Marianne Chai, MD, director of the Center for Living in New York, first encountered kratom a few years ago when a teenage boy came to her office for addiction treatment. “He had been drinking it as a tea to help with anxiety and ultimately ended up in the school’s student health center in acute opioid withdrawal,” she says.

Kratom is a substance derived from the leaves of a plant native to Southeast Asia. At low doses, it produces stimulant effects comparable to medications commonly used to treat ADHD; at higher doses, the substance functions as an opioid. However, kratom doesn’t require a prescription, and unlike “street” opioids such as heroin, it is currently legal and easy to purchase. And there’s the rub: Because it’s legal and made from a plant, there’s a misperception that kratom is safe. In fact, it’s addictive.

“High school and college students are surrounded by kratom these days — in smoke shops and on the internet, says Mike Milham, MD, PhD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute. “For students especially, you can imagine the allure of the stimulant effects, but once you start experiencing the euphoria of the opioid aspect, you’re at risk for addiction.”

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New Staff Highlight!

Coalition Rx is excited to have Sebastian as our newest staff member. Sebastian joins us to do Volunteer Recruitment and Media Relations. Watch for lessons from Sebastian Speaks in upcoming newsletters and on social media!



Sebastian

Volunteer Recruitment/ Media Relations

Sebastian Speaks

by Sebastian, Coalition Rx spokesdog

Well, hello there, friends! I'm so happy to be working with Coalition Rx to help share their mission of reducing the misuse of all substances of abuse by raising awareness in our community. I'm just a little guy, so at first I wondered what I could do to help. But my mom told me that I could talk about the things that I am learning when she shares lessons from the programs that she helps teach.

Just last week, she was talking to me about making good choices. That's a key part of the Too Good For Drugs and Violence Program that Coalition Rx helps engage school age students in. My mom has this bedspread that has several buttons sewn onto it. I really like to chew on these buttons. My mom kept telling me that was not a good choice, and then I found out that she was right! I was just sitting there chewing on one of the buttons and guess what happened! I chewed it right off! At first I was so surprised, I didn't know what to do with that little button in my mouth. But then that button went right into my throat, and I started choking on it. I was so scared! But my mom was right there and she had to stick her fingers into my mouth to pull that button out. After she gave me some snuggles to calm me down she talked to me about making good choices.

She told me that in the TGFDAV program, kids learn about making responsible decisions and that every decision has a consequence. That was a really big word that I didn't understand. She explained that a consequence is what happens as a result of something you do or a decision you make. A consequence can be good or it can be bad. Good decisions have good consequences; bad decisions have bad consequences. My decision to keep chewing on the button led to the consequence of the button coming off and choking me. That was a bad consequence in my view! So now I need to remember that choice and work on making better choices the next time - AND listening to my mom. She told me that her TGFDAV kids learn to stop and think when they have a decision to make. So that's what I'm going to try to do, too! Maybe next time I can make a better choice with a good consequence.

Too Good For Drugs and Violence

Summer Programs Have Begun!

Middle and High School students that come to Aspire for Greatness in Fremont have spent June learning about setting goals, making good decisions, and managing their emotions as they engage in the Too Good For Drugs and Violence program.

WISE at the Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition

The Wellness Initiative for Senior Education Program is a wellness and prevention program targeting older adults, which is designed to help them celebrate healthy aging, make healthy lifestyle choices and avoid substance abuse. It provides valuable educational services to older adults on topics including medication misuse and management, stress management, depression, and substance abuse.

The WISE group at the Urban Indian Health Coalition recently created their own recipe boxes and then made traditional fry bread together as they engaged in learning about healthy food choices. Check out a recipe for fry bread below.

Some Stats on Substance Use in the LGBTQ Community

• 41.3% of sexual minority adults 18 and older reported past-year marijuana use compared to 18.7% of the overall adult population.
• Approximately 6.7% of sexual minority adults in 2020 misused opioids (prescription opioids or heroin use) in the past year compared to 3.6% of the overall adult population.
• Approximately 21.8% of sexual minority adults had an alcohol use disorder in the past year compared to 11.0% in the overall population.

Information from 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Too Good For Drugs and Violence:

Decision Making

We all face hundreds of decisions every single day. Some are big decisions like telling the truth or not. And some are small decisions like whether we want ketchup or mustard on our hot dog. A core piece of the TGFDAV program lessons is learning to stop and think about the consequences of decisions.