First Alcohol and Drug Court Hearings

First Alcohol and Drug Court hearings

Filed under: alcohol and drug treatment programs

Justice Minister Judith Collins has marked the first hearings at the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment (AODT) Court pilot sitting in Auckland and Waitakere District Courts today. Ms Collins says it is extremely pleasing the pilot Court is now up and …
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Tobacco use by Teens in Treatment – Dr. Myers interest in cigarette use in youths started when he was treating teens in treatment for substance abuse and found that about 90% of them smoked. While they may be successful in recovery for substance abuse, it was likely they would continue smoking, which ultimately results in a great risk for disease and dying. The founders of AA both died from tobacco use. There are many barriers to talking about tobacco use as a drug in alcohol and drug treatment programs. The lore of recovery is to take one thing at a time and people are often encouraged to wait before addressing other addictions. People who work in drug treatment facilities are often in recovery themselves and many are smokers and may be reluctant to talk to their patients about it. While problems from alcohol and drugs happen more quickly, it is important to note that long term costs of smoking are equally negative. Since finding that teens don’t want to talk about their smoking, and it was unlikely they would go into a program, they came up with a solution to build in a tobacco cessation piece into the existing drug and alcohol programs. Everyone in treatment that smoked was invited to attend. It was important for them to address it as an educational experience and they could choose whether to quit or not. We need facilities and organizations to view tobacco use treatment as a drug and include it in recovery along with drug and alcohol abuse. Since starting smoking cessation programs we have cut the rate …