Drug Detox Q & A: Can Opioid Pain Therapy Create Drug Addicts?

Risk of drug addiction is higher with opioid painkillers than with other drugs.

We frequently hear or read about people who have become addicted to painkillers after being prescribed them by their doctor for chronic pain. The problem is that once the pain is gone or manageable, the person can find themselves trapped by the drug and has to keep taking it. Next thing you know, they’re “doctor shopping”, stealing drugs from medicine cabinets, buying them off the Internet, or from drug dealers. Really, their only hope at that point is a opiate drug detox program that will help them get off the drug.

These stories are always sad and somewhat frightening. For me, they also raise a number of questions: How many people actually suffer from the severe chronic pain that requires these prescriptions? And how do they become addicted? Some of the answers I found were shocking.

A study conducted by Stanford University Medical Center found that one in five adult Americans suffer from chronic pain – pain lasting for several months or longer. And, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, common and chronic pain costs American workers more than $61 billion a year in lost productivity. These facts alone provide significant incentive to ask for, and write prescriptions for painkillers. People don’t want to be in pain, and they do want to go to work. So, they are likely to be on these drugs for an extended period of time.

But will they become drug addicts? That depends on a number of factors. First, the type of drug they’re taking; If they’re taking opium-based painkillers like OxyContin, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Percocet, oxycodone, or morphine, it is almost certain the person will become physically dependant and, if taken for a long period of time, they’ll probably require drug detox to safely get off the drug with a minimum of debilitating withdrawal symptoms.

However, even though the risk of drug addiction with opioid painkillers is higher than with other drugs, addiction goes beyond mere physical dependency. It is more a mindset – it’s a solution that enables a person to cope with the stresses of living life. And it takes more than drug detox to handle it. Drug detox helps the person handle their physical dependency, but they’ll need drug rehab to conquer the addiction.

Whether or not someone is addicted to a drug is a complex question. But the bottom line is this: given the right set of conditions, there is a great risk of addiction.

The best way to find out if someone is addicted is to get them treatment in a medically-supervised drug detox center that helps them withdraw safely from the drug and then provides counseling to determine if further treatment is needed.

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Rod MacTaggart is a Florida-based freelance writer who contributes articles on health. http://www.novusdetox.com/detox-programs.php
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How long does marijuana stay in your body?

Marijuana is a green, brown, or gray mixture of dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa). Cannabis is a term that refers to marijuana and other drugs made from the same plant. Other forms of cannabis include sinsemilla, hashish, and hash oil. All forms of cannabis are mind-altering (psychoactive) drugs. The main active chemical in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol).

"How long does marijuana stay in our body?" This question is asked by many different people, and for good reason. Marijuana (pot, herb, weed, grass) is the most commonly used and tested for drug in the United States and several other countries as well. Marijuana’s effects on the user and detection time depend on its strength or potency, which is related to the amount of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) it contains.

When you ask the question "How long does marijuana stay in my body?" you need to take into account the fact that there is no simple answer to this question. THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) can stay in a person's body for as long as 3 to 90 days after smoking or being ingested orally. There are numerous determining factors for how long drug toxins stay in a persons body which vary from person to person, such as the analytical method used, your health, your body weight, metabolism, fluid intake, the type of drug toxin, and the degree of exposure to the drug toxin.

The speed at which marijuana leaves your body depends both on the speed of your metabolism, as well as on the half-life of THC. It’s estimated that THC can have a half-life that ranges anywhere from 1-10 days. It’s almost impossible to find out what that half life is, which means that it is very difficult to use it to calculate how long it will take for all of the THC to leave your body.

The most common period of time is anywhere from 3-30 days, depending on your metabolism and the amount of marijuana that you’ve smoked. This is unfortunate, since it means that while most drug tests can only turn up evidence of other drugs if you’ve been taking the drug within a few days of the drug test, marijuana could still be detected in a urine test up to a month after the last time it is used. If you smoke it occasionally it will remain in your system for up to 10 days. If you smoke marijuana on a regular basis it will stay in your system for as long as 45 days, and if you smoke marijuana at a constant pace, it can stay in the body for 90 days, Marijuana is fat soluble. It stores in the fat cells of the body, the brain, the liver, and the kidneys, in other words the major organs.

Instead of spending your time trying to calculate how long marijuana will stay in your system, simply find out what kind of drug test you will be taking, and then purchase the product which is most effective and appropriate for the particular drug test you will be undergoing. There are many products available on the Internet, and you will be able to find one that fits your needs and budget. Whether you will be taking a urine test or a hair follicle test, remember that it is much safer to invest in an effective and appropriate product instead of attempting to pass your test by estimating how long marijuana will stay in your system.

http://f1detox.com is an online store offering home drug tests and detox products in several formats.






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