BRILLIANT PUBLIC POLICY AT WORK AGAIN

From Al Arsenault via Drug Free America:

Portugal decriminalized

drugs. Results? Use by teens doubled in a decade with nearly a fifth of 1... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2815084/Portugal-decriminalised-drugs-Results-Use-teens-doubled-decade-nearly-fifth-15-16-year-olds-using-drugs.html

FRESH START RECOVERY CENTRE DOING GREAT WORK IN ALBERTA

Did you know that The United Way Calgary and Area funds our Family Healing Program 100%? They have been instrumental in making a difference in how recovery effects families as a whole. We could not do what we do without them. Come out and join us for our 2nd annual Family and Friends Fundraising Dinner. November 6th starting at 6pm will be an evening with a 3 course dinner, live acoustic music,inspiring speeches and the gift of paying it forward. All funds raised will go to our friends at The United Way Calgary and Area.

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR COLLEAGUES IN RECOVERY

VisionQuest Recovery Society

Annual Fundraiser

Guest Speaker:

MLA: Dr. Darryl Plecas

Abbotsford South

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Crime Reduction

MC - Brian Coxford - Global TV

Trevor & Lorena—Comedy Magic Show

Dinner

Silent Auction

Saturday, November 22 2014

6:00 PM—11:00 PM

Immaculate Conception Parrish

8842-119 St, Delta BC

Tickets $50/person—Call 604-946-1841

SOME INCONVENIENT TRUTHS ABOUT POT FROM AROUND THE WORLD

These news items were all sent to us by Al Arsenault of The Odd Squad:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2782906/The-terrible-truth-cannabis-British-expert-s-devastating-20-year-study-finally-demolishes-claims-smoking-pot-harmless.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-06/un-drugs-chief-rejects-volker-body-s-marijuana-findings.

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.2042703

LAST WEEK'S RECOVERY DAY 2014 EVENT

 Recovering addicts and supporters rally in Vancouver for 3rd annual Recovery Day

 

By TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN September 13, 2014

 

 

 

Park board vice chair Constance Barnes reads the proclamation for Recovery Day in Vancouver on Saturday

Photograph by: TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN

VANCOUVER — Organizers of Recovery Day, an annual event held in 25 cities across Canada to celebrate overcoming addiction, are hoping the federal government will proclaim a Recovery Month, to further raise awareness about the disease.

As loud electronic music boomed from Queen Elizabeth Plaza in downtown Vancouver on Saturday, dozens of recovering addicts and their supporters gathered for the city’s third annual Recovery Day, before marching to the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Among them was park board vice chair Constance Barnes, whose own struggle with alcohol addiction was thrown into the spotlight five years ago when she was arrested for drinking and driving.

”So many people are still in hiding because of the stigma. It’s brutal. This is a disease just like any other,” said Barnes, adding she would like to see a centre for excellence for addiction built in Vancouver.
“Recovery can be from anything — food, bulimia, sex, porn — it’s not just alcohol and drugs.”

In 2009, Barnes was arrested outside of a home in south Vancouver after she fell asleep at the wheel and hit a residential home. She later issued a statement, apologizing for her actions, which had followed a time of “deep personal struggle.”

She has since received help and counselling that looks at the genealogy of family addiction. At the Orchard Recovery and Treatment Center on Bowen Island, Barnes said she found the therapy enlightening, and also discovered that she was predisposed to the disease.

Barnes, who is seeking the federal NDP nomination in Vancouver Centre, said by speaking out about addiction, she hopes more people will feel comfortable talking about it with friends, family and coworkers.

“We still don’t ask whether this is a disease and we need to be asking that question.”

Recovery Day spokeswoman Lorinda Strang said 25 cities across Canada are holding similar events, but at different times of the month.

“This is about hope. It’s about freedom. It’s about courage and perseverance, everything that it means to be in recovery,” she said. “We are not aligned with any one group, but we want people to know there are many ways to get into recovery. Whatever the path, the ultimate goal is freedom from addiction.”

In 2012, Mayor Gregor Robertson proclaimed Recovery Day in conjunction with Vancouver resident David Berner, executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada.

The U.S. government recognizes September as Recovery Month, and Strang, who is also the executive director of Orchard Recovery and Treatment Center, said they will be asking the federal government to do something similar here in Canada.

ticrawford@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

EDGEWOOD CONFERENCE - REGISTER & GO

The Edgewood 2014 Conference runs October 2nd and 3d in Nanaimo with quite an array of knowledgeable and inspirational speakers.

Please click through here to go to the Edgewood site and get all the details and registration.

We bring your attention in particular to Dr. Marc Fishman, whose presentation is entitled, "Marijuana - Whats' the Big Deal?" Dr. Fishman will point out that this is a big deal and not a good one.

Dr. Marc Fishman is an addiction psychiatrist and a member of the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He leads Maryland Treatment Centers, a regional behavioral healthcare provider, which includes several inpatient and outpatient programs for adolescents, adults and young adults. In that role he has been involved in development and implementation of innovative programming in addiction and co-occurring disorder treatment. He is a national expert on youth addiction treatment and treatment matching. His academic work has focused on models of care and treatment outcomes for addictions in youth, particular opioid dependence. He is a past President of the Maryland Society of Addiction Medicine.

From Ireland via The Odd Squad

Medical Matters: The health and social benefits of abstaining from cannabis

Muiris Houston

Last Updated: Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 11:59 

 

Where possible, doctors strive to practice evidence-based medicine. But we are human, and not immune to the influence of the unusual or extreme case. What makes one patient stand out more than others may be a feature of the disease, the patient, or our own sensitivities.

As a medical student, the details of the first patient I saw with psychosis have remained with me. He was not much younger than me, and had started university some months earlier. 

He had been admitted to hospital with a florid psychosis, convinced he was Christ.

Not unlike the many adolescents starting college this month, the freedom from home and the lights of a big city meant new experiences. Among these was the easy availability of cannabis; he had smoked a number of joints in the previous weeks. 

Unfortunately, the expert opinion was that his use of cannabis precipitated the psychotic episode.

Now this was the first and only time I have seen cannabis-induced psychosis, so in the greater scheme of things it is nothing more than medical anecdote. Nonetheless, the details of the case have stayed with me to emerge from the memory banks following the publication of some related research last week.

Drug statistics

The large meta-analysis – a study of combined previous research – showed that people who are daily users of cannabis before the age of 17 are more than 60 per cent less likely to complete secondary school or to complete a degree compared with those who have never used the drug.

 

Published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, the authors also found that daily users of cannabis during adolescence are seven times more likely to attempt suicide and are eight times as likely to use other illicit drugs in later life.

In this study, a team of Australian and New Zealand researchers combined data on some 3,765 participants who used cannabis from three large, long-running longitudinal studies to find out more about the link between the frequency of cannabis use before the age of 17 and seven developmental outcomes up to the age of 30. 

The outcomes measured were: completing high school; obtaining a university degree; cannabis dependence; use of other illicit drugs; suicide attempt; depression; and welfare dependence. However, they did not include psychosis or a diagnosis of schizophrenia in their outcomes.

But in a linked editorial Merete Nordentoft, professor of psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, notes: “Cannabis use in adolescence has also been associated with increased risk of psychosis in adulthood.

“Cannabis use is associated with earlier onset of psychosis, and in patients with cannabis use and psychosis, risk of continuous psychotic symptoms is higher in those who continue to use cannabis than in those who stop.” 

And a 2007 comprehensive analysis of the relationship between cannabis use and the development of psychosis in later life concluded that the risk of psychosis increased by some 40 per cent in people who have used cannabis, with the risk rising the more the drug is used.

The authors from Cardiff University and the University of Bristol estimated that some 14 per cent of cases of schizophrenia in young adults could be prevented if cannabis was not available.

There is evidence to show that brain development during adolescence can be harmed by frequent cannabis use and that cognitive functions can be reduced permanently. This impairment and the low energy and reduced initiative associated with persistent cannabis use are the likely reasons for the poor educational outcomes shown in the recent research.

With global moves to decriminalise and legalise cannabis gaining momentum, it is important to protect adolescents from gaining easier access to the drug. 

Otherwise we will simply increase the numbers of young people having difficulty completing school and college, and add to those facing problems achieving social and personal maturation.

This latest research provides strong evidence that the delay or prevention of cannabis use is likely to have broad health and social benefits.

mhouston@irishtimes.com muirishouston.com

© 2014 irishtimes.com