Save the Date:

Addiction Medicine 2012 Conference

March 30 and March 31

Asheville, NC

(Renaissance Asheville, 31 Woodfin Street, Asheville, NC)

The American Red Cross (ARC) continues to work on building Disaster Mental Health (DMH) capacity across the country and is therefore again offering a training for licensed mental health professionals who want to become active as disaster mental health (DMH) volunteers!  If you are not yet Red Cross trained but would like to take the required Foundations of Disaster Mental Health class in order to be officially trained with Red Cross (and possibly respond as a volunteer in the near future), please consider taking a Webinar being offered on November 2^nd.  Or, even if you have been trained through NC DRN or by ARC many years ago, this updated training might prove to be valuable to you as well. Taking this course not only allows you to become active with ARC but also with the NC DRN. 

Currently, there are no openings for national disaster deployments but becoming a volunteer now will allow you to be ready for local disasters and for future national disaster deployment.

This newest (and shortest!) Red Cross class, Foundations of Disaster Mental Health, will be on Wednesday, November 2^nd at 2:45 pm Eastern Time.  Participants should allot three (3) hours to take the training.  Also, please be aware that you will need both a computer with an internet connection in order to see the slides and a phone connection for the audio portion. 

To register for this training session go to http://bit.ly/qyANvM.

Once you are approved by the host, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the session.

You can download more information about recruitment and  eligibility HERE:   Red Cross Recruitment Information [44.0 KiB]
  Red Cross Eligibility Info [41.5 KiB]

From the Washington Examiner 10.18.11

North Carolina can’t rely solely on customer data collection requirements for cold medicine sales and law enforcement to eradicate the resurging problems of methamphetamine, state House members said Tuesday.

Members of a special House committee, meeting for the first time to recommend next year to the full Legislature how to reduce meth abuse, suggested increased funding for state agents that investigate every uncovered meth operation, as well as a greater emphasis on helping users break the habit. Meth is a highly addictive drug. It’s produced with volatile chemicals that can lead to explosions.

“We need to get everybody around the table and help us determine what we need to do, and then make sure we go out address this as aggressively as we can,” said Rep. Joe Tolson, D-Edgecombe. “What I have been hearing for years now is how devastating this stuff is.”

The number of meth labs the State Bureau of Investigation responded to statewide were cut in half within two years of a 2005 law requiring all pills containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine — key ingredients for meth — be sold in a limited number of packets behind a pharmacy counter. Purchasers show picture ID and sign a log.

But the SBI response to labs has slowly increased in recent years, reaching 271 so far this year, according to agency data.

Meth lab rings are sending out runners to purchase the medicines in legal amounts to bypass the limits, while a new “one-pot” method allows the drug to be mixed in a soda bottle or glass tea bottles, rather than lab equipment, said John Emerson, state director of a federal program designed to target drug trafficking. This new method is more portable, allowing the illegal activity to spread easily. The SBI has responded to labs in 61 of the state’s 100 counties this year.

From the Winston-Salem Journal 10.18.11

Daymark Recovery Services Inc. is rushing to take over the programs of New River Behavioral Healthcare by Nov. 1, as New River’s funding stream continues to dry up.

That action means some New River employees have just two more weeks on the job.

New River, based in Boone, serves nearly 13,000 clients in need of behavioral-health services in eight counties — Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Iredell, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes and Yadkin. It has about 300 employees.

The N.C. Division of Medical Assistance alleges that at least four examples of fraud have taken place at New River. The provider has not received N.C. Medicaid payments since Oct. 4, “due to allegations made against the provider and deemed to be credible,” said Brad Deen, a division spokesman.

Billy West, executive director of Daymark, said Monday that his agency is getting services in place as quickly as possible to avoid “a complete failure” with New River. “This is a very, very unfortunate event for all,” he said.

“Barring some delay in some state licensing issue or inability to agree on a contract — both of which I do not anticipate — Daymark will be open when New River closes Nov. 1 to at a minimum provide walk-in, outpatient and medical services.”

West said Daymark intends to offer jobs to managers and medical staff and have finished all budgets and contracts with local management entities (LMEs) this week.

For more on this story click HERE.

Division of MH/DD/SAS Update News Highlights and Excerpts from State Documents for October 2011.

Download the update HERE:   Division Update October 2011 [67.5 KiB]