April 28th, 2012 by georgebmf
The state of Florida has a vastly different cultural population. A melting pot of culture makes for a wide demand and variety of substance abuse. Recently, the DEA, along with the FDLE, FBI, and State Attorney’s Office has cracked down on Internet orders and fillings of prescriptions. Over 650,000 pills were confiscated from pharmacist cooperating with the internet based companies that were operating out of the South Florida area.
The citizens of Florida are a strong and resourceful people. With Mother Nature slamming the coasts of Florida constantly with hurricanes, severe storms, and sometimes tornadoes, which ravish the homes, Florida, unlike any other state is able to recover autonomously and keep its citizens safe. Many of the same personalities show with the families involved with substance abuse affected family members. Many options are available for drug rehab in Florida, and the healthcare system there is a well oiled machine capable of rehabilitating people back to their productive status that makes Florida one of the greatest states to live in.
When considering a treatment facility in Florida, think of the following;
· Location
· Staff experience
Location is a small but sometimes important part of the treatment process. Due to large area the Florida covers, one area in Florida could have much different weather then other parts. A study done by the ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) shows that people who are from states with cold weather, have less distractions when in a warm environment. The climate change has an effect on the human body and adjusting can take some time, taking away from the treatment experience.
The experience that the staff has at the treatment facility being considered is very important, and maybe the difference between getting the right help and not. Make sure that the facility’s staff has experience themselves with recovery. For someone to understand the trials and tribulations associated with drug rehab, it is somewhere close to necessary for the counselor, or support staff to have direct experience with drugs themselves. It is not absolutely necessary, but it is preferable for the staff member to the person receive treatment in almost all cases that he or she have direct knowledge and therefore the empathy or apathy needed to relate and help the treatment regiment.
September 29th, 2009 by georgebmf
The days of going to get drugs off of the street are long gone. So are the ideas, stigmas and stereotypes associted with the "broken down street drug addict". A whole new era of drug addiction is taking over in Florida and across the nation and its coming from the doctor's office, not the inner city neighborhood. That's right, the addiction craze is now pharmaceuticals like Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Roxycontin, Hydrocodone and other opiate based painkillers. It happening all over the county and is nowhere more easy to see than right here in Florida where the problem is growing faster than anywhere else.
Florida is number 1 in the nation for prescription drug overdose. Nine people overdose in Florida every day on prescription pain killers. That's the most in the county, according to Dr Amy Conley, ER Director for University Community Hospital. She went on further to explain that it is sweeping across all cross sections of people of different age, race, and background in a recent interview on Fox 13, a Tampa affiliate. The addiction to opiate pills and their availablity are growing with no sign of slowing down.
In another interview on Fox News, Dr Joette Giovinco stated that news is even more frightening. The rate of deaths from prescription drugs has tripled from the years of 1998 -- 2005. The worse thing is that there hasn't been any clear cut plan to handle this from state lawmakers up to this point.
A new bill is now in front of the Florida State Legislature that is the first step in the right direction to handling the flood of prescription drug addiction in Florida. It is Senate Bill 462 and it basically is a "systematic check on the amount of prescription drugs being prescribed". Basically, if the bill is to pass and go into effect, every time someone is prescribed a narcotic pain killer, they are entered into a state wide database that will be shared with all of the doctors and pharmacies in the state. So, when anyone goes to see a doctor and requests a prescription or has medical reason to receive a prescription, the doctor or pharmacy can pull up their record to ensure they are not receiving narcotics from any other source. Lawmakers hope that by having the database in place that "doctor shopping" for drugs will be all but a memory and more control can be put on these various narcotics.
Lets hope it works as Florida drug rehabs are seeing funding cuts and cant help as many people as they could in the past. Treatment attendance over the past year in Florida was under 48,000 people, while in 2004 it was almost 150,000 people that were admitted to drug rehabs to get the help they need according the White House Policy's latest figures. Obviously, with the problem increasing while there is less help out there for it, drug intervention, drug detox, and drug rehabilitation are needed more than ever in the state.
