Category Archives: Addiction

Addiction, Gateway Drug, Testimonies

Cannabis Goes with Heroin Like Peaches and Cream

Author Explains why Heroin Users Need Their Pot

By Richard Adamski

Three Trees by Richard Adamski is available on Amazon.com

 I started smoking cannabis when I was aged 19 and smoked it for about thirty years.  For a period of about two years I took methamphetamine, originally ‘bombing’ it (putting the powdered drug tightly in a small piece of tissue or a rolling paper and swallowing it).  I progressed to injecting methamphetamine and became addicted to it for about 8 months.  At the time I was self-employed and could afford both drugs, namely meth and cannabis. It was when I got off methamphetamine that I started writing about drugs, particularly cannabis. I was still smoking cannabis then. To be honest the only reason I eventually stopped smoking cannabis and cigarettes is because I was diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Years of smoking both drugs caused my COPD.

Over the years I got to know and mixed with a lot of drug users and I asked them all the same question: ‘What was the first drug you took?’ and every reply was cannabis and they continued to smoke it while they took harder drugs. Without question, cannabis is the introductory drug to other drugs. Most drug users start with cannabis. No one has died from smoking cannabis but indirectly they have. I personally know four people who have died because of a heroin overdose and the first drug they took, and continued to take up to their deaths, was cannabis.

Why Cannabis Fits so Well with Class A Drugs

Cannabis goes well with Class A drugs, i.e. heroin and methamphetamine. For example: If you have a toot (burn off the foil) of heroin, then inhale cannabis, keep the smoke in your body for several seconds then exhale, the cannabis increases the heroin effect. Cannabis goes well while you’re buzzing on methamphetamine. Like heroin, when you come down off the drug, a cannabis joint lessens the withdrawal effect.

The side effects of excessive use of cannabis range from anxiety and paranoia to problems with attention, memory and coordination and while you continue to smoke cannabis you are keeping the illegal drug industry going. Cannabis and Class A drugs undeniably go together like peaches and cream. The only people who need cannabis are those who smoke it.

Some people may say that I’m a hypocrite in writing what I have done as I took drugs over a long period of time.  All I can say in my defense is that with taking drugs and mixing with and meeting drug users, I have seen how cannabis runs the drug show.

What about marijuana used as medicine?

There’s massive support for cannabis to be decriminalized or legalized and a lot of famous people support this action. In the UK the BMA (British Medical Association) voted overwhelmingly for cannabis to be made available for such as cancer and MS sufferers. A while ago there was a big national debate about cannabis and in one of the national newspapers there was a half-page photograph of an elderly MS sufferer with a cannabis joint in his mouth. To me that is setting a bad and dangerous example. ‘If he can smoke it, then why can’t I?’ and ‘It’s not doing him any harm so why should it me?’

If such as the MS sufferer could be medically supplied with cannabis in such as a tincture way (dissolved in alcohol), cake, organic yoghurt, as a pill and only available on prescription then that would shut him up and others like him of a similar persuasion. In my opinion cannabis should never be made legal in herbal, grass, weed, because it is in this form where the cannabis problems lie.

Broken Dreams and Death: Marijuana at 14, then heroin

I knew a young man named Ross who dealt cannabis and injected heroin. He didn’t deal heroin. He wasn’t an addict and took heroin and cannabis as recreational drugs. He died at the age off 22 because he had a bad hit of heroin. Whether it was cut with a bad substance I don’t know, but he was found dead in his flat with the needle still in his arm. Ross once told me: ‘I actually wanted to be a pilot in the RAF (Royal Air Force), but at the age of 14 I started smoking Ganga and that put an end to that.’

In my strong opinion, cannabis is the most dangerous drug because most people think it isn’t.

Richard Adamski is the author of Three Trees. Three Trees is a contemporary Wind in the Willows where woodland creatures act as humans do in the environment they live in.  An anti-drug theme runs throughout the story.  He lives in England.

Addiction, Gateway Drug, Politics

Marijuana Can’t Treat the Opiate, Heroin Epidemic

Any marijuana use leads to less intelligence potential, less empathy for life, less motivation and poorer decision making.  A war on drugs is a protection and defense of our brains.   Governor Susana Martinez probably recognizes how Colorado’s marijuana problem leads to the drug epidemic and filters into New Mexico’s substance abuse issues.   Read about her veto in Part 1.

One young man who gave us a testimony explained how his marijuana use led directly to heroin addiction.

In Colorado, Dr. Libby Stuyt, addictions psychiatrist, traces a direct line from marijuana legalization to the heroin epidemic.    Colorado’s recent report on heroin has shown that the number of deaths from heroin overdose have doubled between 2011 and 2015.

In fact, Pueblo County, has suffered from heroin use and addiction more than any other Colorado county.  Pueblo, Denver and Boulder have the highest rates of youth marijuana use.   Southern Colorado is suffering the most from the heroin epidemic. Counties that have banned marijuana dispensaries have been affected the least by the heroin.

Misunderstanding of the Opioid and Heroin Epidemic

Since the government has clamped down on opiate prescriptions, more users have replaced the pain drugs with heroin.  Since the legalization of marijuana, Mexican cartels have replaced much of their marijuana with heroin.  Heroin is now cheaper and addicts find it easier to get heroin than prescription pills.

Politically there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the opioid epidemic. If it was initially caused by over prescribing of medications, that’s no longer primarily the case.   Seth Leibsohn wrote an insightful article on the subject last week. The abuse of opioid prescriptions acquired legitimately constitutes a small portion of the overdose problem, he said. *

A simple crackdown on prescriptions will not solve the problem, according to Maia Szalavitz.  Although Szalavitz misunderstands the  inherent danger in using marijuana,* she explains the underlying causes of substance abuse quite well.  Impulsive children are at high risk of becoming drug users, but so are some highly cautious and anxious young people.   Two thirds of people with opioid addictions have had severely traumatic childhoods, and the more exposure to trauma, the higher the risk.  We need to help abused, neglected, fragile and otherwise traumatized children before they turn to self-medication as teens.  On the other hand, we should also provide tools and teach coping skills to children who are impulsive, ADHD or anxious.   (Overmedicating children doesn’t allow them to develop the skills needed to transition into adulthood.)

Let’s Help People Get off ALL Drugs

Effective treatment for addictions is getting off all drugs, not going to other harmful, brain-altering substances.   “The goal in helping a loved one with a substance use problem is not to reduce their use. It is to stop drug use,” according to Sven-Olov Carlsson of Drug Policy Futures.  He gave the opening address at the World Federation of Drugs Conference in Vienna last year.  As Carlsson said, the current heroin epidemic proves that “harm reduction” is not saving lives.

No one sets out to become an addict.   Fortunately, more people and states are realizing the foolishness of allowing “medical” marijuana for intractable pain.  It opens up a Pandora’s Box of problems, as in California and elsewhere.

Addiction specialists estimate that one in five American adults is addicted to drugs or alcohol.  With such large numbers, there should be no “stigma” attached to addiction or treatment.  A new or revised health care act should maintain the provision to treat addiction.

Those who are addicted have a strong need to protect a secret.  Their brains have been hijacked and there isn’t a straight path back to previous functioning.

Optimum treatment requires a period of time when the person is not using any substance of addiction in order for the brain to heal.  During that time, the person needs to be able to learn new things. The lack of treatment resources which allows this to happen is a big barrier to recovery.   Marijuana cannot be used to treat this current drug epidemic.

___________________________________________________________________________*  Another recent article explains how doctors began to take pain seriously, treating it as a fifth vital sign.  Szalavitz based her 10% addiction rate for marijuana on the weaker pot of the ’70s and ’80s, not the pot of today.  She also disregarded teen users of pot.

 

Addiction, Gateway Drug, Politics

Governor Martinez Denies Marijuana to Treat Opioid Addiction

On April 7, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez vetoed a bill which would have made opioid addiction a qualifying condition for medical marijuana.  Governor Martinez has consistency shown leadership in working to prevent drug addiction.  Earlier this year, legislators in New Mexico wisely rejected a bill to legalize pot,.

Maryland legislators recently proposed using marijuana to treat heroin addiction.   They removed the provision from the  bill after researchers explained there’s no evidence that cannabis is effective in treating addiction.

The mass insanity surrounding cures from “medical” marijuana sometimes comes from the Press.  As the number of newsprint subscribers dwindles, newspapers are looking to marijuana for new sources of advertising money.  (The New York Times, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times and Denver Post are pro-marijuana newspapers.)  Another problem is that the marijuana industry’s paid lobbyists are pumping unscientific information to state legislators.   Many of these lobbyists have advanced degrees in Social Policy, Law or Political Science, but not the biological sciences.

Marijuana , Opioid Addiction and Heroin

Tyler Martel, finally free of opioid addiction, was getting his life back on track when the state of Washington legalized marijuana.  On December 5, 2012, marijuana became 100% legal for those ages 21 and over.  A few days later, Martel refused to drink with his parents, but smoked marijuana before driving.  His car crossed the center lane, and both he and his fiancé, also 27, died.  Another man was badly injured in that crash.  Martel died a victim of the “safer than alcohol” phrase that the marijuana lobby used to gain acceptance for legalization.

His death also demonstrates the public’s ignorance of marijuana as a dangerous drug.  Brain science reveals a connection between marijuana and the opiate/heroin epidemic.

Dr. Mark Willenbring, an addictions psychiatrist,  believes that alternative treatments are needed for pain, but not another drug of abuse.  He doesn’t believe you can solve the problem of addiction with another drug of abuse.  “The concept on its face is absurd,” he said.  “It doesn’t work,” he said. “Like trying to cure alcoholism with Valium.”

Pam Garozzo and Carlos, who lost his life Dec. 23, after 10 months of being off drugs. She told Gov. Christie’s panel at the White House that marijuana had been a gateway for her son.

Stop Denying the Potential Gateway Effect

Generally speaking, marijuana is already in the mix of drugs used by those who abuse opiates.   Those who use heroin invariably are using other drugs, including marijuana.   In fact, a group of parents in Massachusetts recently made a video tribute to 79 of their children who died from drugs.   In all cases, the deceased sons and daughters had started their drug use with cannabis.

When Governor Chris Christie convened a panel on the drug epidemic at the White House last week, a mother, spoke.  Pam Garozzo, whose son Carlos died from drugs in December, said her son had started smoking marijuana at age 15-1/2.  For him it was a gateway drug, and he’d be the first to tell you.   He died of heroin that had been laced with fentanyl–after being clean for 10 months.

Read Part 2 to learn how marijuana leads to opiates and heroin.

Addiction, Drug Policy

Our Growing Problem of Traumatized Children

Photos of passed out parents with toddlers have surfaced everywhere — the images of our addiction epidemic.  (Above photo is from the East Liverpool, Ohio, Police Department.) Though it’s often heroin, fentanyl or opiates that kill, most of the young people dying today began their illicit drug use with pot.  (Read Part 1,   Part 2 and Part 3. )  We have created a new generation of traumatized children.

“All of the parents I know who use marijuana are terrible parents,” a  fan of poppot.org’s, who is in her 20s, wrote to us recently.  Many newspapers have written about the children of the opioid crisis, but pot-using parents also contribute to the crisis.  We’ve tracked 80 child deaths related to caregivers’ marijuana use since November, 2012.

When those who were traumatized children put their own children in abusive situations, it’s easy to understand their failings.  Selena Hitt’s boyfriend accidentally shot her baby, after both of them had smoked pot. Selena had been raised in foster care.  Her mother died when she was very young, and most of the time her father was not available to care for her.

Policy More than other Factors Creates Problem of Drug Use

However, there’s a group of non-traumatized adults abusing their children because the United States has normalized the use of marijuana.  Because marijuana users can be detached from life and are susceptible to psychosis, it’s important not to use pot if you have children.

Up to eighty percent of child abuse and neglect involves substance abuse, a fact that violence prevention groups  often ignore.*  The denial is helpful to the strategy of making drug use socially acceptable.  NORML, Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Alliance wish to normalize drug use.

The same groups that promote legalization suggest that harm reduction strategies work.  Policy based on harm reduction promotes “responsible use” of drugs, which doesn’t work.  Recently, a five-year-old drowned, because her babysitter used pot at 8:30 a.m. and stopped watching her.

The Widespread Problem of Traumatized Children

One of our Parents Opposed to Pot members in Colorado has a 13-year-old son who suffers from PTSD.   His older brother threatened and terrified him while in a marijuana-induced psychosis.   (The older son, now 17, is in recovery, while the younger son is being treated with EMDR for PTSD. )

Genetic and environmental factors that influence drug use are compounded by a society that normalizes drug use.    Our blog on suicides tells of teens and young adults who lived in environments that normalized marijuana use.  For the most part, they did not use marijuana because of trauma, although one was a veteran.

Many parents of these suffering children use drugs only because it’s social and considered harmless. Michael Goldsby, addictions instructor at College of the Redwoods said, “Risk factors for drug problems include availability of drugs, positive peer attitudes towards drug use [and] community norms that accept drug misuse. Drug and alcohol use is accepted and even encouraged in our community”  Goldsby teaches college in the Emerald Triangle region.

Drug-Related Deaths far Outnumber Deaths by Cars or Guns

The Center for Disease Control recently released statistics about accidental deaths:

52,404 drug-related deaths, up 11%.

37,757 died in car crashes, an increase of 12%.

36,252  gun deaths, including homicides and suicides

As we try to cope with a growing number of children affected by ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), the United States is embarking on a program to legalize all drugs.  Little children are losing their parents at an alarming rate, adding to the trauma and ACE scores of the future.

Instead of protecting the people, politicians are allowing marijuana lobbyists to dictate policy.  (Billionaires, marijuana companies and pro-legalization groups donated more than $30 million to legalize marijuana in California.)   Professionals need to counter the media bias and bias in polls which favors drug legalization.

Taking away children from drug-using mothers is not the answer, because separation from the moms also creates traumatized children. Child protection workers are in a Catch 22 situation. Techniques described in Part 2 can perhaps help the children traumatized by parents’ drug use.

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*Our information is mainly from CASA Columbia.  A good current reference Ed Gogek’s book, Marijuana Debunked.  Several studies are mentioned in our six-part series on child abuse deaths related to pot.   Parents Opposed to Pot has tried to share stories with Futures Without Violence, but they banned us from posting on their Facebook page.