News

  • A Killer Painkiller

    A few months ago, Jake Epperly was at a country club wedding in suburban Illinois when he overheard a female voice scream, "Give me that lollipop!" This was no petulant child demanding candy but a woman in her 50s yelling at her husband. And Epperly, clinical director and president of three rapid detox clinics and Chicago's New Hope Recovery Center, knew what she was craving: Actiq, a fentanyl-based…

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  • Increased Use Of Pain Medication

    Information from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) indicated significant increases in the use of pain relievers for those aged 18 to 25. Specific pain relievers in lifetime use were Vicodin, Lortab, or Lorcet (from 15.0 to 16.5 percent); Percocet, Percodan, or Tylox (from 7.8 to 8.7 percent); hydrocodone products (from 16.3 to 17.4 percent); Oxycontin (from 3.6 to 4.3 percent);…

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  • Pain Reliever Abuse

    Recently, some new information was released regarding non-medical use of pain killers for young adults, aged 18 to 25. The SAMHSA study was over a three year period. It showed that painkiller abuse is slowly rising, from 22 to 24 percent over the past three years. Vicodin, Lortab and Lorcet are some of the most commonly abused narcotics. Last year an estimated 16.5% of young adults admitted to having…

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  • Advantage of Rapid Detox

    Outpatient detox services such as Suboxone, buprenorphine and others are slowly being integrated into the treatment of opiate addiction. What are the differences between outpatient detoxification services and rapid opiate detox programs? And what are the advantages of a fast acting procedure such as rapid detox? Only time will show the benefits and drawbacks to outpatient detoxification services such…

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  • Instant Detox

    Bryan Peterson sat on the toilet in the master bathroom of his Palm Springs, California, home and tried to find a vein between his knuckles. It was virgin territory - he had never injected himself in a spot he couldn't cover up. But now that he'd been fired from his job in the estimating department of a construction company, he didn't care about covering up anymore. Plus, he couldn't…

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  • Pusher On The Net - Pam Zekman Investigates

    CHICAGO (CBS 2) More than 47 million people have abused prescription drugs at least once. The CBS 2 Investigators look at how the Internet is fueling what experts call this growing health crisis. An addict can connect with pushers on the Net from the privacy of their homes. A computer and a credit card are all it takes to score addictive drugs on the Internet. No prescriptions are needed. To ensure…

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  • Narcotic Actiq's Use And Abuse Raise Concern

    In the wake of the controversy over the prescription narcotic Oxycontin, health experts and insurers are raising concerns about the increasing use - -- and abuse -- of Actiq, a newer and faster-acting prescription painkiller. Actiq, derived from opium, comes in the form of a berry-flavored lollipop or lozenge that takes seven to 15 minutes to hit the bloodstream after a patient places it in the mouth. …

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  • Prescription for Addiction: Pain Drug's Abusers Range from Celebrities to College Students

    In the eight years since OxyContin was approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the opium-based painkiller has gone from miracle drug to what some experts fear may be a nationwide epdemic. Seemingly almost overnight, OxyContin is on the lips and in the mouths of nearly every segment of the population, from college students to little old ladies to MTV's Jack Osbourne, who admitted his OxyContin…

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  • The Addict Next Door: Some Call OxyContin Abuse an Epidemic

    "I was a victim" - Oxycontin addict says problems began after back surgery It wasn't neccessary for Bill Stelcher to wander dimly lighted streets to feed his drug addiction. All he had to do was call in his prescription. For three years, Stelcher said he never took more of the opium-based painkillers Oxycontin or Dilaudid than was prescribed by his doctors after he had spinal surgery in May 2000.…

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  • Yoga: Gateway to A New Life

    How Three Chicagoans' everyday lives evolved into extraordinary journeys. "I was a madman," says Vincent Hunihan who worked for nearly 15 years as a trader in the Treasury bond pit at the Chicago Board of Trade. "I'd get up in the middle of yoga class like I was going to the bathroom, then I'd sneak into the office and call the trading floor to find out what was going on." In those days,…

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  • Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise in America

    At colleges across the country, students are taking pills they've sneaked from home, tossing them into bowls and swallowing handfuls with a chug of beer or a sip of a margarita. It's called "pharming," for the pharmaceuticals ingested. In office towers, workers sitting at computers are barraged with spam e-mail offering prescription drugs at low prices, no prescription required. "No physical exam,"…

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  • Wolf Blitzer Reports - Will Addiction Hurt Limbaugh's Credibility

    BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN. Dealing with addiction to painkillers, what steps may Rush Limbaugh be taking right now to try to recover? We'll get to that, first though a quick check of the latest headlines. Seven people are dead and at least eight others are hurt after a church bus ran into the back of a stopped tractor trailer truck. The accident happened today on Interstate 20 in northeastern…

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