Minnesota to Test Welfare Recipients for Drugs

The Land of 10,000 Lakes becomes the latest state to throw its poorest citizens into the icy waters of uncertainty.



...unless you're on welfare. Photo via Shutterstock


By Shawn Dwyer

12/31/13
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Chalk up another one. On Wednesday, January 1st, Minnesota will become the latest state to randomly test recipients of welfare for drugs, despite overwhelming evidence that taking such measures to prevent drug users from receiving public assistance has very limited success, at best.

Added as an amendment during a 2012 legislation session with limited debate, the new law will require the state Department of Human Services to force recipients convicted of past felony drug offenses to identify themselves in order for them to be randomly tested – though the definition of “random” will vary from county to county. Since the law was based on the commonly held notion that many welfare recipients also do drugs, opponents have stepped up their criticisms in recent days. "I don't think anyone is under the illusion that this is about saving taxpayers money," said Heidi Welsch, director of family support and assistance for Olmsted County. "This is punitive."

Minnesota joins nine other states, including Kansas, that will test welfare recipients for drugs. Even a cursory look at the states already employing such measures has revealed that results for the programs have been lackluster, and ultimately cost more money than they save while failing to weed out drug abusers that may be enrolled in the welfare system.

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. — An old drug with a new name is presenting new dangers to today's teenagers, New Jersey officials say.

Molly, slang for "molecular," was once was known as Ecstasy, the popular club drug of the late '90s and early 2000s that elevated users to sustained euphoria and hallucination. Miley Cyrus sings about "dancing with Molly" in We Can't Stop. Other artists such as Nicki Minaj, Rick Moss, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West also have made references to Molly in their music.

STORY: Overdoses attributed to Molly increase
STORY: Miley's a fan of Molly, weed

The big problem: Molly has morphed from being a pure form of MDMA — Ecstasy's vital ingredient — to a catch-all name for a methamphetamines mixed with any of roughly 300 other synthetic chemicals, including paint thinner and gasoline, said Dr. M. Michael Jones, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at CentraState Medical Center here.

Unlike heroin, Molly has not claimed many lives in New Jersey. But emergency room visits across the country have surged in recent years.

Molly is perceived as a threat for its severe effects on the body and an apparent popularity with teenagers.

"This is going to change everybody," Douglas S. Collier, drug-initiative coordinator for the state Attorney General's office, told two groups of teenagers at a summit at CentraState. "You're going to be challenged, not only now, but when you go to college, when you go to school, when you go to parties."

Molly's resurgence drew widespread attention over the summer, when two people attending an electronic music festival in New York reportedly died of MDMA overdoses. MDMA's euphoric effects, which last three to six hours, include enhanced sensation, empathy and increased energy, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But coming down from such a great high can result in dehydration, nausea, chills and sweating.

The institute notes that MDMA can interfere with the body's ability to regulate its temperature and that on "rare but unpredictable occasions" can lead to hypothermia, which can lead to failure of the liver, kidneys and cardiovascular system.


Molly capsules can have way more than MDMA mixed inside, officials say.(Photo: iStock)

But Molly often in more than MDMA. Just about any amphetamine can be combined with another synthetic chemical — caffeine, ephedrine or cocaine, for example — and packaged in a capsule referred to as Molly, Jones said.

"They might think they're ingesting MDMA, but they are not," he said.

That has led to overdose victims suffering body temperatures of more than 100 degrees, brain death and coma, Jones said.

In 2012 one man died related to Molly in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Poison Information & Education System. The center's director, Steven Marcus, told USA Today that the victim entered the hospital with a temperature of 109 degrees.

Across the United States, Molly-related emergency room visits for people younger than 21 increased 128% between 2005 and 2011, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Among those, 33% of the admissions involved alcohol.

"When combined with alcohol, it's danger, danger, danger," Collier said. "It's horrible what you'll go through."

Jones cautioned that hospital admission data does not directly translate to the drug's adverse affects. One of the reasons Ecstasy morphed into Molly, he said, was to evade detection in common drug tests.

"Are we up 5, 10%? Maybe," Jones said of the emergency department. "But we are only the bad outcomes."

Law enforcement has seen some activity along the Jersey Shore, but not enough to raise to the alarming levels of opiates, said Charles Webster, spokesman for the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office. He referred to a drug bust in August in which the authorities came away with 4.7 kilograms of Molly but nothing major since.

"We do see it. We do make arrests," Webster said.

Jones said Molly should be regarded with just as much alarm, because in terms of danger, it's "right up there with the rest."

January 7 v24 v 25 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB


So listen to me, my sons,
and pay attention to my words.
Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her.
Don’t wander down her wayward path.


STEP 3 : Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as revealed in the Bible.


This morning after reading the Proverb it left me with a tough choice. The Proverb was all about Promiscuity geared towards the woman but in this day and age it should be geared for both men and women. It brings to light a good point and stirs up thoughts of all the toxic relationships I got involved in. Because of fear I was codependent and on top of that I was a rescuer. The problem with that was even though my life was a mess in my twisted thinking I spent ninety percent of my time trying to fix others instead of myself and the last thing they wanted was to be fixed or saved.  Instead of fixing them I helped them and myself remain in addiction. It was a vicious cycle that went round and round! Many years in this state left me empty, depressed, desperate, and hopeless. Only by Gods grace was I able to escape the clutches of my last destructive relationship and truly for once in my life I became alone with myself. Discovering and working the steps with no outside interference gave me the opportunity to develop a relationship with God and myself. I discovered me, and after a tough couple years I can honestly say I love me and I am grateful for the hell I put myself thru. It made me the man I am today! When you get to step three it has to be for you and no one else, you cannot truly love others until you first love yourself.

The value of "Affluenza," Addiction and Parental Neglect As Get Out of Jail Defenses

The drunk-driving teen who killed 4 walked, blaming it on "affluenza," a so-called "disease" that makes the rich unable to understand the consequences of their actions. Where does that leave addicts and the rest of us?

moneyed blood Shutterstock

By Maia Szalavitz

01/06/14

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What’s a disease and what’s an excuse for bad behavior? These two questions are at the heart of virtually all debate over addiction and drug policy—and the Texas “affluenza” case may help shed new light on them.
After stealing beer, getting drunk enough to reach three times the legal limit, injuring nine people—and killing four in a gruesome crash—16-year-old Ethan Couch was sentenced to just 10 years of probation and treatment. No prison time. He will spend just a year at a California program for troubled teens (which charges $450,000 annually). Not surprisingly, the sentence has provoked widespread outrage.
But it wasn’t a “my disease of alcoholism/addiction made me do it” defense that got the Texas teen off so lightly. Instead, his attorney argued that the boy had “affluenza,” which the defense psychologist described as a disease of the rich that makes them unable to understand the consequences of their behavior. Unlike substance use disorders, however, affluenza is nowhere to be found in the DSM.
In court, the psychologist testified that Couch, “never learned that sometimes you don’t get your way. He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.” He gave the example of how the boy had been allowed to drive at 13—and had received no punishment at 15 when police caught him in a car with an unconscious and undressed 14-year-old girl.
In other words, because Couch never learned that there are consequences to his actions, he should learn again that there are none—and that money can always buy an easier, softer way. In case it wasn’t already obvious that Couch received special treatment because of his privilege, reporters soon uncovered a case of a poor black teen who committed a much less severe crime and was given 10 years in juvenile prison by the same judge.
Unequal treatment in the justice system is an old story, of course. The difference here is the blatant use of privilege itself to justify more privilege and the idea that wealth itself can produce antisocial behavior. But by unpacking what would lead to a more just outcome in such cases, we can help clarify better ways of understanding the effects of early childhood experience and addiction on criminal responsibility.
While “affluenza” is obviously not a real disease, emotional neglect of children can occur in any class and can absolutely have lifelong effects on behavior. Failing to discipline a child is one form of emotional neglect. This may be more common for both the poor and the rich because in both cases, circumstances often mean that (for very different reasons) parents and children spend little time together.
In Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential—and Endangered, which I co-wrote with child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, we described the case of another rich Texas teen who committed a horrifying crime and wanted an expert witness to use mental illness to help justify his antisocial behavior.
“Ryan” (a pseudonym) raped and publicly sexually humiliated a developmentally disabled girl at a party to celebrate his admission to an Ivy League college. Like Couch, he’d previously avoided discipline for numerous antisocial acts. His parents contacted Dr. Perry in hopes of enlisting him as a defense expert.  
Perry did find that the boy had a history of serious neglect. It turned out that his parents only spent an hour a day with him and that he’d had 18 nannies before finishing preschool, each one fired when his mother discovered that the baby preferred the nanny to herself. Such disrupted attachment has been associated clinically with antisocial behavior and seemed to be appropriate here, given that, from the child’s perspective, he’d basically lost every “mother” he had as soon as he connected with her.
Nonetheless, Perry did not agree to testify or to call the related bad behavior a disease. Instead, citing the majority of cases where children - rich or poor - who suffered similar neglect have managed to avoid committing heinous crimes, he found that Ryan was responsible for his own choices. Still, my co-author had little doubt that the emotional neglect he suffered, and the cultural context in which it happened, significantly skewed his moral compass, which is why we included the case in our book.
THE BACKGROUND FACTORS: WHICH ONES SHOULD BE MITIGATING?
Like other types of childhood trauma, neglect increases risk for alcoholism and other addictions, which can even further impair decision making. It’s unlikely that either of these two crimes would have occurred absent the disinhibiting effects of alcohol. Even so, alcohol misuse was also clearly not the only source of the problem in either case. Poor parenting is also implicated, as is social status.
Elevated social status—in both human and nonhuman primates—is linked with both reduced punishment for aggression and, according to a spate of recent research into the behavior and attitudes of those with wealth and power, to increased propensity towards cheating and reduced empathy.
While it is easy to argue that wealth and privileged attitudes should not be a sentence-mitigating factor in these kinds of cases—and possibly could be seen as aggravating—it’s far more difficult to dismiss emotional neglect and addictions as relevant factors.
That doesn’t mean literally letting people get away with murder. Mitigation should determine the level of intent and not preclude punishment. The problem here is that debates over whether addicts should receive “treatment not punishment” often elide both victimless crimes such as drug possession and those like Couch’s in which intoxication results in harm to uninvolved bystanders.
(Is intent important here? Couch presumably had no desire to hurt his victims, while "Ryan" wanted to use his as a way to demonstrate his social power. However, Couch wasn’t simply reckless while intoxicated and lacking agency: he chose to steal the beer that got him drunk, and unlike a poor teen with an alcohol problem, presumably had numerous other ways of obtaining the substance.)
Most of us accept that crimes such as Couch’s and Ryan’s require justice for the victims, in a way that crimes that only harm oneself do not. Society, we believe, should punish those who, even unintentionally, harm others while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs or while in the state of being addicted, in part because these alterations of consciousness only impair, not eliminate, the ability to make decisions.
Addicts do not shoot up in front of the police; drunk drivers try to evade detection. These facts show that moral agency is present, if not functioning well.
My own view is that addiction should be treated in order to reduce the odds of recidivism – and that treatment isn’t a substitute for paying one’s debt to society and to those who are harmed by criminal behavior.
Most addicts actually do not commit violent crimes, and some even commit no crimes other than those related to the legal status of their substance of choice. It’s clear, therefore, that addiction itself doesn’t necessarily cause antisocial behavior. Unfortunately, since many of the same factors that lead to addiction— child abuse, neglect, family violence, other trauma—can also create antisocial behavior, those actions are often conveniently blamed on the drugs.
Disentangling the various aggravating and mitigating factors is hard—and humans clearly have both an evolutionary and a cultural bias towards excusing the rich, even as the data suggests that the early childhood experiences of the poor, and the lack of alternatives available to them, are far more likely to be harmful and to constrain true free choice.
Like it or not, disentangling these realities is the job of the criminal justice system. That system would work a lot better if we carefully considered three factors: our bias towards punishing the poor more harshly; the question of how drugs, addiction and childhood experience alter decision-making capacity; and what mix of legal consequences produces the best outcomes.
The “affluenza” case may be a clear travesty of justice, and yet one can easily imagine an overly harsh sentence that would be just as absurd. If we want to prevent similar crimes —or deal with them appropriately if they do occur—disentangling intoxication, addiction, early childhood influences, intent and developmental capacity is critical.
We won’t succeed with made up disorders like “affluenza”—or by making addiction an all-purpose excuse.
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).

Good Afternoon and Happy New Year!!

Please help to spread the word about 2 upcoming showings of the “Anonymous People” movie in Bucks County. Fliers attached are for showings at:

1. Tuesday, Jan. 28th at Pennridge HS in Perkasie

2. Wednesday, Feb. 19th at BCCC in Newtown

Forward these fliers to your contacts in the recovery community. They should hit the link in the flier to view the movie trailer.

Thanks for your help! This film is a powerful and important documentary. Many still have not seen it, so let’s change that.

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK! and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheCouncilSEPA

Jessica Schwartz

Volunteer Coordinator & Prevention Specialist

The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc.

252 West Swamp Road, Unit 33

Doylestown, Pennsylvania 18901

Phone: (215) 230-8218 ext. 3158

Fax: (215) 230-8205

(800) 221-6333 - 24 Hour Information Line

jschwartz@councilsepa.org

January 6 v 32 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

STEP 5 : Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Anger causes blindness which leads to foolishness .Unresolved anger produces blindness and bitterness which becomes resentment and hate these four will keep you trapped in addiction . I spent my entire life as a young man blinded by anger and rage.Addiction was my excuse ! Failure after failure only made me more mad and I was unable to get anything right.People in my life who truly loved me and wanted to help me wound up being my target. At some point we must realize the mess of our lives is no one else s fault but our own.The Proverb is telling us that when situations arise in our lives we cannot continue to react as we once did . We must take a time out before going on the attack !We can overcome our addictions if we can control and deal with our anger in a sensible way. Anger thankfully is no longer ruling my life , I am not saying I don't occasionally fly off the handle but when I do step five is put into play and the anger subsides and the blindness goes away.