The cost of treating opioid overdose victims in hospital intensive care units jumped 58 percent in a seven-year span, according to a new study that concludes increasingly sick patients are placing a greater strain on an overmatched health care system. Between 2009 and 2015, the average cost of care per opioid admission increased from $58,500 to $92,400 in the 162 academic hospitals included in the study, which was led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. That rapid escalation far outpaced the overall medical inflation rate in the United States, which was about 19 percent during the period covered by the study. [continues 515 words]
The MBTA violated the free speech rights of a group that wants to legalize marijuana by refusing to display its advertisements throughout the transit system, a federal appeals court has ruled. In a decision that came after the T waged an $800,000 court battle, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals found officials improperly rejected the ads because they disapproved of their message. "As a taxpayer I would be outraged by . . . what they spent on a losing case," said Joe White, executive director of Change the Climate, the group that wanted to run the ads. [continues 168 words]
Several South Shore communities are struggling to rescue Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs that lost state funding after the Romney administration deemed DARE an ineffective use of taxpayer money. Communities have been running the program without state help since last year, when the administration cut $4.3 million for DARE. Now the administration is saying it does not plan to restore that funding even as the state's finances improve, prompting a heated response from DARE supporters. ''We can't arrest our way out of this problem, and that's exactly what's going to happen,'' said Michael Mather, chief executive of DARE Massachusetts. ''We don't need to put children in jail. We need prevention and education.'' [continues 241 words]
Inpatient Help for Young Drug Abusers, Especially Girls, Is Almost Nonexistent Adolescent South Shore drug addicts, especially girls, are being refused inpatient treatment because drastically dwindling funds have left the region with just 10 available beds, none of them for females. Even as arrest rates for heroin and other drugs among juveniles accelerate, there is just one residential program for teenagers on the South Shore, and that program, Project Rebound, off Squantum Street in Quincy, serves only boys. Parents of young women are told they must wait months for a bed at facilities in Falmouth, Attleboro and Lawrence. [continues 842 words]
Arrests, Overdose Deaths Up Dramatically; Hidden Effect On Families Seen South Shore teenagers are using powerful heroin that costs less than a pack of cigarettes and is so pure it can be snorted instead of injected, erasing the back alley stigma that used to keep them away from the drug, law enforcement officials say. In the first three months of 2004, more teenagers were arrested for heroin offenses on the South Shore than in all of 1998 and 1999 combined. Two recent arrests for heroin possession involved middle school students. [continues 1144 words]
