As the Administration and the Congress consider health care reform and work to expand access to the 45 million Americans without coverage, it is worth noting that the largest amount of federal and state spending on the burden of substance abuse and addiction–$207.2 billion, or 58 percent””was for health care, and that health care is 74.1 percent of the federal shoveling up burden. With health care costs by far the biggest cost of shoveling up, for the Administration and Congress to attempt health care reform without providing for prevention and treatment of substance abuse and addiction is like trying to make a Reuben sandwich without corned beef and sauerkraut.

Some key 2005 findings of the report are:

* For every dollar federal and state governments spent to prevent and treat substance abuse and addiction, they spent $59.83 in public programs shoveling up its wreckage.
* If substance abuse and addiction were its own state budget category, it would rank second just behind spending on elementary and secondary education.
* If substance abuse and addiction were it own federal budget category, it would rank sixth, behind social security, national defense, income security, Medicare, and other health programs including the federal share of Medicaid.
* Federal and state governments spend more than 60 times as much to clean up the devastation substance abuse and addiction visits on children as they do on prevention and treatment for them.

This report is the second in CASA’s analysis of the impact of tobacco, alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction on government. Our first report, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets, was released in 2001 and was limited to state spending. Such spending has increased since CASA’s 2001 report. In 2005, states spent 15.7 percent of their budgets on substance abuse and addiction compared with 13.3 percent in 1998, up more than 18 percent.

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Army commanders are failing to punish or seek treatment for a growing number of soldiers who test positive for substance abuse, possibly because they don’t want to lose any more combat troops, the Army’s vice chief of staff has warned.

In a May 8 memo to commanders provided to USA TODAY, Gen. Peter Chiarelli said hundreds of soldiers involved in “substance abuse-related misconduct (including multiple positive urinalyses)” were not processed for possible discharge. He also noted that many are not referred to the Army Substance Abuse Program for help.

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Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and will be suspended 50 games starting today, The Times has learned.

The test result and suspension is expected to be announced later today. The Dodgers informed triple-A outfielder Xavier Paul this morning that he was being promoted to Los Angeles.

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Eighth-grader Savana Redding was scared and confused when an assistant principal searching for drugs ordered her out of math class, searched her backpack and then instructed an administrative aide and school nurse to conduct a strip search.

“I went into the nurse’s office and kept following what they asked me to do,” Savana, now 19, recalls of the incident six years ago that she says still leaves her shaken and humiliated. “I thought, ‘What could I be in trouble for?’ ”

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Watch it all–very sobering.

In 2003, when he won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award as a shortstop for the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids, four sources have independently told Sports Illustrated.

Rodriguez’s name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball’s ’03 survey testing, SI’s sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004.

When approached by an SI reporter on Thursday at a gym in Miami, Rodriguez declined to discuss his 2003 test results. “You’ll have to talk to the union,” said Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman since his trade to New York in February 2004. When asked if there was an explanation for his positive test, he said, “I’m not saying anything.”

SI has too much of a reputation and this is too well sourced not to be taken seriously.Read it all–KSH.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s first book was about his recovery from alcohol and heroin.

Now, Lawford has a new book out, Moments of Clarity: Voices From the Front Lines of Addiction, a compilation of 42 essays by ordinary people and celebrities including Martin Sheen, Susan Cheever, Alec Baldwin and Judy Collins, describing moments that led them to reach out for help.

In it, he describes his own “moment of clarity” on Feb. 17, 1986. He was standing at the windows of a brownstone in Boston and realized his addiction had reached the point of hopelessness.

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Decrying the violence that Mexicans are enduring, the Vatican has suggested excommunication as a possible punishment for drug traffickers whose war with the government has led to the deaths of thousands of people in the last year.

But the Roman Catholic Church’s severest form of rebuke would probably have little effect on traffickers and killers who lack a religious conscience, the Vatican’s No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, acknowledged.

Speaking to Latin American journalists at the Vatican before traveling to Mexico on Monday, Bertone said it was a “duty” to fight drug gangs because their actions represent “the most hypocritical and terrible way of murdering the dignity and personality of today’s youth.”

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The number of soldiers seeking help for substance abuse has climbed 25% in the past five years, but the Army’s counseling program has remained significantly understaffed and struggling to meet the demand, according to Army records.

About 13,500 soldiers sought drug counseling this year and 7,200 soldiers were diagnosed with an abuse or dependency issue and enrolled in counseling, Army data show. That compares with 11,170 soldiers reporting to drug counseling in 2003, when 5,727 enrolled.

Army records show 2.38% of all soldiers had positive results on routine drug urinalysis screening, a 10-year record. In 2004, when combat troops returned from Iraq in large numbers, 1.72% had positive results.

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College students today celebrate 21st birthdays with an average of 12 drinks for men and nine for women, finds the most in-depth picture yet of the consequences of extreme partying.

The University of Texas-Austin research found 78% of students cited ill effects, including hangovers (54%). Of 44% who had blackouts, 22% found out later they had sex, and 22% got in a fight or argument. And 39% didn’t know how they got home.

Although the study focused on only one campus, researchers say the new level of “extreme drinking” goes way beyond “bingeing” ”” four or five drinks in one sitting. And it’s a phenomenon probably being repeated at schools across the country, researchers say. Studying 21st-birthday celebrations is a new area of research, and no national studies have been done, but studies on a handful of other campuses have found similar extremes.

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The recent movement by some college presidents to reduce the legal drinking age to 18 is shortsighted. Trying to lower the drinking age is a superficial response to a deep issue (“College presidents want lower drinking age,” USATODAY.com, Aug. 18).

It is unlikely that the law would be changed, no matter how many college presidents join this movement. So why are they getting involved?

Know this: Not all students go to college to drink. I’ve talked to countless students across the country who long for their college experience to be different. They are developing virtues of delayed gratification, self-control and sacrifice. They are students who want to think more deeply about the goal of education and the meaning of life. Some are students who have been hurt by the effects of alcohol abuse. Many didn’t mind waiting a few years to drink legally and have learned to do so responsibly.

Developing students such as these will require college presidents with the moral clarity and courage to make strong decisions about what is acceptable behavior at their colleges.

What is needed is an atmosphere on our nation’s campuses conducive to shaping students’ character so that waiting to drink until the age of 21 wouldn’t seem like such a sacrifice.

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National Guard and Reserve combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to develop drinking problems than active-duty U.S. soldiers, a new military study suggests.

The authors speculate that inadequate preparation for the stress of combat and reduced access to support services at home may be to blame.

The study, appearing in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first to compare Iraq and Afghanistan veterans’ alcohol problems before and after deployment.

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The actress Tatum O’Neal was arrested recently on charges of buying crack cocaine from a man on the street near her New York City home. She is a 44-year-old mother of three. She has spent years in and out of drug abuse treatment (which she chronicled in her 2004 memoir), and according to her publicist she will continue to “attend meetings” for drug and alcohol abuse.

Ms. O’Neal illustrates a disturbing trend among those being admitted to substance abuse treatment services: a growing percentage of older women are being treated for harder drugs.

Data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration revealed that the total number of admissions to treatment services from 1996 to 2005 (the last year for which detailed data are available) stayed about the same among people under 40, but jumped 52 percent among those 40 and older. Of the 40 and older group, the rise in admissions among men was 44 percent. Among women, it was 82 percent.

I confess that the 82 percent figure blew my mind. Wow. Read it all.

Legislation soon to be before the Michigan House of Representatives may create a moral dilemma for Catholic pharmacists.

House Bill 6049, which passed the house judiciary committee last week, would prohibit pharmacists from using ethical, moral or religious standards to decide whether to dispense a prescription. If passed into law, pharmacists would be forced to dispense drugs that their consciences and ethical standards dictate they should not distribute ”” such as pills that cause abortion.

We are asking for Catholics to contact their state representative to oppose legislation that would violate an individual’s right to conscience as well as the religious freedom clauses of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” said David Maluchnik, spokesman for the Michigan Catholic Conference, the Church’s public policy voice in Michigan.

“Individuals enter the health care profession to heal,” he added, “not to be forced by law to disperse controversial and unproven medications that fail to promote the dignity of life and respect for women.”

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Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.
A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed ”” 25% compared with 12%, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years,” said John Walters, director of the office. “This is not just youthful experimentation that they’ll get over as we used to think in the past.”

Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview.

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Warning: some blog readers may find this story of teenage misbehavior disturbing.

I am not going to spoil it you need to read it for yourself.

Police have arrested 96 people ”“ 75 of them students ”“ in the largest campus drug bust in the country at San Diego State University, law enforcement sources say.

Police picked up the individuals for charges stemming from possession and sales of cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and other drugs, which Damon Mosler, chief of narcotics for the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, estimated was worth approximately $100,000.

In addition to criminal charges, SDSU students arrested were immediately suspended from the university and evicted from all campus-managed housing, said the president of the university, Stephen Weber.

Authorities say among those arrested was a student who was a criminal justice major and was found with 500 grams of cocaine and two guns. Another suspect worked as an employee of the campus police and was one month away from graduating with a masters degree in Homeland Security.

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