Drug Abuse Seminar at Mountain Quest

http://www.pocahontastimes.com/index.php?id=793

Wednesday June 10, 2009

Drug abuse experts give seminar at Mountain Quest

Dr. Michael O’Neill, doctor of pharmacology, at left, and Dr. Wayne Coombs presented a prescription drug abuse prevention seminar in Frost last Wednesday. More than 40 community leaders attended the event, which was hosted by the Pocahontas County Prevention Coalition and Mountain Quest Institute. G. Hamill photo

Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

Experts arrived in Frost last Wednesday to teach community leaders about the growing problem of prescription drug abuse in the area.

The Pocahontas County Prevention Coalition and Mountain Quest Institute hosted the event.

More than 40 community leaders attended the briefing, including County Commissioner Martin Saffer, Sheriff David Jonese, Magistrate Kathy Beverage, Assistant Prosecutor J.L. Clifton, Deputy Brad Totten, Community Corrections director Jerry Ramos, Family Resource Center coordinator Laura Young, Family Refuge Center manager Kim Beverage and Prevention Coalition representatives Ginny Ramos and Cheryl Jonese.

Dr. Michael O’Neill, doctor of pharmacology, was the lead speaker. O’Neill is director of the Center of Excellence for the education and prevention of drug diversion and substance abuse. He is a pain management expert, addiction specialist and consultant for both state and federal law enforcement agencies.

O’Neill focused on the abuse of prescription drugs such as oxycodone, codeine, methadone and fentanyl.

Prescription medications are safe when used as directed, but highly addictive and often lethal when abused, he said. Deaths from prescription drugs in the U.S. have doubled in the past decade and narcotic painkillers are the leading cause of overdose deaths.

O’Neill said the body’s ability to build tolerance to narcotics increases the danger. Users need more and more of the the drug to “maintain the high,” he said. The need to ingest ever more of the addictive narcotics results in tens of thousands of overdoses every year.

Why are people attracted to abuse prescription narcotics, even when they are aware of the danger?

O’Neill explained how narcotics affect portions of the brain associated with natural rewards. Natural biological rewards include satisfying the needs for food, water, sex and nurturing. The brain releases chemicals when these needs are met and narcotics simulate this reward sensation.

The expert described the reaction of lab mice when provided with a lever that gave a dose of narcotics. The mice increased the frequency of doses until they were simply lying on the lever. After reaching this point, the mice did not respond to food, animals of the opposite sex, or other potential natural rewards presented to them. They laid on the lever until they died.

Ironically, narcotics tap into survival drives, but ultimately result in death.

Dr. Wayne Coombs, executive director of the West Virginia Prevention Resource Center, followed O’Neill and described recent drug abuse studies in West Virginia.

Coombs said a “culture of sharing” contributed to prescription drug abuse in the state.

“Ultimately, what we have to do is change the norms in communities,” he said. “A major contributing factor, that we found in West Virginia, is a culture of sharing. People in West Virginia have historically shared. That works fine in most areas but when we start sharing prescription drugs it can be a real problem.”

The culture of sharing has contributed to West Virginia’s high rate of overdose deaths, according to Coombs.

“There was a study that was done last year that looked at the unintentional overdose deaths in the state, which by far, most of them were from prescription drugs and West Virginia leads the country, he said. “One of the things we found from that data is that people primarily get those drugs, not from street drug dealers, but from family and friends and it comes from sharing.”

Most illicit prescription drugs in the US originate with a doctor’s prescription, according to Coombs.

“Most of it is legitimately made prescription drugs that get diverted, either from people doctor shopping or someone having a legitimate prescription and sharing it or kids stealing it out of their grandparents’ medicine cabinet,” he said.

Coombs said prevention and treatment were more effective strategies than punishment.

“The punishment angle has not been shown to be that effective,” he said. “None of us believe that we have to be soft on crime. But to have no options other than to just lock up people in prisons, like what is happening now, all over the country and in West Virginia, particularly, causes you to have overcrowded prisons and you have to pay to build more and more prisons.”

“If I was allocating resources, I would put a lot more in prevention – early intervention – when kids start having problems with drugs you can intervene with them and their families,” he said. “Particularly, there needs to be a lot more treatment resources in state prisons and then recovery efforts for when people get out of prison and want to recover from their addictions.”

Saffer praised the efforts of the Prevention Coalition.

“Prevention is an important component of dealing with the problem,” he said. “If you can stop the problem from happening, especially as far as our youth are concerned, it’s very effective.”

“But part of prevention is to prevent people from relapsing,” he added. “Let’s help people with recovery – let’s do things like that, too.

The commissioner said prevention efforts should extend beyond the schools.

“I think it’s very, very important to work in the schools but we also have to understand that it’s an adult problem, as well, he said. “Children learn from their parents. They learn from what they see in the community. It’s a community problem as well as a youth problem.”

Ramos said she was encouraged by the large turnout for the seminar.

“The goal was to create awareness,” she said. “I think, just by the showing of people that were here, it’s evident that community leaders and elected officials really do care about the problem. I think that they want to have these issues resolved in the county.”