural exposure and community service in other parts of the world.

Joined by Roy Duprez, CEO & Founder of Back 2 Basics, residents participated in Spanish lessons, performed community service at a local orphanage, beach clean up, and took surfing lessons—even as they doubled attendance at the local AA meetings.

For all of the residents, the trip was a chance to explore the world outside of alcohol and drug addiction.

Back 2 Basics has been implementing a new new approach on how to treat these young men. Finding a drug and alcohol rehab for young men can be difficult, Back 2 Basics is offering a new solution based in Northern Arizona, which is near many beautiful outdoor experiences in addition to Northern Arizona University.

For more information about Back 2 Basics or treating addiction in general, Back 2 Basics can be reached at (877) 339-4222.

# # #

Adam McLean
Back 2 Basics
(928)600-5488 (877)339-4222
Email Information

The curse of Thanksgiving is that it is the only holiday that celebrates eating and only eating. Other activities may be optional, but sitting at the table and digging in to turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie—at least a few bites to please Grandma—is obligatory. For those who have sweet memories of childhood meals filled with harmony and good cheer, the experience is one of simple pleasure, perhaps even the cozy togetherness that the Dutch call gezelligheid. For others, however, family reunions come with unhealthy servings of stress—from mild dysfunctional bickering to marital warfare to domestic violence. And for those of us with addictions, just going home may itself prompt regressive behavior of all types, including relapse.

Indeed, Thanksgiving poses, more acutely than any other day of the year, the question whether food itself can be addictive.

Food addiction is big in the news this year, but the idea itself has been around for at least 30 years. In 1982, Scientific American caused a minor scandal when it made the claim that cocaine and potato chips were equally addictive, thereby being perceived as minimizing the danger of the illegal drug. But in recent years, thanks in part to First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity crusade and to former FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s influential 2009 book, The End of Overeating, researchers are again comparing the addictiveness of cocaine and junk food—but this time, trying to raise awareness about the dangers of fatty, sweet and salty foods. The junk food industry, Kessler argues, has deliberately formulated its products to create irresistible cravings.

In his book, in fact, Kessler claims that our modern food environment is so artificial—and so unlike that for which Mother Nature evolutionarily prepared us—that it has rewired our brains, producing the current obesity epidemic.  While traditional Thanksgiving fare isn’t the engineered ecstasy of say, a Cinnabon, it’s overdetermined feast placed before a brain designed more for surviving famine.

There’s no doubt that, of course, that we live in an artificial world filled with unprecedented types of temptations. But I think we need to be cautious about making such strong claims about the effects of substances on the brain. Founding the idea of food addiction on science—specifically, the neuroscience of alcoholism and drug addiction—is actually tautological.

Claiming that food and sex are addictive because they light up the brain’s “drug” regions is absurd; it’s like saying our brains evolved so we could take drugs and these innate addiction pathways are hijacked by artificial drives to eat and reproduce! That’s bass-ackwards.

Here’s why. Originally, researchers argued that during addiction, drugs “hijacked” the brain’s pleasure regions, overstimulating them by inducing higher levels of neurotransmitters than natural rewards like food and sex could produce. But now, they’re arguing that food and sex can overstimulate this system, too. If so, then how so? Some claim that today’s junk food is so intensely processed that it’s essentially a drug, causing a craving unlike any ever seen with foods we ate historically. Others make similar claims about online pornography and sex addiction.

Such claims can’t be proven with the brain imaging studies that are used to support them, however. This is the fundamental problem. Anything pleasurable or desirable will “light up” the brain regions associated with drugs—it wouldn’t be recognized or experienced as “rewarding” otherwise.

Claiming that food and sex are addictive because they light up the “drug” regions is therefore absurd; it’s tantamount to saying our brains evolved so we could take drugs and these innate natural addiction pathways are being hijacked by artificial drives to eat and reproduce! That’s bass-ackwards. In reality, all we know from seeing these images is that experiences of pleasure and desire will activate similar areas. Current technology is still too crude to demonstrate much more than that—the mere presence of activation.

Take the study often cited by supporters of the idea that food addicts and drug addicts have “dysfunction” in the same regions of their brains.  As one recent article described the research:

Ashley Gearhardt, devised a 25-question survey to help researchers spot people with eating habits that resemble addictive behavior. She and her colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity of women scoring high on the survey. Pictures of milkshakes lit up the same brain regions that become hyperactive in alcoholics anticipating a drink, according to results published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in April.

Note the careful language  to describe the participants: they had “eating habits that resemble addictive behavior.” In fact, none of the women in the research actually met full criteria for food addiction! The study basically showed that women who liked (chocolate!) milkshakes more, wanted them more. And while it did show some reductions in activation in brain areas associated with putting the brakes on behavior, the researchers didn’t test whether participants were actually unable to stop themselves from binging.

Moreover, they didn’t find that these women experienced less pleasure when they drank the milkshakes, as has been found in food and drug addiction.

So, here we have a study presented in the media as showing food addiction in the brain that doesn’t include any actual food addicts! It could be that only actual food addicts show the deadening of pleasure or tolerance that is seen with drugs—but we can’t tell that from this research.

In fact, brain-imaging scientists looking at Nobel prizes (or actors looking at Oscars) would probably produce results that look a lot like craving in the brain. That wouldn’t, however, prove that they were addicted to those desired rewards.

And animal research presents similar problems. Early research on the brain’s pleasure centers found that rats would often choose drugs over food and sex—but it wasn’t very careful about what type of food was offered and whether the rats had adequately stimulating environments. As it turns out, in settings where rats can mix and mingle, mate with one another and eat enjoyable foods rather than plain rat chow, they take far fewer drugs.Indeed, when sweet foods or sugar water are offered, rats often prefer them to crack cocaine. Does this mean sugar is more addictive than we thought? Or crack less?

It all depends on what political point you want to use the science to make; the interpretation of the data comes down to your perspective. If you are arguing against sending people to prison for decades for selling crack while junk food merchants make fortunes, play up the junk food (or sugar water). If you are arguing that obesity is going to bankrupt the health care system, play up the crack.

The reality is that addiction isn’t simply a story about whether a particular substance or activity is “addictive.” Addiction is about context, about a relationship between a particular person and a particular culture and a particular substance or activity at a particular time. With even the most addictive substances like crack and heroin, fewer than 20 percent of users get hooked.

Until we take this complexity into account, we will not develop sensible ways of regulating addictive substances and helping people navigate a world in which there will always be some more vulnerable than others—and some sort of addictive escape available to those who want it. We will never eliminate the desire to alter consciousness or the rid the world of technologies to do so.

We’re wired for desire, reward and risk.  We need to focus on reducing related harm, not demonizing particular drugs, foods or people. The holidays can only hijack our brains if we believe they do.

Maia Szalavitz is a columnist at The Fix. She is also a health reporter at Time magazine online, and co-author, with Bruce Perry, of Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential—and Endangered (Morrow, 2010), and author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006). 

SANTA ROSA — Redwood Toxicology, a division of  Massachusetts-based Alere Toxicology, is expanding its drug-testing services to cover new “legal” highs from synthetic cannabinoids.

Redwood Toxicology today announced it has enhanced its existing synthetic-cannabinoid urine test for JWH-018 and JWH-073 with the addition of four new active compounds in synthetic marijuana: AM-2201, RCS-4, JWH-081 and JWH-250.

“To identify the ever-changing compounds and their metabolites, substance abuse testing laboratories must be determined to research and develop new test methods,” said Sumandeep Rana,  scientific director. “At RTL, we are extremely dedicated to examining substance abuse trends and synthetic drug production. Our goal is to continually empower our clients by providing advanced testing solutions that drive better detection, diagnosis, and healthcare.”

The lab claims to be the first to offer testing for JWH-018 and JWH-073, which are two of the five synthetic cannabinoids banned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Redwood Toxicology continues to observe these substances during analysis, but designer-drug chemists have attempted to circumvent the DEA’s bans by developing new substances that contain compounds with similar chemical structures, according to the lab.

Four chemicals gaining prevalence as active ingredients in newer-generation synthetic marijuana products are AM-2201, RCS-4, JWH-081 and JWH-250, according to Redwood Toxicology.

Alone or in combination, they can be found in drugs with street names such as Syn, K3 Legal, Haze, Cloud Nine, Mr. Miyagi Zero, Tyranny Green and Warped. Because these chemicals are not yet federally regulated, they appeal to chemists who may include them in herbal blends, according to the lab.

Synthetic drugs are an increasing concern for emergency rooms and poison control centers around the nation. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the number of human-exposure calls related to synthetic cannabinoids the first 10 months of this year increased 97 percent from 2010.

Targeted at criminal justice and drug rehabilitation clients, Redwood Toxicology’s expanded six-compound test panel combines liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry to confirm the presence of parent compounds and their metabolites in urine.

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Board certified psychiatrist, recovering addict and founder of Subox Forum.