| Celebs aside, rehab can work
Lindsay Lohan is back in rehab. It's not surprising, really. How serious can one be about overcoming addiction when one jumps back into the Los Angeles party circuit wearing an ankle bracelet designed to measure one's blood-alcohol content days after checking out of a chic substance-abuse treatment center? Lohan faces new charges of misdemeanor drunken driving, felony cocaine possession and driving on a suspended license following an incident early Tuesday morning. She had been out of rehab less than two weeks. It is not unusual to relapse in substance abuse recovery, celebrity or no. Actor Daniel Baldwin, who allowed ABC News' "Primetime" to tape various stages of his three-month drug-treatment program in Malibu, Calif., reportedly tried nine other treatment centers in his battle with addiction.
Call for review of methadone treatment for addicts
A group of experts has called for the creation of a national system to assess how drug addicts are treated to discover if the help they receive is effective. Despite more than 22,000 Scots receiving the heroin substitute methadone, research published yesterday found that there is little effort to find out whether that is working. It was part of a package of findings published by the Scottish Executive which confirmed the liquid substitute for heroin, which is itself highly addictive, remains at the centre of efforts to help people away from their addiction. .
Recovery program can keep families together
Substance abuse is a family issue, even if what makes the news is celebrities going it alone.
Actress Lindsay Lohan might not have to worry about keeping a family together while dealing with her addiction, but that isn't the case for many people who need help, such as the 928,000 Pennsylvanians who abused controlled substances in 2005, according to estimates by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
And in Lancaster, there is a treatment program that helps women to deal with family and recovery at the same time, by keeping mothers and their children together.
Vantage, at 208 E. King St., allows women to bring their children, up to age 12, with them when they enter rehab, so they don't risk having them placed in foster care while they are away.
Tax break to come on quit-smoking aides: Ontario
The Ontario government is making it easier for smokers to butt out by removing provincial sales taxes on all over-the-counter smoking cessation products. As of Aug. 13, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products, including nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, inhalers, sprays and tablets will be exempt from PST, Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson said Monday. Watson said the announcement translates into a savings of about $24 for a person spending about $300 over 10 weeks. The program is expected to cost the provincial government approximately $5 million in tax revenue a year. "The price of nicotine replacement therapy should not be more than the price of cigarettes. Today we are helping to try to reverse that trend,'' he said, noting there is still a significant disparity.
Grinspoon frontman tells of ice addiction
GRINSPOON frontman Phil Jamieson has spoken of the depths of his ice addiction, including stealing money from his bandmates and the realisation he had become a junkie. Jamieson, lead singer of the Australian rock band named after illicit drug expert and Harvard Medical School professor Lester Grinspoon, says he began using crystal methamphetamine in 2004, recreationally at first. See a preview of Jamieson's interview » Get the latest celebrity goss with ShowBUZZ In pictures: Celebrity rehab graduates After two years of using the drug, along with cocaine and ecstasy as a source of musical inspiration, the married father of two says he became an everyday ice user on the brink of a psychological, career and family melt-down. Jamieson had become one of Australia's most high-profile victims of the ice epidemic.
Man sentenced for wife's murder
A Slippery Rock man was sentenced to 24 years and four months to 52 years in prison in Mercer County Court Thursday for brutally murdering his young wife in the foyer of her parents' home, then spilling gasoline over her body and throughout the house before setting the home ablaze. Scott A. Dunn, 28, admitted in June to beating his wife, Brandon "Brandi" Dunn, to death with a hammer, then setting fire to her body and her parents' Grove City home where the couple was house-sitting to cover up the crime. At the time, he entered a guilty plea on charges of voluntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse and two counts of arson. Dunn must also pay $11,200 to John C. Montgomery, Brandi's father, for funeral expenses and Brandi's headstone and $290,000 to the insurer of Montgomery's home that was destroyed in the Jan.
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