Editor's note: This is day one of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment. DECATUR Eric Buntain described the feeling of injecting heroin into his vein as "warm, euphoric, comfortable and relaxing: It feels great." About 30 seconds after injecting heroin, there's a surge of warmth coming from the low spinal area, a rush of sensation and an overriding sense of well-being. [continues 1448 words]
A group of men met among the tombstones of a Paso Robles cemetery sometime in 2014. Two of them were lawmen from the SLO County Narcotics Unit, a multiagency group dedicated to tackling drug crime in the county. The third was a civilian. A man with a wife and kids and a past checkered by drug use and criminal charges. They were there for different reasons. The lawmen knew drugs were flowing into the county. They wanted to root out the criminals responsible for selling them and put the dealers behind bars. The third man was just looking to stay away from the wrong side of those same bars. [continues 3166 words]
This Act Drives Users Back Towards Illegal Drugs and Alcohol, the Most Dangerous Substance of Them All With the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, ministers last week banned the sale or procurement of any substance that has psychoactive activity, regardless of whether it is harmless or even useful. The sole exceptions are alcohol, nicotine products and caffeine. The main justification for this draconian piece of legislation is to make it easy for the police and local authorities to close down "head shops", or at least to stop them selling so-called legal highs: drugs such as nitrous oxide; some synthetic cannabinoids, salvia, and some weak stimulants known as bubbles or sparkle. The act is based on the false premise that legal highs are responsible for up to 100 deaths a year, when in fact the true number is fewer than 10. Media hysteria about the use of nitrous oxide by a few footballers and a dislike of young people doing something different from their parents has also played a part. [continues 735 words]
SALT LAKE CITY - Medical marijuana advocates, stymied in their recent efforts to legalize medical cannabis in Utah, are taking the fight to the nation's capital. They are calling on Utah's congressional delegation to support a bill that would downgrade marijuana from a schedule I controlled substance to a schedule II substance - something that state legislators urged Congress to do in a resolution sponsored by state Sen. Brian Shiozawa, R-Salt Lake City. That would open the way for more research on the substance, something both advocates and those concerned about the potential harmful impacts of marijuana support. [continues 1056 words]
Critics of Law Say Trade Will Simply Shift Underground Whipped Cream Chargers May Come Under Suspicion The blanket ban on the trade in legal highs which comes into force today is expected to end their sale through high street "head shops" and UK-based websites almost overnight, police and trading standards officers have said. But there are fears that the trade in new psychoactive substances (NPS) as they are officially known will move underground to illegal street markets and the darknet, the network of untraceable and hidden websites. [continues 886 words]
Over the years, people have been taught that marijuana was an evil drug. This drug is so evil that approximately 750,000 people are arrested every year and some of them convicted and fined for its use in the United States. So evil that every 42 seconds someone gets arrested for it. America is so convinced of marijuana's evils, that we are willing to root out this drug wherever it is used, bought, and sold, right? Wrong. in our nation's capital, before legalization, 91 percent of arrested marijuana dealers were African-American. What about the other 9 percent? Well, before Washington voters legalized its use, only 4 percent of Washington, D.C.'s arrested marijuana dealers were Caucasian. [continues 546 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (descheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) - or prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process - with some strange results. [continues 601 words]
Authorities Are Filing More Drug-Induced Homicide Charges, but Complex Cases Show It's Hard to Decide Whether Offenders Deserve Prison or Treatment When police and paramedics arrived at her aunt's apartment in Carol Stream, Adrianna Diana told them she and her friend Christopher Houdek had cooked and shot up heroin the night before. Diana, 20, said she awoke covered in vomit, with Houdek, 21, next to her, unresponsive and "cool to the touch." Her aunt called 911. Paramedics rushed Houdek to a hospital, where he died. The DuPage County coroner ruled his 2013 death an accident by "heroin intoxication." But prosecutors decided it was homicide- and charged Diana and two heroin dealers. [continues 1911 words]
"If I look at five inmates I'm going to definitely find one of them that is bringing in some kind of contraband" The new high-tech body scanner coming to the Ottawa jail is touted as the "ultimate substitute for strip searching" and will give correctional officers a glimpse at an inmate's insides after it is installed within the next month. The Soter RS is a full-body X-ray that the manufacturer promises will "reveal everything" in about 10 seconds. The 918-kilogram machine takes a high definition picture of inmates who stand on a moving platform that passes through a narrow X-ray beam. The images are so highly detailed that correctional officers will be able to see everything from what's under an inmate's clothes to what's in their stomachs or rectums. [continues 614 words]
What if LSD could treat PTSD, or magic mushrooms could help you quit smoking? Overseas research is advanced, but trials of psychedelic drugs can't get approval in Australia. Are we missing out on cures? Konrad Marshall reports. When Martin Williams' research plan was first rejected by an ethics committee in 2012, he understood why. The medicinal chemistry researcher could see some valid sticking points. For one, the psychiatrist attached to his detailed protocol didn't quite have the requisite clinical trials experience. [continues 2533 words]
A state chemist at an Amherst drug lab got high on methamphetamines or other drugs almost every day at work for nearly eight years, consumed the lab's own supply of drugs, and cooked crack cocaine in the lab after hours - actions that jeopardize an untold number of cases - according to an investigative report released Tuesday. Investigators for the attorney general's office found that chemist Sonja Farak had tested drug samples or testified in court between about 2005 and 2013 while under the influence of meth, ketamine, cocaine, LSD, and other drugs, according to the report, much of which is based on Farak's own grand jury testimony. She even smoked crack before a 2012 interview with State Police officials inspecting the lab for accreditation purposes, she testified. [continues 768 words]
Researcher believes clinical trials of psychedelic drugs would show even greater impact People with a history of psychedelic drug use are less likely to commit acts of domestic violence, according to a new study co-authored by a University of B.C. researcher. Zach Walsh, co-director of UBC Okanagan's Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science and Law, found that male inmates in an Illinois county jail who took drugs such as LSD, MDMA or psilocybin (magic mushrooms) prior to their incarceration were arrested for domestic battery within six years of their release 27% of the time. [continues 289 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) - or completely prohibited (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process - with some strange results. [continues 376 words]
Congress Should Create a New Federal Research Classification for Scientists. JUNE 30 could be a red-letter day for federal policy on marijuana: The Drug Enforcement Administration has promised to decide "in the first half of 2016" whether to change the drug's status under the Controlled Substances Act. At present, it is on Schedule 1, meaning it has "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" and is among "the most dangerous drugs . . . with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence," according to the DEA. Other Schedule 1 drugs include heroin and ecstasy; and for many people, including those who have petitioned the DEA to "reschedule" pot, marijuana simply doesn't belong in that category-because it isn't that dangerous, and because, they argue, it has medicinal uses. [continues 383 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (de-scheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) -- or completely prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process -- with some strange results. [continues 607 words]
This stupid, hypocritical war on drugs is in its long, slow retreat The United Nations General Assembly special session on drugs took place in New York last week, and the UN, as it has so many times before, reached a consensus as to what it would do to counteract the world's drug problem: Nothing. "It was a wash," said Donald MacPherson, executive director of SFU's Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, who attended the three-day session. "There was serious resistance to any kind of drug policy reform initiatives from Asian countries and China and Russia. So (the UN's) consensus-based model is not where change will happen. Even the legalization of cannabis in some American states was not talked about there. So things that were actually happening in the world were not discussed." [continues 669 words]
A lame duck with nothing to lose but his legacy, Barack Obama is now in the peculiar position of being America's most cannabis-friendly president. He has earned this title passively: by doing nothing. Obama did nothing when Washington and Colorado legalized recreational cannabis in 2012. He did nothing when Oregon and Alaska did the same in 2014. But in 2010, when recreational marijuana was legal nowhere and when drug agents seized a record number of marijuana plants, Obama's Justice Department also did next to nothing - vague threats of jail time and some threatening letters to property owners - which, at the time, was enough to help kill legalization in California and to slow down the growth of the state's weed industry for a couple of years. Never have a few pieces of certified mail had more effect. [continues 776 words]
Psychedelic drugs have made a resurgence as medications to treat illnesses from post-traumatic stress disorder to end-of-life anxiety, but researchers at the University of B.C. say the substances might also rein in domestic violence. The UBC Okanagan study, published last week in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, found that 42 per cent of imprisoned men in the U.S. who did not take psychedelic drugs after their release were arrested within six years for domestic battery, compared to 27 per cent for those who had taken drugs such as LSD, psilocybin - also known as magic mushrooms - and MDMA, which is known by the street name ecstasy. [continues 594 words]
UBC Study: Project Uncovers Some Surprising Results Psychedelic drugs such as acid, ecstasy and magic mushrooms have been making a resurgence as a medicine to treat a range of illnesses from post traumatic stress disorder to end of life anxiety. Now researchers at the University of B.C. say the drugs may help curb domestic violence committed by men with substance abuse problems. The UBC Okanagan study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, found that 42 per cent of U.S. adult male prison inmates who did not take psychedelic drugs were arrested within six years for domestic battery after their release, compared to a rate of 27 per cent for those who had taken drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and MDMA (ecstasy.) [continues 229 words]
H.R. 4378 Addresses the Need to Provide Treatment Facilities for Those Already Bound by Addiction. Education and Prevention Are Imperative in Fighting the Epidemic, but Don't Work by Themselves. the Economic Advantage of Treating Addicts Is Huge, When Factoring in Health Care and Judicial Costs. Since Nancy Reagan first spoke the familiar words "Just say no" in 1982, this country has been engaged in a war on drugs that to some seems unwinnable. There is currently a piece of legislation in Congress that takes a different approach to the matter. Rather than solely focusing on prevention of substance abuse, the Access to Substance Abuse Treatment Act of 2016 (H.R. 4378) addresses the overwhelming need to provide treatment facilities for those already bound by the chains of addiction to heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) and phencyclidine (PCP). [continues 466 words]
