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February 9, 2012
Largest drug treatment facility in Central Texas to ban smoking
The largest inpatient addiction treatment center in Central Texas — also one of the largest in the state — is going smoke-free April 30.
The nonprofit Austin Recovery, which serves 3,200 clients annually, is taking on smoking addiction as part of the treatment it provides. Officials hope to dispel the long-held notion that it’s too hard to get people to quit smoking when they are trying to kick a drug or alcohol problem, said Jonathan Ross, the president and CEO pictured at right.
“That’s old thinking,” Ross said. “Not only are you continuing an addictive behavior and putting yourself at risk of relapse, you’re also killing yourself.”
Ross said he believes it’s inevitable that all licensed treatment centers in Texas become nonsmoking facilities — just as New York and New Jersey have required. Texas has a draft rule but has not taken action.
In Texas, licensed treatment centers prohibit tobacco use indoors, but a smoke-free campus is rare, said Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services. All of the state psychiatric hospitals have tobacco-free campuses, she added.
Austin Recovery received a $49,990 grant from the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department to put in place smoking-cessation programs and create a tobacco-free campus, said Ramona Cruz-Peters, director of communications and marketing at Austin Recovery.
Nearly 80 percent of the clients who come to Austin Recovery, which has three residential campuses, smoke, said Juli Hartmann, a senior counselor. “If you stop smoking at the same time (you enter addiction recovery), you have a 25 percent better chance of being successful in your recovery,” Hartmann said.
Last spring, Austin Recovery started forbidding smoking among staff anywhere at work. Thirty-three percent of the staff smoked — compared with 17 percent of Travis County residents — but aided by a smoking-cessation program, the rate dropped to 10 percent, Ross said.
Many treatment centers are resistant to banning smoking because they believe it will hurt their business, Ross said. Whether it results in fewer clients for Austin Recovery remains to be seen, he said.
“Initially, we might have a drop-off in our self-funded patients, but we won’t have a drop-off in indigent clients” because they have nowhere else to go, Ross said. “I think in the long run, we will be seen as innovative.”
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October 25, 2011
Get rid of expired or unneeded prescriptions Saturday in Austin
Here’s a chance to get rid of your unwanted prescriptions, over-the-counter medications and needles, no questions asked.
City of Austin officials are teaming up Saturday with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to dispose of unwanted medicines in an effort to cut down on the improper disposal of expired and unneeded drugs. People can take part in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day anonymously.
DEA officials said it also is a way to reduce prescription drug abuse by teens and avoid polluting the water system. Many pharmacies also take drugs back on a regular basis.
Communities across the country are participating. In Austin, four locations will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.:
—Austin Cornerstone Church, 1101 Reinli St. (east of Interstate 35, between U.S. 290 and Cameron Road)
—City of Austin Household Hazardous Waste Facility, 2514 Business Center Drive (south of Texas 71)
—Westlake High School, 4100 Westbank Drive
—Barton Creek Square, 2901 S. Capital of Texas Highway
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April 27, 2011
Seton alerts public about look-alike antibiotics being sold locally
Four Austin area parents over the weekend mistakenly gave their child a dietary supplement that has a name and packaging similar to a prescription antibiotic, resulting in the child going to Dell Children’s Medical Center with a worsening illness, hospital officials said.
“It seems to be a packaging gimmick misleading Hispanic buyers into believing they were buying Amoxicillin and they weren’t,” said Dr. Pat Crocker, chief of emergency medicine at Dell Children’s.
People can buy antibiotics off the shelf in Mexico, and an Austin market that Crocker declined to name is selling dietary supplements that are packaged to look like the antibiotics, he said.
Parents of four children gave them Amoxilina locally thinking it was Amoxicillin, an antibiotic commonly used for nose, throat and ear infections, he said. Two of the children had severe ear infections at the hospital. All four children have since been released.
The supplements likely are harmless but because the children are ill and their parents think they are treating them, the kids were pretty sick by the time they arrived at the hospital, he said.
Another supplement being sold at the market Pentreximil Plus, looks like the antibiotic Pentrexyl, or Ampicillin, said Cynthia Rubio, an interpreter and instructor at Dell Children’s. She also saw the supplement Neolubrina Fuerte, which looked like a B-complex vitamin, Neurobion Forte, at the store.
Rubio said she spoke with a manager about the sick children but was told the products were not being sold as antibiotics and would stay on the shelves.
All three products are distributed by Multimex Distributions Inc. of Tucker, Ga.
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April 20, 2011
UPDATED: State outlawing marijuana-like substances
UPDATED: With clarifications and more information from the Department of State Health Services
The Department of State Health Services just announced that it is outlawing marijuana-like substances that are commonly found in K2, Spice, “herbal incense” and other synthetic marijuana products. The ban takes effect Friday.
It will be illegal to make, distribute, possess and sell those substances. Penalties are Class A or B misdemeanors, according to a news release posted on the health department’s website.
The action follows the lead of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which prohibited the substances March 2, health department spokeswoman Christine Mann said. State law requires the health department to consider banning any substances the DEA has forbidden, she said.
If the state should object for any reason, it is required to hold a hearing process.
“Theirs is a temporary ban, I think for a year,” she said. “Ours is permanent.”
Mann clarified that the Texas ban will remain in place as long as the DEA’s order is in effect, which she said may be extended indefinitely.
The state ban covers five chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, Mann said. They are: JWH -018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol, according to the department’s news release. The chemicals are listed as Schedule I, the most restrictive category on the Texas Schedules of Controlled Substances. That classification is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no medical purpose, according to the news release.
K2 or Spice, often called “herbal incense,” generally is sold online, in head shops and some gas stations, Mann said.
The penalty for a Class A misdemeanor is a fine of up to $4,000 and/or jail time of up to a year. For a Class B misdemeanor, the maximum fine is $2,000 and/or a jail term of up to 180 days.
If the state had not taken action on the DEA’s ban, it would have been up to the federal government to enforce the prohibition in Texas, Mann said. That would make it more difficult to enforce the ban.
She added that it was coincidental the ban announcement fell on 4/20, a day associated with marijuana smoking. “Tomorrow is a state holiday, San Jacinto Day and Friday is Good Friday, an optional state holiday, so it fell to today,” she said.
Since January 2010, the Texas Poison Center Network reported 600 calls related to K2, the department said. Health effects can include chest pain, heart palpitations, agitation, drowsiness, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and confusion, according to the news release.
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June 17, 2010
Overdoses of prescription drugs up drastically, new study says
A study released today says that prescription drug overdoses in the nation’s emergency rooms are up dramatically.
Visits to ERs because of abuse of painkillers, described in the study as “nonmedical use of opioid analgesics,” increased 111 percent between 2004 and 2008, from 144,600 visits in 2004 to 305,900 in 2008, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Among painkillers, the prescription drugs causing the highest visits were oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, says the study published in the CDC’s June 18 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The increases reflect the dramatic rise in prescribing of those drugs, the report says.
“The abuse of prescription drugs is our nation’s fastest-growing drug problem. And this new study shows it is a problem that affects men and women, people under 21, and those over 21,” Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said in a written statement.
Although the first sentence of the report says that the rate of overdose deaths increased rapidly from 1996 to 2006, this study does not provide death rates nationally for the period studied. It does give a snapshot, though, of deaths by providing data from six states.
The report says that in Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah and Vermont, accidental drug deaths related to benzodiazepines, which are used to treat anxiety and include Xanax, Librium and Valium, increased 64 percent between 2004 and 2007. Deaths related to opioid analgesics other than methadone increased 47 percent during the same period, the report says.
It concludes that the increases in ER visits “suggest that previous prevention measures, such as provider and patient education and restrictions on use of specific formulations, have not been adequate. Given the societal burden of the problem, additional interventions are urgently needed, such as more systematic provider education, universal use of state prescription drug monitoring programs by providers, the routine monitoring of insurance claims information for signs of inappropriate use, and efforts by providers and insurers to intervene when patients use drugs inappropriately.”
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April 21, 2010
Got unused medications? Don't flush or toss; take 'em back to the pharmacy
The newly opened Live Oak Pharmacy is marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day Thursday by launching a program to dispose of old pharmaceuticals in a way that won’t pollute water supplies.
The pharmacy at 1611 W. Fifth St. is among several in the Austin area that will take back unused or expired medications and send them off for incineration. The gases from incineration are captured and filtered “so they don’t go into our air,” said Scot Maitland, co-owner and spokesman for the pharmacy.
In addition, the pharmacy is honoring Earth Day by donating 5 percent of retail to local and environmental causes as part of an Austin celebration to raise money for those causes, said Maitland, 38.
The “Dispose My Meds” program is spearheaded by the National Community Pharmacists Association and Sharps Compliance Inc. They said that 200 million pounds of unused pharmaceuticals are generated each year, contributing to an 80 percent increase in U.S. deaths from accidental narcotics overdoses over a recent six-year period. Pharmaceuticals also have been found in the drinking water of more than 50 million Americans, the two groups said in a news release today.
Live Oak said the drug return program is free, except for boxes of used syringes. For those, the fee is $5 per container, Maitland said.
People must bring the return drugs in the original packaging, and people will be asked to fill out a form, he said.
Several other pharmacies in the area that provide the service can be found on DisposeMyMeds.org website, which offers a “locator” link. They include:
Lamar Plaza Drug Store, 1132 S Lamar Blvd.
Quick Mesa Park Pharmacy, 701 Palm Valley Blvd., Round Rock
Dripping Springs Pharmacy, 100 Commons Rd., Suite 1, Dripping Springs
Nearly 800 pharmacies in 40 states are taking part in the program, according to the pharmacists association and Sharps Compliance Inc. Consumers also can get a postage-paid envelope to fill out at home and send in to Sharps Compliance.
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