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| News from the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (LICADD) |
March 28, 2011 |
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Good morning! With the economy beginning to bounce back, LICADD's Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is taking-off and we've added several new clients in recent weeks. Our EAP - called "Open Arms" provides confidential crisis intervention services, evaluation and assessment, brief interventions, screened referrals and follow-up services for a broad spectrum of personal concerns for employees of Long Island's companies, labor unions and school districts. We offer EAP services on Long Island, in New York City and across the Eastern seaboard. Our EAP clients include some of the region's largest labor unions, small businesses, major corporations, non-profits, trade associations and school districts. Our rates are about half of what commercial EAPs charge and the Federal Occupational Health agency, in a prospective cost-benefit estimate of EAPs, showed that for every $1 spent on the EAP, the expected savings for the first year would be $1.27, and those savings would rise to $7.21 by the fifth year. If you or someone you know runs a company that could benefit from EAP services, let's talk. Shoot me a note or give me a call at 516-747-2606. Thanks! Jeffrey L. Reynolds, Ph.D
Executive Director |
| Salvia Ban on the Horizon? | |
 NYS Senator John Flanagan's bill to enact a statewide ban on Salvia passed the NYS Senate last week by a vote of 60-2. All 9 members of Long Island's Senate delegation voted affirmatively and the bill now goes to the state Assembly, where the bill has been stuck in committee since 2005.
Senator Flanagan stepped-up his efforts to ban the dangerous hallucinogenic herb following media reports that Ryan Santanna, a 21-year old Roosevelt Island resident, had allegedly been smoking salvia divinorum before apparently leaping to his death earlier this month. Miley Cyrus allegedly smoked Salvia in a widely circulated Internet video clip late last year. We thank Senator Flanagan for his hard work on this issue and urge the Assembly to act swiftly. Check out Senator Flanagan's press release here. |
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Recovery Awards | |
Know someone who's in long-term recovery from dependence on alcohol or other drugs who's done a top-notch job for many years of giving back to his or her community?
 You have until Apr. 1, 2011 to nominate that person for the Vernon Johnson Award, which is part of the annual America Honors Recovery celebration. Three deserving individuals will be recognized at a Washington, D.C. reception scheduled for June 22. But you don't have to limit your nominations to individuals. You can also nominate recovery community organizations - local, state, or regional - for the Joel Hernandez Award.
According to the nomination announcement, the Joel Hernandez award honors a recovery organization that has been successful in "assessing the specific needs of [its] community and carrying out a vision and mission of mobilizing resources within and outside the recovery community to increase the prevalence and quality of long-term recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs."
The winning organization will get $2,000 and be honored at the June 22 reception.
America Honors Recovery was founded by The Johnson Institute in 2004. The awards are now jointly sponsored by Faces & Voices of Recovery and Hazelden's Center for Public Advocacy. |
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ASAM Comes Out Against MediPot | |
Citing the dangers of marijuana, the lack of clinical research on a controlled substance with a high potential for abuse, and the physician's oath to "first, do no harm," the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has released a white paper recommending a halt to using pot as medicine in states where it has been declared legal.
The organization-considered the nation's leading professional society of physicians involved in addiction prevention, treatment, research, education, and public policy-supports the need for federal regulatory standards for drug approval and distribution, and discourages state interference in the federal medication-approval process.
 "Our policy statement is a careful attempt to put marijuana into proper perspective," said Louis E. Baxter, Sr., MD, FASAM, President and Board Chair, American Society of Addiction Medicine. "We do not recognize this as a 'medication,' having not gone through an official FDA-approval process. As experts in addiction medicine, we reject having its use as such foisted upon us to effectively regulate a non-FDA-approved substance to administer as medicine. We also advise physicians against recommending it, as it is, and possibly forsaking the Hippocratic Oath of 'first do no harm.'"
Currently, laws in 15 states and the District of Columbia allow the use of so-called "medical marijuana." This has resulted in a patchwork system that lacks the patient safeguards normally associated with the appropriate clinical use of psychoactive substances, ASAM policy asserts.
Check out ASAM's paper here. |
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| Save The Date | |
Advocacy Academy
Saturday, April 16th
Massapequa |
LICADD's 24th Annual Angel Ball
Thursday, May 4
Oheka Castle |
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For more than 50 years, LICADD has operated almost entirely on community contributions and donations from people like you. We don't have fancy offices, glossy brochures and a stable of administrators. Our budget is lean, our overhead is minimal and our operations are laser-focused on our core mission of saving lives. That means that your donation goes further when you give to LICADD. And today more than ever, every dollar counts.
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