The Latest Deadly Drug Habit

Who would have thought that bath salts could be deadly. When Neil Brown got high on dangerous chemicals sold as bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
Apparently there are some brands of bath salts that include a chemicals from China and India called Mephadrone and MDPV. These organic chemicals are imported from these countries, added to the salts, and then marketed in the US. Names of the salts also include "White Lightning," and "Hurricane Charlie." Teens and adults are smoking it, snorting it, and injecting it.
The results of this abuse are deadly. Users of this experience hallucinations, altered speech pattern, delirium, severe paranoia, pscyhosis, and suicide. Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals.
In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the advertised bath salts.
"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there."
While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on the powders there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.
At the present time, federal authorities are also looking into what can be done to stop the sale of these "bath salts." In the mean time, parents need to be aware of this new danger.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul

Philadelphia's Abortion Horror

Here in Philadelphia an abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, M.D., has been charged with murder in the death of a woman, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who came for an abortion. According to the Grand Jury inditement, he allowed untrained personel to adminster powerful anesthesia drugs which resulted in her death. Many other women wound up in emergency rooms with various injuries from his malpractice. In addition, a number of babies were born as a result of his performing late term abortions and he murdered them with a pair of sciossors. Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams said during a press conference Wednesday that Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord."The district attorney also said patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society.Authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic last year and stumbled on what Williams called a "house of horrors.""There were bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses scattered throughout the building," Williams said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."
The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.
Workers, some of whom were also charged with murder, were untrained and unlicensed, including a high-school student who performed anesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics, Williams said.
Not only am I, like any decent person would be, horrified and sickened by the horrific acts committed by this sick excuse for a physician. But I also think about the fact that the authorities who have oversight of the abortion clincs allowed this facility to operate for years. State regulators were given numerous reports of problems and yet NO ONE BOTHERED TO INVESTIGATE! Those of us who are Pro-Life have warned that the abortion business culture of death would lead to a de-valuing of human life. While this case is a more extreme example, it seems to me that the culture of death has desensitized us as a nation to the sanctity of life. If there is another explanation for the fact that, as D.A. Williams said, there is more oversight of a beauty parlor than an abortion clinic, I would like to hear it.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul

Haiti One Year After the Earthquake

On January 12 it will be one year since the devastating earthquake that hit the nation of Haiti, one of the poorest on the planet. It has been 8 months since I went to Haiti for the pastor's conference in Port Au Prince. Haiti is about the size of Maryland with a population of 10 million people. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line, and 54% living in adject poverty. The daily personal income averages to $2 per day.

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck at 4:53 in the afternoon with the epicenter 10 miles West of Port-au-Prince. As many as 250,000 people were killed and 1.2 million people were displaced . Since then there have been 33 aftershocks.

To me, the biggest aftershock is not the physical impact of the earthquake, as horrible as that was and how it continues to impact the people. It is the spiritual aftershocks. God is working in the midst of the incredible suffering. It is hard to imagine what a tent city is like until you are there and see an ocean of tents as far as the eye can see. When we came for the conference, we met pastors who had suffered so much, yet were hungry for what God could do in their lives and in their congregations and communities. Here is an excerpt from my first message which opened the conference:
We want you to know that as a pastor, who knows Christ, armed with the Word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you are more capable than you realize to help the people suffering in your church, and in your community. You don’t need to be an expert in post-traumatic stress, or have a doctoral degree to make a difference.
Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
But we also want to bind up your wounds, to minister to your hearts. Our goal is that as you experience the ministry of God to you, you will begin to experience healing, your hope will be renewed, and you will be better equipped to be servant leaders to your people.

Little did I how prophetic these words would be. God is doing amazing things in Haiti, breaking the stronghold of supersition and vodoo which has gripped so many. The church is rebuilding and revival is breaking out.

To find out more, I encourage you to go to the web site of the organization which sponsored the conference in which I participated, http://www.churcheshelpingchurches.org/. Pray for the pastors and people of Haiti. Our God is an awesome God!
Blessings,
Dr. Paul

I Thought I was a Dad

This is not exactly how I envisioned my first blog entry of 2011, but the U.S. State Department has a new policy that I just can't ignore. For the last 23 years, I was known as Dad, the father of my first child, followed in the next couple of years as being Dad to my two sons. I like the idea of being Dad. But according to the State Department application for a passport, I am no longer know as this. I am simply "Parent #1" or "Parent #2" depending on how I might feel when filling out the application. In the latest example of trying to redefine the family, and wanting to be overly sensitive to situations where a child has two members of the same sex for his adoptive parents, the terms "mother" and "father" are now removed. I am simply either Thing 1 or Thing 2, no, wait a minute, that is Parent 1 or Parent 2.
How pathetic are we getting as a nation? Here is what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has to say about this change: "Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
So much for being a Dad.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul

New Year Blessings

I know lots of happy people, and I know lots of unhappy people. Regardless of which one you may be, I think for many of us, 2010 is a year that can't end quick enough. Much of this is due to an economy that is still in a tail spin. In my relatively brief 49 years, I can't remember a time when more people that I know personally, and in the course of my ministry, are unemployed. Of course, there are the normal hurts, disappointments, frustrations, and failures found in everyone's life. Maybe you are depressed due to unemployment and financial pressure, grieving the loss of a loved one or some other loss, weighed down by concerns for one or more family members, or any number of reasons why you are glad 2010 is about to end.
I want to share a word from God that I hope will encourage you as we begin 2011. It was written during a very dark, depressing, and difficult time in the lives of God's people. It comes from one of the saddest books of the Bible, Lamentations (even the name communicates great despair!). Yet as bad as things were when it was written, it is a book that conveys a message of hope. Not a blind, put your head in the sand kind of hope. It is a gritty, "don't ignore how bad things are" hope. The word from God I want you to ponder is found in chapter 3, verses 22-25:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, therefore I will hope in him." The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
You may have a hard time believing this right now, that's ok, so did many of the people who saw nothing but suffering when these words were first given. Know that there is hope, and this hope is found in God. If you are a follower of Christ, then the Lord is your portion. You are an object of his love and mercy, and they are new every morning. Tomorrow morning is the beginning of a new year, wait for him and he will deliver.
New Year Blessings,
Dr. Paul

Please Forgive Me, I Said "Christmas"

National Public Radio legal correspondant Nina Totenberg was recently part of a round table discussion about the federal budget. She then mentions in passing that attended an event at the Department of Justice, and sought to apologize for it and what it was called. So what kind of party was this? What Totenberg into the headlines was her comment that “I was at – forgive the expression – a ‘Christmas party’ at the Department of Justice, and people were really worried about this.” She then continued with the comments she was making. She didn’t make air quotes around “Christmas party,” but it sounds like she was tempted.
My, my, how shameful that she would allow the word Christmas to be uttered by her politically correct, diversity celebrating, liberal mouth. It never ceases to amaze me that the same liberals who talk about diversity never allow for the traditional, Christian point of view. It is ok to be part of any other religious or non-religious point of view, but not the Christian view. You can mention Happy Chanukkah, Happy Kwanza, have a happy Ramadan, but not Christmas.
The other point here is that she seems to be dismissive of people who might actually enjoy going to a Christmas party. I mean how awlful to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, to celebrate a season about giving and caring. Well Nina Totenberg, I want to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS without reservation or apology!
Christmas Blessings,
Dr. Paul

A Tale of Two Seasons

Christmas is a wonderful season of the year. Family, friends, carols, gifts, decorations, they all bring joy and blessings. But for some people, this is a tough time of year. If you are alone, or estranged from one or more family members, when you see all of the emphasis on family and togetherness, it is harder to keep yourself distracted from the reality of your situation. You don't even have to turn on the Hallmark Channel to be faced with sappy Christmas stories highlighting love, family, and togetherness. I remember meeting with someone a few years ago who would always go into a dark depression starting with Thanksgiving and not ending until the New Year. His marriage was struggling, he was estranged from most of his children, so for him, the contrast between what others had and what he didn't have was very stark.
Many of us have lost a loved one during this time of year. If this is the case for you, then Thanksgiving and Christmas remind you of that loss. And because of what this season represents, it makes the loss of your loved one at this time of year even tougher to deal with.
Am I writing this to be a Christmas kill joy? No, I am looking forward to celebrating Christmas with my family. But I am also going to be praying harder for those who find this a tougher time of year. I want to reach out to them as well. Do you know someone who is hurting? Invite them over, or do something to let them know that you care. It may just be the very best gift you give this Christmas.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul