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.

Don't wait till kids are in middle school

A study of underage drinking finds a big jump in alcohol use in children between the fifth and sixth grades, and suggests that waiting to deal with an alcohol issue in the home until the child is in middle school is too late. Source.

The researchers urge parents to "talk to their kids about alcohol" when the kids are ten or eleven, or earlier. But talking alone isn't going to cut it, if the parents themselves are setting bad models of alcohol use in the home. The research really suggests that if one or both of the parents have an alcohol problem, the time to deal with it (at the latest) is when the kid is still in primary school.

Take alcoholic parents' kids away, Scot says

ALCOHOLIC parents should have their kids taken from them in the same way as heroin addicts, one of Scotland's top addiction experts has claimed.

Professor Neil McKeganey, a former government adviser, has accused social services of double standards when dealing with heroin and alcohol addiction.

The respected academic has said children of parents who refuse to give up drink are suffering neglect as serious as those of drug addicts.

McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, has warned the Scottish moralistic attitude to drugs means well-meaning social workers are failing thousands of Scots youngsters.

Social workers are often reluctant to remove children from the homes of alcoholics while the use of illegal drugs such as heroin is seen as far more serious. More.

Kids turn tables on parents

Hartford, CT: Every spring, when prom and graduation season arrives, parents and teachers warn teens about the dangers of using drugs or drinking alcohol. This spring, a group of civic-minded teens at Haddam-Killingworth High School is turning the tables on the adults.

The Youth In Action group is creating a 30-second television ad that urges parents to stop allowing children to hold drinking parties in their homes. The "Where do you draw the line?" ad will run on the local cable-access channel this spring.

"House parties are a big thing around here," senior Shalyn Carey said. "Where are the kids getting the alcohol? From their parents. Parents play just as big a role in their kids' partying as the kids do. We're saying, `Be a friend to your kid, but be a parent, as well.'" 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.

Scalia daughter arrested on DUI charge

WHEATON, Illinois (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's daughter was arrested this week and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and child endangerment, officials said Wednesday.

Ann S. Banaszewski (mug shot photo) 45, of Wheaton, was arrested Monday evening while driving away from a fast-food restaurant in the suburb 20 miles west of Chicago, police said.

Three children were inside Banaszewski's van when someone called police to report a suspected intoxicated driver, said Deputy Chief Tom Meloni. More.

Scalia, who has nine children, is a leader of the neoconservative wing on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Parental ATOD use leads to behavior problems in children

Children whose parents used alcohol, tobacco or other drugs including cocaine while pregnant or in their infancy exhibit greater behavior problems through age 7 than other children, a study published in the February issue of Pediatrics has found.

"Our findings highlight not only a need for continued prevention and treatment programs that are directed toward illegal drug use but also a call for increased effort toward prevention of tobacco and alcohol use, which is a more prevalent problem and has as great an impact on childhood behavior problems as prenatal cocaine exposure," the study's authors write.

Source.

Afghanistan: Whole villages addicted

Elizabeth Bayer, formerly of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan, reports:

"There are villages in the north of Afghanistan where the entire population is addicted to opium. Mothers in carpet weaving districts take opium to ease muscle aches earned from spending long days at the loom, and give it to their children to keep them quiet."

Says Bayer: "There is no education, no awareness of the harm that opium causes. People here have been traumatized. If they can find something to relieve the pain, they will take it." From Time magazine 2/14/07.

Mom sues frat, college over boy's alcohol death

Boulder, CO: The mother of Gordy Bailey (photo), a Colorado University freshman who died of alcohol poisoning at a fraternity initiation in 2004, is suing the fraternity and the university for negligence and reckless misconduct.

A superior court judge has ruled that the lawsuit can go ahead and has set a March 2008 trial date. Source.

A coroner revealed that after Bailey had passed out, his fraternity brothers marked up his arms, legs and trunk with racial and sexual slurs, said the young man's father, Lynn Gordon Bailey.

"This reinforces the nearly unbearable pain of the whole thing," Bailey said. "Was he dying while they were writing that?"

When it became apparent that the 18-year-old was not breathing, and police were going to be called in to investigate, someone tried to wipe off the slurs that were written on his face with a felt-tip marker, police said. Source.

Bailey's death has similarities to the fate of Phanta "Jack" Phoumarrath at the University of Texas, Austin. Link.

$1.2 billion later: National Youth Anti-Drug Media campaign ineffective, harmful

The biggest national anti-drug media campaign ever launched in the U.S. spent more than $1.2 billion from 1998 through 2004 without measurable effect on youth drug use, according to a report to Congress by the Government Accounting Office (GAO). Source.

In some subgroups, notably young teens (12-13 year olds) and girls of any age who had not been using drugs, the campaign appears to have increased the initiation of drug use because it made drug use by peers seem more familiar and acceptable, the GAO concluded.

A major aim of the campaign, motivating parents to monitor their children's drug use, the GAO found, met with no significant results, and even when the campaign affected parental behavior, there was no evidence of corresponding changes in the attitudes or behavior of children.

Although alcohol, tobacco and other drug use among teens has been declining, the GAO report found no causal relationship between the decline and the media campaign.

The campaign is conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a branch of the Bush White House. Despite (or because?) of the campaign's negative results, President Bush has asked Congress for $120 million for the campaign for 2007, an increase of $21 million over last year. ONDCP criticized the GAO report's methods and conclusions.

(Thanks for the lead to this item to the Kujan blog.)

Nursing mom kills baby with cocaine in breast milk

A nursing mother in West Branch MI killed her 5-month old baby with breast milk containing cocaine, medical examiners ruled. The mother had been using cocaine two or three times a day while nursing the infant girl, Karie Lee Bowman. The woman was sentenced to nine months in prison. Source.

Boston: Politicos dragging feet on heroin problem

"Our public officials and elected representatives continue to drag their feet on increased funding for, and accessibility to, aggressive rehabilitation and educational programs" to meet the heroin problem, says a letter to the Boston Globe by Jody Price of Brockton.

Ms. Price is one of the parents in the suburban Boston area whose family has been hit by heroin addiction.

She says of the local politicos: "Their inaction abandons families to be destroyed by the gut-wrenching fear and life-changing grief they suffer, struggling to save their children, then losing them to overdose. " More.

Father shoots daughter's boyfriend over her addiction

Yorkton, Sask. A father distraught over his daughter's drug addiction allegedly shot and killed her boyfriend, jurors in this northern Canada city were told. According to testimony, the father went to the boyfriend's apartment where the daughter was living and ordered her to leave. When she would not, he shot the boyfriend dead. Witnesses said the boyfriend was a known drug user.

Art: Father comes home drunk

A simple watercolor by U.K. Artist Peter McPartlin captures in a few strokes one of the greatest wounds that alcoholism inflicts: the child's loss of confidence in the father. It's on Artabus, an online art gallery, under the title "Father Coming Home Drunk."

Kids and alcohol: the later the better

A joint Australian-US study has found evidence that parents who give children small sips or diluted drinks of alcohol early in life, on the theory of teaching them moderation, may actually be paving the way for binge drinking. Details.

Cincinnati: Parents of heroin victims march for awareness

Cincinnati: Family members who have lost loved ones to drug addiction took to downtown streets Wednesday as part of a new awareness campaign.

Carol Wagner of Northern Kentucky lost her son to a heroin overdose in May of 2005, and organized the march.

This year she had a billboard reading "Drugs killed my boy." placed in Over The Rhine and other drug hot spots.

Her goal is to educate others about addiction in hopes of saving others.

The group marched through the streets of downtown not far from areas where drug dealers are known to do their business.

Charlotte Wethington said, "My son Casey died of a heroin overdose. Heroin he purchased on Republic street here in Cincinnati."

Casey was 23 years old. His mom took to the streets with a sign asking for treatment to become a top priority.

More from WCPO.com. One of the parents has started a foundation.

Man strangles grandmother for drug money

Daytona Beach, FL: A 20-year old man with an addiction to crack cocaine strangled and killed Linda Hummer, his 59-year old grandmother, to obtain drug money, police say.

The man's family says they tried to get him into treatment, but they could not afford to pay the fees at the private centers. But a counselor at the Serenity House center said that the man, Christopher Culp, probably would have qualified for outpatient treatment there. Culp had been attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Culp was about to begin an intake assessment at Serenity House when he said he had to go get a soda. He never returned.

The intake counselor told the press, "People are very ambivalent sometimes about seeking help." Details.

Question: Isn't Serenity House violating a patient's confidentiality here? Or does a person have to "sign on the dotted line" before confidentiality attaches?

MADD's new initiative to stop highway carnage

With drunk driving deaths on American highways virtually locked at 13,000 per year, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has announced a four-point campaign:

“Using technology, tougher enforcement, stronger laws and grassroots mobilization, the goal of eliminating a primary public health threat that has plagued the United States is within our reach,” said Glynn Birch, national president of MADD, whose 21-month-old son was killed by a drunk driver in 1988.

The four points of MADD's campaign are:

* Intensive high-visibility law enforcement, including twice-yearly crackdowns and frequent enforcement efforts that include sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols in all 50 states;

* Full implementation of current alcohol ignition interlock technologies, including efforts to require alcohol ignition interlock devices for all convicted drunk drivers. A key part of this effort will be working with judges, prosecutors and state driver’s license officials to stop the revolving door of repeat offenders;

* Explorationof advanced vehicle technologies through the establishment of a Blue Ribbon panel of international safety experts to assess the feasibility of a range of technologies that would prevent drunk driving. These technologies must be moderately priced, absolutely reliable, set at the legal BAC limit and unobtrusive to the sober driver; and

* Mobilization of grassroots support, led by MADD and its 400+ affiliates, to make the elimination of drunk driving a reality. MADD is uniting drunk driving victims, families, community leaders, and policy makers in the fight to eliminate drunk driving.

Read the full story on MADD's web site.

Meth busts overcrowd foster homes

SALEM, OR: The law enforcement campaign to reduce the methamphetamine business in the Salem area has overcrowded local foster homes, says an article in the Statesman-Journal. So many parents have been arrested and jailed in connection with the meth trade that authorities have put out an urgent call for more foster homes for their children. Source.

Smoking before or after sex can damage baby

Smoking cigarettes just before becoming pregnant and shortly thereafter may increase a woman's risk of having a baby with a congenital heart defect by 60 to 80 percent, according to a report presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Heart Association in McCormick Place.

And women who are exposed to second-hand smoke in the workplace or at home may also increase their risk of bearing infants with such defects, said Dr. Sadia Malik, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the study's lead author. Source. Picture from Nicotine News blog.