Restoring Lives and Families Needing Drug Rehab in Washington
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Along with Colorado, Washington was in the forefront of legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While the state’s laws were not as wide-open as those of Colorado, its pot market expanded quickly and massively. In two years of legalized recreational marijuana sales, there was $1 billion of non-medical pot sold. It could have been sold in gram, ounce or larger quantities, making it impossible to say estimate the actual poundage. But if you just converted $1 billion in dollar value to joints priced at $3.50 each, that would work out to 286 million joints. Or 66 joints per adult Washingtonian over a two-year period.
According to a 2016 survey of Washington residents, nearly one in five adults under 30 years of age reports using marijuana. The number of adults over 30 using marijuana is about half that. Nationally, the number of adults consuming cannabis products nearly doubled in the three years between 2013 and 2016.
Some of the effects of legalization have been definitely negative. The state began to be plagued with house explosions due to people trying to manufacture butane hash oil in an unsafe manner. For youth aged 12 to 17, marijuana use numbers are higher than the national average, with about 10% of youth using the drug. Nearly half of all school expulsions are related to the students’ use of weed.
Washington Drug Trafficking And Abuse
In relation to drug trafficking and abuse, Washington State stands at its own unique crossroads. From the north comes BC Bud, the highly potent hydroponic marijuana, synthetic drugs such as MDMA (Ecstasy) and other club drugs. From the south, mostly up the Interstate 5 corridor from Mexico or Southern California, come heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and Mexican marijuana.
What’s more, Washington provides fertile grounds and excellent conditions for outdoor marijuana grows. Each year, hundreds of thousands of plants are seized from all corners of the state: 96,000 from Yakima, 25,465 from King County, 134,000 from Walla Walla County and 91,000 from Klickitat County, for example. In all, more than half a million outdoor plants and nearly 30,000 indoor plants were seized in 2009. The legalization of marijuana in 2012 has created a whole new array of problems, including seventeen THC extraction lab explosions occurred in Washington in 2014. According to the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission, the incidents of fatal marijuana-impaired driving rose 122% from 2010 to 2014.
All in all, the state is well supplied with illicit drugs. Mexican drug trafficking organizations, outlaw motorcycle gangs or other criminal groups add illicitly-abused prescription drugs. Then add legally obtained alcohol that is abused to the point of alcoholism and you have Washington’s current problem: hundreds of thousands of residents need treatment for drug or alcohol abuse or dependence but don’t get it.
Washington is Designated a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
Since 1997, the state has been designated a HIDTA so that more funds and drug interdiction effort can be focused on this area. All the counties up and down the I-5 corridor are included in this HIDTA, as is the Yakima Valley, Spokane County, the Tri-Cities area plus Franklin and Benton Counties. Three ports of entry (POE) in the Puget Sound area plus eleven others along the U.S.-Canada border must be monitored for drugs coming south from Canada or being transported north by Mexican drug trafficking organizations or their affiliates.
High quantities of MDMA, marijuana and prescription drugs are seized at these POEs, headed south. In May of 2009, in a typical drug seizure at the Blain POE north of Seattle, a Canadian man was arrested with 48,000 Ecstasy tablet in his possession, a value of a half million dollars. In all, more than 1.2 million dosage units of MDMA were seized in 2008.
Mexican traffickers running cocaine north, often concealed in secret compartments of passenger vehicles or commercial trucks, are regularly apprehended. One simple comparison explains why many people will take the risk of running drugs north into Canada: On the U.S. side, cocaine is valued at $25,000 per pound. If you can get it across into Canada, it is worth $40,000.
BC Bud is often moved close to the U.S. at a remote point of the border, then is picked up by an associate on the U.S. side. In one case, law enforcement followed a Canadian woman who drove out of the parking lot of a casino on the U.S. side of the border and made her way to a wooded spot adjacent to the border. When she began to leave the area, her truck was searched. Twelve black hockey bags filled with 577 pounds of BC Bud were found. In the winter, snowmobiles may be used, and helicopters or boats may be used at any time of year.
In 2008, more than 150,000 pounds of marijuana were seized within the state of Washington. Methods of conveyance can be creative. In one instance, 1400 pounds of BC Bud were concealed in hockey bags behind a shipment of bottled beer. In another instance, 166 pounds were hidden in the walls of a trailer housing trained bears.
Substance Abuse Leads to Addiction for Many, Addiction Treatment for Fewer
Every year, about one Washingtonian in ten uses marijuana, about 350,000 abuse pain relievers and about one in fifty uses cocaine. As a result, close to a half million people state that they need to find a rehabilitation center to treat their addictions. But only about 40,000 people entered drug treatment in 2008. Out of the 8,300 people who entered drug rehabs for marijuana addiction, nearly half were between 12 and 17 years of age.
For far too many people, poly-drug use is the norm. Those in drug recovery programs for problems with alcohol along with other drugs significantly outnumbered those suffering from alcohol abuse alone. In 2007, more than 800 people were taken to Seattle Emergency Rooms with five or more drugs in their systems.
A person trapped in drug dependence and addiction needs help to break out of the trap. Very few people manage to leave substance abuse behind without help. That’s where the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program comes in.
The Narconon program not only addresses the debilitating effects of drug abuse on the mind and body, but also resolves why a person turned to drugs in the first place. As a result, a person can graduate from the program into a new life free from drug use.
Ridding the Body of Drug Residues
One well-known effect of using marijuana is lingering nature of residual toxins from consumption. Traces of cannabis use can be found stored in fatty tissues months after use stops. At Narconon drug rehab centers, we have a healthy way to flush out these toxins and return brightness and clarity to one’s thoughts. This action combines time in a low-heat sauna, a strict nutritional supplement regimen and moderate daily exercise. These three factors together activate the body’s ability to dislodge old drug toxins and get rid of them. As these residues leave, energy and positive outlook improve.
The next step is called the objectives. This is where the recovering person can regain the ability to control his (or her) decisions, actions and environment. After all, for the time he was addicted, it was like drugs were making the decisions, not him. In a precise and intensive series of exercises, each person recovers a fresher perception of his immediate environment. He even regains more control of his own emotions and thoughts.
Building New Life Skills in Drug Rehab
When a person goes home from rehab, he is going to be faced with many situations that could drive him back into drug use for an escape. It could be a relationship breakup, a job loss or some other disappointment. He needs to have the strength to make the right decisions to enable him to stay sober. These skills are the next subject covered on the Narconon program.
First, he must learn how to differentiate an anti-social person from one who will support his success and sobriety. He must also learn how to keep himself safe from the effects of the anti-social.
Next, he will learn what he did to give up his own personal integrity. He applies this lesson to his life to find relief from the crushing guilt every addict carries around. Finally, he learns how to solve problems in his life that could become overwhelming if not cared for—how to repair relationships, succeed in a job, become a well-regarded member of the community again. Once he puts all these lessons to work in his life, he realizes that he deserves a chance at a happy life and gives himself the chance to do so.
The very last action is to plan one’s re-entry into life. With the support of Narconon staff, each person lays out the steps to gradually returning to normal post-rehab life.
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Prescription Drug Distribution Ring Had Devastating Effect
In 2016, the Los Angeles Times documented the activities of a major prescription drug trafficking ring that obtained pills illicitly in the Southland and brought them up the Interstate 5 corridor to Washington. In 2017, the City of Everett filed a lawsuit on the manufacturer of OxyContin. The lawsuit alleged “that the company turned a blind eye to criminal trafficking of its pills to ‘reap large and obscene profits’ and demanding it foot the bill for widespread opioid addiction in the community.” At the height of this pill trafficking, OxyContin was involved in more than half the crimes in the county.
While alcohol is the top drug sending Washingtonians to drug rehab, that may not be the case for long. At last report, marijuana and heroin were tied for second place, with heroin on the rise and alcohol numbers dropping.
Everywhere a prescription drug problem goes, a heroin problem follows. The Northwest—particularly Seattle—has long had a serious heroin problem. In the last several years, it has gotten much more serious. In 2014, the number of heroin overdose deaths in the Seattle alone was three times the number for the entire county in 2009. Treatment admissions complaining of heroin addiction doubled over a similar time period. Statewide, heroin overdose deaths nearly tripled between 2006 and 2015.
For those in Washington State who seek lasting recovery from addiction, Narconon centers are located not too far away in Colorado and California. For a person who wants to put a little more distance between themselves and their drug dealers, there are also Narconon facilities in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Florida.
For more than fifty years, Narconon has been the choice of tens of thousands of people who wanted to break completely with their addicted pasts. Learn how Narconon can be the last rehab program you or someone you care about will ever need.
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