Basic Pharmacology
A 15 hour course that provides information about the  various drugs of abuse.  This course will review the history of each of the major psychoactive compounds and examine the physical and psychological aspects.  A review of detoxification needs and approaches is also included in this course.  An excellent foundation for basic training that also helps prepare the student for eventual testing.   

Goals/Objectives

By participating in this Distance Learning Course the trainee will:

  1. examine the basic facts about the following drugs:
    • alcohol
    • other depressants
    • narcotics
    • marijuana
    • inhalants
    • designer drugs
    • hallucinogens
    • caffeine
    • nicotine
    • amphetamines
    • cocaine
  2. identify short term physical effects of each of these drugs;
  3. identify chronic physical effects of each of these drugs;
  4. examine the various definitions used to define the problem of addiction;
  5. explore detoxification and basic treatment needs that exist for these drugs of abuse.

Your Course Instructor:
Kevin R. Scheel
MS, MAC, LMFT
Co-Founder, DLCAS

Kevin R. Scheel is a Masters prepared chemical dependency counselor with more than twenty-three years of experience in the human service field. He has served as the director of programs in the public sector as well as in private care facilities, both in the profit and not-for-profit arenas. He has been involved in the delivery of education services to the field since 1986 as an instructor at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, and as a private training consultant with Hazelden. Mr. Scheel is the author of "Alcohol: Chemistry & Culture," as well as a series of education videotapes on the various drugs of abuse, published and marketed by WRS Group, Inc. He has also created a preparation and review manual that is currently in use by a variety of colleges and universities in Texas, designed to aid students preparing for their Texas chemical dependency credential.

While in Texas Kevin served as the Texas Coordinator for the federally funded Project for Addiction Counselor Training (PACT) program. For this project Mr. Scheel designed a 270 hour curriculum for beginning counselors, delivering over 45,000 hours of classroom training to 415 minority students. As a result of his efforts, 268 of these students have gone on to obtain their credentials to practice chemical dependency counseling in Texas.

Kevin also served in the position as Coordinator for the Texas Addiction Training Center (currently the Texas Addition Technology Transfer Center), a federally funded project from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in Washington, D.C. The goal of this project has been to increase the level of addiction education to the various disciplines offering counseling services to drug and alcohol affected clients. In Texas this project worked with 8 major colleges and universities.

Kevin is one of the co-founders of the DLCAS.  He continues to be active as a writer/author of materials for this training service.