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Wednesday, July 30, 2014
"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. 
Not surprisingly, parents are the most powerful influence in their child's life. According to The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, "Parents have more influence over their child than friends, music, TV, the internet and celebrities." But when it comes to talking to their kids about drugs and alcohol, many parents struggle because they fear the dreaded question, "Did you ever do drugs?" 
Fingernail Drug Test Gives Vital Information to DWI Program
/BY CELIA VIMONT
July 30th, 2014/
A pilot program that uses fingernail drug and alcohol testing is helping to spot drivers who have been convicted of driving while intoxicated who are continuing to drink or use drugs. Fingernail testing captures a person’s history of drug and alcohol use for the past three to six months.
The program, in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, is testing drivers who have been convicted of at least three DWI offenses, says Guida Brown of the Hope Council on Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse, which assesses drivers convicted of impaired driving in the county. Drivers must successfully complete the yearlong program in order to maintain their driving privileges.
“We do a lot of assessment, but until now there’s been no teeth behind it – no ability to help people see they really have a problem – and help guide them in a way to stay abstinent,” says Brown. “With this test, when we say you can’t use drugs or alcohol for the one-year duration of the driver safety program, we can verify the results.”
A Breathalyzer test can be negative in as soon as 12 hours after a person drinks, according to Douglas E. Lewis of the United States Drug Testing Laboratories (USDTL), which makes the fingernail test. In contrast, a blood alcohol test called a PEth test can detect alcohol in a person’s system for about two to three weeks and a fingernail test can detect alcohol in a person’s system for about 90 days.
Lewis and Brown presented the findings of the pilot program at the recent annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
Most counties don’t do any drug or alcohol testing as part of their driver safety programs, Brown notes. “The big problem isn’t just drunk driving anymore – other drugs are becoming more of a hazard on the road, including marijuana and prescription drugs,” she says. The pilot program found 59 percent of those tested were positive for alcohol, suggesting they continued to binge after their last DWI arrest. Of those tested for drugs, 35 percent were positive. Cocaine, marijuana and opiates were the most commonly found drugs.
Lewis says the test typically costs $100. In Kenosha, clients of the DWI program pay for the testing themselves, which typically takes place about four times over the course of the year. While some counties see the cost of the test as a barrier to its use, Brown notes it is done much less frequently than a urine test, which must be conducted every few days to give accurate results. She has advocated for more state money to increase funding for drug and alcohol testing, and for extending the length of the program. “We’d like a longer monitoring program so we could help more people finish,” she says.
Drug testing using hair is more widespread than fingernail testing. Fingernails, like hair, are made of a protein called keratin. Drug and alcohol biomarkers are trapped in the keratin fibers of the fingernail. Biomarkers may be washed out of hair by common cosmetic treatments such as bleaches, dyes, permanents and straighteners. This reduces the presence of detectable substances. This isn’t a problem with nails, Lewis says. Unlike hair, which stops capturing drug and alcohol biomarkers once hair grows out of the body, nails continue to capture these substances as the nail grow in length and thickness.
Nails provide up to six months of drug use history and up to three months of alcohol history, according to Lewis. Biomarkers are detectable in nails as early as one week after drug or alcohol use. A typical sample is 2 to 3 millimeters, about the thickness of a quarter.
Lewis stresses the test won’t come back positive for the person who has a drink or two a day. “You need at least six standard binges—consuming five standard drinks in a two-hour period for a man, or four for a woman—in a three-month window for the test to come back positive,” he says. “This test finds someone who drinks often enough to cause concern.”
The test also detects amphetamines, opiates, cocaine, marijuana and PCP. While fingernail testing has been available for the past 20 years, until recently it has largely been used for research, according to Lewis. Improved technology has allowed scientists to refine the test so it can detect drug and alcohol use even when a person is not using these substances daily.
In addition to DWI programs, some professional health programs are using fingernail drug testing. “These programs, such as those for doctors, need clients to maintain a low level or as close to an abstinent level as possible for long periods of time,” observes Lewis. “This test allows evaluators to have an objective set of tools.”
History of Drinking Problems Linked With Memory Deficits in Later Life
July 30th, 2014/
A new study of thousands of Americans finds people with a history of drinking problems have more than twice the risk of memory problems later in life, compared with those who have never been heavy drinkers.
The researchers asked participants four questions: Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking? Have people ever annoyed you by criticizing your drinking? Have you ever felt guilty about drinking? And have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning? These questions come from a widely used screening questionnaire for alcoholism, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Participants were born between 1931 and 1941. They answered the questions about alcohol use when they were first interviewed, when they were in their 50s and 60s. They were considered to have a drinking problem if they answered yes to at least two of the four questions. They had follow-up memory tests every other year from 1996 to 2010, the article notes.
The 16 percent of participants who said they had a drinking problem at some point in their lives were much more likely to have memory problems later in life. The study appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
“We already know there is an association between dementia risk and levels of current alcohol consumption – that understanding is based on asking older people how much they drink and then observing whether they develop problems,” lead researcher Dr. Iain Lang of the University of Exeter Medical School said in a news release. “But this is only one part of the puzzle and we know little about the consequences of alcohol consumption earlier in life. What we did here is investigate the relatively unknown association between having a drinking problem at any point in life and experiencing problems with memory later in life
FedEx, Indicted on Drug Trafficking Charges, Pleads Not Guilty
July 30th, 2014/
FedEx, which was indicted earlier this month on drug trafficking charges, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. The company is accused of conspiring to deliver prescription drugs for illegal online pharmacies.
Bloomberg reports the company, the world’s largest cargo airline, was indicted on 15 counts of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and misbranded drugs and drug trafficking.
According to the indictment, the shipping company knew for a decade that illegal online pharmacies used their services. “While some Internet pharmacies were managed by well-known pharmacy chains that required valid prescriptions and visits to the patient’s personal physician, others failed to require a prescription before filling orders for controlled substances and prescription drugs,” a U.S. Sentencing Commission news releasestates. “These Internet pharmacies filled orders based solely on the completion of an online questionnaire, without a physical examination, diagnosis, or face-to-face meeting with a physician. Such practices violated federal and state laws governing the distribution of prescription drugs and controlled substances.”
According to prosecutors, government officials warned FedEx at least six times since 2004 that illegal Internet pharmacies used the company to deliver drugs.
At a hearing in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday, Cris Arguedas, a lawyer for FedEx said, “We are a transportation company, not a pharmacy, not a website, not a doctor.” Prosecutors said that by the end of August the government intends to present an updated indictment to a federal grand jury that is investigating the company.
The company said it repeatedly asked the government to provide a list of online pharmacies engaging in illegal activity. “Whenever DEA provides us a list of pharmacies engaging in illegal activity, we will turn off shipping for those companies immediately. So far the government has declined to provide such a list,” FedEx said in a statement when the indictment was announced.
Bill Aimed at Curbing Prescription Drug Abuse Passes in House With Bipartisan Support
July 30th, 2014/
A measure designed to reduce prescription drug abuse passed in the House on Tuesday with bipartisan support, according to The Hill.
The bill would amend the Controlled Substances Act, changing the definition of “imminent danger to the public health or safety” so that it would apply to drugs that pose present or foreseeable health risks, the article notes.
Under the measure, called the Ensuring Patient Access to Effective Drug Enforcement Act, prescription drug manufacturers registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could submit a “corrective action plan” before a drug is suspended.
“Any legitimate business involved in distributing or dispensing prescriptions welcomes appropriate oversight and regulation,” said bill co-sponsor Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican. The bill was also sponsored by Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee; Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, and Judy Chu, a Democrat from California.
“Prescription drug abuse is claiming lives all across this country,” Welch said in a news release. “Painkillers are falling into the wrong hands while delivery of these same drugs is being stalled to the patients that need them, including seniors and those battling cancer. To fix this problem, drug suppliers and federal officials need to be able to work hand-in-hand to improve our drug delivery system and that’s exactly what this legislation does.”
“Simply acknowledging the epidemic of prescription drug abuse isn’t enough,” Blackburn said in a news release. “Congress has a responsibility to make sure the law is crystal clear for both DEA and legitimate businesses who want to understand what the rules are so they can do the right thing. That is why I am so pleased the House has acted today on our legislation that seeks to ensure the prescription drug supply chain is safe and secure for the patients that truly rely upon it to alleviate pain and treat illnesses.”
Monday, July 28, 2014
NAADAC Institute Call for Webinar Presentations
Development of the 2015 NAADAC Institute Webinar Series is underway, and we invite you to collaborate with us! The Webinar Series is wildly successful, with over 45,000 professionals trained so far.If you are a subject-matter expert on a topic relevant to addiction professionals, we encourage you to complete the online Call for Webinar Presentations for a chance to present on a nationally-broadcasted webinar.
All NAADAC webinars are free to participants, with optional CE credit provided to NAADAC members for free (join now!) and to non-members for a nominal fee, and are recorded as a live event to be posted on the NAADAC website for future, free, on-demand viewing. Click here for more information about what NAADAC will provide to presenters and how webinar presentations will be selected. A Selection Committee will contact chosen presenters by December 1, 2014.
Submissions Due Date: August 22, 2014
[ More Information ] and [ Apply Now ]
Look for NAADAC's Magazine in Your Mailbox
The Summer edition of Advances in Addiction & Recovery, the official publication of NAADAC, has been published and is arriving in mailboxes of NAADAC members across the nation! NAADAC's magazine is a membership-benefitand focuses on providing useful, innovative and timely information on trends and best practices in the profession that are beneficial for practitioners. Join now to get your copy!
CE Feature Article Available to Both NAADAC Members and Non-Members: Read "Promising Integrated Treatment Model to Help Veterans with Co-Occurring PTSD & Substance Use Disorders" by Robb Hicks, MD, pass the online CE quiz, and get 2 CE credits for $25!
[ Read CE Article ] and [ Take CE Quiz ]
Have an innovative strategy or research to share? Have your years of experience given you unique insights into addiction prevention, intervention, treatment, or recovery? Share your expertise as a contributor to Advances in Addiction & Recovery. For more information, please contact Jessica Gleason.
[ Submit Article ]
Advertising space is still available. Contact Elsie Smith for information about opportunities in NAADAC's magazine and bi-weeklyAddiction & Recovery eNews.
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We at Lighthouse Network are extremely excited to welcome Barak Rush, MS, LPC, to our growing team. Barak brings a great balance of clinical and administrative experience and expertise to our team. Barak has a love for people, compassion for those who are struggling, and a zest for bringing the Bible and Jesus into each person’s healing and transformation process.
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