Portland, Oregon:
Drug Abuse

Portland, Oregon: Alcohol and Drug Addiction Information

Portland is home to the NBA’s Oregon Trail Blazers, the Oregon Ballet Theatre and the Portland Opera. The city has dozens of museums and art galleries and venues for the performing arts of all kinds.

Portland prides itself on protecting its parks and open spaces and it is one of only three cities in the Lower 48 with extinct volcanoes within its boundaries.

Portland is well known for its vibrant youth culture involving everything from music and skateboarding to crafts.

Portland tends to rate higher than the national average in crime rates including theft and arson. Portland has long struggled with a severe drug problem.

Portland Oregon’s Drug Situation

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that marijuana, the most frequently abused illegal drug in Oregon, is readily available. Its abuse, cultivation, and trafficking are a significant threat.

Medical marijuana initiatives within the state have created additional challenges as local producers use these laws to conceal their illegal activity.

Growers may produce an authorized amount of marijuana in their licensed grow but then also supply the black market with more product.

In 2015, recreational marijuana became legal in Oregon. Only time will reveal the full impact of this legislative shift.

Cocaine is available throughout Oregon. While the powder form is most prevalent, crack cocaine is found in some urban areas. Mexican traffickers dominate wholesale distribution, transporting the drug from Mexico, California and southwestern states. Portland drug abuse rehabs are often confronted with cocaine addicts.

Heroin has long been a problem in urban centers in Oregon. The most common form of heroin encountered in Oregon is Mexican black tar heroin.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations primarily control the transportation and distribution of Mexican black tar and brown powdered heroin into and throughout Oregon, with Mexican street gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs involved to a lesser extent.

Methamphetamine has long been a severe threat in West Coast cities. In Portland, this threat exists at high levels. Oregon is one of only a few states that made cold medications with pseudoephedrine a prescription-only drug. This substance is a necessary precursor drug for methamphetamine ”cooks” and this legislative change almost totally eliminated small domestic meth labs in the state. Unfortunately, there is a steady supply of methamphetamine coming up from large labs in Mexico or California’s Central Valley.

MDMA (4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), ketamine, and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) are available in varying quantities. These drugs are popular mostly on college campuses, at music festivals and other alternative lifestyle events. PCP and psilocybin mushrooms are generally available around cities with a college student population.

While heroin is sending increasing numbers of people to drug rehab facilities in Oregon, the number of people needing rehab for prescription drugs is relatively low and unchanging.

The Dwindling Spiral Will Continue

Portland is a beautiful city, nicknamed “the City of Roses.” But when lives are lost to drug overdoses, life is anything but beautiful. The families of the addicted in this area need a concrete solution to the damage done by addiction. No family should ever have to worry about hearing that a loved one has died from an overdose or suffered permanent damage from LSD, methamphetamine or other drugs.

Once a family has lost a loved one to addiction, life is never the same again. Similarly, businesses struggle with the costs attendant with having drug-addicted or impaired employees. The entire community suffers from the harm and costs of drug use and addiction. Effective drug rehab can help turn this situation around.

Choosing a Drug Rehab and Addiction Treatment Program

A family choosing a drug rehab program for a loved one should scrutinize that program carefully. This could be the most important investment the family ever makes as a person’s happiness and very life depend on the success of the rehab.

Ask questions about the phases of recovery at the program and make sure that you understand the answers. Competent intake personnel should be able to make the services clearly understandable.

The rehab program should have one goal—to help the client lead a sober, productive life after completion. Too many centers only measure how many people complete the program, saying that relapses are to be expected. The family should consider if this simply means that the program is not able to bring their clients to the point that they want to be sober and have the skills to deal with life so they are not driven to abuse substances once again.

At a Narconon rehab center, the focus is on enabling each client to stay abstinent after graduation as this is the best way to ensure his abilities to succeed in life are unimpaired.

Should the Drug Rehab Location Matter When It Comes to Finding a Solution to Addiction?

It’s also good to be far away from the school where he or she failed classes, the apartments where he used to buy drugs, his old heroin-addicted girlfriend’s home and other locations that could stimulate the desire to use drugs or drink again.

In a fresh location, surrounded by supportive people and others making the same journey to sobriety, a person has the right environment in which to leave the trauma of the past behind and make progress toward a new ability to stay drug-free and alcohol-free. Instead of running one step ahead of death and destruction, each person can now learn how to build a positive, productive new life.

By providing a new, safe trigger-free environment, distanced from past negative associations and surroundings for an extended period of time, the chance for success increases dramatically.

Our program provides people with positive circumstances to increase their chances of a successful recovery. The vast majority of students entering our program are from out of state.

Narconon New Life Retreat Helps END Addiction and Alcoholism FOR GOOD.

There is no time limit at Narconon New Life Retreat. At this facility, each person progresses at his own rate. It takes each person a different amount of time to break the dangerous patterns of the past and learn how to make new decisions that result in sobriety.

The Narconon program steps are entirely drug-free. No drugs are ever administered as part of recovery. Instead, nutritional supplements are used to help the body recover from the abuse of alcohol consumption or drug abuse. These supplements are seen to calm the body and lift the mood of most people simply because of the deficiencies that existed when the person arrived at rehab.

The focus of much of the Narconon program is teaching each person life skills like these:

Identifying those associates or friends that might lead one back into drug use and addiction and knowing how to deal with them when located

Knowing how to identify those people who will be reliable and safe associates

Understanding what activities rob one of personal integrity and knowing the procedure for restoring one’s integrity and self-respect

Having the tools to make drug-free decisions, especially at critical moments of challenge

And many more.

Call anytime to speak with one of our counselors about our program. We will take the time to answer your questions whether it be for yourself or a loved one.

It is possible to replace the loss and pain of alcohol or drug addiction with a productive, enjoyable life.

Call now.