The West Coast Symposium on Addictive Disorders (WCSAD) is a three-day conference that provides attendees with the opportunity to learn and network at the same time while getting to hear presentations on some of the most important, relevant, and current topics in addiction and addiction treatment. And the topics this year cover essentially every aspect of addiction including:

• SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment)
• Addiction Ethics
• Insurance and managed care in addiction treatment
• Intervention training
• Addiction treatment practice and theory
• Gambling Addiction
• Eating disorder education
• Pain and Addiction
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Motivational Interviewing (MI)
• Gender issues in addiction treatment
• EEG Biofeedback
• Addiction counseling skills

Keynote Speakers for 2012

• Raul Rodriquez, MD – CEO and Medical Director of the Delray Center for healing
• Brad Lamm, BR-1- Founder and president of Intervention specialist
• William G. Borcher – Screenwriter and author, known for his work on the film “My name Is Bill W.”
• Robert Weiss, LCSW,  CSAT-S – Founding Director of The Sexual Recovery Institute (SRI)
• Mel Pohl, MD, FASAM- Family Practitioner and Medical Director of Las Vegas Recovery Center
• Garret O’ Conner, MD- Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA

In addition to the enlightening talks mentioned above, WCSAD will also feature other events that will allow attendees to have some fun:

• WCSAD Golf Tournament at PGA West
• Fun Run/Walk Sponsored by Runwell
• Treatment Professionals Alum
• Discounted Spa for WCSAD Registrants

At the end of the three days you will better educated on addiction in general and on any specific topic you feel really passionate about or interested in. You can also earn Continuing Education credits and come by and meet us at our booth too!

If you want to register, make sure to use our special VIP code – AAAVIP – it’ll get you in to the pre-conference for free AND save you $50 off the registration fee. If you have any questions you can feel free to email me or Dee McGraw at deemcgraw@ameritech.net, or visit www.wcsad.com for details.

Hope to see you at La Quinta!!!

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The problem is that, since these sort of relaxation or brain drinks aren’t tightly controlled by the FDA like most medicines, little is known about what is actually in them let alone the sources for those ingredients, their safety, or often the dose. While it is true that many of these over the counter drinks purport to offer the sort of benefits or effects usually associated with the substances they are supposed to contain. But what doses are proper and what combinations are safe? Fortunately for the makers of these drinks, those questions don’t have to be answered by dietary supplement makers. Lucky for them.

This sort of drink fad reminds many of us in the scientific community of the issues raised when energy drinks like RedBull, Monster, Rockstar, and others showed up – pushing as much caffeine into users as 4-5 or more cups of strong coffee in one can. Things got worse when those drinks were mixed with alcohol, finally culminating in their mixing right in the can! Lots of caffeine and alcohol?! Sure, here you go! Too bad drinking these in massive quantities sent dozens, if not hundreds, of young people across the United States to hospitals for cardiac problems, blackouts caused by excessive drinking masked by the caffeine, and near death from alcohol poisoning.

The question is – what may we find out about these new relaxation and brain drinks containing unspecified amounts of GABA, melatonin, 5-HTP, and other chemicals that are important for brain function. Will they help, hurt, or cause irreparable damage? Since we don’t have years of data and multiple studies assessing their use, that’s a question that’s going to take a while to answer – until then, sip carefully and be sure to take marketing slogans with a grain of salt.

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I don’t like being stuck in the corner, having to pick a “best of” option just because I’m asked. For some clients Moderation Management will work, others need intense day-treatment or an in-hospital residential treatment program before moving into a more traditional residential place for a year or more. Some clients feel suffocated by such a structured environment and can’t manage it – outpatient treatment options can be a better fit there.

Sometimes we ask ourselves questions in a way that forces us to make bad choices: Which is better, chocolate or vanilla ice-cream? I reject the premise.

It’s about time we all faced the fact that only rare occasions allow for two-word answers that are absolutely true. The world is full of nuance and if we don’t start allowing some gray into our conceptualization of questions and answers we are going to keep repeating the past mistakes of polarized opposition to a small number of camps that are all equally wrong.

Brain research supports the notion that they way in which questions are posed can affect the sort of answers we look for – our brain pays attention to the stimuli it expects to find. So if you think that all you have to pick from are two or three options, your brain will calculate costs and benefits and spit out an answer – 42. It’s what happens when you ask the wrong question – you get a nonsensical answer.

So I don’t answer question like “which treatment is best?” or “which is more important, biology, the environment, or personality?” The way I see it the pieces are all so interconnected that the separation is false. The question is moot. And that’s true whether you’re picking addiction treatment or a your favorite cone.

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1. Is abstinence the only option? Moderate alcohol drinking is possible and there’s help
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As hard as it is, disclosing these issues can provide an amazing amount of support while also allowing those close to you to be a real part of your recovery. Importantly, you don’t have to disclose to your significant other, your daughter, or your aunt. You can find an outside support system, either through peer-support groups like the 12-steps or SMART recovery or another group where you feel truly comfortable sharing. Shame will keep you isolated, sharing will help set you free.

Honesty, trust, and humility, along with the ability to admit that you are not necessarily managing recovery perfectly can actually be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. Try it out.

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In essence these state laws are putting drug users, and especially drug addicts, at risk of being locked up for years, placed on parole, and subject to the endless other barriers to employment and housing, which make it more difficult for these convicted felons to reintegrate into the community. As if fighting drug addiction wasn’t hard enough.

The question is, would reducing the penalty for drug possession for personal use to a misdemeanor in more states result in increased drug use and crime or would it actually help free up resources being used for incarceration towards more effective strategies for combating the problem?

California State senator Mark Leno is bringing up a bill for consideration in the state senate (SB1506) that is seeking to do just that – reducing the penalty for possession for personal use of any drug to a misdemeanor. Mind you, this law is not to affect any other drug-related offenses such as drug possession for sale, drug manufacturing, or transportation. What it would do is cap the maximum incarceration length of possession at one year in jail (not more years in prison) as well as cap the maximum community supervision length at 5 years (3 years are commonly assigned for such offenses).

I know what some of you are saying – drug users know they’re breaking the law and they should be punished for it. Indeed, punishing them for it will make them less likely to use, which will leave them facing no jail time instead of continuously facing single years in jail for reduced drug possession offenses. Besides, if we cut the penalties for drug possession aren’t we being soft on crime? Aren’t we saying that using drugs is okay?

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that states that have higher penalties for drug possession for personal use have lower rates of crime, drug use, or drug possession arrests. The don’t. Indeed, the 13 states (and D.C.) that already consider drug possession for personal use a misdemeanor have incarceration rates that are no higher, illicit drug use rates that are slightly lower, and addiction treatment admission rates that are on par and even a bit higher than the rates of felony states. Again, that means the states that reduced the penalty for drug possession see less arrests, more people in addiction treatment, and a smaller percentage of their population using such drugs. Interestingly, those results are somewhat similar to the effect complete decriminalization had on drug use, crime, and addiction treatment in Portugal.

In previous articles we’ve spoken about the stigma of addiction and the barriers people report to entering addiction treatment in the U.S. Aside from cost and lack of information, people usually report that they either don’t want help, think they can handle the problem on their own or are too ashamed to ask for help. We’ve also reported on the ridiculous prison overcrowding problem in California due to the high incarceration rates of drug users. The question of decriminalization has come up many times (see here, here, and here) and the evidence I’ve seen keeps pointing towards the conclusion that reduced penalties get more people into addiction treatment while reducing incarceration rates with no real collateral increased in illicit drug use or crime. When you think about it, since the Harrison Narcotics act of 1914 essentially created the black drug market in the U.S. when it restricted, for the first time, the sale of narcotics, it makes sense that loosening up those restriction would reduce the size of that same black market and with it drug-associated crime.

I have spent the last 10 years researching the best ways to fight addiction problems and almost everything I’ve seen suggests that treatment and prevention efforts, not long jail or prison sentences, are the best ways to combat the problem. I have seen evidence that very shirt-term incarceration can help certain resistant offenders, but those efforts can easily be applied for misdemeanor and require nothing close to multiple-year sentences. For that reason, I support not only Senator Leno’s SB1506 bill in California, but other efforts around the country to reduce the criminal penalties associated with simple drug possession to get more of the people who need help into addiction treatment and away from jails. It saves us money, it is more humane, and it just makes sense.

If you want to help Senator Leno pass this bill, contact his office through this link: http://sd03.senate.ca.gov/

Citations/Reading:

U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 Statistical Abstract, Table 308. Crime Rates by State, 2008 and 2009, and by Type, 2009 (2012).

Collins et al., (2010). The Cost of Substance Abuse: The Use of Administrative Data to Investigate Treatment Benefits in a Rural Mountain State. Western Criminology Review 11(3), 13-28.

Gardiner, Urada, and Anglin (2011). Band-Aids and Bullhorns: Why California’s Drug Policy Is Failing and What We Can Do to Fix It. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 23, 108-135.

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