Why CPR?

Would you know what to do if your spouse or family member suddenly collapsed?  CPR and/or First Aid are amazing skills to know when an emergency happens.  CPR is the most important emergency rescue skill you can learn, especially because nine out of ten cardiac arrest victims who do not receive immediate CPR do not survive.  Anyone can take their loved one to the hospital, but the first responder can make the difference between life and death.

Hands only CPR is simple to learn and is actually recommended for bystanders at the scene of an accident.  It involves delivering fast and hard chest compressions to someone whose heart has stopped or is not breathing.  With hands only CPR there is no mouth to mouth resuscitation needed only the compressions.  Studies have shown that the compressions are much more effective at keeping a victim alive than the breaths.  The compressions allow the blood to continue to flow to the brain to help prevent brain damage.

There are different ways to administer CPR depending on whether the victim is an infant or an adult, but the most important rule is to perform CPR until EMS arrives or until an AED can be used. 

First Aid is also a very useful tool even for just every day around the house.  You will learn how to handle burns, choking, heat strokes, minor cuts, and many other health concerns that can happen to us on a daily basis.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to step in and help someone who is in need and possibly in danger by simply taking time to learn new skills?  If so look up your local American Heart Association or Red Cross chapter and see about scheduling a class near you.  The next life you save could be that of a loved one.

Legalized marijuana and jobs

Maggie: Hey Jack, I heard you got that new job at the factory.  When do you start?

Jack: I would have started tomorrow, but I failed my drug test. 

Maggie: Failed the test?  I didn’t think you did drugs.

Jack: I don’t. But, I overheard someone saying they failed their test because they had a Mary Jane last night, and I ate a Mary Jane candy bar this morning for breakfast, so I didn’t even bother trying to take it.

Blunt, Mary Jane, joint, grass.  Whatever you might call it, marijuana is a hot topic right now everywhere you go.  With 23 states that have legalized medical marijuana and 4 now with recreational marijuana use (CO & WA in 2012 and OR and AK in 2014), the topic of work place drug testing and legal drug use has come to the top of everyone’s radar.  Some users think that because it’s legal to use marijuana in those 4 states that they can get away with popping positive on a drug test, but you can’t.

“Wait a minute there, that’s not fair.  The state says I can use it, so why are you telling me I can’t get a job while using it.”

A federal law always trumps state laws when it comes to drug use.  The local police can pull you over, and you might not get a ticket for possession. But if you are busted by the DEA, you can go to jail.  It’s the same for an employer.  Employers want to make sure that their customers or vendors are handled consistently with the best customer service that can be provided.  Also for jobs in safety positions like a pilot or train conductor, marijuana can interfere with their decision making abilities.

“That still sounds like discrimination.  I’m just as capable of handling customers and handling the machinery when I’ve had a joint as when I have not.”

Well, I wish I could say that you are, but research has shown that some of the short term effects of marijuana can be to impair or reduce short-term memory and/or a reduction in the ability to perform tasks that require concentration and/or coordination, like handling machinery.  Employers want to make sure not only are the customers given the best treatment they should have, but also want to make sure that the employees are safe on the job site.  They would prefer not to have the liability of an employee that might be high working on equipment that could hurt someone else. 

“Well the key word there is short term.  I can smoke a joint before I go to work and be fine the rest of the day.”

Again that’s just not the case.  The effects of one joint starts within just a few minutes of the first toke, and can reach a peak after 30 minutes. But most of the effects don’t return to normal until 5 hours after that first hit.  Generally the high from that hit can last up to 3 hours depending on your tolerance of the drug.  Employers do understand that states have legalized the drug, but they also understand that, even though marijuana might be considered a “safe” drug by some, there is still a strong possibility that someone can get hurt while on that high. 

“Well I’ll just sue them for wrongful termination then, if they fire me.”

Good luck on that!  Turns out that any cases of employees suing for that are usually tried on the federal level, and because federal laws take precedence over state, they are more likely to be thrown out for that reason.  There have been cases of wrongful termination on the basis of legalized marijuana in both CO and WA (where it is legal), and the results were in the favor of the employer.  Colorado has actually worded in the law, “Nothing in this section is intended to require an employer to permit or accommodate the use of marijuana in the workplace, or to affect the ability of employers to have policies restricting the use of marijuana by employees.”  Even in CA, where they have only legalized medical marijuana, they have the same outcome in court cases.  So the precedent has been set that even though marijuana might be legal, your employer can fire you for using it, if they have a drug policy that says you can’t.  At this point employers are free to keep their zero tolerance drug policies on the record without facing any type of legal consequences, like fines. 

So keep it in mind that just because you might be able to legally do marijuana within your state, your employers don’t have to legally keep you.  Whether you have a job that is strictly customer service oriented or are in a safety job like a pilot, it’s best to stay away from marijuana even during off hours. You would be saving your job, and possibly someone else’s life.

Did you know about the deadliest drug?

Ok so question for you to think about and ponder on.  What is the deadliest drug on the planet?  Cocaine?  Marijuana?  Meth?  Surprisingly none of those are the deadliest, that title goes to heroin.  Heroin isn’t one you seem to hear a lot about on the news as they typically talk about cocaine, marijuana, and meth.  Currently the U.S. has the worst heroin epidemic ever all due to the fact that it can be delivered right to your front door.

Yes, delivered to your front door and you may not even be aware that you have had it delivered.  Heroin is an opiate that is very chemically similar, sometimes referred to as a chemical sibling, to opioid pain killers like OxyContin, Vicodin, and Percocet.  Heroin has gained in popularity due to the fact that it is much cheaper than those pills and can actually be smoked or snorted giving the same effects as being injected.  This helped several users to get the high without the needles and allows younger users to experiment much easier.

 

Heroin isn’t a new drug either, it’s been around since it was first discovered in 1874.  Chemists created heroin trying to find a less addictive form of morphine, but ultimately discovered heroin had twice the potency.  This lead to heroin addiction and due to the fact it’s so chemically similar to opioid pain killers has become the new drug of choice for those users.  Because doctors wrote millions of prescriptions for opioid painkillers from 1999 to 2010, thousands of Americans became addicted.  Chemists reformulated opioids to make them harder to abuse and a government crackdown on who could be prescribed the painkillers drove up the cost of the pills.

 

Typically those who use needles are deemed “hardcore junkies” while those who smoke consider themselves a more casual user and are under a false impression that they won’t be addicted, much the same way as tobacco.  Surveys show that about 80% of all heroin users started out using opioid pain killers and it’s not just some nameless homeless guys doing it.  According to Burlington, Vermont police chief Michael Schirling “We’ve got soccer moms on heroin.  This is a completely underground, behind-closed-doors phenomenon.”

The DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment has reported that 9% of all law enforcement agencies deemed heroin as highly available in 2007 and by 2013 the availability skyrocketed to 40%.  The northeast area of the states including Vermont, New York, and New Jersey the percentages jumped even higher.  The governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin, dedicated nearly all of his State of the State Address to the issue of heroin and addiction.  Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick declared a public health emergency in March 2014 due to the spike of deaths from heroin.

Despite the best attempts to try and reign in this deadly drug, overdose deaths aren’t uncommon, especially when they combine cocaine with the heroin and make a speedball.  For users who aren’t getting that high from heroin, due to the fact that they have developed a tolerance, they turn to mixing the drug with cocaine to get the high they desire.  Combining drugs is a very chancy thing to do and the results are typically deadly.