Author: The Fix

Proposed Unemployment Drug-Testing Rule Set To Be Finalized

The ACLU released a statement condemning the rule for potentially violating the Fourth Amendment.

The US Department of Labor proposed a new rule in November 2018 that would allow states to subject people applying for unemployment benefits to drug testing. The department opened up for comments on this proposal shortly after, and that comment period closed on January 4.

If the Department of Labor does not extend or re-open for comments, they will finalize the rule based on what they have collected.

The proposed rule would change the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. The Republican Congress had already removed restrictions specifically preventing states from drug-testing unemployment applicants in 2017. This caught the attention of labor rights and civil liberties groups who have been fighting against similar policies for years.

The ACLU released a statement on January 10 condemning the rule for potentially violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

“Courts have said drug testing is a search and subject to Fourth Amendment protections,” wrote Kanya Bennett and Charlotte Resing. “So unless there are probable cause and individualized suspicion, there should be no search. Exceptions to this rule have been made when the government can show it has a ‘special need’ and that need outweighs individual privacy rights, but that is not the case here either.”

The ACLU successfully argued this point in court to end mandatory drug testing for individuals seeking Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Florida in 2011. They and other rights groups have also made the case that the cost of drug testing far outweighs any money saved by denying benefits to the few who test positive.

According to data collected by Think Progress, only 369 unemployment applicants tested positive for illicit drugs out of around 250,000 across 13 states. The drug tests cost those states $1.3 million collectively.

Unlike welfare programs like TANF, unemployment insurance is not paid for by states or by the federal government. It’s a program paid for by employers via payroll taxes that provides recently unemployed individuals with a portion of their former wage or salary for a limited period of time. With unemployment rates currently at historic lows, funding the program should not be a concern.

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, director of income and work supports for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), spoke with The Fix on the legality and potential consequences of the proposed rule by the Department of Labor.

“I imagine that the administration will attempt to finalize the rule, and I imagine that there would be litigation afterward,” she said. “There’s a fairly technical argument related to the Congressional Review Act. The Obama administration had issued regulations to this law which were overturned by [the 2017] Congress via the Congressional Review Act because they’re not supposed to issue substantially similar regulations.”

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) gives Congress the power to review new federal regulations and overrule them by passing a joint resolution. However, the CRA also prohibits issuing a new rule that is substantially the same “unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule.”

“It’s just bad policy,” Lower-Basch concluded. “It’s really designed to stigmatize.”

View the original article at thefix.com

19 January 2019
Ellie Goulding Talks "Miserable" Exercise Addiction

The pop star touched on exercise addiction in a recent Instagram post.

Singer Ellie Goulding addressed her experience with dependency on exercise, which she described as “not worth it.”

In a recent Instagram post, the Grammy-nominated singer shared a photo of herself, which was accompanied by text that in part read, “Ah good #memories of being addicted to the gym. Not worth it . . .”

Goulding, who has also struggled with panic attacks, said that while she continues to maintain an exercise regimen, she approaches it in an entirely different manner that encompasses boxing.

Goulding, whose most recent solo recording was the Top 20 UK single “Still Falling for You,” clarified what she meant about her previous exercise routine by adding, “It was just kind of miserable.”

According to a study by Northwestern University, approximately 3% of people who exercise on a regular basis have a dependency on exercise, which can be defined by physical or psychological symptoms like depression, anger or confusion brought on by missing a single day of exercise.

In coverage of Goulding’s post Bustle cited Heather Hausenblas, a professor at Jacksonville University’s department of kinesiology, who noted that regular or even advanced levels of exercise don’t indicate an addiction to exercise.

Rather, it’s the feelings that arise as a result of breaking the routine and the drive for people to change their lives in order to work out and quash those feelings that qualifies as a dependency.

Goulding has mentioned that in the past, intense emotions have driven her to seek solace in music. “It was the ultimate companion – the strongest remedy for any kind of pain or sadness,” she said. “Often it was the only way I’d be able to say what I wanted to say or describe how I was feeling.”

Exercise also became a means of contending with difficult emotions, including anxiety and panic attacks. But after a period of intensity – “I used to be harder on myself,” she told The CUT in 2018 – she has become better educated on healthy practices and feels “more confident than ever now, which is an amazing feeling.”

“To work out is being respectful to your body,” noted Goulding. “It’s a way of paying back and saying thank you for keeping me alive and for giving me such an amazing opportunity to live and breathe.”

View the original article at thefix.com

19 January 2019
How Opioids Hijack The Brain

Addiction experts and people who use opioids discuss how opioids impact their brains.

Last year thousands of Americans died from opioid overdoses. Yet, despite the fact that the dangers of these drugs are well-publicized, new users continue to get hooked on opioids and succumb to their addictions.

To try to understand why, The New York Times spoke with addiction experts and users to understand just how opioids act on the brain, putting together a visual and text representation of what happens once someone tries opioids.

Twenty-four-year-old Amanda Ryan-Carr, of Pennsylvania, said that the first time she tried opioids was like a religious experience.

“It’s like being hugged by Jesus,” she said.

For Michigan resident Matt Statman, 48, the feeling was one of freedom from worry.

“I remember feeling like I was exhaling from holding my breath for my whole life. Just intense relief from suffering,” Statman said.

The Times pointed out that many opioid users remember where and when they were when they first used, and they end up chasing that euphoric feeling as addiction takes over their lives.

“It was like the high put on blinders to everything and made me not care about anything in the world, other than the heroin,” said Brandon N., a 26-year-old from Pennsylvania.

Ivana Grahovac, 42, of California, said that opioids became her solution to any problem.

“Any time you start to feel like you’re getting antsy or anxious or a little stressed, your body says it knows exactly how to get out of this, and it’s telling you to just go get a little bit more of that heroin,” Grahovac said.

Once their bodies become used to having an opioid fix, users face painful withdrawals if they don’t take opioids.

Michigan resident Raj Mehta, 51, felt a sense of “doom and anxiety,” when withdrawals loomed, while Pennsylvania resident Jasmine Johnson, 29, said withdrawal was overwhelming.

“It’s like a demon crawling out of you. You’d rather just die and be done with it than go through that,” she said.

Eventually, users are no longer chasing a high, but just trying to hold off withdrawal symptoms.

“It’s like a time bomb,” Mehta said. “You’ve got 24 hours to get heroin, or you’re going to be really sick. You wake up, and your whole life is just based around it.”

The lucky people are able to get access to treatment and begin a life in recovery.

“There was a push factor, which was the misery and the self-hatred and the depression and the cops, and then there was a pull factor, which was this amazing hope from this community of people who I knew understood me in a way nobody else in the world could,” Statman said.

However, many people feel like relapse is always looming.

“A lot of times in your addiction, things are getting better. You see a light at the end of the tunnel. And it ends up being the freight train coming at you,” Johnson said.

Even with bumps along the road, people in long-term recovery say that the work is worth it, allowing them to regain control of their lives and enjoy life without being fixated on their next high.

“Colors get brighter and smells are more intense and emotions just are much more powerful, because opiates numb them,” said Dove Henry, a 26-year-old from Montana.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
Did The CDC Overestimate The Number Of Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies?

A new study suggests that CDC may have inflated the number of pregnancies affected by alcohol use.

In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused a stir by saying that women of childbearing age who aren’t on birth control should abstain from drinking so that they didn’t unintentionally have pregnancies affected by alcohol.

The CDC said at the time that 3.3 million women were at risk of having alcohol-exposed pregnancies each month.

However, a new study finds that the CDC vastly overestimated the number of pregnancies that might be affected by alcohol.

“We estimate 731,000 U.S. women had [alcohol-exposed pregnancies] and 481,000 resulted in [alcohol-exposed births],” researchers wrote. “Under our assumptions, the estimated expected actual number of [alcohol-exposed pregnancies] is 2.5 million less than the CDC estimate of the number at risk of an [alcohol-exposed pregnancies].”

The study, published in the January edition of the journal Women’s Health Issues, was led by researchers Sarah Roberts and Kristen Thompson from the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Gynecology. They used the same data set that the CDC did, but they adjusted how the number of alcohol-affected pregnancies were calculated. They also considered that because of miscarriage and abortion, not all pregnancies lead to births.

In the original calculations, the CDC assumed that any woman who both had an alcoholic drink and who had unprotected sex in the previous month could have a pregnancy affected by alcohol. However, this inflated the number of pregnancies affected, Roberts told Quartz.

“That’s not the right way to do this,” she said.

The calculations gave the maximum number of alcohol-exposed pregnancies that could possibly occur, rather than a more realistic, likely estimate, Roberts explained.

In the new calculations, researchers raised the number of drinks a woman had to have to be considered “at risk” from one to seven. Roberts said this reflects the CDC’s classification of what level of drinking is considered potentially harmful. They tempered the likelihood of pregnancy resulting from unprotected sex using national data that shows that just 38% of unprotected sex leads to pregnancy, and 64% of those pregnancies lead to births. As a result, the study estimated the amount of pregnancies actually affected by alcohol as less than 25% of the original CDC estimate.

The high number the CDC put out “contributed to a sense of moral panic around the topic,” Roberts said. In the future, it’s important that the agency take a more wholistic and realistic picture of the risk of drinking and unprotected pregnancy.

“It would be great if future efforts could take into account this method,” she said.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
Steven Tyler, Jason Isbell & Other Sober Musicians Share Their Stories

A group of famous sober musicians discussed their past addictions and getting sober for a new GQ profile.

Famous musicians aren’t known for being a sober bunch, and yet many successful musicians are in recovery. Recently a group of sober musicians spoke with GQ about how they are surviving and thriving in recovery.

Joe Walsh, 71, guitarist for The Eagles, said that even after decades of Alcoholics Anonymous he still lives day by day.

“I have 25 years of sobriety,” he said. “But the important thing is, I haven’t had a drink today.”

Aerosmith’s frontman Steven Tyler, 70, said that his experience with drugs started with marijuana.

“I grew up in the woods listening to the wind. It was just the silence and Mother Nature, no one around—it was an awful lot of magic there,” he said. When I started smoking weed, in ’65, ’66, it kind of enhanced those magic feelings.”

Walsh said he turned to drugs to help him ease symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger’s. The relief was instant, he said.

“I felt like Superman onstage, and I played that way. I thought cocaine and alcohol was the combination, and it was just a kid trying to feel better. And I chased that initial solution to my problems for 30 years or so,” he said.

Tyler said that living the rockstar lifestyle made drugs feel like a natural part of life.

“You have a shot of Jack Daniel’s and you play Madison Square Garden and you get offstage and you go clubbing with Jimmy Page—come on,” he said. “After two encores in Madison Square Garden, you don’t go and play shuffleboard. Or Yahtzee, you know? You go and rock the fuck out. You’ve done something that you never thought you could, and you actually think that you are a super-being.”

Over time, however, the drug use came to interfere with the art, Tyler said.

“It absolutely works for a while. But then things go wrong. You become addicted, it’s something you do all the time, and suddenly it starts influencing your greatness,” he said.

Still, Tyler was afraid that getting sober would affect his work.

“I thought I would lose my creativity,” he said.

Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, 39, said that before he got sober he told himself he was afraid he would lose his art. However, he realized afterward that he was making excuses.

“Now I know what was really scaring me was just the thought of getting sober,” he said. “The addiction in your brain, that’s a tricky son of a bitch. It had me convinced for a long time that I wasn’t going to enjoy my life, that nobody was going to enjoy being around me if I wasn’t raising hell all the time.”

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

A group of sober comedians and actors took to Twitter to ask Lange to get help for his addictions.

Artie Lange became well-known for his long-running gig as a sidekick and comedian on the infamous Howard Stern Show. Lange is now in the spotlight for his long-running struggle with addiction as his famous pals plead with him to go to a rehabilitation center and accept help.

Comedians are understood to often have a dark side, and many famous comedians have succumbed to the disease of addiction, including John Belushi, Chris Farley, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Hedberg and Greg Giraldo.

In December, Lange narrowly escaped jail time after testing positive for cocaine and amphetamine. In June 2018, Lange was given four years’ probation after pleading guilty to heroin possession found during a 2017 traffic stop.

In December 2018, Lange shared on Instagram a photo of his self-proclaimed “hideously deformed” nose, which, according to Fox News, is the end product of accidentally snorting broken glass mixed into Oxycontin as well as almost 30 years of drug abuse.

Lange’s friends and colleagues were quick to respond.

Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Richard Lewis, who has been sober since 1994, tweeted out to Lange, “Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. We had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self loathing and fear. Give it up and live.”

Comic Jackie Martling added, “coming up to 18 years [sober] in May. in early 2001 I’d have laughed at the idea of not drinking for 18 *days.* Art, I know you know the laughs are just as hearty on this side. I love you and am of course 100% in your very crowded corner.”

Patton Oswalt, a famous comedian who had roles in The King of Queens and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. followed up with support: “What Richard said. Come ON, Artie.”

Final Destination actor Devon Sawa added his experience, “Sober for 12 years. My life changed. Things just keep getting better and better and better…..”

Maurice LaMarche joined the chorus, saying, “I’m echoing @TheRichardLewis. Artie, it CAN be done. Richard’s living proof.”

He added, “And now I’m echoing @markschiff. While we’re on the subject, I too stopped trying the desperate experiment of the first drink or drug on 1/20/89. (This is sounding like a show @JerrySeinfeld might create: Comedians In Meetings Getting Sober) C’mon, Artie. Join us. You can do it.”

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
How I Supported My Heroin Addiction by Selling Meat

After I pushed in the plunger, all the anguish, self-hatred and regret faded into blackness. Heroin was an anti-depressant and the only thing I found to ease the constant sadness that clutched my throat.

It was the blistering hot summer of ‘75 in Los Angeles. I was over-dressed as I headed to the supermarket in a brown corduroy jacket, jeans, and a faux leather purse that bounced off my bony hip.

I pushed my cart through the automatic doors, my eyes darting back and forth behind my $10 aviator shades. I was on the lookout for the store manager. I knew that he was in his early 40’s, with a crew cut and a paunch belly that hung over his belt.

Relieved that he was helping a customer on the far end of the store, I rolled straight for the cereal aisle, but I wasn’t there for the Cocoa Pebbles or Frosted Flakes. I just used the boxes for cover. I was there for meat. And not just any meat would do. I wanted only the most tender, most expensive cuts, with the USDA stamp of approval on them.

I was 21 and strung out on heroin for the first time. I had been shooting up in moderation for years until my boyfriend Max and I crossed some sort of invisible line. I can still remember the first morning I ran to the toilet throwing up until there was nothing but slimy yellow bile.

That was a game changer for me. I was now addicted and had to find a way to support my habit. But how? I couldn’t sell my body like some of the junkie girls did. The thought of sleeping with a greasy old man made my skin crawl. Instead I asked Sammy, another junkie, to teach me his trade. Boosting: what the police would refer to as petty theft.

At my first day of on-the-job training with Sammy, we pretended to be a married couple grocery shopping. But in reality I was watching him steal with laser-like focus. By the end of the day it was apparent I had a natural talent for stealing meat. After we stole the meat we’d sell it half price and get our dope money. It didn’t take long before I had customers all over town who wanted to buy my meat. I soon had a reputation with other junkies for being the best cattle rustler west of the 405.

I sped down the cereal aisle and grabbed three boxes of Corn Flakes. I then headed to the butcher section. My gaze landed lovingly on the bulging pink meat packaged in tight saran-wrap that lined the open freezer. I took a deep breath before loading my cart up with filet mignon, New York and T-bone steaks. In less than a minute I had what I considered to be a pretty good haul. I covered the packages with my Corn Flakes boxes and did a 180 with my cart.

I headed down the back of the supermarket until I found an empty aisle. There, I stopped midway and loosened my belt. My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it beating inside my brain. I bent over, grabbed a steak, and shoved it down the back of my pants. It was cold. Goose bumps erupted all over my sun-starved flesh. I moved fast, stuffing one steak after another around my waist.

Suddenly, a fresh-faced mother with a toddler tucked in her cart headed toward me. I dropped the steak back into my cart and reached for a can of Campbell’s soup, pretending to read the ingredients. The click-clacking of the other cart’s wheels drew closer.

Whenever I boosted, my super powers kicked in. My mind could easily shift between thinking, observing, and analyzing my surroundings for any threats. This hyper-vigilant state was the direct result of growing up with a schizophrenic mother who was loving one minute and ballistic the next. When I was 7, my mother drowned herself in the bathtub but by then the neural pathways in my brain had already been set. This vigilance, which had once been a handicap, became a gift whenever I boosted.

The cart was behind me now and the mother’s voice sounded soothing as she spoke to her child: “You can have a cookie after dinner sweetie.”

Hearing their tender interaction turned my stomach into a tight fist. I felt the familiar pang of resentment. I often imagined how things might have been different if my family hadn’t been so fucked up. What if I’d had a loving mother who was there for me through all the benchmarks in my life? Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be standing in a market with a steak stuck in my pants and blood dripping down the back of my legs.

I watched them disappear around the corner before stuffing more meat around my emaciated waistline. By the time I was done I resembled a suicide bomber ready to blow the place up. With meat.

Once the last two steaks were securely tucked away I abandoned the cart and moved stealth-like towards the front of the store. My goal was to slip out without any employees noticing me. But with blood seeping down my legs I was afraid I’d draw unneeded attention to myself. All my favorite jeans were ruined.

My breath grew shallow as I turned sideways through a closed cash register aisle. I was several feet from freedom when the paunch belly store manager yelled from his station, “Excuse me miss. Hold it right there!”

I quickly assessed the situation. The manager was walking toward me. I could see my car parked close to the front of the store. I asked myself if I should run or wait to see what the manager wanted. It turned out to be a no-brainer. My foot instinctively hit the rubber mat causing the automatic doors to spring open. I ran as fast as I could, my arms and knees pumping, my tennis shoes slapping the hot asphalt ground beneath me. A steak slipped out of my pants. I hoped this minor obstacle would slow the manager down. But no.

Having watched plenty of nature shows as a kid, I could imagine how this scene might have resembled a cougar chasing his prey. Unfortunately, in this action adventure I was the prey and I was afraid a claw would reach out and grab the back of my coat any second. And then what? I’d be arrested. I’d heard plenty of horror stories from junkies kicking heroin in jail. I was determined not to let that be my fate.

I don’t know if I imagined it but I felt the manager’s hot breath at the base of my neck. I leaped inside my Volkswagen Bug and punched down the lock. The manager grabbed the door handle at the exact same time. With his face inches away, I could see his nostrils flaring, his eyes wild with rage.

“Open this fucking door!” he yelled.

My hands shook as I fished inside my jacket pocket for the keys. The car rocked as he pulled on the door, the peace sign hanging from the rear-view mirror swaying back and forth. I slipped the key into the ignition and the engine sputtered and popped. I made a mental note: If you don’t want to go jail, get a frigging tune up ASAP.

I hit the clutch and threw the gears in reverse. As I backed up the manager pounded the driver’s window with his fist and yelled “Get the hell out of the car!”

After clearing the parking spot, I shifted into first gear just as this wannabe hero stepped onto the running board. He grabbed the mirror with one hand and the door handle with the other. All I could think was: What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with this crazy idiot?

I pushed the pedal to the floor, picked up speed, and shifted into second gear thinking surely he would jump off. But he appeared to hold on even tighter. I yanked the steering wheel and made a hard right. He finally lost his grip. I watched him in my rear-view mirror tumble away like a loose hubcap.

Oh God! Had I killed him?

Relief coursed through me when he hopped up, yelling and waving his fist as I pulled onto Venice Boulevard. My chest heaved as I peeled the steaks from my waist and tossed them onto the passenger side floor. My mind raced with paranoid thoughts: someone must have gotten my license plate number, the entire police force would be out looking for me. I had to get the hell out of there.

My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror and I twisted my head from side to side like the Exorcist on the lookout for any patrol cars. I had to get rid of the evidence and fortunately, I had plenty of people around town who would buy it.

Fifteen minutes later I pulled up in front of a house in the suburbs. I hopped out of the car, walked up the path and rang the front door bell as casually as an Avon lady. Moments later, Mrs. Wilson appeared, dressed in polyester pants, head crowned with pink sponge curlers under a paisley scarf. She squinted over my shoulder. “Oh, hi there, Wendy.”

I nodded toward my car. “I have something for you, Mrs. Wilson.”

After we did a quick exchange, I had 100 bucks and she had double that in meat.

Ten minutes later, I was a rat-a-tat-tatting on the drug dealer’s door. Eddie opened it just a crack and glared at me with bloodshot eyes. With a taut nod of my head I handed over all my cash. In return, I got four colored balloons the size of marbles. I followed standard junkie protocol and tossed them inside my mouth. This was done as a precaution in case you got busted. Hopefully you’d have enough time to swallow the evidence before the cops could get their hands around your throat. Thankfully, I made it home that day in one piece.

Max was still at work so I had the place to myself. Our apartment was six blocks from the beach. A tourist destination for some, but the ocean wasn’t even on my radar back then. Beauty and nature ceased to exist when I was doing drugs.

The living room was a strange landscape of overflowing ashtrays, beer bottles, and trash from the night before. Others could accuse me of slacking on my domestic duties but who had time for dishes or dusting when you were supporting two people’s habits every day?

After retrieving the tied red bandana in my panty drawer, I headed for the bathroom and straddled the toilet to face the wall. I laid everything out on top of the tank. Syringe, matches, a cup of water, spoon and cotton. Biting the tiny knot of the balloon I ripped it open with my teeth. I was careful not to spill any as I poured the contents into the spoon. I used the syringe to squirt water and then lit an entire book of matches, holding the flame underneath the spoon until it started to simmer. As the powder dissolved, the smell of Sulphur, burnt sugar and dope filled the air.

I pulled the brownish liquid into the syringe, spun around and wrapped my left bicep with a belt. There was a bit of resistance before the needle popped through my calloused vein and then my blood mushroomed like a bomb going off inside the syringe. I pushed down on the plunger with my thumb and I was instantly filled with a soothing warmth as the heroin turned me inside out.

Afterward, I dabbed the blood with toilet paper while my chin drifted down to my chest.

All the anguish, self-hatred and regret faded into blackness. Heroin was an anti-depressant and the only thing I found to ease the constant sadness that clutched my throat.

My life was never meant to look like that. I went to a private Catholic school, for Christ’s sake. I knew the difference between right and wrong. When I was a little kid I didn’t see myself growing up to be a junkie. What happened to the little girl who desperately wanted to make a difference in the world? Sadly, she was in a dark place where she would remain for nearly two decades before reappearing tattered and broken in the county jail.

It was there, while lying in a cell, I realized I had been blaming others for everything that was wrong with my life. It was my mother’s fault, my father’s fault, and then, in a moment of clarity, I realized I was the one who had broken my own heart. And if that were indeed the case, only I could fix it. But how?

I knew I’d have to be sober to find out.

In the last 25 years I’ve learned that my mother’s absence left a huge black hole inside my heart. Everything I knew, planned, or imagined for myself changed in an instant. But I was a 7-year-old child and no one seemed to notice my despair. My sadness eventually morphed into anger and I took my anger out on the world. If I were to stay sober, I needed to forgive my mother. It didn’t happen overnight but over time. When I was finally able to let her off the hook, I was the one who was set free.

I underwent a deep and profound transformation, but some things never change. Every once in a while I find myself craving a steak: medium rare.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
Mass Overdose In California Leaves One Dead, 12 Hospitalized

“Every indication is that this mass overdose incident was caused from the ingestion of some form of fentanyl in combination with another substance,” said a police chief at the scene.

The synthetic opioid fentanyl is most likely responsible for a cluster of overdoses in one Chico, California house. One person died after overdosing and four are in critical condition; a total of 12 people were taken to the hospital.

According to NPR, Chico police are fairly sure the mass overdose was caused by the use of fentanyl, in combination with another substance.

“Every indication is that this mass overdose incident was caused from the ingestion of some form of fentanyl in combination with another substance. That is yet to be confirmed, but we do anticipate confirmation in the coming days,” Chico Police Chief Michael O’Brien said.

According to Anna Lembke, MD, fentanyl (a synthetic opioid pain reliever) can be 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. Lembke gives this chilling example: “If you ingest a ‘bag of heroin,’ which is typically 100 mg of heroin, and that bag contains 20% pure fentanyl in place of heroin, you will be ingesting the rough equivalent of 2,000 mg of heroin, enough to kill even a highly tolerant user.”

Chico Fire Department Division Chief Jesse Alexander said it was the largest mass casualty incident he had seen in years, with six people receiving CPR simultaneously.

Chief O’Brien reported on the crime scene. “Upon arrival, Chico police officers found multiple individuals in what appeared to be life-threatening, overdose conditions. . . . Officers began to both administer CPR and also naloxone to those individuals. . . . Unfortunately one male individual was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Chico officers began carrying naloxone on their person one year ago, according to CNN, and in this case lives were saved with the opioid-reversing drug. Police Chief O’Brien reported that officers administered CPR and six doses of naloxone.

After working the crime scene, two officers reported feeling fentanyl-like symptoms from possible exposure and were treated and later released from a local hospital.

The Chico Enterprise-Record reported that all of the people hospitalized were over the age of 18, with most of them appearing to be in their 20s. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2017 there were more than 72,000 drug overdose deaths, with the sharpest increase seen among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) for a staggering total of nearly 30,000 overdose deaths.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 January 2019
Smoking, Alcohol Use Linked To Different Brain Areas

A new study suggests that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine.

Connectivity in certain areas of the brain may affect smokers’ and drinkers’ tendencies to continue the behavior, new research has found.

The study, done by researchers in the department of computer science at the University of Warwick, looked at the neural mechanisms connected to two types of substance use: drinking alcohol and smoking.

Researchers studied 2,000 study participants, according to Science Daily. In doing so, they discovered that those who smoked had low connectivity, particularly in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which is a brain region that is connected with impulsivity.

This suggests, according to researchers, that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine, which has a stimulating effect. It also suggests that being impulsive may play a role in beginning and continuing to smoke.

In drinkers, researchers noted that there was high overall connectivity in the brain, particularly in the brain region associated with reward, which is the medial orbitofrontal cortex. The stimulation in this reward center, according to researchers, may be what leads some individuals to drink.

“Importantly the extent of these functional connectivity changes in the brains of drinkers and smokers correlated with the amount of alcohol and nicotine being consumed,” Science Daily stated. “Critically they were even detectable in individuals smoking only a few cigarettes or drinking one unit of alcohol every day.”

Researchers also noted that it may be possible to study an individual’s connectivity at age 14 to predict whether they would smoke or drink at age 19.

“These discoveries help to show that there are different neural bases of different types of addiction, and that the orbitofrontal cortex, a key brain region in emotion, is implicated in these two types of addiction,” said Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick.

According to Professor Jianfeng Feng, also from the University of Warwick, the findings of this study could be vital when it comes to public health implications. Feng cited a World Health Organization study which states there are 1.1 billion people in the world who smoke and 2.3 billion who drink. He also noted that more than 3 million people die annually due to alcohol use disorder.

“These are key discoveries that advance our understanding of the neurological bases of smoking and drinking and also provide new evidence on the different neurological mechanisms that are related to these two types of human addictive behavior, smoking and drinking, and these advances have implications for prevention and treatment of these two substance use,” Feng noted.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 January 2019
US, Canada Issue Travel Advisory For China After Controversial Drug Smuggling Case

China has shot back by issuing a travel advisory warning of their own against Canada.

Canada has warned its citizens to “exercise caution” while in or visiting China after a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for allegedly smuggling drugs.

The travel advisory, issued on January 14, came on the heels of a similar warning to US citizens from the Department of State on January 3. Both actions have been linked in the media, though not by any of the three countries, to the arrest of a Chinese business executive in Canada on alleged fraud related to US sanctions on Iran, which was followed by the detainment of two high-profile Canadians in China amidst angry salvos and fraying diplomatic relations between all three countries.

China has shot back by issuing a travel advisory warning of their own against Canada, advising Chinese citizens to “fully evaluate risks” of traveling to the north American country.

Seemingly at the center of this flurry of activity is Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a 36-year-old Canadian who had been sentenced in 2016 to 15 years in prison for his alleged role in a methamphetamine smuggling operation.

Schellenberg, who claimed that he was a tourist who had been framed by Chinese criminals, earned a retrial from an appeals court in December 2018. But in a one-day trial on January 14, 2019, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court declared him a “principal culprit” in the smuggling scheme and imposed the death penalty. Schellenberg is expected to appeal the ruling.

Canada’s Global Affairs noted that approximately 200 Canadians are currently being held in China for a “variety of alleged infractions.” That number has largely remained stable, according to the department, until the arrest of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on December 1.

Meng, who is the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, was apprehended at the request of the United States for her alleged role in fraudulent activity related to violation of US sanctions against Iran.

President Donald Trump has said that he would intervene in the case in the name of preserving US relations with China.

Nine days after Meng’s arrest, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were arrested in China on allegations of “endangering national security,” which the South China Morning Post said was a term used by China to allege espionage.

As both The New York Times and Business Insider noted, the ruling has been viewed by foreign policy experts as an attempt to influence Canada’s decision to extradite Meng to the United States.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on January 14 that Schellenberg’s sentence was “of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply [the] death penalty.”

Hours after Schellenberg’s sentencing, Canada’s Global Affairs issued the travel warning – the second such advisory from a world power against China in less than a month.

The United States warned citizens, and in particular, US-Chinese or Americans of Chinese heritage to be aware of “exit bans,” which Beijing can use to “compel US citizens to participate in government investigations, to lure individuals back to China from abroad and to aid Chinese authorities in resolving civil disputes in favor of Chinese parties.”

View the original article at thefix.com

17 January 2019