Sliding into Iraqistan

[Originally posted 29 Oct 2010 on hellowellness.in]

Drug use among the Karzai government forces in Afghanistan is old news. That country is, after all, the world’s leading producer of opium, and high government officials, including the President’s brother, are widely believed to be among the kingpins in the heroin trade.  Now comes a report, in Monday’s New York Times, that government troops in Iraq have been sliding in the same direction. Reporters Timothy Williams and Omar al-Jawoshy write from Baghdad:

“A growing number of Iraqi security force members are becoming dependent on drugs or alcohol, which has led to concerns about a significant addiction problem among the country’s armed services as the insurgency remains a potent force and American troops prepare to depart at the end of next year.”

The reporters’ sources estimate that in some regions of Iraq, as many as half the officers and soldiers, including high-ranking officers, use drugs and/or alcohol while on duty.  Based on dozens of interviews, they write that alcohol and drug use among Iraqi police and military “has become increasingly common and appears to have grown significantly during the past year or so.”  

Some of the troops use drugs “to help us forget that we are hungry.”  Others use drugs to subdue their anxiety, fatigue, and boredom.  Officers look the other way because drug use makes some of the fighters fearless in combat.  It also makes them reckless.  Drug use was believed involved in recent incidents where Iraqi forces massacred civilians and also turned on one another.  Generally, the growing drug use contributes to lack of discipline and cohesion.  

The units with the biggest drug habits appear to be those with the most challenging assignments: manning checkpoints in contested areas, and members of special forces teams that do night raids, assassinations, and other “counter-terrorist” work.  The article leaves the impression that Iraqi forces are not prepared to perform this kind of work when their minds are clear.  

The Times article says nothing about drug use among American and other allied forces in the country.  We already know from other sources that numerous GI’s have come home from the Iraqi theatre with serious substance abuse problems.  Significant drug use by British troops has also been documented.  

The Times’ reporters unfortunately have nothing to report about the drug situation among the “insurgent” forces, other than to speculate that some “insurgent” groups are helping to import the drugs from Afghanistan and other countries, with transparent motives.  But commerce is not necessarily also consumption.  Are the resistance fighters, unlike the government forces, capable of doing what they do with minds unimpaired by addictive substances?  It would be an interesting chapter in the study of guerrilla warfare to know how the use of addictive substances by one side or another, or both, affects the methods of the struggle and its ultimate outcome.  

The spread of drug use on the scale that the Times article reports could not occur without the complicity of the highest command.  Iraq does not have the domestic drug production capacity of an Afghanistan or a Colombia, but abundant opportunities for profit exist whenever there is widespread consumption.  To the bulging catalogue of corruption already compiled by the principals of the current Iraqi ruling groups, a new chapter on drug trafficking will need to be added.  

Looking at world events through the lens of the addiction issue is, for an American, a bitter experience.  Here I sit, more than 18 years clean and sober, having invested the better part of my life in building a new roadway out of addiction, and I see my government spending my tax money  (and the blood of my compatriots) propping up a set of foreign regimes that grow fat on building more roads into addiction.

Pain Relief Without Addiction: Walking the Tightrope

[Originally published on hellowellness.in on 29 Oct. 2010]

Roger T., a middle-aged systems analyst, showed up at a LifeRing recovery support group looking for help with addiction to painkillers.  Years earlier he had been a passenger in an auto collision which left him with chronic pain in his lower back and hips.  His doctors had prescribed the standard opiates, and this had provided him with some relief, but over time he needed larger and larger doses.  He said he had been taking 300 Vicodins® per day.  He knew he had to stop the drugs -- but he couldn’t live with the pain.  

Not only patients but also their physicians have to walk a tightrope between pain and addiction.  A hot case in point is the jury trial involving Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, the 42-year old Hollywood internist and physician to celebrity model Anna Nicole Smith.  Smith died of a drug overdose in 2007.  Dr. Kapoor and two other defendants were not charged in her death -- this was ruled accidental -- but were charged with conspiracy to provide her with excessive quantities of pain medications while knowing she was an addict.  

In other words, Dr. Kapoor was charged with crossing the line from medical helper to drug pusher.  It’s an issue that inflames hundred-year old wounds on the U.S. medical community.  With the passage of the Harrison Act in 1914 and regulations and court decisions shortly thereafter, the federal government severely limited physicians’ professional freedom to prescribe analgesic medications.  They could prescribe opiate painkillers only in tapering doses, and their good faith professional medical judgment was ruled irrelevant.  

In the following decades, the US Treasury Department indicted more than 25,000 physicians for prescribing opiates; some 3,000 went to jail, and more than 20,000 were forced to pay fines.  It was a shameful period, and it has left enduring scars on modern medical practice.  The California statute under which Dr. Kapoor was charged is a direct descendant of this period.  These laws have chilled physicians’ treatment of patients with chronic pain problems.  

The Harrison Act rested on paranoia about anarchists, radicals, criminals, and foreigners -- especially Chinese -- who were (wrongly) seen as the typical opiate users of their day.  Scratch any subscriber to what passes as public opinion in the US today and you’ll find, not far beneath the surface, a similar identification of drug users with social undesirables.  

All of that goes on the scrap heap when a celebrity is involved.  As everyone familiar with the criminal justice system in the U.S. must be aware, celebrities are above the law, particularly the law of addictive substances.  Lindsey Lohan, Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton ... all would be locked up for years if their names were Smith, Jones, and Johnson.  And so here.  With Anna Nicole Smith, a genuine neon blazing celebrity at the center of the trial -- even more dazzling a presence in death perhaps than in life -- the judge found ample justification for her possession, post mortem, of more than 1,500 pills.  In a phrase that will reverberate in courtrooms for years, Judge Perry T. Fine admonished the jury, "The number of pills is not a determinative factor in this case. Please keep that in mind.”  

The jury did.  After 13 days of deliberations it returned yesterday a verdict of “not guilty” for Dr. Kapoor.  It found, in other words, that Ms. Smith was not “addicted” and that Dr. Kapoor’s prescription of opiate painkillers was medically justified in view of her many and severe symptoms of pain and anguish.  

Dr. Kapoor still faces a lengthy process of rehabilitating his reputation and defending possible attacks on his medical license.  But he will not go to prison.  

With this courtroom victory, physicians who specialize in the difficult art of pain management -- a small and endangered species -- will breathe a long overdue sigh of relief.  

Most of these physicians are members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a highly respected and conservative professional body of providers who more or less successfully navigate the tightrope of giving pain relief without enabling addiction, every working day.  

But  there is also a fringe element of medical opportunists who will prescribe whatever the patient asks for, so long as the check is good.  And there are well-intentioned general practitioners with zero schooling in addiction medicine whom the experienced opiate addict plays like a violin.  

There are no easy answers to pain.  I have had conversations in LifeRing meetings with a number of people like Roger T. who suffer from chronic pain, medically managed with conventional opiate-based pharmaceuticals.  They tell me that they have learned to recognize when they are crossing the boundary from pain relief into seeking euphoria.  Unfortunately that insight came only after multiple boundary crossings with harmful consequences.  I have also talked with chronic pain sufferers who have found relief through hypnosis, meditation, special exercises, nutrition, and other alternative approaches.  Pharmaceutical research is also hinting at new types of analgesics that do not involve the classic addictive brain circuits, as the opiates do.  

Obtaining pain relief without falling into addiction is one of the most difficult challenges for professional and patient alike.  One thing seems certain.  There will be more progress if this problem is left in the hands of providers and patients, without massive interference from uninformed legislators and political appointees, frequently with demagogic motives.  To that extent, the jury’s verdict freeing Dr. Kapoor is an important step forward, and Judge Fine deserves recognition for a well-reasoned set of jury instructions.

If Alcohol Were Invented Today

[Originally posted on hellowellness.in 29 Sept 2010]

The word 'alcohol' was coined around 1540 by an Arabic chemist to describe the fine powder, or 'kohl,' used to stain or paint the eyelids.  Two centuries later, British writers borrowed the word to describe the intoxicating essence of wine -- an ironic twist, since the original Arabic chemist was very likely a Muslim and, as such, forbidden to drink it.  

If alcohol were invented today, international law would class it with the controlled substances, alongside opium, heroin, cocaine and the like.  The World Health Organization (WHO), in its most recent comprehensive report, writes:

Alcohol is a psychoactive substance with a known liability to produce dependence in humans and animals. If considered in the frame of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, alcohol would qualify for scheduling as a substance that “has the capacity to produce a state of dependence, and central nervous system stimulation or depression, resulting in hallucinations or disturbances in motor function or thinking or behaviour or perception or mood”, and for which “there is suffi cient evidence that the substance is being … abused so as to constitute a public health and social problem warranting the placing of the substance under international control.”

The propensity to produce "dependence" -- a bland synonym, in this context, for the more controversial term "addiction" -- is the red flag that sets apart this relatively small class of drugs, including alcohol, from the millions of other known chemical compounds.  They are addictogenic.

The exact molecular mechanism of addictogenesis is still the focus of scientific investigation in several countries.  But the fact of its occurrence is beyond dispute.  The WHO report says, "The direct actions of alcohol on the brain and sustained alcohol exposure lead to longer–term molecular changes in the brain known as neuroadaptation."  That is, a number of neural pathways in the brain are altered to form a strongly self-reinforcing habitual behavior pattern that leads to adverse consequences for the organism.  

Among the pathways by which alcohol enters the brain is the brain's indigenous opioid system -- the same doorway by which the opiates such as heroin and codeine pass into the neural network.  

Wherever alcohol is introduced into a country on a large scale, there one finds the rise of alcohol addiction (alcoholism).  The WHO world surveys find a strong correlation between the level of alcohol consumption in a country, and its prevalence of alcohol dependence.  Statistically, more than three quarters of the dependence rate is correlated with the level of consumption, and this trend is even stronger in "developing" countries, among which the WHO report specifically names India.  

Alcohol marketing generates alcohol use.  Alcohol use generates alcohol addiction.  Alcohol addiction then sustains the alcohol market. 

In any country where alcohol use has become established, writes the WHO, a small minority of drinkers consume the bulk of the alcohol sold.  "A typical finding is that half of the alcohol consumed is consumed by 10% of the drinkers."  In the U.S., some reports indicate that 10 per cent of the drinkers drink 80 per cent of the alcohol.

Imagine, then, that by some magic pill you could  convert the 10 per cent into non-drinkers.  The alcoholic beverage market would crash more profoundly and disastrously than the mortgage and financial markets in our recent meltdown.  

The alcoholic beverage industry worldwide is absolutely built on alcohol addiction.  One has to say it; there is no way to sugarcoat it.  

Recently, after I outlined these economic facts to a person newly in recovery from alcoholism, she exclaimed, "But that's so illogical!"  

Of course, it's utterly illogical.  We have grandfathered alcohol and tobacco into the category of legal substances, even though the combined death toll from these two drugs is perhaps 15 times greater than the toll from all of the drugs proscribed as illegal.  

So, we have prisons full of people caught using or selling negligible quantities of drugs whose total impact on society is relatively small, while the pushers of mega-quantities of lethal addictive substances that kill as many people each year as die in major wars, floods and earthquakes sit in luxurious offices with princes, prime ministers, and police chiefs on their speed dials.  

Meditation can provide lucidity at times of mental turmoil.  My friend who exclaimed at the illogicality of current addiction policy became agitated and, for a while, I feared that the mental stress would tilt her toward relapse.  I suggested meditation, and she calmed down.  The next day we met and I asked for her thoughts.  

She said that after thinking it through, she was more determined to remain free of addictive substances than ever.  Said she, "I don't like being used."

No Such Thing as a Bad Person Addicted to Alcohol

Had the pleasure today to hear and meet Charles D. Appelstein, author of No Such Thing as a Bad Kid and other works expounding the strength-based approach to working with at-risk youth.  

Charlie was keynoter  at the 12th annual Northern California Tobacco, Alcohol, Drug Educator and Youth Development Conference at UC Berkeley, where I staffed a LifeRing exhibit table.  He's a fun speaker, gets the audience laughing, chanting, and singing, all the time delivering key points of a message that is in many respects revolutionary.  

When a teacher or counselor begins work with troubled kids -- also "trouble kids" -- the key thing is attitude, Charlie began.  The successful attitude, he said, is "I believe in you.  You are a great kid.  You can do great things."  This attitude transfers to the kid; it makes the kids feel good about themselves, it gives them hope, and it inspires them to change for the better.

Afterward we chatted about addiction treatment, and I told him that LifeRing was one of the strength-based approaches in this field.  He expressed great interest.  We also exchanged books; he gave me his and I gave him mine.  

I also had the opportunity to chat with Tom Herman of the State Department of Education, Dr. Alex Stalcup of the New Leaf Treatment Center, Ralph Cantor of the local County Office of Education, and a number of substance abuse program administrators, teachers, cops, and others in and around K-12 education who are concerned with the drug issue.  The message that there's a secular, strength-based addiction recovery support network out there was welcome news to many ears.  

Seattle police chief tapped as 'Drug Czar'

Rumors last month that Rep. Jim Ramstad was headed for the post of 'Drug Czar' proved unfounded, as Pres. Obama has reportedly nominated Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske for the post, instead.  Kerlikowske has earned generally positive reviews, but it's too early to say, if he's confirmed by the Senate, what he's likely to do as top commander of the 'war on drugs.'  Obama is on record that this 'war' has been a colossal failure.  There's grounds for hope that Kerlikowski will redirect the mission of this cabinet-level office more toward treatment, prevention, and a public health approach, rather than the nightstick-and-prison medicine that has prevailed.  For an eloquent statement advocating such a change in mission, read Victor Capoccia's op-ed in the Baltimore press, here.  Capoccia is head of the Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap initiative.  

Congratulations to Barack Obama

As a college student at Wesleyan in '61 (or was it '62?) I joined with other white students to team with groups of black students from Howard University in an effort to integrate lunch counters in Glen Burnie, a suburb of Baltimore.  In some places we sat indefinitely without being served; in one, we were served coffee with salt in it; at another they locked the doors as we approached.  When we picketed the segregated local movie theatre, a mob of white men surrounded us as sheriffs watched.  A providential cloudburst scattered the crowd and allowed us to escape.  

On the night of election day in 1964, I arrived at the civil rights movement headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi, to begin a few months of volunteer work.  Nearly everyone was glued to the TV set to see whether the Democratic Party would seat the elected black delegates running under the banner of the Freedom Democratic Party.  The answer was, no.  

These and other memories came upwelling as I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama.   The party that wouldn't seat elected black delegates had nominated a black man for president.  A man whose father would not have been served at DC area restaurants 60 years ago was taking the oath of office.   Indeed, there has been some changes.

This morning's San Francisco Chronicle editorializes that Obama's new approach is "grounded in sobriety and hard work."  The "sobriety" that's meant here is, I assume, the metaphorical kind -- a pragmatic, realistic attitude -- and not the literal kind, meaning abstinence from alcoholic drink.  Yet there's a connection to reflect on, here.  

For me, personally, my time of active engagement in the civil rights movement was largely a time when my alcoholism (acquired in my freshman year in college) was in remission.  Engagement in life-changing work was hugely more interesting than drink.  My drinking habit only bloomed large during the years of reaction that followed, when it seemed that everything we had done was being undone.  Pessimism, despair, lack of hope were the atmosphere in which this illness flourished.  And I'm not the only one.  Is it an accident that the drug problem grew larger in rough proportion as conditions for the poor and middle class in America stagnated and deteriorated?  

Barack Obama's own history with alcohol and other drugs offers a refreshing contrast to that of his predecessor in office.  Obama has freely and openly admitted experimenting with drugs as a youth, but then stopped; he is trying to quit, or has quit, smoking.  What a contrast to the history of "W," whose claimed mid-life alcohol salvation story is widely believed to be a sham that covered up more than it revealed, notably a long history of cocaine use, some say.  

I've not yet seen anything in the way of Obama's statements so far that gives a clue to his specific policies on alcoholism and other addictions.  The federal government has many levers to pull and many dollars to spend in this area.  On general principles, I assume that Obama will support the recent extension of parity in the treatment of mental health and addiction treatment.  I assume that the federal agencies in this area will continue to be funded.  

The open questions in my mind are (a)  War on Drugs, and (b) Federal excise taxes on spirits and tobacco.  We need "change we can believe in" in the "war on drugs," a criminal exercise in hypocrisy and racial/economic persecution that is long overdue for radical reform.  An even more telling mark of Obama's mettle will be whether he supports Congressional action to raise the excise taxes on liquor and tobacco.  Public health advocates have long maintained that raising these taxes is the single most effective measure to reduce the social impact of these two most murderous addictive drugs.  Needless to say, the pillars of corporate greed stand deeply dug in on this issue.

The largest opening in the clouds under this new administration will be in the area of improving living standards and reducing inequities for the poor and middle class.  If the real and emotional environment of ordinary people in this country becomes infused with progress and hope, the problems of alcohol and other drugs will recede as if of their own accord.  It will take some time, but if the new administration succeeds in this largest and most difficult of goals, we will, in fact, see a new era of "sobriety" in both senses of the word.

Congratulations to President Barack Obama, and best wishes for the future.

P.S.  To date, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy remains under an interim head, Patrick Ward, a Bush appointee who has held the post a bit over a year.  Obama's choice of Rep. Jim Ramstad to become the new Drug Czar has run into heavy fire for Ramstad's ties to abusive "faith-based" programs, his policy positions on prevention, and his ties to a massive investor fraud.  Read Maia Szalavitz's blog blast and the Drug Policy Alliance editorial.  Ramstad is not change, he's MOTSOS.  

Girl, 8, asks cops for help with drunken mom

"Help me. My mother is drunk, and she crashed her car," said an 8-year old Tampa FL girl to troopers last week who were checking on a car wreck.

With the girl inside, the mother had sideswiped two other vehicles before hitting a parked car head-on and coming to a stop. The girl got out of the wreck, unhurt, and approached the first officer on the scene.

"Ever time she drinks she gets like this," said the girl. The mother was booked for drunk driving, child abuse, and related charges. Source.

Sponsors rat on pigeon

Two Alcoholics Anonymous sponsors took the witness stand in federal court in Des Moines IA recently to denounce their former sponsee, Thomas Vasquez, as "a pathological liar" lacking "the capacity to be honest." Source.

Vasquez probably deserved the slams. He was a paid government informer trying to build a case of extortion against incumbent Democratic state senator Matt McCoy. A Bushie federal prosecutor brought the transparently political case. The jury threw it out after less than two hours of deliberation, including lunch.

But ... should AA sponsors be testifying as character witnesses against their former sponsee? Isn't that against some rule?

A good question

A new policy in New Jersey allows cops to ask drinking drivers who served them their last drink. Source.

Some bar owners are upset because existing law already makes barkeepers liable for serving patients who are drunk.

Cops answer that the question helps them spot bars that ignore the law.

Surprising finding about youth drinking (NOT)

A study of 11,000 persons in London found that teens who drank to excess (4 drinks or more per session, once a week or more often) were twice as likely to snag a criminal conviction by age 30. They were also much more likely to become alcoholics, to use hard drugs, and to become homeless. Source.

The study is being used as fodder for an Australian provincial government campaign to crack down on youth drinking. A worthy cause, no doubt, but did the study control for factors such as family income, education, and environment?

CIA up to its old tricks?

A tantalizing hint that the CIA is up to its old tricks (flying drugs from conflict zones) surfaced in the crash landing of a Gulfstream II business jet in Mexico Sept. 24.

The Florida-based craft carried somewhere between three and six tons of powder cocaine, and either no heroin or up to one ton of heroin, depending on which estimates one believes.

The flight originated in Colombia and was destined for Florida with a stopover in Cancun.

Blogger FrostFireZoo.com reports that the serial number of the craft matches those of a plane used by the CIA on at least three occasions in the rendition of terrorism suspects from Guantanamo to other countries to be tortured.

A Mexican journal accused Mexican and U.S. political authorities of hypocrisy for waging a so-called "war on drugs" on the one hand, and being heavily invested in the lucrative drug trade, on the other.

Foxfire.com observes that the amount of drugs said to be on the plane diminished with every official Mexican press release on the incident, and speculates that the subtracted amounts disappeared back into the market.

The photos of the crash scene, above, originated with Mexican press sources. For a video with commentary on EVTV, click.

P.S. Aug. 26 '08: Someone has removed the photos of the crash scene from this blog, and from the original source website as well. However, a video containing the same or similar still photos is still available online here: http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=10106 -- See them before they're gone.

Mile wide and an inch deep

Someone said Baptism in the South is a mile wide and an inch deep. Here's an example:

The cleaned-up version:

JOHNSON CITY – A Bristol Virginia Baptist preacher arrested in Johnson City in July pleaded guilty Thursday to driving under the influence.

Tommy Tester, 58, of 17425 Hobbs Road, Bristol, Va., was sentenced to 11 months and 29 days, suspended to 24 hours in jail, 16 hours of which he has already served. He will also have to spend 24 hours picking up litter.

Tester, the minister of Gospel Baptist Church, also entered a “best interest” plea to a charge of indecent exposure and was sentenced to five months and 29 days, suspended to probation.

Police said Tester, who was wearing a skirt, pulled up in his vehicle to Belmont Carwash, got out and urinated in a wash bay in view of children. Source.

The unexpurgated version here. -- Thanks, Kelly C., for the tip

Another Court Rules that AA/NA are Religious

A recent court case ruled that a parolee can sue a parole officer for damages if the parole officer requires the parolee to attend 12-step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous when this violates the parolee's religious or non-religious beliefs.

The case is titled Inouye v. Kemna, issued Sept. 7, 2007. The full text of the opinion is here. The court that issued the decision is the Ninth Circuit of the United States Courts of Appeal. The court's ruling is the law in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Ricky Inouye was imprisoned in Hawaii after conviction on drug charges, and served his time. As a Buddhist, he objected to participating in 12-step treatment programs because of their religious nature. After his release, he sued his parole officer, Nanamori, for giving him the "choice" of AA/NA meetings or prison.

When that case came to trial in the federal court in Hawaii, Nanamori argued that he, a parole officer, could not have known whether AA/NA are "religious" because the law on that issue was foggy at the time he ordered Inouye to participate (2001). If the issue was unclear, Nanamori was immune from suit. Nanamori won on that issue in the lower federal court in Hawaii. Inouye (or rather his son Zenn, Ricky having meanwhile died) appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

The Ninth Circuit's opinion makes short work of the claim that the law was fuzzy on the religious nature of AA/NA. The court points to virtually identical cases decided before 2001 by the federal courts of appeal for the Seventh Circuit (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) and the Second Circuit (New York, Connecticut, Vermont), in addition to a string of similar cases in lower federal courts and in state courts, all with the same result. The "unanimous conclusion" of these courts was that coercing a person into AA/NA or into AA/NA based treatment programs was unconstitutional because of their religious nature. Because the law on this issue was "uncommonly well settled," Nanamori cannot claim immunity.

Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the lower federal court in Hawaii to decide how much, if anything, Nanamori has to pay Inouye's estate in monetary damages.

The court's ruling means that criminal justice officers -- or, arguably, any agents of the state, local, or federal government within the bounds of the Ninth Circuit -- can be sued for damages if they ignore a client's religious or anti-religious objections and coerce the person to attend 12-step meetings or 12-step based treatment programs.

What should prisoners, parolees, and criminal justice officers do in response to this ruling?

(1) Prisoners and parolees who have problems with the religious content of 12-step programs should stand up for their beliefs and make their objections heard, loud, clear, early, and on paper. In this case, Ricky Inouye won in part because he wrote letters and filed suit promptly after he was coerced into 12-step programs. He held to his position consistently, and enlisted legal help as soon as possible. Prisoners and parolees need to make it clear both in words and deeds that they earnestly want to remain clean and sober, that they are willing to participate in alcohol and other drug treatment programs and to attend support groups, but that the religious content in the 12-step programs violates their constitutionally protected beliefs and interferes with their recovery. Prisoners and parolees can match these words with actions by demanding referral to non-religious (secular) treatment options, if they exist, and by taking the initiative to organize secular support groups, such as LifeRing, on their own.

(2) Officials in the criminal justice system (and other government officials with coercive powers over addiction offenders) need to offer their clients a choice between religious and secular treatment programs and support groups. The "choice" between AA/NA or prison offends the constitution, and officers who insist on it need to check their professional liability insurance. Government officials can help themselves as well as their clients by sending the message to treatment programs that the programs must embody a secular track along with the 12-step track, or risk losing referrals. Officials need to inform themselves and their clients about the availability of secular support group alternatives, such as LifeRing. Where clients take the initiative to organize such support groups, officials need to be cooperative and provide a level playing field when it comes to rooms, publicity, literature, referrals, and other resources. In an appropriate case, officials may take the lead in initiating secular support groups themselves.

The Ninth Circuit decision ruffles some feathers because it contradicts the belief of many AA/NA members that the 12-step approach is "spiritual not religious." Of course, these words can have many meanings. But as far as the First Amendment of the US Constitution is concerned, the 12-step approach is clearly religious, and the Ninth Circuit only joins a "march of unanimity" of other courts who have come to the same conclusion.

The basic thrust of this line of cases is that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of and from religion extends over the whole of the United States, including the ever-expanding areas enclosed by prison walls. Since such a large proportion of prisoners are there because of drug and/or alcohol abuse, this recent ruling serves as an important refresher. Jails and prisons, notoriously in California, are overcrowded and in deplorable condition. The Ninth Circuit's decision says that the freedom of religious belief or disbelief must not go down the drain along with so many other elements of civilized penal treatment.

Drug problem in Afghanistan getting worse, UN says

NEW YORK: Despite efforts by the Afghan government and the international community, the drug control situation in the country is worsening, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in its annual report.

The production of illicit opium poppy in Afghanistan reached a record 6,100 tons in 2006, up almost 50 percent from the previous year, the report said.

Due to a rising level of Afghan opiate trafficking, the Vienna-based UN drug control watchdog added, the neighbouring countries are now faced with a wide range of problems, "such as organized crime, corruption and relatively high illicit demand for opiates."

Moreover, the drug abuse by injection is increasingly becoming one of the main factors behind the widely spread of HIV/AIDS in some areas of the region. Source.

Prisoners take hostage for nicotine

JOHNSON CITY, Tennessee -- Two inmates housed in a smoke-free prison took a guard hostage and then released him and returned to their cells when given cigarettes.

Billy Grubb, 32, and Bradley Johnson, 25, attacked the guard Monday night, said Howard Carlton, warden of the Northeast Correctional Complex. Both are in prison for murder.

Prisons across the state are instituting no-smoking policies after the Legislature passed a law banning smoking in state buildings. -- Source

IndyCar racer busted for DUI

IndyCar Series driver A.J. Foyt is facing charges for driving under the influence of alcohol in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

The 22-year-old, who lives in Huntersville, N.C., was arrested on December 10 after running a stop light. He was released after posting a $1,000 bond, and will have to appear in court on April 9 to answer to the DUI charges. Source.

New Recovery blog reader Taylor M., who contributed this item, writes:

It will be interesting to see how the IRL handles this- especially given how backwards they are about tobacco and how much alcohol sponsorship is worth to the racing industry in general. It is interesting to note that drinking alcohol at all is generally considered a no-no in pro racing, most drivers only drink on the podium. There are some notable exceptions (Kimi Raikkonen ) but mostly it's frowned upon even if alcohol sponsorship isn't.

UK: "Restricted" report urges Rx heroin

The government should consider providing free heroin to hard-core addicts through the National Health Service as a way to reduce crime, says a top-level report by the UK Home Office.

Marked "restricted" because of its controversial recommendations, the document was leaked to The Independent.

There is mounting evidence that trying to restrict the supply of drugs is impossible, says the document. Even if partially successful, supply restriction merely drives up the price of drugs and drives addicts to commit more crimes.

The report comes in a setting where cheap and potent Afghan heroin in unprecedented volume has been flooding into the UK from all ports of entry.

"There is a strong argument that prohibition has caused or created many of the problems associated with the use or misuse of drugs. One option for the future would be to regulate drugs differently, through either over-the-counter sales, licensed sales or doctor's prescription." Source.

For a historical review of similar policy recommendations, see the Transform Drug Policy web site.

Denver pot advocate shot and killed in his home

CBS4) DENVER A Denver man well-known in Colorado's medical marijuana community was shot and killed Saturday night after his house was broken into.

Ken Gorman, an outspoken advocate for legalizing marijuana, grew pot in his home on the 1,000 block of South Decatur Street, and allowed reporters to film the plants.

Denver police said they are investigating the shooting, but were releasing few details Sunday afternoon. Family members told CBS4 Gorman was the victim in the crime. More.

Wyoming: More than half of arrests due to alcohol

Casper, WY: When the Wyoming Sheriffs and Chiefs Association surveyed jails in 2005, the results were astonishing: alcohol played a role in about 55 percent of arrests for all crimes, and people brought in for driving under the influence were more intoxicated than suspected.

But, reporting from detention centers was spotty enough to prompt a new round of data collection, with researchers hoping for a more solid picture of alcohol’s role.

The new findings presented to the Governor’s Substance Abuse and Violent Crime Advisory Board, showed that alcohol is a factor in 62 percent of all arrests. And, when alcohol is involved, people arrested for crimes ranging from domestic violence and underage drinking to assaults and warrants were far worse than legally intoxicated, with an average blood alcohol content of 0.159, nearly twice the legal limit of .08.

The new data was collected in every county during a six-month period in 2006 through survey forms completed by law enforcement officers in detention centers, said Ernie Johnson, a management consultant to the sheriffs and chiefs association and the study organizer.

“It really opened our eyes,” Johnson said, adding that the data clearly indicates alcohol is Wyoming’s top substance abuse issue. More.

Drunk dad lets boy, 11, drive car

Florence County, SC: A local man has been arrested on charges he allowed his 11-year-old son to drive the family car while the father was drunk in the passenger seat, sheriff’s Capt. Todd Tucker said.

The boy’s 9- and 4-year-old siblings were also in the car Friday morning, Tucker said. A deputy dropping his child off at Coward Elementary School said he saw the 11-year-old boy driving the car. The boy’s father, Joddy Deam Morris, was drunk in the vehicle, Tucker said. Source.