Surprising Kids Killer: Methadone
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) PALM BEACH and LAKE WORTH, Fla. Parents and schools frequently warn kids about the dangers of drugs.

But, as The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith reports in the first of two parts, a drug that's rarely mentioned now kills more young people than any other in several states.

Methadone, Smith explains, the same drug used to help heroin addicts kick their habit, is now being prescribed as a painkiller. That makes it easier for young people to get, and that means more kids are abusing it — and dying from overdoses of it.

Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington, among other places, have seen a rise in methadone-related deaths, Smith points out. In Maine last year, for the first time, drug-related deaths outnumbered deaths from car crashes, and the No. 1 drug in those deaths was methadone.

It typically doesn't provide a big high, Smith says, so kids think it's not working and take more of it or other substances, and the result can be fatal.

Sharon Snyder, of Palm Beach, Fla., lost her son to a methadone overdose.

On a patch of grass that used to be her lawn, Snyder has built a shrine to him.

"If tears could build a stairway," she read from a memorial in the shrine, "and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven, and bring you home again."

She tells Smith Jasa, her only child, was a good student, who never got into trouble.

"He was just a very caring person and always tried to find the best in everybody," Snyder says. "(We were) extremely close. … He was my best friend."

But one night, 19-year-old Jasa went to visit another friend, and never came home.

"I woke up at 5 in the morning and I knew he wasn't home. … It's every parent's nightmare, and I don't know if it's because we were so close but, I just knew something was wrong with him. I knew he needed my help."

Tragically, Snyder was right. Sometime that night, Jasa had taken, or been given, methadone for the first time. He passed out, and never woke up."And at 7 o'clock," Snyder says, "I was in the shower, and the phone rang, and it wasn't my son. It was the paramedics telling me to come to the hospital, and I kept asking them, 'What's going on with him. What's happened to my son?' And they wouldn't tell me, and I just knew. I just knew in my heart that it was over."

Then medical examiner's report said Jasa had succumbed to an overdose of methadone.

In part because it's not as heavily regulated as drugs such as OxyContin, Smith says, teenagers find methadone in their parents' medicine chests, sometimes with fatal results.

Methadone kills more young people in Florida than any other drug, Smith notes.

"The one prescription drug that keeps going up in terms of the absolute numbers of deaths and rates of increase, particularly for children, is methadone," says Jim McDonough, the former director of the Florida Office of Drug Control. "The facts are, it's murderous. Look at the death rate. It's absolutely out of control."

One reason, Smith says: Methadone stays in the system for days. So, every drink or drug taken afterwards can cause a lethal reaction. And too often, teens have no idea what they're taking.

Michael Petrillo of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office told Smith, "Before you go to a party, you go through your mom and dad's medicine cabinet and you take all different pills. And you walk in and just dump them in a bowl. And people just help themselves to pills in the bowl."

Undercover agents showed Smith just how easy methadone was to get, taking her with them on a methadone buy/sting in Lake Worth, Fla., where they quickly purchased methadone pills.

Each was 40 milligrams, and cost $20, Smith said. Each had indentations separating it into quarters, and the normal dose is probably a quarter of a pill, Smith said. But, "Kids don't know that. They take the whole thing, and that's how they end up dead."

Snyder may never know how much methadone kille

__________________
\"Without a program life is like a soup sandwich. No matter how you make it, you always wind up with a mess.\"



\"Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in.\" ~Mariah Fenton Gladis~
Tales of a Wounded Healer



\"Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn\'t Mean The Circus Has Left Town.\" --George Carlin

Methadone bottle had no prints from tragic tot
----------------------------------------------------------------------

FORENSIC tests on a methadone bottle found in the home of tragic toddler Derek Doran did not carry his fingerprints, it has emerged.

Police officers are probing how the two-year-old from Elphinstone in East Lothian could have died after overdosing on methadone from a bottle he had no contact with.

A police source reportedly said fingerprints were taken from family members as four sets of prints were found on a methadone bottle that should not have been there.

The source reportedly added that the toddler's drug addict mother Lisa Dodds, 25, told police she had spilled methadone on the floor and that the toddler must have licked it. She had said her son had choked on toast until the death was made public. Dodds and the boy's father, Derek Doran Senior, have started a reconciliation after she kicked him out of their home.

The police source added that Doran kept a blowtorch beside him and was not frightened to use it, although he was scared to answer his door and refused to walk around the streets.




Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Man charged in methadone overdose
Cousin died after taking pills

----------------------------------------------------------------------

By BRIAN HUBER - GM Today Staff
April 10, 2006



WAUKESHA - A West Allis man has been charged as a result of a drug overdose that killed his cousin in Waukesha last year.
Alton Davis, 35, was charged Thursday with one count of first-degree reckless homicide and ordered to appear in court May 3. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison.







Davis was charged after his cousin, Daniel Bruner, 40, died at the North James Street home where Davis lived April 18, 2005.

According to the complaint in the case, emergency personnel responded to the home after a report of an unconscious man. They arrived to a scene that included "hysterical crying, as well as individuals speaking very loudly and angrily at one another," the complaint said. Attempts to revive Bruner failed.

The complaint indicates that Davis and Bruner were drinking beer and hard liquor that night and had smoked marijuana. As they were playing cards, Davis brought out a bottle of methadone tablets and Bruner asked to take one, the complaint said.

It added that Davis at first denied giving drugs to Bruner, but then he told police that Bruner dropped the first pill on the floor and Davis told him to throw it away and gave him a second one, the complaint said. Bruner took them, threw them up, and ate them again, the complaint said.

"(Davis) further stated that he was not sure if Daniel Bruner took both 40 milligram tablets, but he never saw him throw the first one away," the complaint said. "(Davis) stated that he did not mean to hurt Danny and couldn’t take the fact that he had given him the methadone that killed him."

A toxicology report released after the autopsy on Bruner’s body found cocaine, methadone and ethanol in Bruner’s system, the complaint said. The death certificate listed "multi-drug toxicity" as the cause of death, and a toxicologist ruled the methadone in Bruner’s system was a "substantial factor" in his death, the complaint said.

The case is the second in recent months to see someone charged in a drug overdose death.

Mary Dundon, 25, of Oak Creek, was charged with reckless homicide in December after she allegedly gave Angela Franceschetti, 24, of New Berlin, methadone while the women were on a road trip to Chicago in January 2003. Dundon is free on a signature bond and is expected to appear in court May 4.





Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Wow, heavy stuff Sean. I "tivoed" the early show...I'll put it on now.
Dave

Well, i thought it would be some good reading..also i was thinking
it would be cool to have a "Sticky" post with this topic that can be updated daily..


Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

China builds over 100 methadone clinics to curtail AIDS/HIV spread
----------------------------------------------------------------------


China has set up 128 methadone clinics over the past three years since Feb. 2003, when it began the practice of building community-based centers offering methadone to heroin addicts.

More such clinics would be approved this year with more community workers undergoing trainings related to methadone maintenance therapy, said Wang Xiangdong, an official with the National Ban Drugs Commission.

Wang made these remarks at a training program for community workers to publicize methadone substitution medication for heroin addicts in Wuhan, provincial capital of central Hubei Province on Sunday.

The Chinese government initiated in May 2001 an action plan for curbing and preventing AID/HIV during the 2001-2005 period, trumpeting the idea of carrying out an experimental work with methadone substitution medication among heroin addicts at community-based medical organizations.

The Chinese ministries of health and public security, working in cooperation with the State Food and Drug Administration, embarked on the experimental work concerning community methadone substitution medication for heroin addicts by drafting a provisional plan on the experimental work in February 2003, plus a joint national working group for the effort.

And eight medical organizations in Sichuan, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Guizhou provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were picked up as the first group of organizations authorized to conduct experiments in December 2003, said Wang.

According to experts, taking methadone -- a synthesized narcotic -- helps depress the addicts' drug desire and avoid the use of hypodermic needles that can spread HIV which leads to AIDS currently with no-cure, as well as other blood-transmitted diseases.

Moreover, those who take methadone will able to work and return to a normal life instead of looking sleepy all day long after taking heroin.

Government regulations stipulate that only drug users discharged from official detoxification centers can be entitled to the methadone program.

A latest assessment issued jointly by the Chinese Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization and the UN AIDS Program estimated there are 650,000 HIV carriers, including 75,000 AIDS patients, in China.

To curb the spread of the deadly disease, the Chinese central government allocated 801 million yuan (about 100 million U.S. dollars) to AIDS prevention and treatment in 2005 and some 280 million yuan was added by provincial governments, according to the ministry.





Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Thanks for posting this Sean ~

Very disturbing stuff, indeed.

I remember numerous stories in NYC during the late '80's & 90's where parents on Methadone put their take-homes in the refrigerator...NOT in a lock box.

Kids...toddlers...thinking it was orange juice drank it. Obvious tragic results.

What's even more distressing...if possible...is with Methadone now being prescribed as a painkiller for chronic pain patients, there's bound to be a lot more Methadone in people's medicine chests. So, the old days when the big thing was kids taking an overdose of aspirin is now replaced with something far worse...OD's on Methadone.

Arlene F.
EXODUS FROM MMT
NOW HAPPY, JOYOUS & FREE

Wow Sean those are mind blowing stories. Breaks my heart,makes me feel helpless,and guilty. I do babysit on my days off i will pay extra extra attention to my meds here in the house.

Good idea, Pam...I always had mine in a lock bag, locked down, because
that's the state regs in Indiana that the dosing nurse has to watch
you lock the bag before you step away from the window...In Oregon you
could put them in your pocket, but i was so used to the lock bag i just continued the routine there..Lots would ask me why i did that,
and i would tell them what i have told you..Usually they would respond
back with, That's a great idea!!![8D]

Hope your day goes well, Pam

Yours in recovery,
-Sean


-Sean
Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Thanks for the wake up call Sean OMG what if ?? I love the children i watch

Methadone clinics could be added
Richmond center's director hopes new sites would help erase stigma
By Brian Zimmerman
Staff writer
----------------------------------------------------------------------


A new state law approved in March would allow for additional methadone clinics to be built in Indiana, breaking a moratorium placed on clinics in 1998 that limited the number to 16 locations in 11 cities statewide.

But local treatment officials hope new clinics, which treat addiction to heroin and other opiates, would offer ample safety and security to their clients, helping to erase the stigma that such clinics attracts drug dealers and other crime associated with the drug.


"We have security guards here and we monitor quite a bit," said David Reeves, director of the Richmond Treatment Center.

"But we get patients from Ohio that don't like the area where clinics are located," he said. "Some of them say it's not safe."

Under new legislation, 15 counties would be eligible for new clinics. Reeves' clinic currently treats people from as far away as Muncie and Dayton, Ohio, using the drug that can be addictive as heroin but without the euphoric high.

"It's like anything else," he said, about addicts who travel long distances to come to Richmond. "I used to own a restaurant ... there are other restaurants that don't keep up with the standards."

Applicants interested in building a clinic have been invited to a conference set up the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, who are writing the rules for new clinics. The conference is set for May 31 in Indianapolis.

State officials say they want community input, too.

"You want the community to decide how and where these facilities are sited," said John Viernes, deputy director for the agency's Mental Health and Addiction Division. "There's still a perception out there -- it's difficult to accept treating a drug addict with another drug that's just as addictive."

Treatment sometimes a long road
Methadone clinics often locate patients by word of mouth, Reeves said, but all of Richmond's patients volunteer for treatment.

"We have a lot of patients that remain in treatment because it's not just the addiction," he said. "They have to get the rest of their life in order and they make their own choice on that."

Patients must first have a diagnosis for narcotic dependency to be admitted to the clinic. Addicts typically receive a small, sometimes daily dose of methadone.

"These people already have a problem," Reeves said.

The recent overdose of two Wayne County men, Reeves said, is a good example. In that incident, police tied one of the men to a drug store robbery of the pain reliever OxyContin before he overdosed.

"These are the type people we try to serve," Reeves said





Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Methadone keeps users in `drug-addicted state'
Apr. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`Addicts' not included on methadone task force


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter, April 6.

This letter makes a very important point that any methadone task force should and must hear from the addicts, but it should also include the family or loved ones of the addicts. Both are essential to any task force if the intention is truly to seek answers and a better way. Even the Senate hearings on illicit drugs had the sense to include hearing information from the addict and the parent.

Methadone is the only substance that has been in use in this country for the treatment of heroin addiction. There are newer drugs that have been in use for many years in the United States and in Europe that have been thoroughly tested and approved and are highly preferable to methadone. Health Canada has in essence "approved" at least one of these, buprenorphine, yet it is "not yet available" for use here in Canada.

As the mother of a drug addict who is on the methadone program, I can tell you one very major problem area that I have witnessed. Methadone keeps the addict in a "drug-addicted state." As much as evidence points to the fact that a "mind change" is necessary for the addict to quit, that change is not possible on methadone. The addict must go to the pharmacy every day for his "fix" which is no different than going to the corner drug dealer. The addict is at the whim of the few pharmacies which dispense the drug and can rarely leave town for a holiday or work a regular job. Drugs like buprenorphine take this dependency away and allow the addict to regain a normal life, yet it's the old song of "not in Canada you say?"

Unless the task force is nothing more than a bureaucratic make-work project, it must include hearing from the addict and the loved ones of the addict.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linda Jordan, North Vancouver, B.C



Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

Select board rejects methadone clinic expansion
April 11, 2006

ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. --A mobile methadone clinic must expand treatment to other communities before it can increase the number of patients it serves in St. Johnsbury, the Select Board has ruled.



"The whole issue is whether it's going to be multi-site or not. I think that is where all of us want to see it go," Selectman Gary Reis said.

Select Board members said they would revisit the request if Baart Behavioral Health Services, which also operates a mobile clinic in Newport to treat addiction to heroin and prescription drugs, comes up with a detailed proposal to move into other towns.

"It's got to have times and dates on when it's going to happen," Selectman Bryon Quatrini said of the proposal.

The methadone clinic started operating in August on the condition that it would start serving other areas in six months.

The unit now serves 54 patients in St. Johnsbury and 73 in Newport, said director Alan Aiken




Gratitude, that’s the attitude...

To all that It May Concern:
Regaring the recent post regarding Richmond Treatment Ctr. and expanding the clinics throughout Indiana.
(I know this is for "News Type" only posting here, however, I felt the need to speak. Very angry at the way, RTC and Director David Reeves, makes things out to be there. I know David Reeves personally, from being at RTC for 4 years, up until recently, when I left and detoxed.. This place and all of "there" other locations throughout the U.S. are about money, the $12/day dose, furthmore they do not educate on Methadone, they will give it to anyone..including, a small user.. as I was, off Vicodan,I drove 240 Miles a day to this place, only for them, many of times with there "security" thats so great,to lock me out, and many others outside the door, for being 1 minute late.They do not screen peoples needs or abuse history very well or didn't, when I was there and kept increasing the methadone dose(160 mg)-for me. No questions asked.. For the money, I'm assuming to Keep you coming back.
Because they will NOT allow a decrease of more than 1 mg /week (unless you throw a fit, see the doctor, & counselor,and wait days to get approved for this decrease..Ask for an INcrease though, and you'll get it on the spot.Suggesting that they want to help those,like that of the TWO MEN IN WAYNE CO. that had died from an overdose is a lie.They want to help thereselves deep into our pockets,all about the money.
Furthermore, the statement made by Mr. Reeves, director of RTC, "These people already have a problem".
Well maybe, but they most certainly don't help our problems in so many ways..Beleive me driving 240 miles a day plus cost to dose and gas at sometimes $3.00/gallon, day after day didn't help me, or my little girl sitting by my side, in the car all day leaving at 4 AM ( that I lost, eventually,from it completly breaking down, plus another car lost.)I hated everything about this place and MYSELF when I took my last drink one Saturday morning, BECAUSE THEY WOULDN'T HELP ME DECREASE..
I'm sorry for ranting, on and on. However, RTC and Mr. Reeves makes RTC and other locations owned by the same Co. out to be something is really just is NOT.
I lost everything in my life, and YES, I completly blame myself, for the problem of addiction in the 1st place.
But they keep you in a full blown addictive cycle anyway, and allow for no way out.

"Methadone keeps users in 'drug-addicted-state'.
Well thats for sure, and so do the clinics.

I will be at the conference 5/31.
Not that it will do any good, but I will go.
Did anyone happen to get the 411 on where it will be
held at, in Indianapolis?

Again, sorry to go on and on.. and not sure if I should have posted here, in the 'news postings', if not, I'm sorry to all. Just was angry.
H~

April 12, 2006
A big meth


I've always wondered about methadone. It's just as addictive as heroin but doesn't provide the high. What junkie really wants to go for that? It seems like replacing a case-of-beer-a-day habit with O'Doul's. Yeah, please, give me something that tastes awful and makes me pee all night but doesn't give me a buzz. But with heroin "increasingly becoming the drug of choice for white, 20-something suburbanites," the General Assembly was persuaded to lift the moratorium on new methadone clinics. This worries some officials:

"They draw dealers to people that are addicted," said Bob Taylor, coordinator of the Porter County Drug Task Force. "I don't think there's a town or police department around here that wants it in its city."

The state is trying to combat that negative perception and wants any new methadone clinics to be located where the public -- and the patients -- won't be bothered by dope dealers, said John Viernes, deputy director for FSSA's Mental Health and Addiction Division.

Where the public won't be bothered by dope dealers? Well, how about next to meth labs? One more piece of evidence that we need to rethink this whole War on Drugs fiasco.




Gratitude, that’s the attitude...