Here we are in the biggest fatal overdose epidemic in B.C. history and what's top of mind for the province's addiction treatment experts? The need to "destigmatize" addiction. In fact, let's not even call the taking of deadly illegal drugs an "addiction" or "drug abuse" any more, they tell us. We're supposed to call addicts "patients" with a "substance-use disorder." Excuse me if I don't buy the nicey-nicey language. And I doubt if most people who live in the real world and who have to pay millions of dollars in taxes for all these latest trendy approaches to drug addiction do, either. [continues 703 words]
All first responders in the Fernie area are now equipped to take on a potential opioid crisis. Fernie Fire and Rescue were the last group in the area to become trained in opioid overdose situations by BC Emergency Health Services. The main area of focus for training was on Naloxone, the antidote for opioid overdoses. Unable to give any numbers at this time, Elk Valley RCMP Corporal Bob Wright did state that, "We have responded to Fentanyl drug use in the Elk Valley. It has resulted in overdose-type situations." [continues 623 words]
Provincial health officer says powerful drug, found in recent treatment-facility tests, may be to blame for spike in deaths last year The appearance of the deadly opioid carfentanil may explain the dramatic spike in overdoses in British Columbia, despite efforts to slow the carnage, the provincial health officer says. Perry Kendall said as the number of overdose deaths climbed to record levels in November and December, officials suspected the synthetic drug normally used as a tranquilizer on large animals such as elephants was to blame. [continues 404 words]
Nelson Police Chief aims to educate public and those vulnerable to overdose The numbers are terrifying. Nelson Police Chief Paul Burkart has the B.C.Coroners Service annual report sitting on his desk, as well as alarming Interior Health statistics that show fentanyl has come to the Kootenays. In 2016 there were 914 overdose deaths in B.C.,a record number for the province and more than double the total for 2015. "It certainly does scare me," Burkart told the Star. [continues 1045 words]
The Haldimand- Norfolk Health Unit wasn't exaggerating last year when it warned about the threat of illegal street drugs cut with powerful synthetic opioids. Norfolk paramedics responded to 37 drug overdoses in all of 2014. This rose to 59 in 2015. In 2016, the total was 90. "These are only the number of calls that were specifically dispatched as drug overdoses and do not account for other primary problems associated with overdose that the crews were sent to such as vital- signs- absent, unconscious-unresponsiveness, seizures, respiratory problems or behavioural-psychiatric occurrences," Sarah Townsend, Norfolk's manager of emergency medical services, said Jan. 6 in an update on opioid occurrences. [continues 366 words]
An Edmonton DJ says he wants a "call to arms" to encourage artists and venues to carry naloxone kits in an effort to curb the number of opioid-related deaths in the city. Dragan Jargic, who performs as DJ Dragon, said he recently picked up one of the injectable packs used to combat fentanyl as a harm-reduction measure. "I took it upon myself as a personal thing to make sure there's one kit around," he said. "So many people are unwittingly using fentanyl. [continues 273 words]
[photo] Bruce Brandler is chief federal law enforcement officer for a sprawling judicial district that covers half of Pennsylvania. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) The phone at Bruce Brandler's home rang at 3:37 a.m. It was the local hospital. His 16-year-old son was there, and he was in really bad shape. A suspected heroin overdose, the nurse said. Brandler didn't believe it. Erik had his problems, but heroin? It seemed impossible. Nearly 10 years later, the nation is gripped by a spiraling crisis of opioid and heroin abuse -- and Brandler, a veteran federal prosecutor recently promoted to interim U.S. attorney, suddenly finds himself in a position to do something about the scourge that claimed his youngest son's life. [continues 778 words]
[photo] Heather Skorinko had hoped to grow industrial hemp on her North Whitehall Township farm, but the state's restrictive pilot program will lock out most family farms, she said. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW/THE MORNING CALL) Industrial hemp returns to Pennsylvania in 2017. So why are advocates so riled up? Too often in recent years, Heather Skorinko has struggled to make money growing corn and soybeans on her North Whitehall Township farm, which has been in the family for more than 120 years. [continues 1839 words]
Narcotics suppression police question Francis Mukwamba, a Zambian passport holder whose real nationality is uncertain, at a hotel room in Sukhumvit area of Bangkok on Dec 26. (Photo taken from the Narcotics Suppression Bureau Facebook page) Two foreign nationals were arrested after 4kg of cocaine were found in their bags when they arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport from Africa and a third, their alleged contact, was later apprehended at a city hotel. Pol Maj Gen Sommai Kongwisaisuk, acting commissioner of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, said Johnny Halop Sajulga, a Filipino, and a Vietnamese woman, Chao Thi Thuong, 37, arrived from Ethiopia on Flight ET 628 on Dec 26. [continues 159 words]
Police took down a Sydney crime syndicate and made 'the largest cocaine seizure in Australian ... history' [photo] An Australian investigator unloads cargo from a seize boat, December 2016. Australian Federal Police Australian police dismantled a major cocaine smuggling ring after a two-and-a-half-year multi-agency operation undertaken with Tahiti, Australian authorities announced on Thursday. Operation Okesi, which began in July 2014, culminated in a Christmas-night seizure of 500 kilograms of cocaine in New South Wales in eastern Australia. [continues 648 words]
Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 93 newspapers around California, with circulation of over 2.2 million. As a United States attorney in Alabama serving under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, the 39-year-old Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was charged with enforcing civil rights laws. But he said then that he didn't have much of a problem with what the Ku Klux Klan stood for, musing that he thought the KKK was "OK until I found out they smoked pot." [continues 640 words]
The courts must do whatever they can to stop or reduce drug trafficking, a Nanaimo judge said last week as he handed a drug trafficker a six-month jail sentence. On Dec. 19, Trevor Lee Sihota pleaded guilty to possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking. Sihota, a 35-year-old recovering crack cocaine and crystal meth addict, was arrested on March 7, 2013. Police found 42.7 grams of heroin valued at $4,700 to $6,000 in his apartment. [continues 556 words]
Ismael Gonzalez-Gonzalez was supposed to be deported nine years ago, but Cuba wouldn't take him. Instead, he wound up in Louisville and, police say, emerged as a local boss directing the flow of drugs in the Louisville area and beyond for a Mexican cartel. It's unclear how Gonzalez, a convicted felon who was arrested in a surprise drug raid last summer, first entered the United States before he ended up in Louisville, where he settled into a house in Jeffersontown. Many details about his case remain hidden in sealed federal court records. [continues 769 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - No one knew what was in the baggie. It was just a few tablespoons of crystalline powder seized back in April, clumped like snow that had partially melted and frozen again. Emily Dye, a 27-year-old forensic chemist at the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Testing and Research Laboratory, did not know if anyone had died from taking this powder, or how much it would take to kill you. What she did know was this: New drugs were appearing in the lab every other week, things never before seen in this unmarked gray building in Sterling, Virginia. Increasingly, these new compounds were synthetic opioids designed to mimic fentanyl, a prescription painkiller up to 50 times stronger than heroin. [continues 2297 words]
BEIJING -- U.S. assertions that China is the top source of the synthetic opioids that have killed thousands of drug users in the U.S. and Canada are unsubstantiated, Chinese officials told the Associated Press. Both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy point to China as North America's main source of fentanyl, related drugs and the chemicals used to make them. Such statements "lack the support of sufficient numbers of actual, confirmed cases," China's National Narcotics Control Commission told DEA's Beijing field office in a fax dated Friday. [continues 1179 words]
Around 40 parents and youth attended a recent community street drug trends presentation at Fox Run School. Organized by the Sylvan Lake RCMP the presentation aimed to equip parents with skills to allow recognition of street drugs and theparaphernalia associated with drug use. Sylvan Lake RCMP School Resource Officer,Constable Michael Lee in partnership with Constable Kevin Lintott of the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit out of the RCMP's Red Deer City Detachment provided information to parents on various street drugs including cocaine, heroine, marijuana,methamphetamine and MDMA. In addition, the officers also touched on the impact fentanyl is having in North America and Central Alberta. [continues 420 words]
Naloxone has seen a meteoric rise in use in British Columbia as an opioid overdose antidote. As of mid-December more than 755 people had died from overdoses, including 128 in November alone, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Naloxone, however, has become a first-line response for drug users, first responders and others who witness an overdose. Here is a primer on what naloxone is, what it does and doesn't affect, and how prevalent it is in B.C. [continues 310 words]
Homicides, shooting linked to groups bringing drugs, guns into Regina Police believe at least two Regina homicides and a shooting in a crowded restaurant are among the fallout from an increasingly violent threat posed by outsiders bringing guns and drugs into the city. The Mounties and Regina Police Service joined forces to roll out the unwelcome mat for the unwanted guests, recently concluding a 90-day project targeting drug trafficking as well as the weapons and shootings that accompany the trade. What it revealed is that many of the 60 people arrested on 443 charges, including trafficking, possession of stolen property, and multiple weapons offences, aren't from here. They dropped in from locales such as Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Fort McMurray and Toronto. [continues 526 words]
Ottawa has tabled a bill aimed at easing restrictions on the facilities, a 'good sign' according to one Toronto city councillor Municipal politicians in Canada's two largest cities are optimistic that new legislation aimed at clearing the path for more supervised consumption sites means they will finally be able to offer the harm-reduction service next year. Ottawa on Monday tabled Bill C-37, which would overturn yet another piece of Conservative era legislation and advance the Liberal government's plan to approach drug use as a public health issue. [continues 775 words]
Defending the government's classification of marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declares on its website that pot causes mental illness and lung cancer and leads youths to heroin and cocaine. But an advocacy group says the DEA, in a legal filing in August, said it found no evidence to support any of those conclusions. The group, Americans for Safe Access, has asked the agency to remove discredited claims from its Web page. [continues 522 words]
