Criminalization of simple drug possession has had 'devastating effect,' says AIDS Saskatoon director A Saskatoon police spokeswoman said city police generally lay drug possession charges as a result of an investigation into something else. Criminalization of possession of illicit drugs for personal use has had a "devastating effect," says the AIDS Saskatoon's executive director. Jason Mercredi said he fully supports a call by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on the federal government to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs for personal use. The CACP made the call last week after issuing its findings in a report. [continues 746 words]
SEATTLE - On gritty streets where heroin, fentanyl and meth stride like Death Eaters, where for decades both drugs and the war on drugs have wrecked lives, the city of Seattle is pioneering a bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America. Anyone caught here with a small amount of drugs - even heroin - isn't typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help. This model is becoming the consensus preference among public health experts in the U.S. and abroad. Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally, so it takes courage and vision to adopt this approach: a partial retreat in the war on drugs coupled with a stepped-up campaign against addiction. [continues 2455 words]
A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates. Researchers repeated an analysis that sparked excitement years ago. The previous work linked medical marijuana laws to slower than expected increases in state prescription opioid death rates from 1999 to 2010. The original authors speculated patients might be substituting marijuana for painkillers, but they warned against drawing conclusions. Still, states ravaged by painkiller overdose deaths began to rethink marijuana, leading several to legalize pot for medical use. [continues 409 words]
BALTIMORE - Heroin has ravaged this city since the early 1960s, fueling desperation and crime that remain endemic in many neighborhoods. But lately, despite heroin's long, deep history here, users say it has become nearly impossible to find. Heroin's presence is fading up and down the Eastern Seaboard, from New England mill towns to rural Appalachia, and in parts of the Midwest that were overwhelmed by it a few years back. It remains prevalent in many Western states, but even New York City, the nation's biggest distribution hub for the drug, has seen less of it this year. [continues 1518 words]
There is a new tool to help battle the opioid epidemic that works like a pregnancy test to detect fentanyl, the potent substance behind the escalating number of deaths roiling communities around the country. The test strip, originally designed for the medical profession to test urine, can also be used off-label by heroin and cocaine users who fear their drugs have been adulterated with the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The strips are dipped in water containing a minute amount of a drug and generally provide a result within a minute-with one line indicating positive for fentanyl, and two lines negative. [continues 650 words]
As bad as getting off opioids the first time was, nothing prepared Briana Kline for trying to come back from relapse. She was in deep, past the Percocets and other pills. This time it was heroin, even a close brush with fentanyl. But the medicine that so helped slay her cravings before didn't seem to be cutting it. "The Suboxone didn't make me feel the way it usually does," said Kline, 26, of Lancaster County. "I was struggling a lot with cravings. I'd go a couple of days, be OK. Then I'd go use again." [continues 1283 words]
TORONTO - An aging construction worker arrived quietly in the building's basement, took his seat alongside three other men and struck his lighter below a cooker of synthetic heroin. A woman, trained to intervene in case of an overdose, placed a mask over her face as his drug cooked and diluted beneath a jumping flame. He injected himself, grew still and then told of the loss of his wife who died alone in her room upstairs - an overdose that came just a few months before this social service nonprofit opened its doors for supervised injections. [continues 1757 words]
Northwest Ohio Syringe Services has begun distributing fentanyl test strips to active users of opioids and other drugs. The exchange, a program through the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, is part of a larger strategy of harm reduction to keep people with addiction issues healthy while using, and provide them with resources and help when they want to seek treatment. Fentanyl has become the scourge of anyone trying to fight Ohio's opioid epidemic: deadly in small quantities and appearing in an increasing number of fatal overdoses. [continues 661 words]
We have been here before -- a raging epidemic of addiction that destroys lives, families and communities. Who was on the front line in the 1990s, when the drug was crack and the addicts were mostly black? Drug czar William Bennett. His weapons were prosecution and prison. Today, when the drugs are opioids and the addicts are mostly white? U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a doctor, is out there, telling the country, "We need to see addiction as a chronic disease and not a moral failing." [continues 822 words]
"By the time I was 17, 18," Nelson Abbott said, "I graduated to heroin." He tried to stop many times, both by going cold-turkey and tapering off the drugs, but he hated the withdrawal pains and he wasn't really ready to quit. Therapy didn't work out, either. But then his best friend overdosed and died. When Abbott's parents checked him into the Caron Treatment Center in Berks County, he didn't fight. [continues 1883 words]
In 2018 we find ourselves battling an opioid crisis that has been years in the making. Opioids are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain and were originally derived from opium but now also include synthetic preparations. In the mid-1990s, their use by physicians was heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical industry, leading to greater prescribing for both acute and chronic pain. Patients using opioids can develop a dependency or addiction. There are two sources of opioids: those that are produced by the pharmaceutical industry and those that are illicitly produced. Recently, the illicit supply has become so contaminated with fentanyl (a very powerful opioid) or fentanyl-like substances that many people are at risk of an unintended acute and potentially fatal poisoning. [continues 541 words]
Curtis McGowan wrestled with his opioid addiction for years, but his suspected overdose while in prison raises serious questions On one of his many trips home from jail, Curtis McGowan beamed with pride and clutched a Dr. Seuss book. "Mom," said the six-foot, 300-pound foundry worker, handing Michele McPherson a copy of Green Eggs and Ham, "this is the first book I ever read." To mother and son, it was a moment filled with significance. He'd struggled with illiteracy his whole life, just like he'd struggled with drug use and mental-health problems. If he could learn to read, perhaps sobriety and serenity were not far off. [continues 1111 words]
In the 1960s, after some prodding from Ralph Nader, American government regulators began a major push for safer cars. Which made University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman wonder just how much safer these innovations made us. Specifically, he wondered about what economists call "moral hazard" - our tendency to take more risks when we're insulated from the costs of that risk-taking. In 1975, Peltzman published an article innocuously titled "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation." His conclusion, however, was explosive: "Data imply some saving of auto occupants' lives at the expense of more pedestrian deaths and more nonfatal accidents." Less fearful of accidents, drivers were piloting their vehicles more recklessly, substantially reducing the life-saving benefits of the regulation. Economist Gordon Tullock suggested that if regulators really wanted people to drive more safely, they'd require automakers to mount a spike in the middle of each steering wheel, pointed toward the driver's breast. [continues 695 words]
Deadly fentanyl is tightening its grip on London's jail, with reports of several female inmates overdosing early this week, one needing five doses of naloxone spray to be revived. Twice in the last week, large amounts were found on women trying to smuggle the druginto the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), sources say. The province confirmed Wednesday four female inmates were found in medical distress Monday night. "Staff acted quickly in attending to the inmates and calling 911. Paramedics arrived and transported three inmates to the hospital, while the other inmate was attended to by staff at the facility," said Andrew Morrison, spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. [continues 354 words]
Two people using fentanyl at London's temporary overdose prevention site on the weekend were resuscitated by a nurse after they overdosed, Middlesex-London's medical officer of health says. "These people were inexperienced, and fentanyl is a drug where it's easy to miscalculate how much you are taking. If this had happened in a back alley or stairwell somewhere, it could have easily resulted in death," Dr. Chris Mackie said Sunday. The drug users were resuscitated Saturday using oxygen, he said. [continues 492 words]
The life-saving drug may actually increase opioid abuse. Here's why My friendly local pharmacy has started selling naloxone kits to the general public. They think everyone should have one. The idea is that you never know when you're going to have someone overdose in your home. As the opioid crisis spreads like a curse across North America, naloxone - a lifesaving drug that neutralizes the effects of an opioid overdose - is not confined to first responders anymore. Schools in Toronto are stocking up in it. Librarians across the United States have been trained to administer it to overdosing visitors. Everywhere, the message is: make sure you have some on hand, just in case. [continues 667 words]
More supervised injection sites planned as opioid-overdose numbers skyrocket The construction trailer that houses the illegal, volunteer-run overdose prevention site in Toronto's Moss Park is about to open for another evening, as a dozen drug users, some clearly anxious for their fix, cluster around its muddy entrance in the cold. Activist and harm-reduction worker Zoe Dodd, named one of Toronto Life magazine's most influential people last year, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and R&B star the Weeknd, unloads an extra box of anti-overdose naloxone kits from her beat-up sedan. [continues 934 words]
City's fatality rate is now nearly double Ontario average, fuelling more concern Opioid-related deaths in Hamilton have soared more than 80 per cent in one year. From January to October, 75 Hamilton residents died from an opioid overdose in 2017 compared to 41 during the same period the year before. "Opioids are continuing to have a devastating impact on individuals, families, and the community," Hamilton's medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said in a statement Friday. "The sustained trend of rising opioid related deaths, which are preventable, in Hamilton is very concerning." [continues 437 words]
Prescott - The town's fire department has joined the growing number of volunteer fire companies in Leeds and Grenville that refuse to carry naloxone to counter opioid overdoses. Fire Chief Barry Moorhouse said his department based its decision partly on the fact naloxone-carrying paramedics are based in Johnstown, only eight minutes away as the ambulance flies. Usually, the EMS can get to a medical call in Prescott before his volunteer department, Moorhouse said. As well, Moorhouse said he fears the slippery slope of having his trucks carrying drugs to medical calls. The department is far more likely to encounter diabetic patients or people felled by allergic reactions than people affected by opioid overdoses. Should firefighters be required to carry EPIPENS and insulin, too? he wondered. [continues 415 words]
WATERLOO REGION - Waterloo Region plans to look further into pursuing three supervised injection sites, following a study that found a need and support in the community for the service to combat fatal opioid overdoses. Sites are proposed for the central cores of Kitchener and Galt, and a third spot to be determined that could be a mobile unit. "In Waterloo Region, we know that overdose is on the rise," said Grace Bermingham, regional manager of information, planning and harm reduction. Bermingham presented findings from the first phase of a feasibility study on supervised injection sites to a regional committee on Tuesday. The second phase involves identifying potential locations and further consultations with people who live, work or go to school near a proposed site. [continues 654 words]
