Long Beach, CA Drug Treatment and Alcohol Rehab Information

 
Beaches, surf, and sun are some of the first things that come to mind when Long Beach, California, is mentioned. Some of the aspects of the city that may be overlooked, however, relate to behavioral health issues. Mental illness as well as drug and alcohol abuse are considered behavioral health issues, and Long Beach has its fair share of public health concerns.

Long Beach is in Los Angeles County and part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Anna metropolitan statistical area (MSA) located on the West Coast of the United States in Southern California. On average, between 2005 and 2010, an estimated 8.7 percent of Long Beach residents had a substance use disorder, while 5.4 percent suffered a major depressive episode in the past year.[1] These rates were just below state and national averages.[2]

Heroin Use Spikes in LA County

Heroin treatment admissions in Los Angeles County jumped almost 10 percent between 2013 and 2014, changing a relatively stable 20 or so percent of all substance abuse treatment admissions in the years 2005-2013 up over 30 percent in 2014.[6] Part of this may be that heroin is flooding the Southern California streets as it comes across the border from Mexico and prices on the street drop.

Prescription opioid painkillers, which many people have become addicted to in recent years throughout America, had been readily available up until law enforcement, federal, state and local agencies began more closely monitoring diversion and prescription of them. Prescription rates of opioid narcotics skyrocketed 600 percent in the 10 years between 1997 and 2007 and deaths from these drugs rose 300 percent as well.[7] Treatment admissions for prescription opioid abuse and dependency at public substance abuse treatment programs close to doubled between 2005 and 2010.[8]

The California Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and California’s Controlled Substance and Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) keep track of controlled prescription drugs as well as the people who are receiving and prescribing them. These agencies also manage the enactment of drug take-back days where residents can drop off unused prescription medications to prevent them from being taken by family members or friends and used recreationally, and work to increase public knowledge though education and prevention programs within schools and by community organizations. Prescription drug manufacturing that prevents tampering with the medications, or altering them for abuse purposes, all helps to decrease the epidemic level abuse of prescription opioid pain relievers in Los Angeles County.

As it becomes more difficult or expensive for individuals to abuse prescription opioids, however, drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) may realize the demand for a cheaper opioid alternative in heroin. Heroin was the fourth most seized and reported drug by local and national NFLIS labs in 2014.[9] By 2014, heroin seizures at the Southwest Border of the United States (much of which lies in Southern California) almost tripled in five years.[10]

The Los Angeles metropolitan area, which includes Long Beach, is so large and densely populated, and contains numerous local drug threats, that it is part of a localized High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). This collaboration of local and national law enforcement and governmental agencies strives to minimize drug activity and presence in the area. The Los Angeles (LA) HIDTA includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties.[11]

DTOs may smuggle drugs through the air, by land, or sea. The Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is the busiest seaport in America and the third busiest in the world, while the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the second-busiest cargo airport in the country and fifth-busiest passenger airport globally.[12] Long Beach is also only a few hours from the Mexico-US border, with multiple major highways running through the city and the surrounding areas. Mexican DTOs may be heavily entrenched in Los Angeles County; drugs may be smuggled into the county, manufactured there, and exported from the area.

Methamphetamine was the number one drug seized and analyzed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) Los Angeles County labs in 2014, at almost 40 percent of all drugs reported in Los Angeles County.[13] Meth is considered to be the biggest drug threat and concern in Los Angeles County.

Drugs and Increased Health Risks

In 2011, alcohol was found to be the second-leading cause of premature death in Los Angeles County.[20] Excessive and chronic alcohol abuse contributes to a number of potentially life-threatening health problems, the most notable of which is cirrhosis of the liver or alcoholic liver disease. This disease was the leading cause of health-related alcohol-involved years of life lost in 2007 in Los Angeles County (homicide was the number one cause of alcohol-involved years of life lost in total).[21]

Alcohol may be the cause of almost 80,000 potential years of life lost in Los Angeles County and can be attributed to 2,500 deaths in the county each year.[22] Twelve percent of the potential years of life lost can be directly tied to death from underage drinking, which is drinking alcohol before the legal age of 21.[23] Underage drinking can lead to alcohol poisoning, motor vehicle fatalities, increased rates of violent crime, and a greater chance of developing an addiction to alcohol.

Education and community prevention methods may be the best course of action to affect underage drinking rates. One such example, the Long Beach Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking, has several local partners and hosts the Long Beach Aware website, which provides links, education, and resources dedicated to preventing and curbing underage alcohol consumption.[24]

In Los Angeles County between 2004 and 2006, individuals who were seen in the local large trauma centers were interviewed in order to get a picture of the relationship between accidents, injuries, and repeated injuries and drug or alcohol abuse.[25] Findings indicated that 24 percent were able to be classified with alcohol abuse while 15 percent admitted to past-month drug use (other than marijuana), showing a high rate of injury related to both alcohol and drug abuse.[26]

Emergency department (ED) visits, poison control center calls, and drug or alcohol overdose deaths are often used as a measure of substance abuse trends in a particular area. Drugs, and/or alcohol, that contribute to the highest numbers may be some of the more heavily abused substances in the region, for example. Mental health may also be affected by substance abuse, as drugs and alcohol can make mental illness symptoms more prevalent.

ED visits, Los Angeles County Poison Control Center calls, and Los Angeles County coroner’s toxicology reports involving overdose deaths in Los Angeles County in 2013 were as follows:

Heroin and meth may be abused through injection, which raises a lot of potential health risks. One of the possible negative consequences of injection drug use is the transmission of infectious disease through the sharing of dirty needles. In Long Beach, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are considered serious public health concerns, and 9 percent of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 2011 in Los Angeles County were concentrated in the city of Long Beach.[28] While the majority of HIV/AIDS cases in Long Beach may be the result of male-to-male sexual contact, as of December 2013, 7 percent could be attributed to injection drug usage.[29]