Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Name Your Poison
In hard times people have always sought something to help them escape, if only for a short time, their own miseries.
During the Great Depression, Kansans chased away the blues with palliatives like Crawford County Deep Shaft — moonshine, that is.There is always something to get you through the day.
Today, in what may be the worst economy since, they’re reaching for a vast array of prescription medications.
“We’re seeing an extreme uptick in the abuse of pharmacological drugs,” said Jeff Benz, a founder of Mainstream Kansas City Inc., an alcohol and drug rehabilitation and residential treatment center in Wyandotte County. “We have noticed it for several years, but it really became more pronounced in the last few months.”
Benz’s experience is backed by figures showing increased availability of such drugs in Missouri and Kansas.
Some abusers rely on street narcotics, others on alcohol — “the poor man’s drug,” legal since 1933 and virtually recession-proof.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment