ONDCP Blog

Federal Funding Ban on Needle Exchange Programs

Ed. Note: This post was updated at 6:10 pm

On December 16, 2009, President Obama signed into law an end to the longstanding ban on most Federal funding for needle exchange programs, giving us more opportunities to stop the spread of HIV and other infections among injecting drug users (IDUs). The Administration continues to support a consistent policy that would allow Federal funds to be used in locations where local authorities deem needle exchange programs to be effective and appropriate. Unfortunately, Congress has reinstated the ban.

As noted in the President’s National Drug Control Strategy, we will continue to work with Congress and public health agencies to ensure that, to the extent possible, needle exchange programs are implemented in the context of comprehensive, recovery-oriented public health systems that also offer IDUs treatment for addiction, other medical care, and testing for HIV and hepatitis B and C.  On a global scale, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) continues to work with governments worldwide on synchronizing drug control and HIV prevention and treatment.  In combating the problem, special attention has been paid to comprehensive HIV prevention services for IDUs that include providing HIV prevention education. The recommended core package of comprehensive HIV prevention services for IDUs includes needle and syringe programs; drug treatment (including medication-assisted treatment for opioid dependence); HIV testing and counseling; antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive IDUs; prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections; condom programs for IDUs and their sexual partners; targeted information, education, and communication for IDUs and their sexual partners; vaccination, diagnosis, and treatment of viral hepatitis; and diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis.

Our Children Are Not Just Our Present, They Are Our Future

Cross-posted from Faces and Voices of Recovery

I am a parent of a graduate of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Program. I don’t think there is a bumper sticker for that. Every Tuesday my husband and I meet with other parents dealing with the issues around drug addiction in the family. We were the first parents when the group began. After three or four weeks another couple came, followed by a single mother. And so it grew, single parents, married couples, divorced couples working to save their children even when their own marriages had failed. There are half couples too, the other parent either working, doing supervision at home or in denial, a common thing with parents of a drug using child. For who among us, in even the most exasperating moments of parenthood ever pictured our loving, cherubic faced child fighting the devil of addiction. Not I, not my husband and none of the other parents who show up each week. They aren’t there for the pizza.

Although our son has been clean for over three years we have continued to attend. Drug addiction is never cured. It is faced every day, one day at a time. We need to remember that for our son. We have also realized that others are not yet able to see that recovery is possible. Almost every week we have a new parent hemorrhaging from the devastation of this disease. We feel such a responsibility to be there for them, to help in any way to give hope and courage to continue their fight to help their child get clean. To keep the faith that recovery is indeed possible and even likely given strong, loving, consistent support amidst the inevitable, tough, painful decisions that will have to be made.

Having the privilege of witnessing active recovery, we are able to see more objectively what every family endures as they face addiction head on; anguished parents trying to help drug-using children, ignoring themselves as they try to hold onto their marriage, family and job; siblings, who have been ignored by loving parents while they focus all their efforts to save this sick child. Things getting so out of control under their own roof, they can hardly recognize their family. "How did we get to this place?" the distraught parent asks. "No one else could possibly be experiencing this hell," they incorrectly assume.

This post is part of the ONDCP Stories of Hope blog series.

I am Grateful for Recovery

Cross-posted from Faces and Voices of Recovery

My son Aaron was 17 when he said "Dad, I don't care where you go or what you do, but you gotta do something about you 'cause your killin' Mom." Aaron was in recovery and I had just decided to start attending Alanon. I went directly to the place where I was told I'd find an Alanon meeting. The sign in the entry way pointed UP to Alanon, and an arrow down to AA. I stood at the landing and walked down to AA.  

Four and a half months later Aaron died in a car crash while on his way to drive a fellow in recovery to a job interview. Aaron's plan for his recovery was to move into a house with friends in recovery, get a job, go to school, and build on recovery with peer support. We took his idea and opened www.AaronsHouseMadison.org in August 2007. The fifth year begins this August and so far 14 young men ages 18-26 have lived at Aaron's House, gone to school, held jobs, and built on their sobriety through peer support.

I am grateful for recovery.

This post is part of the ONDCP Stories of Hope blog series.

It Works for Me, My Life Has Turned Around Because of It

Cross-posted from Faces and Voices of Recovery

My addiction to opiate/opioid drugs began in 1974, back in New York City, where I was born and raised. Like most addicts, I first began getting high with beer and marijuana, then on to LSD, amphetamines, barbiturates, right up to that first shot of heroin. It was "love at first sight". I immediately fell in love with the high. Within a few months I was addicted. It became the focus of my daily routine. Before long, my paycheck couldn't cover the cost of what I was using and began a series of petty crimes to get the extra money. Nothing was sacred or taboo. Whatever I could do to get money, I did.

I finally got arrested by Federal authorities for possession of stolen mail (tax return checks), forgery and bank fraud. I served 47 months. I wasn't yet 21 years old. My use would seem to pick up where it left off each time I was paroled. I'd eventually end up back in prison on a new charge. This pattern continued (addiction, crime, arrest, incarceration, parole) from 1974 until 1986, when I relocated to Minnesota to live with a woman I had been corresponding with for 24 months, while still incarcerated in a NY State prison. We both agreed that my relocation far away from NYC would help me start fresh. It did, for almost 9 years. But no matter where you go, there you are.

My old self caught up to me in 1995. There was no heroin in St. Cloud (that I knew of, anyway) but I did know a guy who was getting morphine prescribed regularly for a severe knee injury, and each month I would buy a few from him, break them down in water as best I could, and inject them. Then I discovered OxyContin, which was far more potent than the morphine and it became my drug of choice.

As in the past, I became addicted, but the addiction to OxyContin was worse than heroin ever was and before long, my habit was larger than what was available. I went back to pharmacy burglary, ended up serving 30 months in Moose Lake Correctional Facility in Minnesota. My addiction didn't stop there. It was only dormant while I was incarcerated.

Not long after my release from Moose Lake, I started using again, violating the terms of my parole and did 30 day chunks of what time I had left until my time had expired. I got into shoplifting to make money to buy pain pills here and there, but most of them were not injectable, and that's what I craved, intravenous drugs.

I went back to burglarizing pharmacies, a few times, and didn't get caught. But the "good stuff" like OxyContin, Morphine and Fentanyl was no longer easy to find. That still had to be purchased. To get the extra money, I was back to shoplifting.

In and out of Benton County jail so many times for short stays (30, 60, 90, 120 days, etc) here and there. I finally got sick and tired of it all and enrolled in a methadone maintenance program. This past November 3rd was my 2 year anniversary of not using illicit street drugs or pharmaceuticals. I haven't been in jail in over 2 years, I also quit smoking. I attend outside support groups and relapse prevention groups at St. Cloud Metro (the methadone clinic). Some people will criticize methadone, saying it's only a substitutes for narcotics. In a way, it is. But it's administered under a doctor's orders, by a nurse and in a clinical setting. I give regular urine samples to monitor my progress. I do not get high on my dose (110 mg.) and I look at it as being similar to a diabetic who needs their insulin.

I have proven time and time again, that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain and have a pre-disposition to opiate/opioid drugs, and methadone eliminates the cravings in addition to blocking the opioid receptor sites in my brain, so that even if I were to try and get high from any narcotics, the methadone blockades the effects. It works for me, and my life has turned around because of it.

This post is part of the ONDCP Stories of Hope blog series.