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Posts Tagged ‘prescription medication’

Question by satankitty: How much can drugs harm a baby during the first month of pregnancy?
I found out I was pregnant 2 days ago. In the past few weeks I have taken 1 (possibly 2) ecxtasy pills, drank beer, smoked ciggarettes on a daily basis, and smoked one joint of marijuana. I’m thinking of keeping the baby, so I’m not going to do those things anymore. I’m just wondering if anyone can tell me the chances of the baby comming out deformed or retarted? Thank you.

Best answer:

Answer by Miss Morgan
Think about it this way, That first month is when the blue prints for your baby are being drawn up in a way. Everything that your baby will be is already mapped out in the first month or so. Good Luck.

Answer by Bailey’s Mom 🙂
Just “say no to drugs” Here is why:

Fetal Abuse
A growing number of women are being criminally prosecuted or having their children taken from them for doing drugs while pregnant.

The trend is deeply alarming to women’s rights advocates and health-care workers, who warn that such a heavy-handed approach will only deter drug-addicted mothers-to-be from seeking out prenatal care. Moreover, many warn, such tactics may be paving the way for abortion — the ultimate violation of “fetal rights” — to legally be declared murder.

“These cases represent the intersection of the war on drugs and the war on abortion,” says Lynn Paltrow, director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, who has successfully helped argue against dozens of similar prosecutions in the last decade. “There may have been a temporary lull, but the issue has not gone away.”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, spurred by hyperventilating news stories warning of a coming deluge of “crack babies,” prosecutors in more than 30 states sought to stem the anticipated flood by charging scores of drug-using pregnant women with everything from child abuse to manslaughter. In nearly all cases, however, judges eventually threw out those prosecutions, in part because the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision had firmly established that a fetus is not a person in the eyes of the law.

But in the last year, a fresh crop of fetal-rights cases have sprung up. In April, a 26-year-old Texas woman was indicted for child endangerment after her newborn tested positive for cocaine. The same month, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that prosecutors could charge an addicted mother with child endangerment for using heroin while pregnant — even if her baby was born healthy. This spring, the Oklahoma state legislature nearly passed a bill making it a misdemeanor for pregnant drug abusers to fail to get substance-abuse treatment. And in Georgia, 21-year-old Shannon Moss is facing murder charges for allegedly killing her fetus by taking cocaine and amphetamines while pregnant.

Moreover, in recent years at least 17 states have enacted civil laws making it possible for authorities to take away the children of pregnant women who test positive for drugs. The Ohio Supreme Court may take up the issue soon. So far, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of children have been taken from their mothers as the result of a single positive drug test, according to the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

The most bitter battleground, however, is South Carolina, the only state so far to have explicitly extended criminal child-abuse laws to cover fetuses. Despite directly contrary rulings in numerous other states, South Carolina’s Supreme Court declared in 1997 that drug-using pregnant women can be prosecuted criminally — and sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison.

Dozens of women have since been charged. Just last March, one woman was sentenced to three years in prison for violating her probation by “abusing” her unborn child with cocaine, and another drew a five-year suspended sentence for smoking marijuana while pregnant.

Such prosecutions were pioneered 11 years ago with the help of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where zealous hospital officials started a program of testing pregnant women for drug use, and turning over their findings to police. The US Supreme Court will rule later this year on whether that practice violated the women’s Fourth Amendment right of protection against unreasonable searches.

Those who prosecute pregnant drug users say they have everyone’s best interests at heart. “I just want the babies to be safe,” says Tommy Pope, chief prosecutor for South Carolina’s York and Union Counties, where the two women convicted in March live. “We try to use prosecutions as a last resort. But you run into situations where a woman has had five kids, and they’ve all tested positive for crack. Where do you draw the line?”

“Unless addicts are forced to stop, they won’t,” seconds Bobby Hood, the attorney representing the city of Charleston in the Supreme Court case. The threat of prison, he maintains, “has a very good deterrent effect.”

But in fact, according to a broad range of women’s rights and major health care organizations, the threat of prison is more likely to hurt, not help, the unborn babies of drug users, by frightening drug-using mothers-to-be away from seeking prenatal care. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other groups formally oppose criminal prosecutions of mothers of drug-exposed babies.

Even Daniel Kennedy , an Illinois lawyer who recently founded the incipient Fetal Rights Institute, doesn’t think criminal prosecutions are the way to go. “Fetuses are definitely children,” says Kennedy. “But jailing moms for hurting their kids prenatally doesn’t help. It will only encourage women to seek abortions, or avoid treatment.”

At least three drug treatment pr

Paterson man arrested for selling drugs at substance abuse treatment center
PATERSON — Police arrested a 55-year-old man outside a drug-treatment center and charged him with distributing prescription medication inside the facility, according to a report on NorthJersey.com. Luis Pou was busted at the Straight & Narrow complex, …
Read more on The Star-Ledger – NJ.com

Tampa Treatment Center Announces New Approach Toward Drug-Induced Deaths
A Tampa treatment center is starting an updated, new consultation program that is geared toward helping cut back on the number of drug-related deaths for people living in Tampa and surrounding cities through Drug Addiction Treatment Centers. According …
Read more on PR Web (press release)

Question by Maryy: What percent of rehabilitated people actually are cured?
ok so this is for a project….
does anyone know what percent of rehabilitated people get out and dont do the same mistake agian??? (i.e.- they would use drugs daily, went to rehab, then when they got out they quit completly)
i searched yahoo, google, and ask jeeves. i did all of my project and this is just a small part of it wich isnt really gonna be graded so keep your useless coments to yourself

Best answer:

Answer by raysny
Rehabs often claim amazing results, but the reality is less than spectacular.

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_addiction
“The effectiveness of alcoholism treatments varies widely. When considering the effectiveness of treatment options, one must consider the success rate based on those who enter a program, not just those who complete it. Since completion of a program is the qualification for success, success among those who complete a program is generally near 100%. It is also important to consider not just the rate of those reaching treatment goals but the rate of those relapsing. Results should also be compared to the roughly 5% rate at which people will quit on their own. A year after completing a rehab program, about a third of alcoholics are sober, an additional 40 percent are substantially improved but still drink heavily on occasion, and a quarter have completely relapsed.”

That estimate is based on information from Dr. Mark Willenbring of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and in my opinion, optomistic.

” About 80 percent of addiction patients will relapse, studies suggest, and long-term success rates for treatment are estimated at 10-30 percent.
“The therapeutic community claims a 30 percent success rate, but they only count people who complete the program,” noted Joseph A. Califano Jr., of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. “Seventy to eighty percent drop out in three to six months.” ”
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1633/1/Little-Evidence-that-Costly-Treatment-Programs-Work/Page1.html

90-95% of rehabs in the US are 12step-based. The rest are Scientology or religion-based.

The 12step treatment method has been shown to have about a 5% success rate, the same as no treatment at all:


Although the success rate is the same, AA harms more people than no treatment:
1) Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. increased the rate of binge drinking, and
2) Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness, and
3) Dr. Walsh found that “free A.A.” made later hospitalization more expensive, and
4) Doctors Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
5) Dr. George E. Vaillant, the A.A. Trustee, found that A.A. treatment was completely ineffective, and raised the death rate in alcoholics. No other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate as did Alcoholics Anonymous.
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-letters85.html

1) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Brandsma
2) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Ditman
3) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Walsh
4) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Orford
5) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Vaillant

New Programs at Drug Rehab Carrollton Tackle Prescription Addiction
Long term abuse of prescription medications can cause significant damage to a person's health and overall well-being. Drug Rehab Carrollton is promoting the awareness of prescription drug abuse with their new, comprehensive treatment programs.
Read more on PR Web (press release)

Newton Medical Center improves treatment for mental health, substance abuse
NEWTON — Newton Medical Center has launched First Step, a new program to improve the health and well-being of those in Sussex County with both mental health and substance abuse disorders by closely combining treatment for the conditions. The new …
Read more on The Sparta Independent

Chelmsford goes 'Behind Closed Doors' of teen drug abuse
More than 200 folks filtered into Chelmsford High School's Performing Arts Center last Thursday night for a "Behind Closed Doors" examination of current trends in teen substance abuse. "We did a great amount of advertising for this program, not just in …
Read more on wickedlocal.com/chelmsford

Hayes-Sammons warehouse owner wanted teen drug rehab, boot camp on site
But Hinojosa saw the warehouse as a way to help his drug-addicted teenage son and thousands others like him. He wanted to convert the hulking, graffiti-covered structure into a residential drug-treatment center and boot camp for troubled teens …
Read more on Monitor

Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise, Iowa Teen Shares Her Struggle
The program, called Iowa Medicine TLC (Talk, Lock, Connect), is an effort by the Iowa Substance Abuse Information Center to get parents and their kids talking about abuse and misuse of prescription medication. 17 year-old Erbes says her first time …
Read more on KCRG

Local Drug Treatment Court Provides Addicts Successful Rehabilitation
The mission of the program is to protect and improve the community by reducing repeat criminal activities related to substance abuse and addiction. It combines comprehensive treatment, rehabilitation and supervision for each participant. The successful …
Read more on WTRF

Successful Italian drug rehab center wants to go American
The San Patrignano community near Rimini is the largest drug rehabilitation center in the world, providing individualized drug treatment to young people completely free of charge, earning its income from the wide variety of award-winning enterprises it …
Read more on euronews

New Programs at Drug Rehab Carrollton Tackle Prescription Addiction
The rise of prescription medication abuse cases has resulted in the creation of new pain management programs at Drug Rehab Carrollton. Many people who use and abuse prescription pain medication suffer from chronic pain and other legitimate medical …
Read more on PR Web (press release)

Drug Rehab La Vergne Implements Groundbreaking New Addiction Therapy
The addiction treatment programs at Drug Rehab La Vergne are designed to let everyone find the method of addiction treatment that works best for them. Since everyone is different, it makes sense that each person needs to find their own path to sobriety.
Read more on PR Web (press release)

Drug Rehab Center Mansfield Offers New Treatments for Prescription Addiction
A certified addiction specialist at Drug Rehab Center Mansfield, Elizabeth M., explains why the new treatment programs are so effective. “Living life as a recovering addict is difficult enough, but when you suffer from other medical issues soothed by …
Read more on PR Web (press release)

New Programs at Drug Rehab Carrollton Tackle Prescription Addiction
Long term abuse of prescription medications can cause significant damage to a person's health and overall well-being. Drug Rehab Carrollton is promoting the awareness of prescription drug abuse with their new, comprehensive treatment programs.
Read more on PR Web (press release)

New Programs at Drug Rehab Carrollton Tackle Prescription Addiction
Long term abuse of prescription medications can cause significant damage to a person's health and overall well-being. Drug Rehab Carrollton is promoting the awareness of prescription drug abuse with their new, comprehensive treatment programs.
Read more on PR Web (press release)

Drug Rehab Duluth Refocuses the View of Addiction
Because every addict is different, specialists at Drug Rehab Duluth are hoping to encourage recovering addicts by developing more individualized treatment programs. Drug Rehab Duluth counselor Charles J. says many addicts are discouraged from seeking …
Read more on PR Web (press release)