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Northampton County’s first drug and alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation center is slated to open next year in Bushkill Township.

Northampton County officials and township family physician Albert DeFranco hope to break ground by late December on the Better Health Institute at 448 Moorestown Road.

DeFranco has a family practice near the Route 512 site. He said he has worked with county officials on the project since 2007 and hopes to open its doors by late spring 2012, he said.

The county is supplying about $2.2 million in state reinvestment funds while DeFranco said he has contributed about $8,000 to $9,000.

“This is historic,” said Ross Marcus, director of human services for the county. “This is the first time Northampton County will have a drug and alcohol establishment.”

DeFranco said once completed, the 10,000-square-foot, 24-unit, one-story building across the street from the Country Junction General Store and the St. Luke’s Wind Gap Medical Center will offer seven beds for detoxification patients and 16 beds for rehabilitation patients.

Patients living in Northampton County will receive priority, however, DeFranco said residents from surrounding counties will be welcome.

Nearby residents had mixed views about the facility.

“It is our neighborhood,” said Mike Zimmer, co-owner of Original Dough Boy’s Restaurant, 230 W. Moorestown Road. “It’s questionable of what’s going to come out.”

Zimmer’s wife, Intsafka, also said she is concerned about the center’s patients.

Robert Wambold, however, said DeFranco is free to do what he wants with his property.

“I don’t want people telling me what to do on my property,” he said.

DeFranco said he sympathizes with residents, but stresses his patients are regular people who might have lost their jobs in a tough economic climate or became homeless and had nowhere to turn but to drugs and alcohol.

“This isn’t arch criminals here. This could be your next-door neighbor,” he said. “Some people can’t cope with the stress of life. Most of these people are going undiagnosed in early years when they should have been diagnosed with these problems. Now, it festers into the adult phase.”

The project has approvals from Bushkill Township’s zoning hearing board and board of supervisors.

“They weren’t opposed to it,” DeFranco said. “The only voices of opinion were it was needed and a well-deserved thing.”

Bushkill supervisors and planners did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

About 32 employees will work at the center, including nurses, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and other counselors and medical personnel. Employees will work during three available shifts.

In the program, which DeFranco described as “very structured,” patients will receive evaluations and a physical exam before entering into the detoxification program, which could last two to three days on average. During the rehabilitation portion of the program, there will be various forms of individual and group counseling.

Patients will stay at the facility for about one to two weeks on average. Following the program, they will continue to receive outpatient treatment.

“We’re not going to allow them to go out there with no patient support,” DeFranco said. “The whole idea of this program is to teach them a new way of life and adjust to life’s stressers and be able to handle them.”

The funding for the project comes from HealthChoices reinvestment funds and was approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. HealthChoices is Pennsylvania’s name for its Medicaid program, which provides health care for low-income residents and is funded by the federal and state government.

Marcus said counties are given the option of administering the behavioral health portion of HealthChoices, to assure coordination with county-based mental health and drug and alcohol services.

Aside from his work as a physician, DeFranco is a former teacher, principal and schools superintendent in a Sussex County, N.J., school district, is a U.S. Army veteran and was a physician for the Northampton County Prison.

Among the hundreds of thousands of secret US State Department cables recently released by WikiLeaks, the controversial whistleblower website, a cache reveals US diplomats defending the interests of big pharmaceutical companies, even at the risk of the hosting nation’s own public health priorities. The memos dutifully detail the many embassy meetings with local Big Pharma reps, during which US officials are presented with laundry lists of issues to raise with one or another local government ministry. Invariably the goal of the exercise is for pharma to pressure the US to pressure the host country to give favorable treatment to expensive brand name drugs, typically by preventing in-country manufacturing or marketing of far cheaper generic versions.

Separate cables show such industry profiteering tactics threatening to taint US diplomatic relations in emerging nations such as Hong Kong, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Turkey, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and India. Overall, a familiar picture emerges of a diplomatic corps if not held hostage by, at least a captive audience to, the financial interests of the biggest American pharma companies as they come into covert conflict with developing nations that quite naturally prioritize the health care of their people over the high margins that Big Pharma has come to expect. With several hundred drugs and vaccines in development to treat addiction, the scourge of hundreds of millions worldwide, the affordability and accessibility of these innovative (and, no doubt, expensive) medicines will become a pitched battle in global public health over the next decade. The outcome of the skirmishes sketched in the WikiLeaks cables will help decide whether profits or people prove victorious.

The cables by no means paint a uniform portrait of government lackeys doing industry’s bidding. Many memos betray a between-the-lines irritation at pharma’s monomaniacal self-interest. Still, there is a disturbing silence on the obvious moral or ethical objections to industry demands for high price, long patents, and other protections despite the cost in human lives. Only a single cable—from the outgoing US ambassador to Poland in 2009—lays bare the vast greed that drives these complex, highly technical negotiations.

The developing nations, contrary to what you might expect, in many ways hold the best cards in this political game. Emerging nations have the fastest-growing economies, the most upwardly mobile middle classes, and the biggest untapped markets in the world. And in their impressive pushback against Big Pharma, India has been the 800-pound gorilla over the past decade. A democracy with well-educated but relatively inexpensive brain power, the pharma industry views India not merely as a market but as a potential new hub of drug development and testing.

There is a disturbing silence on the obvious moral objections to industry demands for high prices, long patents, and other protections despite the cost in human lives. Only a single cable lays bare the vast greed that drives these complex, technical negotiations.

 

Aware of its advantage, India has played hardball, starting with its approval of local generic HIV drugs for its hundreds of thousands of citizens with the virus—a defiant challenge to Big Pharma, which had refused to discount its own brand-name AIDS drugs to affordable levels. (In the US, HIV treatment costs as much as $15,000 a year; the Indian generic knocked out knockoffs with a $350 price tag.) In addition, India’s supreme court has been fearless in shooting down foreign pharmas when they sue for patent infringement by Indian generic companies. When an emerging nation’s entire legal and legislative apparatus unite to oppose industry interests, the company can either fold its hand or fold up its tent. When drug companies retaliated by boycotting India and refusing to sell new drugs there, they attracted universal opprobrium for denying sick people medicines.

 

Typically, the WikiLeaks memo from the US embassy in New Delhi detail a laundry list of complaints by the Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, including a new price-control regime to keep drug costs more affordable and a wholesale rejection, over US objections, of so-called data exclusivity, allowing a generic firm to bring knockoffs to market as soon as a branded patent ends.

Drug prices are only one of the issues raised in the cables. Equally important to Big Pharma is obtaining patent protection in new markets. Patents, which confer market exclusivity on a product, are especially dear to drugmakers because truly innovative medicines are among the riskiest and most expensive investments around; a company spends, on average, $1 billion and 10 years to bring a new drug to market, and the rate of failure in late-stage development is more than 50%. Without a patent to allow the manufacturer a monopoly to sell the drug for a limited period of time, a competitor could copycat the molecule virtually overnight. 

But what is a fair compromise between an innovator’s need to recoup profits from an invention and the public’s need to access medicine at an affordable price? In the US, with its political system owned and operated by corporations, the answer is, as much as the market will bear—one reason that our health-care is the most expensive and the least efficient in the developed world. But it turns out that most nations in the rest of the world are far less servile to Big Pharma than Uncle Sam.

In the Dominican Republic a group of Big Pharma reps met with a US counsel to request a speedup in the very slow rate at which the small nation’s patent approval office was stamping drugmakers’ filings: out of 700 filed over the past decade, fewer than 10 had been processed! The diplomat penning the memo, which was all analysis and no action, commented wryly that the Dominican Republican was evidently waiting to see if the anti-corporate winds blowing across Latin America marked a lasting change in the political weather. 

The politics of patent protection of pharmaceuticals tend to make for tedious reading, as do the details of the World Trade Organization’s treaty called the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, which gives private companies broad protections for their medicine monopolies, including a guarantee of 20-year patent protection before competitors can flood the market with generics. (A monopoly is, by definition, not a free market.)  But, as longtime consumer activist James Love, who heads the Knowledge Ecology International organization, explained to The Fix, “All the things the US is doing is whatever benefits a handful of companies like Pfizer, Abbott, Merck, and so on. The US basically pushes for anything they want.” Whenever they score a major victory for these companies, they try to push it further. Love explained, “What does the US want? The US wants more.” 

Although under the TRIPS agreement, pharmaceutical companies could register their drugs for 20-year patents in any nation via that country’s regulatory apparatus. But they don’t want to risk the sly Dominican Republic–style delay. So they want more. They want automatic monopolies in every country. In practice, the easiest way to get these monopolies is by having the State Department pressure governments in the developing world to grant them long periods of data exclusivity. The data at issue consists of the mountain of information from the numerous clinical trials showing safety and efficacy to win approval from the FDA. By demanding data exclusivity, Big Pharma is essentially trying, Love explained, “to create an intellectual property right over the very knowledge that a drug is safe and effective—something that is completely independent of a patent.”

Throughout the month of September, initiatives surrounding its designation as National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month have promoted recovery and supported the growth of healthy, resilient individuals and families in the United States.

When President Barack Obama acknowledged this annual event, his proclamation underscored the reality that alcohol and other drugs threaten the future of millions of Americans. “Abuse of prescription medication has reached epidemic levels, drunk and drugged driving pose significant threats to public safety,” the President noted. “As a nation, we must strive to promote second chances and recognize each individual’s ability to overcome adversity.”

However, despite national efforts to increase education and recovery programs, many Americans question if we are actually winning this battle. What have we learned in recent years and are we on the right track?

For some answers, I spoke with my MHA-NYC colleague Dr. Ellen Friedman, a psychotherapist with extensive experience as a clinical director at many substance abuse treatment programs.

As Dr. Friedman noted, technology now plays a disturbing role in the promotion of drug and alcohol abuse.

“When you search online, it’s easy to find blogs extolling the virtues of drugs, websites to order them directly, and videos identifying how best to use them,” she said. “Popular music and television often promote substance abuse as a popular, commonplace activity. It can be argued, therefore, that technological advancement presents the opportunity for alcohol and substance abuse to be promoted, facilitated and normalized.”

As a result, substance abuse has become more generally accepted and common among a range of demographics. Dr. Friedman pointed out that 4.7 percent of Americans age 50 and older used illicit drugs during the past year — a figure that is on the rise.

Of particular concern for Dr. Friedman is the impact on younger Americans.

“For generation X, prescription drug abuse and binge drinking are becoming ever more acceptable,” she said. “Almost half of teens say that they do not see a great risk in heavy daily drinking and 1 in 5 teens have abused prescription medicines. Most either don’t understand or simply ignore the risks.”

At the same time, Dr. Friedman believes that we have increased our understanding of addiction. This is good news for helping families and communities in the future.

“Based on advances in scientific understanding, how we define addiction has changed,” she noted. “It is now accepted wisdom in the field of substance abuse that addiction is a disease, specifically a chronic disease of brain rewards, motivation, memory and related circuitry.”

As we learn more about the long lasting effects of drugs on the brain, Dr. Friedman believes it’s time to change our perspective on the disease and its victims.

“The profile of the addict as an amoral thrill-seeker is not only pernicious but scientifically wrong. As noted by the Institute of Medicine, stigmatizing people who need treatment results in the unwillingness of individuals to seek treatment as well as the reluctance of some medical professionals to treat people with addiction problems.”

Recovery Month 2011 has certainly helped increase awareness and support for this important issue. As Dr. Friedman firmly believes, we now have an opportunity to shift the emphasis to the problem rather than the person. Let us correct our perception of those who abuse substances to reflect current understandings that support humane, non-judgmental and comprehensive treatment.

 

For the most part, our society targets education and enforcement of drug laws toward adult users and rehabilitation of adult offenders, but very little is steered toward children. In some areas, educational programs for school children, such as the DARE program, have been phased out over the years, primarily due to lack of funding.

The most common reasons children get involved in drug and alcohol abuse are:

• Availability of drugs or alcohol at home

• Extensive periods of time alone at home without supervision

• Contact with adults who already exhibit drug or alcohol problems

• Peer pressure

• Advertising that tends to show alcohol in a positive light

A National Institute on Drug Abuse study showed responses from high school seniors about high school student drug usage:

• Marijuana – 41.8 percent have tried the drug and 5 percent use it every day. Think of your local high school that would conservatively have between 3,000 to 4,000 students. That would mean that 1,200 to 1,600 of those students have tried marijuana. It would also translate into 150 to 200 of those students using marijuana on a daily basis.

• Cocaine – 7.8 percent have used and 2 percent have used within the last month.

• Tranquilizers – 9.5 percent of high school seniors report having used tranquilizers

• Alcohol – 72.2 percent have used alcohol and 3.1 percent use alcohol daily.

• Prescription pain pills – 15.4 percent of high school seniors reported having used prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Oxycontin during the last 12 months.

Parents should be aware of common warning signs indicating possible drug use by their children. Some indicators could be:

• Frequent and exaggerated mood swings

• Unusual and frequent fatigue

• Verbal or physical abuse toward family members

• A sudden change of friends

• Extreme weight loss or gain

• Loss of appetite

• Lack of interest in personal grooming

• Changes in grades or school attendance

• Withdrawal from responsibilities

• Disappearance of money or valuables

To understand and keep up with the times, parents must keep up with the new street drug terminology. Here are a few:

• Today, the term “handlebars,” “bars” or “zbars” are names for a prescription medication commonly sold and used on the street.

• “Bowling” describes a party where teenagers bring medication from their family’s medicine cabinet, dump it into a bowl, stir it up and then take turns blindly taking one, two, or more of the unknown pills. The consequences can be deadly.

• “Wet” describes a marijuana cigarette soaked in embalming fluid, then dried.

• “Kibbles and bits” refers to small crumbs of crack cocaine.

I encourage parents to research teenage drug use, terminology and trends. Information can be easily found at the local library or on numerous websites. For more information and the complete studies, you can find the National Institute on Drug Abuse at www.nida.gov , or the Center for Disease Control at www.cdc.gov . Parenting and prevention are the keys to keeping children away from drugs.

For more information on this or any other crime prevention topic, contact the Conroe Police Department Crime Prevention Unit at 936-522-3327 or 936-522-3226. If you have a neighborhood problem or want to report drug activity, contact the Conroe Police Department Narcotics Unit at 936-522-3303. If you have a suggestion, comment, or question about this article, contact Sgt. Berry at bberry@cityofconroe.org.

Published Date: October 3, 2011

Tags: Benedictine, priest, rehabilitation, Vietnam

Benedictine Father Francis Xavier Tran Van An (left) and a building contractor at the construction site

BENEDICTINE Father Francis Xavier Tran Van An Thursday presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for a new drug rehabilitation center near the national Marian Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang in Quang Tri province.

About 100 people attended the event for the center, which the Benedictines hope will help local drug abusers kick their habits and return to normal lives.

“The center aims to provide free rehabilitation, spiritual healing, health care and vocational skills for a rising number of drug addicts in the area,” said Fr. An, 40, who heads the project.

Fr. An, who has provided rehabilitation services at his monastery for years, said many parents have sought assistance from the Benedictines after their children have failed to overcome their addictions in state-run facilities, for which they must pay as much as 3 million dong (US$300) per month.

A former drug addict himself prior to becoming a Benedictine, Fr. An said the order since 2008 has been providing rehabilitation services, accommodation and vocational training to about eight drug addicts each year. He added that about 25 people have given up drug use through the program and now have employment, while five have joined the Catholic Church.

Report from ucanews.com

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VANCEBURG — Drug addiction and abuse is so rampant in Lewis County every family is affected, said Vanceburg Mayor Todd Ruckel.

                Despite the obvious need, the county lacks the recovery support necessary to help those battling addiction get their lives back, said David White, a recovering addict. Seven months ago, a group of concerned citizens began to meet to discuss the problem and brainstorm a solution. What the group decided was that in Lewis County, addicts need a chance for a New Beginning.

                Saturday, Ruckel announced that a building has been located to house a new drug recovery facility which, appropriately, will be called New Beginnings. The facility will be located in the former Pizza Corner building on Third Street, Ruckel said. The building has been made available through the Vanceburg Lions Club which is purchasing the building.

 Ruckel made the announcement about the new facility to the group of people who gathered for a golf tournament fund-raiser at Tee City Golf Course in Tollesboro, Saturday.  Funds raised from the tournament will be used to pay for the electric and other utilities for the facility, Ruckel said.

                White, who was involved in a similar facility in Maysville called Never Alone Never Again, will be manager of New Beginnings. White recently resigned from his position on the board for NANA after he reported to police the suspected theft of grant money by NANA’s former director Curtis Oliver. Oliver was subsequently charged with theft by unlawful taking for allegedly stealing more than $3,000 in grant funds. His case is currently in Mason County District Court.

White said he plans to focus his efforts in Lewis County, where he resides.

                White was a successful golf pro when he became “hopelessly addicted” to Oxycontin, he told the group at Tee City. While golf remains a passion, White’s focus is now helping others who have also struggled with addiction.

                “I’m really passionate about helping people get their life back,” White said to the group assembled at the golf course.

                The search for a building has been underway for some time, White said. Several locations were looked at, but it wasn’t until Kevin Duff, president of the Vanceburg Lions Club, was approached about the possibility of buying the former Pizza Corner building that the group had a solid lead.

                “Our motto is to serve the community,” Duff said of the Lions Club. “And that’s what we’re doing with this building.”

                Duff said the Lions Club worked with Community Trust Bank in Flemingsburg to purchase the building. The closing for the building is still pending, but should be completed within the next couple of weeks, Duff said.

                Ruckel said some cosmetic work will be necessary, but the city of Vanceburg will clean up the building and get it in shape so that meetings can be held at the site.

                White said he hopes to have at least three 12-step meetings per week in the facility to begin with, but eventually would like to have meetings daily.

                “People use drugs on a daily basis, so we’re hoping they’ll go to a meeting every day,” White said.

While prescription drug abuse is possibly the most prevalent addiction and a focus for New Beginnings, White said the facility will be available for any kind of 12-step meeting.

The facility will be open daily for 12 to 14 hours, White said, and he hopes members of the faith-based community will become involved in ministries through New Beginnings.

While the efforts to get the building in shape progress, White said there will also be efforts to establish a formal board of directors for New Beginnings. White said the board will have representatives from every part of the county, since drug addiction is a county-wide problem.

                The target date for opening New Beginnings is Dec. 1.

“We’re real excited,” White said. “People up here need hope because right now, there’s nothing.”

“Anything that’s good for the community, we’re for,” Duff said. “And we feel like this is going to fill a major need in the community.”

 

CEBU, Philippines – Research has shown that the key risk periods for drug abuse occur during major transitions in children’s lives. These transitions include significant changes in physical development (for example, puberty) or social situations (such as moving or parents divorcing) when children experience heightened vulnerability for problem behaviors.

The first big transition for children is when they leave the security of the family and enter school. Later, when they advance from elementary school to middle or junior high school, they often experience new academic and social situations, such as learning to get along with a wider group of peers and having greater expectations for academic performance. It is at this stage-early adolescence-that children are likely to encounter drug abuse for the first time.

Then, when they enter high school, young people face additional social, psychological, and educational challenges. At the same time, they may be exposed to greater availability of drugs, drug abusers, and social engagements involving drugs. These challenges can increase the risk that they will abuse alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

A particularly challenging situation in late adolescence is moving away from home for the first time without parental supervision, perhaps to attend college or other schooling. Substance abuse, particularly of alcohol, remains a major public health problem for college populations.

When young adults enter the workforce or marry, they again confront new challenges and stressors that may place them at risk for alcohol and other drug abuse in their adult environments. But these challenges can also be protective when they present opportunities for young people to grow and pursue future goals and interests. Research has shown that these new lifestyles can serve as protective factors as the new roles become more important than being involved with drugs.

Risks appear at every transition from early childhood through young adulthood; therefore, prevention planners need to consider their target audiences and implement programs that provide support appropriate for each developmental stage. They also need to consider how the protective factors involved in these transitions can be strengthened. For more information, please feel free to contact us anytime at 03202315229 or 032-2389143.

SOME problem gamblers are so ashamed of their behaviour they would rather admit a heroin habit than an addiction to the pokies, says problem gambling expert Professor Alun Jackson.

Professor Jackson said only 10 per cent of those addicted to gambling access help services.

Instead he said it was problems like drug abuse, illness, domestic violence and criminal behaviour that brought them to the attention of health and community support workers.

“They’re more likely to seek help for the other things that are going on,” Professor Jackson said.

“They are still quite ashamed about having a gambling problem because they think it’s a moral failing.”

The issue was raised with Border health and support workers at a free workshop organised by Upper Hume Primary Care last week.

Health promotion officer Jay McGough said it was important the group was able to recognise, and help, those with gambling problems, even if they may have come to them for a different reason.

“People with gambling problems often experience other issues at the same time and are more likely to present at general health and community services, than to seek help from problem gambling services,” Ms McGough said.

“The issue affects more than just the person who gambles, with each problem gambler affecting seven other people, such as their family or employer.”

Chandigarh, Oct 1 : In a bid to effectively check the menace of drug-addiction in the state, the Punjab government has constituted a ten-member Punjab Drug Prevention Board under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary. Stating this here today, an official spokesman said that the other members of the Board would comprise Principal Secretary Social Security and Women and Child Development, Principal Secretary Home and Justice, Principal Secretary Health and Family Welfare, Principal Secretary Youth Services, Principal Secretary Medical Education and Research, Principal Secretary Higher Education, Additional Director General of Police (crime), Excise and Taxation Commissioner besides the Director Social Security and Child Development as Member Secretary.Outlining the objectives of the newly set up Board, the spokesman said it would initiate concerted efforts to prevent the supply of drugs, treat and rehabilitate the drug-addicts, launch anti drug addiction awareness programmes.Besides, the Board would also chalk out a comprehensive state action plan to control drug addiction efficaciously, he added.