“There are only three reasons for a distraction. An internal trigger, an external trigger or a planning problem,” says Nir Eyal.
In the past, Nir Eyal has worked with apps and tech companies to help hook consumers. But now, the behavioral scientist and author of Indistractable: How To Control Your Attention And Choose Your Life, is sharing how to dodge distraction in the digital age.
He Knows How To Hook Consumers On Products
In tech and advertising circles, Eyal is known for his first book, Hooked: How To Build Habit Forming Products. In the book, he details the “hook model,” which leads a consumer to use a product by creating a connection between a product and emotional triggers.
However, he tells The Guardian, this wasn’t necessarily a negative thing as it encouraged companies to improve the lives of consumers.
Now, he tells the Guardian, people need to stop associating the word “addicted” with technology, as most people simply overuse it.
“Addiction, in people’s minds, means mind control,” he explained. “When you tell yourself, this is addicting me, this is hijacking my brain… you slough off responsibility. It’s called learned helplessness.”
Comic Books Vs Tech
Eyal compares the current buzz around the pitfalls of technology with that of comic books years ago.
“In the 1950s, fearmongers were saying the exact same thing about comic books, literally verbatim: it’s reducing kids’ attention spans; it’s causing them to commit suicide; it’s leading to mental health issues,” he said.
What it really comes down to, Eyal says, is distraction as a result of technology. His new book offers various pointers for managing such external distractions, and encourages readers to examine their internal triggers for turning to distractions.
One method Eyal recommends is called “timeboxing,” in which every moment of a day is planned out. If an urge to turn to a distraction arises, Eyal encourages readers to examine what is causing it.
“There are only three reasons for a distraction,” he notes. “An internal trigger, an external trigger or a planning problem.”
When an urge to follow a distraction arises, Eyal recommends determining what emotion promoted that distraction and to write it down. Then, he says, spend 10 minutes doing what he calls “surfing the urge.” In other words, don’t give in to the distraction and instead determine why you are experiencing the feelings you are. However, he says, if that time passes and a person still wants to give in to the distraction, then they should.
Another aspect of technology Eyal zeroes in on is email, which he refers to as the “mother of all habit-forming products.”
And, Eyal notes, it’s often a waste of time. He refers to a study which found that 25% of a person’s time on email is spent reading messages that should not have been sent and 25% is responding to items not requiring a response.
To combat this, Eyal recommends setting aside specific times each day to check email and sorting them by urgency.
Additional time management strategies he recommends are utilizing apps and add-ons that allow you to block certain websites, or scheduling time to work with peers and keep each other accountable.
Tight controls will be needed to guarantee that all funds support evidence-based methods of prevention and treatment.
The opioid lawsuits and multi-billion dollar settlements that are being negotiated may seem like one-of-a-kind, but the U.S. has dealt with settlements of this magnitude before—in the 1990s, when Big Tobacco companies agreed to pay about $246 billion in damages over 25 years.
That money was intended to prevent people from smoking, and to help people stop if they were already addicted. And yet, just 2.4% of the settlement funds have gone toward cessation and prevention efforts.
Leana S. Wen, former Baltimore health commissioner and current visiting professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, says that we need to proceed carefully to ensure that the opioid settlements aren’t squandered in the same way.
Supporting Evidence-Based Methods of Prevention and Treatment
Writing for The Washington Post, Wen says, “To prevent a similarly egregious diversion, today’s policymakers should commit—at the outset—to a strong public health framing for the opioid settlement. This starts with tight controls to guarantee that all funds support evidence-based methods of prevention and treatment.”
Wen outlines a series of steps to ensure that the opioid funding is distributed fairly and used effectively. First, she says, the government needs to stop supporting out-of-date detox programs that do not result in long-term sobriety. Instead, she says, the funds should be used to fund medication-assisted treatment, the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder.
“Rapid ‘detox’ programs do not work, and, in fact, lead to higher rates of overdose deaths,” Wen writes. “Yet, these detox programs still get government funding, and many states force people to comply with these methods. That needs to change.”
Racial Disparities in Fund Distribution
Next, Wen suggests that the funds be distributed to areas most affected by opioid addiction. This could be done using a model similar to the one that the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program uses to distribute money to areas hardest hit by HIV/AIDS outbreaks.
It’s important, Wen notes, that the funds be sent not just to areas with the highest prescription rates, but also to places where heroin and street drugs have been devastating. This is crucial in order to ensure that there are no racial gaps in who benefits from the settlement funds.
“A funding distribution that focuses only on one face of the disease would violate public health best practices,” she writes. “It would also worsen racial disparities. Already, many in my city and around the country are angry that opioid addiction was not deemed an epidemic until decades after it claimed the lives of countless people in minority communities.”
Wen continues, “When the face of addiction was black and brown—and associated with heroin—addiction was seen as a crime and a moral failing; when it became white and associated with pills, addiction became understood as a disease. To be sure, it is an important development that much-needed resources are finally coming to address this crisis. But unless street drugs are given equal weight to prescription opioids, the response will not only be ineffective, it will perpetuate systemic injustice and structural racism that have long undergirded opioid addiction.”
“I hit an emotional bottom early on, and I’m grateful. I was lucky,” said the lead singer.
Social Distortion, the LA-based punk band, have hit their 40-year anniversary, and lead singer/founder Mike Ness is lucky to be here to enjoy it.
Ness had his battles with addiction and hardship as a young punk, tough experiences that he chronicled in his music, but he cleaned up his act when he was 23, and has been sober for 34 years.
As Ness tells Altpress, he left home when he was a teenager, and was not on good terms with his parents for years. “I had to figure out everything again on my own,” he explains.
“I got sober when I was 23, and I thought, As long as I’m sober, everything’s good. It wasn’t until almost 20 years into my marriage that I realized my upbringing and stuff that happened to me as a kid was affecting my behavior and relationships with the people immediately close to me – my wife and kids. So I had to really confront that.”
17 & In The Throes Of Alcoholism
Ness said by the time he was 17 years old, “I was in full-blown alcoholism, a really fucked-up kid, damaged. And I was really, really luck to have gotten pulled out of that. I could easily have just been a small paragraph in {punk fanzine] Flipside saying, ‘We lost him.’”
Before Ness got sober, he spent a lot of time in jail. He was stealing and committing burglaries to support his habit, and he finally had to confront his difficult childhood.
“I hit an emotional bottom early on, and I’m grateful,” he says today. “I was lucky. Here’s the thing: I was not successful with the band yet. I didn’t have handlers. I wasn’t shooting dope in the St. Regis or in the back of a limousine. But I’m grateful for that, because those people end up enabling you…I had nothing like that.”
Ness said he “started at the bottom. And ended up even a little lower…you’re out on the streets of Santa Ana [California] and the dope man doesn’t even want you around because you’re such a pathetic mess…it’s a very lonely existence.”
Looking Back On Past Mistakes
As Ness is nearing his sixties, he tells writer DX Ferris, “I don’t know if I make fewer mistakes. They’re just different kinds of mistakes. I guess they’re adult mistakes…I still have plenty to write, because I’m still trying to figure out what it is to be a man and navigate through life.”
The MX908 can detect 70 types of fentanyl as well as more than 2,000 yet-unidentified fentanyl analogs.
A machine intended for use by military and emergency personnel who handle hazardous material has become a lifesaving tool amid the fentanyl epidemic.
The MX908 mass spectrometer was first marketed as a tool for “elite responders conducting chemical, explosive, priority drug and HazMat operations around the world.” But in places like Boston and Chicago, the machine is a harm reduction tool.
The MX908 can detect 70 types of fentanyl as well as more than 2,000 yet-unidentified fentanyl analogs.
WBUR witnessed the machine in action as Sarah Mackin of the Boston Public Health Commission tested a swab sample from the inside of a baggie “that was sold as heroin.”
“So, there’s multiple kinds of opioid analgesics and multiple kinds of synthetic fentanyls in this sample that was sold as heroin,” she said. “It’s kind of an example of what the drug landscape looks like here.”
Testing Fentanyl
This summer, Massachusetts health officials reported that the presence of fentanyl in the state had reached “an all-time high” despite a decrease in overall opioid-related deaths in 2019.
One woman named “Bri” who tested drug residue using the machine in July suspected that carfentanil was present in her personal stash and triggered a previous overdose. “Now I’m going to be honest. If I was sick and I had one bag of dope on me and you told me there’s carfentanil in there, I’m not going to lie and say I wouldn’t use it. But I would know not to put the entire thing in,” she told WBUR.
Proponents of the MX908 say that by having access to clear information about their drugs, people like Bri are empowered, in a way, to mitigate their risk and avoid overdose.
The Chicago Recovery Alliance invested in two MX908s as part of its new drug-checking program that launched in March.
Pricey & Legal-ish
However, those seeking to make the machine available to more people are hindered by the “legal gray area” of drug checking and its hefty price tag. One machine costs $65,000.
A trial of the MX908 in Boston is currently on hold while they determine if the practice is legal.
As WBUR notes, fentanyl test strips are a much more cost-effective method of detecting fentanyl, at $1 per strip.
Eubanks died in May 2019 from “acute heroin toxicity” at the age of 37.
Austin Eubanks was under pressure to be the perfect role model of recovery, his ex-wife said in a recent conversation.
Aimee Bouc, who had two children with Eubanks, recently opened up to KSHB Kansas City about how the Columbine survivor struggled even as he promoted recovery.
“There was so much pressure put on him to be this perfect person in the eyes of the world,” Bouc said. “He didn’t feel he could actually go and get the treatment when he did go back to it.”
Becoming An Advocate
Eubanks emerged from his teenage trauma to become a prominent recovery advocate who dedicated himself to helping others.
“His story and the power behind Columbine really put him front and center of the opioid [epidemic],” said Bouc. “He brought a complete level of awareness and helped so many people and I’ve read their comments on how he helped them shape their lives. It just brought me tears of joy.”
Bouc said she suspected Austin was using again before his fatal overdose in May 2019.
Austin struggled with his recovery despite his advocacy. His death was a jarring reminder that recovering from trauma and substance use disorder is a lifelong battle.
“I believe there was always a fight,” said Bouc. “I don’t believe he was always using, [I] believe that was more recently.”
She added, “It never stops being a struggle. I don’t think addiction is something you can just stop struggling one day; it’s always a work in progress.”
After Columbine
Austin was 17 when he was shot in the arm and knee during the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. He turned to drugs to numb the emotional trauma of that day, including witnessing his best friend die during the shooting.
“My injuries were not to the point of needing an opiate pain medication,” he told The Fix in a 2016 interview. “But I was immediately given a 30-day supply. Within three months I became addicted… I used substances every day, day in and day out.”
When he found recovery, he dedicated himself to helping others get well. “The message I want to send to people is to ask for help,” he told The Fix. “I lived in the dark for over a decade in my addiction. I could never see a path out. Ask for help because it’s there.”
Eubanks died in May 2019 from “acute heroin toxicity” at the age of 37. His family said in a statement following his passing that he “lost the battle with the very disease he fought so hard to help others face.”
His “The Peanut Butter Falcon” co-star Zack Gottswagen made LaBeouf promise to never do “that kind of stuff again.”
Actor Shia LaBeouf told interviewers on the UK’s Channel 4 that he was saved by tough love doled out by his The Peanut Butter Falcon co-star Zack Gottsagen. At the time, LaBeouf was dealing with the backlash from his drunken arrest, during which he launched into a racist rant against his arresting officers.
LaBeouf and Gottsagen star in the movie, with Gottsagen playing a man with Down syndrome who has dreams of becoming a professional wrestler. Notably, Gottsagen lives with the condition in real life. The unfiltered and unflinching bluntness from Gottsagen helped LaBeouf get his head on straight.
A Straight Shooter
“Zack can’t not shoot straight,” he admitted to Esquire in an interview. “And bless him for it, ’cause in that moment, I needed a straight shooter who I couldn’t argue with.”
As the story goes, LaBeouf was skulking around on the set of The Peanut Butter Falcon the day after his embarrassing arrest, unable to muster the will to make eye contact with any of the cast on the boat where they were filming. Gottsagen, sitting next to LaBeouf, put his hand on his shoulder.
“He nursed me back, on a boat, during a scene where we’re talking about, like, the painful past,” LaBeouf said in the interview.
The Ultimatum
Gottsagen also gave an ultimatum to LaBeouf.
“I was sad and cried,” Gottsagen said to Channel 4. “But I’m still gonna take a chance for myself to give Shia one chance to prove to himself… never, never, never do this kind of stuff again.”
LaBeouf had been arrested for becoming disorderly after being refused a cigarette by a stranger. TMZ obtained video of the actor screaming at his arresting officers, including some racially charged comments.
“So you wanna arrest, what, white people who give a f— who ask for cigarettes? I came up trying to be nice, you stupid b—,” LaBeouf said on camera, among other things. “I got more millionaire lawyers than you know what to do with, you stupid b—.”
But thanks to his co-star, LaBeouf eventually got his head on straight.
When asked by Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman if he felt the film saved him, in a way, the actor was definitive in his answer.
“No, it’s not too dramatic to say,” LaBeouf admitted.
Gottsagen’s mother, Shelly, says that conversation is the reason LaBeouf hasn’t had a drink since.
The film The Peanut Butter Falcon is out in theaters now.
Vorobyov investigated drug use and culture in 15 different countries on five continents, from the coca plantations of Colombia to the mean streets of Moscow.
With the release of his new book, Dope World: Adventures in Drug Lands, Niko Vorobyov has become the Anthony Bourdain of drugs and the worlds they inhabit, a modern day Hunter S. Thompson. By interviewing cartel members, big-time drug dealers, street guys, gang members, and even government officials, Vorobyov seeks to understand humanity’s bond with drugs.
Before our interview, Vorobyov told me about one surreal night in the mountains of Sinaloa, Mexico, where he and his buddy had traveled for a meeting with one of El Chapo’s relatives. Deep in cartel territory, with posted guards everywhere brandishing AK’s and AR-15’s, where one wrong move could mean death, El Indio, the guy who owned the ranch, threw a sushi party.
Vorobyov remembers all these guys standing around with assault rifles slung over their shoulders eating sushi. One of the gun-toting sentries even came over to Vorobyov and started chatting to him about movies. He came away with the feeling that El Chapo’s family were pretty normal, if you forgot about the guns.
Tributes to Malverde, the Sinaloa patron saint of narcotraficantes.
The Fix: Why did you decide to examine every angle of the drug war and how has the drug war affected the whole world?
Niko Vorobyov: There’s a lot of great books about this already — Chasing the Scream is one of my favorites — but they take a very Anglo-centric point of view. I wanted to explore other places that we don’t hear about so much like Russia, Japan, and the Philippines. Some people like to say it’s all America’s fault and that they started this whole mess with Richard Nixon, but it goes back way before that, all the way to China and the Opium Wars. Right now, America’s legalizing weed while Russia, China, and the Philippines are fighting the drug war the hardest.
Why do you think you got involved with drugs in the first place?
Growing up I was quite a weak person with low self-esteem, so I kinda thought if I acted in a certain way, that would help me accept myself; that drugs and criminal activity would get me friends and respect and all that. I started getting a lot into the underground rave scene and became a student drug dealer. And once you start moving in those circles it’s quite easy to make connections and meet a supplier. From then on, I worked my way through ups and downs till I had a small crew running weed, coke, and MDMA through the hallowed halls of East London universities.
But I got reckless and ended up doing a 2½ year prison stretch which really changed my outlook on life — it made me question who I was and what I was doing here. Sitting in a cell on 24-hour lockdown I read everything I could about the history of drugs and drug bans, how and why they were forbidden, and what the consequences of that may be. When I got out, that led me on a journey across 15 different countries on five continents, from the coca plantations of Colombia to the mean streets of Moscow.
Looking back now, how did your early drug use and even prison prepare you to write Dope World?
I’ve always had an anti-authoritarian streak; I’ve hated others telling me what to do, especially if it was “for your own good.” Of course I’ve taken drugs — if I haven’t, would that make me more [qualified] or less qualified to write about this topic? I keep reading articles where you can tell they’ve never dabbled in any psychedelic pleasures because none of them have a clue what they’re on about. Looking back, I wasn’t really very political before I went to prison because it’s easy to feel detached when it’s happening to someone else.
But when you’re locked in a cell for 23½ hours a day and there’s not enough staff because someone wanted to save a few pennies, you start to see all these abstract ideas are life-or-death shit. And when you see all these poor, working-class people or ethnic minorities while the government’s laughing all the way to the bank — the UK’s one of the biggest legal weed exporters in the world — it makes you ask what’s wrong with this picture.
You interviewed Freeway Rick Ross. What did that teach you about the crack era in L.A. and across the nation?
The first thing you need to know is the real Rick Ross is not a rapper – that Rick Ross actually batted for the other team as a prison guard. Freeway Rick Ross was the biggest crack kingpin on the West Coast in the 80s and early 90s — this dude supplied the Bloods and the Crips. Ricky’s a tough man to get ahold of; he was actually on his own book tour as I was trying to reach him, so I’m glad he came through. Where his story gets really interesting is when he was involved in the Contra cocaine scandal.
The CIA was allowing the Contra rebels in Nicaragua to smuggle coke into the U.S. for buying more firepower and fighting communism back home. Freeway Ricky unknowingly took the Contra’s coke and cooked it up into crack before selling it in South Central, without realizing he was just a small pawn in a chess game of global politics. I’m not really a conspiracy nut, but it’s amazing that this whole scandal came to light—how the Agency knowingly used a foreign army pumping crack into the hood — and it makes you think about what else they might’ve done that we don’t even know about.
At the same time, the Feds were going down hard on the inner city to fight the so-called crack epidemic. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act 1986 which meant that mostly black and brown people who were caught with five grams of crack got the same sentence as someone with half-a-kilo of regular blow. Freeway Ross ended up getting life, while none of the top players who approved the Contra plan wound up going to jail. That tells you everything you need to know about the hypocrisy, racism, and corruption in the war on drugs.
In the book, you write about LSD in Tokyo. Can you talk about that?
So the chapter on Tokyo is all about meth, LSD, and synthetics. I mostly fucked with the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime) and found out how they roll with being among the top meth dealers in Asia. But there was another group that was also quite interesting — a cult named Aum Shinrikyo or “The Supreme Truth,” which in 1995 carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in Japan, poisoning 13 people on the Tokyo subway with sarin gas. Like the CIA used to do in the 50s, the cult used LSD as part of their brainwashing. Maybe being on psychedelics made their wacky conspiracy theories believable.
Of the places you visited, which had the worst addiction problems?
When I was in Lisbon, the head of an NGO showed me a video of how this neighborhood used to look like. In the 1990s, Casal Ventoso was one of the biggest open-air drug markets in Europe and it really looked like a nightmare version of The Wire or a cheap movie set of the bad side of town. Dystopian scenes; crowds of ragged-looking addicts shuffling past crumbling buildings and filthy, trash-ridden streets. One guy was missing his arm. Portugal had a major heroin crisis — something like 1% of the population was addicted — but it’s precisely because their crisis was so bad that they managed to push through reforms and de-stigmatize addicts.
Of the places I’ve been to now, it’s hard to say — everywhere has its problems — but probably the most widespread I’ve seen was in Kerman, an Iranian city near the Afghan border. It seemed like every household had at least one member smoking opium, or taryak, and you can see people lighting up pipes or spoons in the archways of the old market. Iran’s a very religious country and opium’s tolerated more than booze. But I’d say every other young person drinks, and there’s a rising alcohol problem because they’re too scared of getting help.
Vafoor, or opium pipe, in Kerman, Iran.
When do you think the world will stop criminalizing addiction?
I think we’re slowly moving in that direction. The police in some parts of the UK have stopped targeting low-level user-dealers. A lot of the people I’ve talked to are cops, and as a former drug dealer that’s not a conversation I expected to have six or seven years ago! Then you’ve got someone like Boris Johnson inhaling a South American nose remedy, and he’s gone on to be leader of a country that used to own half the world.
I’m not saying they’re connected, but we’re starting to realize taking drugs doesn’t always lead to the worst-case scenario. A couple of months ago Malaysia, which was putting convicts to death, announced they’re following Portugal and decriminalizing drugs which means that you won’t end up in jail for having a gram in your pocket. And that’s a very conservative country; much more conservative than, say, Ohio. So I think there’s hope.
What did you learn the most during your travels and writings?
I think the most important thing is no matter how much you read, you’ll never truly know how the world works from your bedroom (or in my case, my cell). You’ve got to go to places and talk to people. Listen to them, even if they’re chatting complete bollocks, and try to understand why they think the way they do. We try to put everything in boxes — good or bad, left or right — but our world is too complicated for that. My agent called my book a fucked-up travel guide. I hope I’ve inspired someone to check out these places, if I haven’t scared the shit out of them already.
There’s a sense that this is it, you’re fucked now. No one’s coming to get you. When you and I get stressed now we can take a walk; go outside; talk with our friends; but when you’re in prison, you’re stuck alone in a tiny cell till they let you out, and you start going crazy. When I was inside there were so many cutbacks they didn’t have enough staff to run the show properly, so sometimes we’d be locked up 23½ hours a day— suicides went sky-high that year.
What takeaways do you want readers to have after reading your book?
Look, you might not like the idea of your little cousin bouncing off the walls after a line of Bolivian marching powder. My mum read the book and she was fucking mortified. But dopeworld is everywhere, from scuzzy housing projects to the highest echelons of power, so we’ve got to find a way of living with it, otherwise families will keep getting torn apart and the bodies will keep piling up, whether it’s through prisons, gangs, or ODs. We’ve tried drug war, now let’s try drug peace.
Studies have shown that approximately three out of 100 people will have a psychotic episode in their lifetime.
A psychotic episode—in which an individual hears, sees or perceives stimuli that does not exist—is a more common experience that might be imagined.
Studies have shown that approximately three out of 100 people will have a psychotic episode in their lifetime, with many of these occurring during adolescence or young adulthood. While a psychotic episode is not always indicative of mental illness, it is considered to be one of the primary symptoms of schizophrenia.
But does having a psychotic episode also mean that one is schizophrenic? Researchers examined this possible connection by looking at genetic commonalities between individuals who have had psychotic episodes and those with schizophrenia.
To uncover a possible link between these two demographics, researchers from across the globe conducted the largest study into genetics by examining data from the UK Biobank study, which compiled genetic information on 500,000 individuals for disease prevention research.
Genes and DNA sequences were gathered from more than 6,000 individuals who had reported having a psychotic episode but had not been diagnosed with schizophrenia or any other mental disorder. Data was also taken from more than 121,000 people who had reported never having a psychotic episode.
External Factors Likely Play Significant Role in Producing Isolated Episodes
The researchers’ analysis found that genetics did play a role in the possibility of having a psychotic episode, albeit a small one, and that external or environmental factors may have greater influence in producing isolated episodes. In an article for Live Science, the study authors noted that a traumatic experience may increase the chances for such an episode, as could excessive cannabis use.
More significantly, researchers also found that the genes associated with psychotic experiences were also linked to a host of other mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, but also depression and bipolar disorder, as well as developmental issues like autism or ADHD.
More Research Is Needed
Ultimately, the study authors concluded that more extensive research into the relationship between genes and psychotic episodes could answer questions that arose during their data analysis. These include the causes of psychotic episodes, as well as the full risks involved in having such an experience.
Additionally, how the genes that are associated with psychotic episodes actually cause them to happen remains unclear, which requires additional inquiry into what the authors described as “the biological mechanism that causes these types of experiences.”
Understanding risk factors for addiction could help doctors better respond to the opioid crisis.
Addiction is a brain disease, but there has been surprisingly little research into the brain structures that can contribute to the disease.
Now, study authors are arguing that a better understanding of how brain development and damage can contribute to addiction is important to help identify people who are most at risk.
“Addiction is a disease of decision-making,” Antoine Bechara, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California told the school’s news service. “The majority of people have intact brain mechanisms of decision-making that keep them resilient to succumbing to an addiction. The question is, who is more vulnerable and how do we best determine that?”
Weak Prefrontal Cortex Plays A Role
Bechara is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. His paper examines the role of the prefrontal cortex and the insula in increasing a person’s risk for addiction. The researchers note that a “weak prefrontal cortex”—the area of the brain associated with decision making—can increase risk for addiction.
Weakness in that area of the brain can be caused by genetic factors. However, environmental factors including early childhood abuse can also inhibit the development of the prefrontal cortex. When the area is under-developed, a person can become susceptible to substance use disorder.
“There are several factors that create the situation where the prefrontal cortex is suboptimal or weak, and the decision-making capacity doesn’t develop normally,” said Bechara. “These are people who become more susceptible to becoming addicted not just to opioids but other drugs they have access to.”
The authors would like to see further research into whether brain scanning can predict which individuals are at risk for addiction. They also point out that brain stimulation could potentially help treat addiction.
Who’s At Risk?
Understanding who is at risk for developing addiction could help doctors better respond to the opioid crisis, by finding a middle ground amid what Bechara calls the “two extreme positions” that medical providers have taken.
“First, the pharmaceutical companies sold the idea that opioid medications will only be used by people in pain and people won’t become addicted,” he said. “That’s not true, because you have no way of telling who is susceptible to becoming addicted and who is not.”
He continued, “The overreaction by doctors is another extreme; because of the fear that everyone is going to be addicted to opioids, they are not prescribing them to people in chronic pain who may need them. There are a lot of people who could benefit from controlled administration of those medications, which work very well to treat pain.”
“The Sacklers used the profits from their illegal scheme to become one of the richest families in the world…” twenty-four states argued in court documents.
The Sackler family reaped up to $13 billion in profits from Purdue Pharma, money that some states say the family is trying to protect from going to settlements in the opioid lawsuits.
Now, states are trying to stop the family from getting a nine-month stay to protect them from opioid-related lawsuits, The Washington Post reports. The Sacklers are asking for the stay as part of the Purdue bankruptcy case. However, the states say that the bankruptcy can move forward without protecting the family.
“The Sacklers used the profits from their illegal scheme to become one of the richest families in the world—far wealthier than the company they ran,” twenty-four states argued in court documents. “Now, the Sacklers seek to leverage Purdue’s corporate bankruptcy to avoid their own individual accountability.’’
“They’ve extracted nearly all the money out of Purdue and pushed the carcass of the company into bankruptcy.”
The settlement agreement with Purdue includes $3 billion in funds from the Sackler family, but states say that’s not enough when the family pulled more than four times that amount in profits.
Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the family, said, “The Sacklers want the bankruptcy court to stop our lawsuits so they can keep the billions of dollars they pocketed from OxyContin and walk away without ever being held accountable. That’s unacceptable.”
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein echoed that sentiment, “The Sackler family is trying to take advantage of the fact that they’ve extracted nearly all the money out of Purdue and pushed the carcass of the company into bankruptcy. That’s unacceptable. Multibillionaires are the opposite of bankrupt.’’
Some States Feel Short-Changed By Settlement Offer
Twenty-four states have agreed to the settlement, and an equal number—plus Washington, D.C.—are filing legal steps to oppose it. While some states are desperate for resources, others feel short-changed by the agreement.
Daniel S. Connolly, an attorney for part of the Sackler family, insisted that the agreement was fair, and the family should be protected from further lawsuits.
“The Sacklers have agreed to relinquish their equity in Purdue and to contribute at least an additional $3 billion to the fight against the opioid crisis,” he said. “The stay, if granted, will allow parties to focus their efforts on this goal rather than on litigation that will waste resources and delay the deployment of solutions to communities in need.”
He said that talking about $13 billion is unrealistic.
“The distribution numbers do not reflect the fact that many billions of dollars from that amount were paid in taxes and reinvested in businesses that will be sold as part of the proposed settlement,” he said.
