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Addiction Science 2019 & Dementia Care 2019
July 24-25, 2019
Page 11
DEMENTIA AND DEMENTIA CARE
ADVANCES IN ADDICTION SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
July 24-25, 2019 | Rome, Italy
10
th
International Conference on
2
nd
World Congress on
&
Volume 2
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and Neuroscience
J Clin Psychiatr Neurosci, Volume 2
Look what dragged the cat in, Part II: Prioritizing the gateway drug
T
he decade of the 2010's shelled hospitals and first responders with an explosion of opioid-related illness, injury, and
death. Preventable drug overdoses tallied 54,793 lives lost in 2016 – an increase of 391 percent since 1999. Accidental
drug overdose deaths increased 327 percent over the same period. The majority of OD deaths (38,000) involve opioids,
The drug category most frequently involved in opioid overdoses and growing at the fastest pace includes fentanyl, fentanyl
analogs, and tramadol. The fentanyl category of opioids accounted for nearly half of opioid-related deaths.
Look What Dragged the Cat In: The Rise of an Opioid Crisis (aka Part I) presented in 2018 looked at the conclusive
evidence that EVERY opioid related death is alcohol related. Part II uses data collected for the Monitoring the Future
project at the University of Michigan along with results from the American Addiction Centers study on gateway drug use,
behaviors, attitudes, and values. Alcohol was clearly the most common first substance used, the most widely consumed,
and the one that was initiated the earliest-with some students reporting that their use began as early as the 5th grade.
Researchers found that these children typically progressed to trying other illicit drugs in the following years. The notable
contrast was children who had not tried alcohol by 12th grade and had almost never attempted using any other substance.
The abuse of drugs, regardless of classification, begins with the permissiveness granted the world's most lethal drug and
third-leading cause of all preventable deaths: Alcohol. It's a straight line.
Nearly every non-muslim civilization on this rock has embraced alcohol. As a result, ours is largely a numbing society,
especially in the sedation-happy Americas. This is the root. This is the seed of the opium trade that has gone unstemmed
since prehistory. There is legit medical use for opium derivatives: What has driven growth is demand – not by the sick but
by people who cannot get the mind alteration they desire through alcohol use alone.
Alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink the first drink for the same reason: To relieve a stress. In the U.S. which has a
laissez faire agenda toward alcohol since its prohibition failure, the culture embraces a drinking lifestyle. Western culture
normalizes alcohol use. In other words, we normalize drug use. What you ignore, you permit. What you permit, you
condone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that alcohol use is the third leading preventable cause of death. Look
what dragged the cat in: Part II looks at preventing or delaying first use.
In 1967, 72 percent of adult men smoked. Today, 72 percent don't. Prevention works. If there is genuine interest in healthy
outcomes and preventing premature death from opioids, permissiveness of the starter or feeder or gateway or predecessor
drug has to be addressed on five levels to reduce demand for all antecessor drugs. One of those ways is not legalizing
recreational use of marijuana – no longer prioritized as the gateway drug, but a gateway nonetheless.
Scott Stevens
Alcohologist.com,USA