It’s one step back, one step forward in Europe. While Holland begins the slow process of rolling back its longstanding liberal approach to marijuana, authorities in Copenhagen, Denmark are pushing for full legalization of hashish. The proposal would see it sold and taxed legally, just like alcohol. The latest volley in the debate came as Copenhagen’s City Council voted last week to investigate ways to decriminalize the drug. “It’s better that the council distributes hashish and not criminals,” says Social Democrat councilor Lars Aslan Andersen. “I hope we get the opportunity to try a new policy because we can’t just continue the current prohibition strategy with hash, which is very outdated.” Copenhagen has form for attempting such forward-thinking legislation. A similar proposal received the backing of Copenhagen’s mayor Frank Jensen in 2010, only to fail when it was blocked at a national level. This time around, it’s believed there’s enough parliamentary support to pass a rewrite of Denmark’s existing drug policy—a necessary step in moving ahead with the Copenhagen proposal.

Of course, the idea has its detractors. “We strongly urge Frank Jensen as the country’s former justice minister to stop this crazy proposal,” says Martin Geertsen of the center-right “free-market liberal” Venstre party. “We don’t want to make it easier to get hold of hash because then more people would use it and be worse off for it,” Minister of Parliament Ole Hækkerup tells the Jyllands Posten newspaper. “If you look at people who use hard drugs, two thirds of them started with hashish.” Then again, nearly all users of hard drugs start with caffeine, yet no-one’s debating the legality of Nescafe. The centrist Radikale party is split: “It’s well known that we have been for and against [decriminalization] within the party,” says Radikale’s Jeppe Mikkelsen, decisively. “Personally I’m not religiously inclined to keep the current model, but we haven’t discussed it yet so we have to look at the proposals and see where we stand.” A special committee will now examine how to proceed with decriminalization, but with such a range of opinions, it seems unlikely that anything will be resolved on a national level anytime soon.

Top Colombian Drug Dealer Captured, Families Turn to Shrinks to Help Kids Hooked on Gaming, and Rapper TI Salutes Eminem for Helping Him Overcome Addiction.

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Hats off to Eminem Photo via

While many families overlook drug or alcohol problems during the holidays to keep the family intact, the addiction specialists at Promises Treatment Centers have found that addiction interventions are especially powerful at this time of year.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) November 29, 2011

Holiday music and films instill visions of what the holidays should be, but they aren’t the reality for the millions of families affected by addiction. As holiday celebrations approach, families are left with a series of less-than-ideal ways to approach the addict in their lives. Do they ban the addict from the holiday festivities? Should they allow the addict to ruin another get-together?

Fortunately, there is another option. Staging an addiction intervention confronts the problem head-on, helping the addict get the treatment they need and granting family members the peace of mind to enjoy the holiday season.

An addiction intervention is a pre-planned meeting with the addict and their closest family, friends and colleagues that is designed to help the addict into drug rehab. In a loving, supportive manner, concerned participants describe the way addiction has impacted their lives and the consequences for refusing to accept help.

Families are often reluctant to confront a loved one’s addiction during the holiday season. But according to the addiction specialists at Promises drug rehab centers in Malibu and Los Angeles, in many ways the holidays are the best time to stage an addiction intervention.

“The holidays can be one of the most effective times to break through a loved one’s denial,” said Dr. David Sack, CEO of Promises Treatment Centers. “When family members stage an addiction intervention or help a loved one into treatment over the holidays, they send a particularly strong message that the family’s number-one priority is for their loved one to get well.”

The message is particularly powerful during the holidays because it is a time when many people struggling with addiction assume their downward spiral will go unnoticed or get overlooked in the hustle and bustle of holiday preparation. It is also one of the only times of the year when family members are together in the same place. Families that step in and take action can get their loved one’s attention, increasing the likelihood that the addict will accept the help being offered.

Without intervention, in just a few short months a drug or alcohol problem can go from worrisome to deadly. November and December typically see an increase in drunk driving accidents, accidental overdoses, depression and domestic violence, often tied to drug and alcohol abuse. Delaying drug rehab means a few more months that loved ones, including children, may be exposed to harmful behaviors and many more late nights spent worrying for the addict’s safety.

Substance abuse typically worsens over the holidays, with Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas and New Year’s Eve consistently ranking among the top drinking holidays of the year. Some reasons for increased drug and alcohol abuse over the holidays include:

“Nothing, including a date on the calendar, should stand in the way of getting help for addiction,” said Dr. Sack. “The longer someone waits to begin drug rehab, the more damage may be done to their physical and emotional health as well as their relationships, career, finances and future.”

The best way to spread holiday cheer isn’t by buying another high-tech gadget, but giving the gift of sobriety. Drug rehab is a safe place to address the feelings and underlying issues that have contributed to drug and alcohol addiction and lay the foundation for happier holidays ahead.

About Promises Treatment Centers

Promises Treatment Centers in Malibu and West Los Angeles are the premier addiction treatment centers in southern California. Led by some of the country’s leading addiction specialists, Promises has built an international reputation for innovative addiction treatment and exceptional service. Whether an individual requires detox, residential drug rehab, outpatient treatment, extended care or a sober living environment, Promises has been the drug rehabilitation center of choice for more than 20 years. For more information about Promises Treatment Centers, visit http://www.promises.com or call (877) 351-7506.

Promises is part of Elements Behavioral Health, a family of behavioral health care programs that includes The Ranch, The Sexual Recovery Institute and The Recovery Place. Elements offers comprehensive, innovative treatment for substance abuse, sexual addiction, trauma, eating disorders and other mental health disorders. We are committed to delivering clinically sophisticated treatment that promotes permanent lifestyle change, not only for the patient but for the entire family system. For more information about Elements Behavioral Health, visit http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com.

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Dr. David Sack
Elements Behavioral Health
562-741-6471
Email Information

KNOXVILLE (WATE) – The non-profit “Henry’s Fund” donated $5,000 in KPD’s name to help others with drug addiction.

The grant money was given to Helen Ross McNabb’s Gateway Center Adolescent substance abuse treatment program on Monday.

Last year, Henry Granju, 18, suffered an overdose after a beating he received during a drug deal and died. “Henry’s Fund” was formed in his memory.

The $5,000 gift was made in the Knoxville Police Department’s honor to recognize their dedication in fighting drug trafficking among young people.

More information about “Henry’s Fund” is available on the non-profit’s website.

In an orchestrated attack on cigarette regulation in the UK, tobacco giant Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco company, filed a flurry of Freedom of Information Act requests in September designed to give them access to proprietary academic research on teenage smoking habits. It’s no coincidence that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in November that the percentage of adult smokers in America had finally fallen below 20%. American teens smoke at slightly higher rates than adults, as do citizens of the UK. (Figures in the EU vary widely, but hover in the high 20s.) For the past month, tobacco firms Philip Morris and Gallaher have been busily engaged in a campaign to force academic researchers in Britain to turn over sensitive cigarette research—a campaign Philip Morris quietly dropped this week, after two months of adverse publicity.

The cigarette companies have also targeted the UK Department of Health, demanding access to the minutes of confidential meetings involving health department officials and cancer experts, “to the surprise of those who attended the private discussions,” according to Steve Connor, the science editor who spearheaded the investigation for the British newspaper, the Independent. The FOI requests, the Independent concludes, are part of “a global campaign by tobacco companies to fight any further legal restrictions of cigarette sales and promotion, particularly the introduction of plain cigarette packets.”

Hooking the developed world’s teen smokers is the one bright spot in Big Tobacco’s future, and industry executives know it. What Phillip Morris wanted was university research on a wide range of attitudes and behaviors teens hold towards smoking—especially their feelings about new plans for British cigarette packaging. Like the U.S. and Australia, officials in Britain are planning plain packages in a neutral color, with no brand logos, only the brand name in simple typeface plus warning labels.

Big tobacco appears intent on drawing a line in the sand any way it can over the issue of plain packaging. The U.S. and Australia have already mandated these changes—restrictions that aim to turn cigarette packs into either fright cards or the proverbial plain brown wrapper. But the British attack by Big Tobacco rocked the public health community, where confidentiality is often the keystone of successful research, especially into stigmatized issues such as underage smoking. Researchers were horrified, but legal opinion on the request was mixed. From the tobacco industry’s point of view, the problems began when Cancer Research UK, the nation’s leading cancer charity, bankrolled a study by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at Stirling University in Scotland. The investigators surveyed thousands of British teenagers to investigate their attitudes and behavior toward smoking, with special emphasis on why they do or do not pick up the pack—and the habit. Needless to say, a study intended to read the minds of Big Tobacco’s target market would be met with parental fury.

With a database of some 5,500 teens between the ages of 11 and 16—who participated only on condition of anonymity—Stirling was unprepared for the Phillip Morris request. A separate FOI request by Gallaher, a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco International, demanded “all correspondence between the [health] department and outside organizations, such as the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the UK Centre for Tobacco Control studies, and the scientific research charities Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.” Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said it was clear that the industry “wants access to government documents and academic research for one purpose only to help it fight regulation.” The Independent said that in the case of the Health Department requests, “the company wanted to understand what materials were being relied upon as evidence for planned plain-packaging legislation.

But why are the tobacco firms so concerned with packaging? Let’s face it: The red Marlboro chevron, the cartoon camel, and the Lucky Strike bull’s-eye are all hugely lucrative branding devices.

“All the experts say that the tobacco industry will fight tooth and nail to retain their branded packets.” says the Independent’s Steve Connor. “The tobacco industry claims it does not target children, but branded packets are undoubtedly attractive to this under-age group as well.”

But why are the tobacco firms so concerned with packaging? Let’s face it: The red Marlboro chevron, the cartoon camel, and the iconic bull’s-eye of Lucky Strike (designed by the man who brought us the Coca-Cola logo) are all hugely lucrative branding devices. The industry is increasingly faced with the problem of finding legal space—any space—where they can exploit these powerful icons. Thus, the fierce fight over the package itself—virtually the last advertising space over which the industry exerts some advertising control. An internal cigarette industry analysis released in 2007 put the matter forthrightly: “If you smoke, a cigarette pack is one of the few things you use regularly that makes a statement about you. A cigarette pack is the only thing you take out of your pocket 20 times a day and lay out for everyone to see.”

The trade magazine World Tobacco counseled companies that “if your brand can no longer shout from billboards, let alone from the cinema screen or the pages of a glossy magazine… it can at least court smokers from the retailer’s shelf, or from wherever it is placed by those already wed to it.”

In a report issued by Cancer Council Victoria recently, Australian researchers analyzed 24 published studies and concluded that “the cigarette pack has become the key  marketing tool employed by the tobacco industry to attract and retain customers.”

Some of the Stirling data is already accessible in published studies. The July issue of Journal of Tobacco Control featured an article about the influence of packaging on the behavior of young smokers, showing that those with plain packets took out their cigarettes less frequently, handled the cigarettes less often, and sometimes hid the packs. Lead author Dr. Crawford Moodie said the study, which was based on only 50 young adult smokers, “confirms the lack of appeal of plain packs.” Moodie said his group was “now looking to build on this research to understand more about the impact of packaging on smokers.” Big Tobacco wants to understand more about it, too, so it can find ways of making plain packaging more appealing. And it wants to use Cancer Research’s own data for the purpose.