Brett would have been 23 day today. Last weekend we had what I called a "Brett Fest". We watched some of his home movies he made over the years, from about age 11 until his death. I came away with so many wonderful thoughts of Brett - his amazing sense of humor and just straight up no holds barred love of life and a good laugh. I have never, ever known a kid who had more crazy fun in his life than Brett. I just laughed and laughed right along with him. You couldn't helped but be touched by his total lack of pretense and sheer unadulterated happiness. It was contagious and it comes through so clearly in all his videos.
He just amazed me at how life was always a glass totally full for him. I always felt he was so lucky and I used to kid him and tell him "Brett you're what I want to be when I grow up...smart, good looking and popular." He had all those attributes and more.
And after watching him having such a blast with all his friends and cousins I just had this crystal clear moment of truth that swept over me. It was just an overwhelming sense of total affirmation of what I believed all along - he did not take his life, salvia did. It stopped him dead in his tracks and brought his happy, fun filled life to a screeching halt. He was railroaded by a drug that he was powerless to stop.
We so wish you were here with us sweet, sweet Brett on your birthday, and every day.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Iowa bans K2, bath salts, SALVIA
A huge thank you to Mike Rozga for having his state legislators include salvia in the legislation that passed this week. Salvia is now iillegal in Iowa thanks to Mike. He lost his son, David, exactly as I did Brett - drug related suicide. I was so impressed with Mike and what he was able to achieve in such a short amount of time and he gave me many excellent ideas on how to move salvia regulation forward nationwide. Thank you Mike. I hope Brett and David are looking down and feeling a wonderful sense of pride for their parents, just as we did for them during their all too short time here on earth. Rest in peace David.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Pennsylvania Governor Corbett signs Salvia Bill
June 23, 2011 - Salvia is finally regulated in PA. When I first started my fight to outlaw salvia my initial goal was to have it banned in the surrounding tristate area. My thought was that Brett's friends, who smoked it with him, wouldn't be able to cross state lines to purchase it. In my mind I fervently hoped that maybe, somehow, I could save them when I could no longer save my own son.
5 years later and here I am, still working towards that goal. I'll never give up especially when I hear, just recently, how Brett's best friend, and frequent salvia user, is in the words of Brett's cousin "a total waste". A guy, just like Brett, with such intelligence, enthusiasm, and potential, all gone, because of his drug use. I thought he would have learned something from Brett's death. I still remember just 3 days after Brett died, asking him please, please, please to give up salvia, to think how it had taken away his best friend, a guy who loved life and living every day. Brett would be devastated to know what happened to his best buddy Mike. 2 lives lost, one forever and one, with help and a good dose of common sense, that may be recoverable. We can only hope.
5 years later and here I am, still working towards that goal. I'll never give up especially when I hear, just recently, how Brett's best friend, and frequent salvia user, is in the words of Brett's cousin "a total waste". A guy, just like Brett, with such intelligence, enthusiasm, and potential, all gone, because of his drug use. I thought he would have learned something from Brett's death. I still remember just 3 days after Brett died, asking him please, please, please to give up salvia, to think how it had taken away his best friend, a guy who loved life and living every day. Brett would be devastated to know what happened to his best buddy Mike. 2 lives lost, one forever and one, with help and a good dose of common sense, that may be recoverable. We can only hope.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
NY Senate Passes Bill To Ban Salvia Divinorum
Thanks to Senator John Flanagan for listening to Brett's story.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
5 Years an Angel
Today marks the 5th anniversary of Brett's passing, 5 years an angel, looking down, protecting and guiding us. I heard a quote last week that really reminded me of how we, as Brett's family, feel on many days - "we feel his presence more than his absence." Certainly not every day, as the missing and yearning to see him will never go away, but his strong presence and sense of self, is still very much with us, some days more than others. Our entire family could write a book on the psychic/paranormal activity that we have experienced since his death. Brett had the most beautiful, clear sense of being. You knew he was in a room without his making a sound. His presence was always that profound. He was a boy that could say volumes without saying a word. That trait of his, one that I loved more than anything, has not changed since his passing. His strength has allowed him, even from the other side, to make us aware he is still present. Best of all his incredible, uplifting sense of humor still shines thru whenever we experience his "shenanigans" (as he would call them).
We love you Brett. You are still our shining light. May that never end.
We love you Brett. You are still our shining light. May that never end.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
New Link between Salvia and the Arizona Tragedy
More proof of what I know to be true of Salvia - it can cause mind altering psychosis. I really believe Salvia can "flip the switch" in a young person's brain and it can do it in a heartbeat. Brett's dad and I both know, as well as the rest of our family and Brett's girlfriend, that this switch flipped in Brett's brain in the matter of 24 hours. Even though he was one of the strongest, most together boy/men I have ever known he never had a chance against salvia. None.
Salvia and the Arizona Shooting
A friend says that Jared Loughner used the hallucinogen salvia. Could the drug have affected his brain?
Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union Tribune-ZUMA Press
A Salvia divinorum plant, photographed in the lab of a researcher.
Alleged Arizona shooter Jared Loughner used salvia, the hallucinogenic drug, according to a high-school friend of his. Obviously, Loughner was troubled. But did salvia have anything to do with it?
Currently, there’s very little scientific information about the drug’s effects—thanks, in part, to salvia’s relative safety. “So far the federal government has not funded any studies, because it’s not seen as relevant until someone dies of an overdose,” says Dr. John Mendelson, a pharmacologist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. “The only reported injuries are idiot injuries: people drop the apparatus they were using, fall of their chair, that type of thing.”
Salvia is still legal in a majority of states, and millions of Americans have used the drug without incident. That includes pop star Miley Cyrus, who was caught on video last year smoking salvia from a bong. (Anecdotal evidence indicates that sales spiked as a result.)
What little research that has been done shows that all strains of Salvia divinorum, a plant grown for centuries in Mexico, produces a chemical called Salvionon A. This chemical affects the kappa opioid receptor, a part of the brain that’s in large part responsible for our perceptions of reality.
In an unmodified state, salvia—whether it’s smoked, chewed, or swallowed in extract form—produces an intense high, lasting less than half an hour. “It’s one of the most behaviorally impairing drugs that we’ve come across,” says Dr. Matthew Johnson, assistant professor of psychology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “At the higher doses, people are completely dissociated from this reality . . . They describe being completely transported to another dimension.”
Typically, those who use salvia are not able to do much, says Johnson. The limited intoxication period of the drug, combined with its impairing effects on mobility, make it unlikely that Loughner used it at the time of the shooting.
There is, however, at least one reported case of salvia leading to a mental breakdown. “We had a case of a male who came in, 23 years old, and was actively psychotic,” says Dr. Peter Przekop, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California. “The only thing we could attach it to was the night before, he had smoked the XXX [high-strength] salvia. We stabilized him, put him on medication, transferred him to the psych department. When we tried to gradually wean him off antipsychotics, the symptoms returned. This was permanent psychosis we suspect was brought on by this drug.”
Przekop, who published a letter detailing his case in the American Journal of Psychology, hypothesizes that the patient had a predisposition for mental illness brought on by salvia use. Meanwhile, a mother in Delaware claims that her son’s suicide was triggered by his use of the drug. (She successfully fought to make it illegal in that state.)
The effect salvia had, if any, on Loughner’s mental state is thus far impossible to ascertain. In describing his tenuous connection with reality, one friend told The New York Times, “he would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue.” While that sounds like the ramblings of someone on a powerful trip, it’s not consistent with the salvia experience.
Unlike LSD or mushrooms, salvia’s high “doesn’t have the bright colors, noises, agitation, and anxiety [of other hallucinogens],” says Mendelson, who jokingly refers to it as an “Old Testament” drug. Users describe becoming objects—turning into the chair they’re sitting on, or being absorbed into the fabric of the couch. “It’s possible that people would report color changes, but it’s not common,” says Johnson.
Johnson suggests that the novelty of the drug has led to unnecessary media attention. “Alcohol can have horrible, horrible interactions with mental illness, but it doesn’t sound so scary because we all know people who drink,” he says, noting that there’s no evidence to prove that salvia can have negative effects on those with psychological problems. “People have a need to explain these things, but I’d advise caution in leading people to grasp on something that’s probably not there,” he says. “The big factor is this guy was probably very mentally ill.”
Salvia and the Arizona Shooting
A friend says that Jared Loughner used the hallucinogen salvia. Could the drug have affected his brain?
Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union Tribune-ZUMA Press
A Salvia divinorum plant, photographed in the lab of a researcher.
Alleged Arizona shooter Jared Loughner used salvia, the hallucinogenic drug, according to a high-school friend of his. Obviously, Loughner was troubled. But did salvia have anything to do with it?
Currently, there’s very little scientific information about the drug’s effects—thanks, in part, to salvia’s relative safety. “So far the federal government has not funded any studies, because it’s not seen as relevant until someone dies of an overdose,” says Dr. John Mendelson, a pharmacologist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. “The only reported injuries are idiot injuries: people drop the apparatus they were using, fall of their chair, that type of thing.”
Salvia is still legal in a majority of states, and millions of Americans have used the drug without incident. That includes pop star Miley Cyrus, who was caught on video last year smoking salvia from a bong. (Anecdotal evidence indicates that sales spiked as a result.)
What little research that has been done shows that all strains of Salvia divinorum, a plant grown for centuries in Mexico, produces a chemical called Salvionon A. This chemical affects the kappa opioid receptor, a part of the brain that’s in large part responsible for our perceptions of reality.
In an unmodified state, salvia—whether it’s smoked, chewed, or swallowed in extract form—produces an intense high, lasting less than half an hour. “It’s one of the most behaviorally impairing drugs that we’ve come across,” says Dr. Matthew Johnson, assistant professor of psychology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “At the higher doses, people are completely dissociated from this reality . . . They describe being completely transported to another dimension.”
Typically, those who use salvia are not able to do much, says Johnson. The limited intoxication period of the drug, combined with its impairing effects on mobility, make it unlikely that Loughner used it at the time of the shooting.
There is, however, at least one reported case of salvia leading to a mental breakdown. “We had a case of a male who came in, 23 years old, and was actively psychotic,” says Dr. Peter Przekop, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California. “The only thing we could attach it to was the night before, he had smoked the XXX [high-strength] salvia. We stabilized him, put him on medication, transferred him to the psych department. When we tried to gradually wean him off antipsychotics, the symptoms returned. This was permanent psychosis we suspect was brought on by this drug.”
Przekop, who published a letter detailing his case in the American Journal of Psychology, hypothesizes that the patient had a predisposition for mental illness brought on by salvia use. Meanwhile, a mother in Delaware claims that her son’s suicide was triggered by his use of the drug. (She successfully fought to make it illegal in that state.)
The effect salvia had, if any, on Loughner’s mental state is thus far impossible to ascertain. In describing his tenuous connection with reality, one friend told The New York Times, “he would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue.” While that sounds like the ramblings of someone on a powerful trip, it’s not consistent with the salvia experience.
Unlike LSD or mushrooms, salvia’s high “doesn’t have the bright colors, noises, agitation, and anxiety [of other hallucinogens],” says Mendelson, who jokingly refers to it as an “Old Testament” drug. Users describe becoming objects—turning into the chair they’re sitting on, or being absorbed into the fabric of the couch. “It’s possible that people would report color changes, but it’s not common,” says Johnson.
Johnson suggests that the novelty of the drug has led to unnecessary media attention. “Alcohol can have horrible, horrible interactions with mental illness, but it doesn’t sound so scary because we all know people who drink,” he says, noting that there’s no evidence to prove that salvia can have negative effects on those with psychological problems. “People have a need to explain these things, but I’d advise caution in leading people to grasp on something that’s probably not there,” he says. “The big factor is this guy was probably very mentally ill.”
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