effects of drug addiction

As a physician and public health professional who has dedicated my career to improving the lives of those with addiction to heroin and other opiates, I read with dismay The Sun's articles on buprenorphine ("The 'bupe fix,'" Dec. 16-18). I have never seen a newspaper report so lacking in balance and context.

Every medication has side effects; what's critical is the balance of risks and benefits.

Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for the dangerous disease of opiate addiction. Balanced against the benefit of saving thousands of lives is the small risk of diversion of the drug, which is a tiny slice of the overall illegal drug trade.

It is telling that despite months of reporting and thousands of words, The Sun did not find a single person in Baltimore whose life has been ruined by buprenorphine.

Breaking the cycle of drug addiction

If a community were a pond, then drug addiction would be a pebble big enough to cause ripples throughout, said Jim Gouveia, Benton County Drug Treatment Court program coordinator.According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Oregon ranks No. 2 in the country for illegal drug use, and mid-valley communities are no exception."I can't say the drug problem in Benton County has increased necessarily," Gouveia said. "But we're up there."Drug use isn't an individual problem or even a family problem. It's a community problem, said Jennifer Hogansen, a behavioral health specialist with the Corvallis Clinic."The effects on children and families, in particular, can be devastating," Hogansen said.The drug problem is a top priority for the criminal justice and social services systems, as well as educators, mental health experts and taxpayers.Locally, a consistent approach of modifying drug users' behavior to achieve lasting, life-changing results is being applied to public and private treatment programs.

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.