| Marking National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month
Imagine a nation in which a deadly but treatable disease is taking its toll on more than 5 percent of the population. One that is wreaking havoc with the lives of millions of men, women, and children, but only 20 percent of the people who need treatment are receiving it. Would we help?These are the statistics that prevail in the U.S. today. The disease is alcohol and drug addiction.Alcohol and drug abuse disrupts families, threatens the safety of our neighborhoods and ruins the lives of countless men, women and youths. During September, National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, we recognize the damaging effects of substance abuse and renew our support for individuals battling to overcome addiction.The theme for the 2006 Recovery Month campaign is "Join the Voices for Recovery: Build a Stronger, Healthier Community." It is always our hope that the campaign will urge all Americans to help prevent alcohol and drug abuse and to promote treatment and recovery options.Recovery Month is a national public education campaign developed by the U.S.
San Joaquin Jail Program Claims Success
San Joaquin County officials are hoping the state can match its success with a jail program that reduces repeat offenses.
It's called "Beyond Incarceration" and it began just over three years ago. The program stresses education and treatment for prisoners, not just punishment.
Judge Richard Vlavianos of the Superior Court of California, San Joaquin County, sees participants in the program once a month and spends much of his visit on the subject of drug addiction. He refers to statistics that show 76 percent of the men in California state prisons are there for drug-related crimes.
Beyond Incarceration would seem to be making good progress against those statistics. The recidivism rate in San Joaquin County among the 800 inmates who've taken part is 35 percent.
Iowa prisoner escape ends with his death in Missouri
HANNIBAL, Mo. An Illinois man who was fatally shot by authorities after escaping from an Iowa hospital and striking three police cars during a chase in Northeast Missouri was suffering from drug addiction withdrawal. Authorities identified the man as Peter Jamerson, 27, of Homewood, Ill. Iowa authorities said he was suffering from drug addiction withdrawal when he escaped Saturday afternoon from the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Police said Jamerson, who was being guarded by a sheriff's deputy, stole a truck from the hospital parking department. He was being held on criminal charges, authorities said. Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Brent Bernhardt said the truck rammed a Palmyra police vehicle hours later. After hitting the Palmyra officer's vehicle on U.S.
Program opens eyes to horrors of meth
A Methamphetamine Awareness Program will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Kenai Central High School. Brittany West didn't know what meth was when she first tried it, but as soon as she did, she was hooked. After four months of using it, methamphetamine got West arrested and landed her in the Kenai Peninsula Youth Facility. "I know the side effects," she said. "And I know how it feels to withdraw." Sober for a year, a month and 13 days, West, a senior at Kenai Alternative High School, is this year's Red Ribbon Week chairman and hopes her experience, not only with using a highly addictive drug, but overcoming that addiction, will encourage her peers to shake their own drug habits. "Maybe it might just get them to quit tobacco," she said. In order to come up with ideas for her own project, West will attend tonight's Methamphetamine Awareness Program, sponsored by Marathon Oil and Gas Corporation, at Kenai Central High School today from 7 p.m.
Another Front on Accreditation
The decision, which will be formally announced in a Federal Register notice on Friday, offers yet another sign that the department plans to move aggressively, on many fronts, to carry out the recommendations of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. .
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