Maia Szalavitz takes on an important area that needs significant reform: the treatment industry.
The Rehab Industry Needs to Clean Up Its Act. Here’s How.
There are so many areas of this industry that are broken or just plain corrupt. Part of this is due to historical non-evidence-based stigmatizing approaches toward addiction, some due to the lack of science in the federal government’s laws and regulations, and some due to the attempts to cash in on a potentially lucrative captive market by unscrupulous players.
“What we simply need is a nice bulldozer, so that we could level the entire industry and start from scratch,†says Dr. Mark Willenbring […] “Another approach is that you could use dynamite,†he deadpans. […]
And in no other area of medicine do insurers pay for hours of group “therapy,†films and lectures that consist overwhelmingly of indoctrination into the teachings of a self-help group, available for free in church basements. […]
In any other area of medicine, if patients were not informed about a treatment that cuts mortality by at least half—while being given one that has no effect on it—it would be considered malpractice. […] But in the addictions field—largely because the dominant abstinence-only model historically hasn’t recognized medication-assisted treatment (MAT) as an acceptable form of recovery—this happens almost every time someone with an opioid addiction enters an abstinence-only 28-day rehab, a detox or an abstinence-based outpatient program. […] Given this, stigmatizing maintenance or telling patients that it is “not really recovery,†is basically killing people. […]
In the past year, the addiction treatment industry—never trouble-free in the best of times—has been wracked by scandal. […]
But the treatment industry has for too long relied on referrals from the criminal justice system to stay solvent. […] Several problems result. For one, since their biggest customer is often the criminal justice system, many programs shape themselves to its dictates. “The field has been so distorted by its dependence on the criminal justice system, which is really the client,†[…]
Unfortunately, nearly all long-term residential treatment centers in America— i.e., “therapeutic community†programs that last three months or longer—were originally modeled on a destructive cult called Synanon. […] While many have moved away from the most extreme tactics, a widespread belief that all people with addiction are lying “whenever their lips are moving†and a sense that negative experience is necessary to get people to realize that they need to change remains common. […]
Research has long shown that in most cases, outpatient treatment is as effective as inpatient care for alcoholism and other addictions. […]
We also need national standards for counselor education, for best practices in all types of treatment and for informed consent regarding options like medication. All counselors need to be educated about all aspects of addiction, not just their own recovery […]
These are some great critiques, and something that more people need to acknowledge. There is a tendency, by some, to simply talk about treatment being better than enforcement without noting that prohibition has seriously tainted the treatment field. Simply spending more on treatment without paying attention to what you’re getting is not reform.
At the end of her article, Maia suggests that if one of her eight suggestions were implemented it would have enormous impact (and if all eight were implemented it would be transformative). If I had to pick just one, I’d vote for this;
End the reliance on criminal justice system referrals
All of her other suggestions are internal to the rehab industry itself. But the one external driver is the criminal justice system. The possibility of that one change has got to scare the corrupt, parasitic rehab industry profiteers the most.
Related reform. Stop defining everyone who tests positive for weed, whether at work or after an arrest, as an “addict” in need of “treatment”.
I totally agree with you on that – This might also require them to change their definition of ‘drug abuse’ and/or ‘marijuana abuse’ as “all non-medical use”…
Because in the Prohib-Idiot World, that equals almost all use that’s not FDA approved = which by Catch-22 is all marijuana use.
Even if they allowed a slight change – and gave a cop-out adjustment to their private dictionaries of rhetoric (which let them misrepresent or outright lie about everything), that would amount to *roughly* the following scene, picture it if you will:
“Well okay team… Circumstances have put us up against a wall figuratively speaking.
So, the following change has been made to official policy – The terminally ill can use marijuana. And maybe some people suffering from the following list of very limited diseases or rare illnesses + children with severe epilepsy,
= Because, otherwise we’ll appear as the truly evil soul-sucking entities from beyond that we actually are… we must maintain the carefully weaved illusion that we’re humans with feelings!
No one must ever know (nor be allowed to prove) that – We are in fact the dark puppets of pharma-corps, & An evil triad known to some humans as the prison/rehab/treatment industrial-complex. = First summoned to this plane of existence by arcane occult rituals during the Nixon & Reagan Administrations…”
As promised by Nixon, “When it comes to money – if more is needed – it will be made available…” So, As long as we can maintain the clever ruse that *marijuana is dangerous* – We’ll effectively have Carte Blanc until the End of Days!
Furthermore, If the general public came to know that we categorize all recreational marijuana use as “drug abuse” – Our motives might come into question, This simply must not be permitted!
You have clearance to do whatever you feel is required to keep that information from leaking into the public, You all have your individual assignments, yes? – Okay then, Go…
*That’s basically how I picture their “Partenetship Meetings”, more or less.*
I believe we need to make 100% certain that the general public – does know – about these simple but absurd rhetorical games they’ve played against us for years.
But, but, they were just about to start remodeling jails into treatment facilities – I just know somebody is trying to produce a new reality TV series “Flippin Prisons”…
So much for that would-be gravy train, I wonder how many of the people are having mental breakdowns of their own?
Not addiction related (well probably not – except for the people that *confiscated & destroyed* contraband) but more widely across the institutions = I’m betting on depression & maybe despair, followed by the inability to except a changing world-view.
The more they claim to change,
the more it stays the same…
mccaffrey cancer trmnt
http://i44.tinypic.com/szh4pw.jpg
That is what Sabet’s job was when he (maybe) left the ONDCP,,his assistant teaching position in FLA was a course on how to open and run rehab clinics.
The drug warriors fully intend to turn rehab into a safety valve to keep prisons from becoming over crowded with marijuana criminals,,need some beds filled,,send people that don’t have the money on to prison,,beds full,,fill up the rehabs,,it is just another cog in the machinery.
You do know that Sabet was trained by Betty and Melvin Sembler when he worked with Drug Free America Foundation right, Maia happened to expose that in a article called we need to talk about Kevin Sabet, the horrors of Straight Inc never went away, heaps of Prohibs actually support Straight Inc
Rehab is for quitters. Too high or not high enough are the choices.
But seriously if the prison for profit model has been applied to addiction treatment then it is too late.
The fact that it is called an “industry” probably tells me all I need to know.
I don’t know about you but turning a public health concern into an “industry” just doesn’t sit well with me.
These people that are hooked probably have a gene or personality trait for addiction and shouldn’t be stigmatized.
P.S.-Regarding that extremely evil and addictive cannabis I haven’t smoked any since the middle of August and haven’t suffered any ill effects besides a bad attitude. A nice 30 year run of everyday smoking suddenly came to a grinding halt due to living in a redstate Nixonian hellhole and not being able to afford a move to somewhere less backward. I used to put a sativa or two on a fenced in back porch during the summer but now it is just not worth the risk.
It’s been an industry (in its current form)for more than fifty years. Actually, much, much longer. Special purpose “sanotoriums” for those addicts with the means to afford them go back at least to the 1800’s, probably longer that I’m not aware of.
Their reliance on the criminal justice system became a parasitic one starting in the mid seventies. Since then, they have become nearly dependent on courts.
Prison for profit is the newcomer, the recovery racket is the oldtimer here.
ALEC lobbying for MaxCap contracts with mandatory minimums, gag orders, 3 strikes all filling cages. Along with outsourcing jobs to India and China, with TPP importing workers from Asia. Producing a large cheap labor pool to keep overhead minimized. Oh not here in the land of the free. Neocons have no political party, they have no country or Constitution to fret over. Good thing it can’t happen here. Lower incomes and under the table growers and trimmers making more than maids and fruit pickers. Produce more for the state and profits of the Neocons sitting in a $35k/yr prison cell. The crime is irrelevant. Cannabis works, as a technicality even though we know it isn’t a real crime or abusive enough to justify such expense. They reap what we sow as far as taxes. Rehabs or Profit prisons and all the subsidiaries supplying the industrial complexes. Who ya gonna call when the cops are just following orders for a paycheck. When pisstasting is normalized to a point of abstinence. More obedience. Ain’t that America, little pink houses all made of ticky tacky when they could be providing jobs locally with Hemp. We never completely abolished slavery according to the 13th Amendment.
SLAVERY IS STILL LEGAL in the USA.
Slavery: Another Fine Product Still Made in the USA!
Contrary to what we may learn in school, the American Civil War did not see the complete abolition of slavery in 1865. The 13th Amendment to their constitution reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime…”
Great numbers of newly freed blacks were quickly ‘convicted’ and forced to work without pay in state prisons. For those unfortunates all that happened was that ownership of slaves transferred from private parties to the state. Today, with the advent of private, profit-making prisons and prison factories slavery still exists and is moving back to the private sector.
Slave Labor, Prison Privatization, Prison Industry
ALEC Conservatives push this agenda nationwide!
Privatize, privatize, privatization of anything owned or controlled by the public or taxpayers is again being applied by Conservatives from coast to coast. Sadly through the manipulations of ALEC and their thousands of legislative and corporate members, this agenda that began way back in the 80’s is once again being used to usurp more public assets. These assets include publicly built prisons, work-release centers, medical care facilities, schools and a myriad assortment of other buildings, programs and initiatives that now exists due to public funding.
The prison industry in the United States:
big business or a new form of slavery?
Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance.
Slave Labor Means Big Bucks For U.S. Corporations
Ganjawar: Slave Labor, Rape & Pillage Deterrent
At the same time, the United States blasts China for the the use of prison slave labor, engaging in the same practice itself. Prison labor is a pot of gold. No strikes, union organizing, health benefits, unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation to pay.
Scalia has gone over to the other side and the Trump supporters and other Repubtards are sure Obama had him snuffed.
McConnell is already fired up and warned Obama not to try any appoint of a new Justice until after the new President takes office,,as if McConnell will work any better with Bernie.
He can and should appoint one before Congress goes back to work,,,then listen to them throw temper tantrums the rest of the year.
Who will deal the fatal blow to Twelve-Step? Maia Szalavitz makes a good start.
Since 1938, the one-size-fits-all program imposing demeaning religiosity onto alleged sinners has been recognized by the government as an excuse to send all those commie atheists who smoke pot off to Jesus camp for religious re-education. The re-education program provides a motivation for true believers and opportunistic evangelicals to get into the drug rehab business to save souls and the American dream, if not drug consumers, and there are plenty of soul-savers working in the rehab business who should be body-savers instead.
Re-education camps have a questionable history. A Vietnamese immigrant I knew was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese, and then ordered into a communist re-education camp because he’d been a lieutenant and a spy for the South Vietnamese military. Like 12-Step for the non-religious, the program didn’t work for him. He ended up a boat person rescued by the 7th Fleet; it’s how he came to America. If the communists and the Semblers can’t make it work, what chance does Twelve-Step have?
12 Step programs (as Maia says, available for free in church basements, for which rent is paid to the church) are not the same thing as the money making treatment industry. The degree of religion involved is entirely up to individual groups, many of which refuse any reference to god other than a “higher power” or “group conscience.” The fact that courts in the U.S., though not in Britain or most other countries, can order attendance is a problem and some groups do refuse to sign court papers on principle and to ensure that membership is voluntary. That the treatment industry has tried to co-opt 12 Step programs is an indication of the paucity of ideas in the industry and should not be blamed on 12 Step recovery. For all its faults 12 Step programs help many thousands of people get over acute addiction problems every year and should be allowed to get on with their own affairs without government or industry involvement.
I have no problem with people the program helps. It’s the coercion and authoritarianism 12-Step programs engender. For instance, the requirement that one subjugate oneself to a higher power, even if it’s a doorknob, is defeatist in nature, and leaves a person with a sense of powerlessness over their lives and destiny—not a good way to go through life. It’s enough to cause some people to drink. Actual success rates are low for 12-Step, the success numbers often being around 15%.
There are other non-religious drug treatment programs. The secular humanists offer one, I think it’s even available online for free. But you don’t see the courts mandating the secular humanist program, or even offering it. Something like the humanist approach might offend the religious, but it’s considered okay to offend atheists and agnostics.
The tendency of legal jurisdictions within many conservative areas of the country is, or was, to accept and impose only 12-Step programs. Remedies involving federal appellate courts have been necessary in some cases to reverse state court decisions which were clearly motivated by a religious agenda having no regard for human rights or dignity.
I know it’s a popular cliche, but in 25 years I have never heard anyone say their higher power is a doorknob or any other inanimate object. For humanists like myself it is usually the power of the group that counts and as Johann Hari has written, most of the drivers of addiction are isolation and loneliness, so a sense of connection with others is key to recovery. On the rare occasions where I have experienced authoritarianism I have gone elsewhere. I have never experienced coercion to attend a meeting but then my early recovery was not in the U.S. and I was not court ordered to attend. As I have said, this is a unique problem in the U.S.
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I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Bill Wilson was dropping acid with Aldous Huxley. The thought of that is so absurd that I can’t even come up with any speculation of what that must have been like.
Minus the fly, this may be as close as it gets:
http://www.hindsfoot.org/tcek03.pdf
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Does that explain the Ouija boards and seances too?
Blindfolding someone and giving them a Ouija board explains Ouija boards. As for séances, I’ll let Houdini speak for himself. Houdini! Hey, where the hell are you…?
Good article here criticizing AA:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/
Bill Wilson was a flawed human being like the rest of us but he was ahead of his time in his quest to use LSD for therapeutic purposes:
“One Johns Hopkins study found that in addition to the known therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs for various mental illnesses, a single session of psilocybin can cause mystical experiences that result in lasting positive personality changes — notably, significantly increased openness to experience. Other studies suggest that psychedelics may help reduce distress and the likelihood of suicide.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lsd-paradoxical-effects_us_56c1f74de4b0c3c55051f453
I’m familiar with psilocybin and its mystical experiences that result in lasting positive personality changes. Among empathogens, it has few rivals. Psilocybin is a first class ticket to transcendence to the here and now. Highly recommended. Acid’s more edgy. Worth the ride, in either case.
Even those offering “outpatient treatment”, i.e., methadone clinics, range from manipulative and controlling, to outright abusive. I suppose the temptation is overwhelming. After all, they have what you need, and are well aware of it, and know you have few, if any, other options. Of course, my experience with them was before buprenorphine. Now that there is at least one other option, I wonder if they have improved any?
But, you also see a lot of the same thing with buprenorphine. When I moved from a big city in the North to a smaller town in the South, I found that buprenorphine was dispensed from rehab clinics, who forced clients into “group therapy”, and other AA style activities. They wanted you to attend “group” everyday for some months, (at an additional thirty dollars a pop), and acquire a “sponsor”!
The idea behind buprenorphine was that you would get it prescribed by a regular doctor, and treat it like any other doctor’s prescription. That’s why the law limited the number of buprenorphine patients one doctor could have to thirty. But here, the clinics had swooped in and taken over the business. They got the patient limit lifted to one-hundred, and “staffed” extra doctors as needed. Nevertheless, most have waiting lists. In short, the rehab industry perverted the intent of the original law.
Yes, dynamite sounds like a good solution, along with an end to prohibition.
I once went to an NA convention 24 years ago and met a woman who was the director of a methadone clinic. She was literally bragging about her power to “administratively detox” anyone who stood up to her. She clearly had nothing but contempt for her patients who she considered to be “not in real recovery”. But then I never saw a treatment program of any kind that wasn’t run by sadists or control freaks.
Straight Inc is a good example of abusive rehab many prohibs support it and funny Kevin Sabet was trained up by the Semblers as well
Nephew……….That sounds like deputy drug czar Andrea Barthwell (currently purveyor of snake oil, I mean treatment center owner)…. she made a habit of grooming N.A. members at conventions expecting to find sympathetic support for her drug war activities. Eventually N.A.’s public relations committee realized that she was promoting the continued arrest of people just like themselves and broke off communication, something they should have done from the beginning.
PROPAGANDA ALERT: No matter how innocent or guilty the drug treatment industry is, it can still be corrupted when researchers spin new research propaganda likely to be misinterpreted by journalists and prohibitionists as a non-existing cause-and-effect relationship; as in the following case which indicates that marijuana consumption affects psychotics differently than non-psychotics:
The researchers don’t explain the biological mechanism by which marijuana increases risk of latent psychosis . What they’re offering are merely people with a gene variant who react abnormally to marijuana. Marijuana is a litmus test in these cases, not an activator nor a progenitor of psychosis. If a person is deemed psychotic due to an AKT1 gene variant, they may not enjoy the effects of cannabis, or if they do, then no big deal. No causation of psychosis by marijuana has ever been established.
AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/uoe-gch021116.php
Psycho Pharmacologist… RUN Forest, RUN!
Don’t need no pills or state regs.
Jonzing 4 Geeeezus. Pot Junkies are Sinners.
Religious drug treatment in Texas
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1306
“We’ve worked so long and hard to combat the stigma that substance abuse and delinquency and mental health are a symptom of a breakdown of morality, and to convince people they are an illness,” said Bill McColl, spokesman for the National Association of Drug and Alcohol Counselors. “This would roll us back 60 years, right back to when people thought you were an alcoholic merely because you didn’t accept Jesus as your personal savior.”
* Kochroach & Aleech
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/362
* Drug Detention Centers
The rehab industry should be shutdown
Alcohol is still fine though, don’t worry. Drug rehabs don’t care about alcohol. Perfectly legal and can be used responsibly. Redneck in the USA beating up his wife and kids or some commie drinking vodka on the train to Siberia. No problem. Alcohol is socially acceptable. No rehab need to worry about that. Drink up. Cheers! Alcohol is not a drug. Drugs are doubleplusungood.
A new vaccine has been developed that prevents fentanyl and its derivatives from reaching the brain. Three shots, two weeks apart, causes antibodies to neutralize fentanyl for months, and the vaccine is capable of “ablating a lethal doseâ€. Other pain killers can still work, however, allowing pain relief when needed. The researchers are now planning to develop a vaccine specific to heroin.
AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/sri-tsc021616.php
this is why i don’t do facebook anymore: http://tinyurl.com/gtpzysw
I think another thing is safe to say is that Lobbyists should be completely banned from government
In New Zealand i have proposed a election reform proposal which also includes populist votes do not win the seat in parliament and it could be done in the US as well:
1. If a candidate for a area or state wants to get elected for a seat or governmental position they are liable to:
A. background checks which includes full disclosure of which lobbies are funding them, I.E private prisons and etc and if the candidate has been found to represent the private prisons lobby and industry they will not be eligible for election and if they get the most votes that candidate does not win
B. If they are found to be a member of a religious sect I.E. Mormon and etc, they will not be eligible for election enter Seperation of Church and State
C. If a candidate has been found to be lying/fibbing it will be automatic exclusion from any election
Marijuana Smokers 5X More Likely To Become Alcoholics
It originated here: http://tinyurl.com/boghoaxshyte
same link
For no good reason, I assumed yours was the Daily Mail article.
I spent some time on this trying to find the actual study itself. Nothing turned up. I know it’s, at best, junk science, but could it also be a complete hoax?
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When the jackpot for Powerball went over $1 billion recently my wife shocked me by buying a ticket. Then even moreso when she decided to buy a ticket for me because it doubled our chances of winning. I thought it amusing and did bother to explain that while having a 2 in 272,000,000 chance of winning was double the chance of 1 in 272,000,000, we still didn’t have the proverbial snowball’s chance in heck of winning.
So I’ve got some questions:
What the heck do they mean by “5x more likely to ‘become’ alcoholics”?
Why is it that comparing people with no interest in getting high to people who do like getting high not an apples to pizza pie absurdity?
Isn’t this just a bastardized version of the “gateway theory”?
How does prohibition impact these “odds”? I.e. do people who choose to enjoy cannabis but make the mistake of submitting Urinary Loyalty Oaths as part of their job requirements have the same “odds” of “becoming” a drunk? As they get older do they lose their contacts to find cannabis and decide to start drinking rather than going out and finding new contacts? Are there 5x as many drunks in Washington as there are in Idaho?
You should keep in mind that I’m a firm believer that addiction is a congenital condition. You either are or are not an addict. You can mitigate the condition but you can’t escape it if you have it. If you don’t have it you’re not going to become an addict. The word alcoholic is a synonym for the word addict.
I haven’t done this for a while:
On Election Day 1996 the voters of California approved the Compassionate Use Act.
Between 1996 and 2014 the population of California increased from 31,878,000 to 38,802,500 an increase of 6,924,500 or 21.722%
In 1996 there were 19,076 Californians in “treatment” for drinking alcohol addiction and 29,489 in “treatment” for drinking alcohol plus a mystery substance. That totals 48,565 Californians in “treatment” associated with drinking alcohol.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130501052354/http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca96.htm
In 2014 there were 15,875 Californians in “treatment” for drinking alcohol addiction and 15,195 in “treatment” for drinking alcohol plus a mystery substance. That totals 31,070 Californians in “treatment” associated with drinking alcohol. That’s a reduction of 36.024% while the population increased 21.722%
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/CA14.htm
It’s time for “Science” 2.0 to change its name to Junk Science 2.0. What utter garbage.
Related Articles on Séance 2.0
An Online History Museum
Of Reefer Madness Propaganda
Dating Back To The Mid 1800’s
& All The Lies That We Were Told
“Marihuana is “a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine.†Authority for this statement is United States Commissioner of Narcotics H. J. Anslinger. . . . the drug is adhering to its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical demoralization, and mental breakdown.
â€Scientific American – May 1938
From The 1930’s Thru 1950’s
Listen Right Here Online
To The Real Original “Reefer Madness”
Radio Shows & Programs
Investigator found abandoned in fields in Iowa and Minnesota between 12,000 and 15,000 pounds of harvested hemp — enough to make thirty billion [Marihuana] cigarettes and to drug the whole population of the United States.
THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY – June 29, 1938
“Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”
Hearst newspapers nationwide, 1935
Some of the so-called “jazz hounds†who think that their talents show off the best when “high [on Marihuana]†should take a trip to Eloise Hospital and see the wrecked human beings there, gibbering idiots . . Now they can’t think at all!
THE KEYNOTE – Jan/Feb 1941 –
Detroit Federation of Musicians Union
“Authorities Warn Against Spread of Marijuana Habit –
Insanity, Degeneracy and Violence Follow Use of Weedâ€
(Actual front page headline)
– BELOIT DAILY NEWS
(Beloit, Wisconsin) Feb. 10, 1938 pg1.
First rule of science, correlation does not imply causation. An equally plausible interpretation would be that having an alcohol use disorder appears to increase the likelihood that one will use marijuana. This is a really badly-designed study, and a clearly-dishonest interpretation of the data. I say dishonest, because I assume the folks at Columbia are fairly familiar with the scientific method.
Marijuana smokers 5X more likely to become alcoholics? How about alcoholics 5X more likely to smoke marijuana? Alcoholics are being viewed as socially superior to marijuana consumers because their drug is legal and marijuana, generally, isn’t yet. Let those without stigma toss the first stoner.
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Do I really need to re-post The Prohibitionist’s Motto? It really does explain all of the weird things that they regurgitate and believe. OK, this time try to pay attention: