Category: Addiction News

Paul Manafort Is Depressed in Jail, Lawyers Say

Manafort has been in jail for more than six months, after a judge revoked his bail in June.

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, is not faring well in jail, where he is being held while he awaits his sentencing in February on charges of financial fraud and conspiracy, according to his lawyers.

“He . . . suffers from depression and anxiety and, due to the facility’s visitation regulations, has had very little contact with his family,” Manafort’s lawyers wrote in court filings that were reported by The New York Post. Because he is so high profile, Manafort is being held in solitary confinement, which has “taken a toll on his physical and mental health,” his lawyers said.

In addition to depression and anxiety, Manafort is also battling gout, an arthritic inflammation of the joints that is usually associated with a heavy diet that includes red meats, seafood and alcohol.

“For several months Mr. Manafort has suffered from severe gout, at times confining him to a wheelchair,” the lawyers wrote. In October, Manafort appeared at a court date in a wheelchair, with his foot bandaged.

His lawyer, Kevin Downing, asked the judge to sentence Manafort quickly, so he could be moved from a detention center to a federal prison. Downing told the judge that Manafort has “significant” health issues that were made worse by the “terms of his confinement.”

Manafort has been in jail for more than six months, after a judge revoked his bail in June. He could face years in federal prison from his convictions.

In July, a judge ordered that Manafort be moved from one facility that was reportedly giving him special treatment to a city jail in Alexandria, Virginia.

“On the monitored prison phone calls, Manafort has mentioned that he is being treated like a ‘VIP,’” a court filing by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team alleged. “Among the unique privileges Manafort enjoys at the jail are a private, self-contained living unit, which is larger than other inmates’ units, his own bathroom and shower facility, his own personal telephone and his own workspace to prepare for trial. Manafort is also not required to wear a prison uniform.”

Manafort was even able to send emails from the facility.

“In order to exchange emails, he reads and composes emails on a second laptop that is shuttled in and out of the facility by his team. When the team takes the laptop from the jail, it re-connects to the internet and Manafort’s emails are transmitted,” court documents showed.

Manafort was in the news again this week after his lawyers accidentally released paperwork that appears to show he met with a Russian spy when he was working on the Trump campaign.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
Teens Who Share Drugs May Face Conviction, Prison Sentencing

Though laws vary in regard to culpability, 20 states regard drug delivery resulting in death as a crime.

A new feature on Psychology Today highlights an alarming possibility for parents and teenagers: Sharing drugs with friends can be considered legal grounds for a charge of dealing that can carry a prison sentence.

The feature references a New York Times article that details hundreds of cases of fatal overdoses in 36 states; many of these involved deaths that led to charges of homicide against friends and relatives, even though the deaths were considered unintentional.

Psychology Today advised a conversation with parents of teenagers to inform them about the possible legal consequences of sharing drugs.

Though laws vary in regard to culpability, the New York Times feature links to a list from the Drug Policy Alliance of 20 states that regard drug delivery resulting in death as a crime. Other states impose charges of manslaughter, homicide and murder on overdose-related cases.

Regardless of the final charge, cases involving accidental overdose deaths that resulted in prosecution or arrest doubled between 2015 and 2017; in the state of Minnesota, the number quadrupled over a decade.

The Psychology Today and New York Times articles both emphasized the fact that distribution of drugs that results in a death can result in criminal charges and imprisonment.

The Times cited a case of a 21-year-old in Minnesota who allegedly brought a synthetic drug to a party where 11 people overdosed, including a friend who died from cardiac arrest. The individual who brought the drug, and who claimed he was not aware of its illegal status, pled guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced to nearly 10 years.

The Minnesota case also highlights the broad definition of distribution or dealing that is employed by several states. Sharing or giving away drugs with no exchange of money can be considered distribution; even borrowing money from another person to purchase drugs which results in an overdose death can bring a prosecution charge. Though defendants may argue that they did not force the situation in which a fatal overdose occurred, prosecutors take the position that the drugs caused a death, regardless of intent.

“Some family has lost an innocent life,” said Peter Kilmartin, attorney general of Rhode Island, in the New York Times piece. “That victim no longer has a voice.”

The Psychology Today feature that connects the two stories advocates for direct communication about sharing drugs with teenagers. “Open a dialogue with your child about drug sharing and the new legal consequences,” wrote the story’s author, Sean Grover, LCSW. Involving family members or representatives from a child’s school is also suggested.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
Will A Border Wall Help Curb The Opioid Epidemic?

Experts discuss the impact, if any, a new border wall would have on stemming the flow of drugs entering the US through Mexico.

As the government shutdown continues, President Trump is digging in his heels, insisting that an expensive border wall is essential to national security, in part because it would hamper the flow of opioids into the country.

“Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl,” Trump said during a prime time speech from the Oval Office on Tuesday, according to Vox. “Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border. More Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War.”

While it’s true that the number of Americans dying from drug overdoses is shocking, and that most of the drugs consumed in the US come over the Mexican border, it’s silly to think that a wall will stop that flow. That’s because most drugs come into the country via legal posts of entry, usually smuggled in vehicles.

In fact, the Drug Enforcement Administration has said that only a “small percentage” of drugs are carried over the boarder at illegal entry points, according to The Atlantic.

In addition, if a wall was erected, cartels would simply adjust the ways they reach the lucrative US market, according to Elaine Carey, dean of the College of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at Purdue University.

Cary told The Washington Post, “Drug trafficking businesses are very nimble organizations. The way opioids flow or any drug or narcotic, it’s from all different ways. Yes, it comes across the border, but it comes through airports, ships, on trucks, too. A wall’s not going to do anything unless you deal with the demand.”

Without addressing the causes of addiction on American soil, building a wall would do little to diminish availability of drugs, she said.

“If we build the wall, demand is still going to be there.”

If Trump really wanted to reduce the amount of drugs coming into the country, he would be better off investing in additional border security staff than spending billions on a wall, according to Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“A wall alone cannot stop the flow of drugs into the United States,” Wilson told Vox in 2017. “If we’re talking about a broader increase in border security, there could be some — probably minor — implications for the overall numbers of drugs being trafficked. But history shows us that border enforcement has been much more effective at changing the when and where of drugs being brought into the United States rather than the overall amount of drugs being brought into the United States.”

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
Microdosing Marijuana at 9 Years Sober

I got a nice buzz from microdosing marijuana, but a buzz no more intense than a glass of wine sipped slowly and on a reasonably full stomach. Despite this buzz, I had no craving for more pot and I did not pick up a drink.

Microdosing. All the cool kids in Silicon Valley are doing it, and anyone who got sober before 2015 has been left out of the fun. At least, anyone with an all-or-nothing recovery plan, which is most people, but definitely not yours truly. Anecdotally, it looks like it’s better to have Silicon Valley hooked on low doses of LSD and psilocybin than abusing Adderall, but more empirical data on the therapeutic benefits of this trend is needed. Though I’m not going near psychedelics without a doctor’s note, I have dabbled in some microdosing on weed, and I still consider myself 100% sober.

Alcohol was my problem. It was a gnarly problem. I put the kibosh on that problem in 2009 and haven’t looked back.

Google piqued my interest in microdosing on weed by feeding me a headline that claimed one puff of it could blast away depression. I double-clicked. Since I deal with bipolar disorder and have benefited from using CBD (the non-psychoactive component in marijuana), the article seemed relevant.

According to the study, one drag of low-THC and high-CBD dose of weed can knock out depression immediately, unlike traditional antidepressants that often take a few weeks to kick in. But, there’s a catch: Continual use of THC could worsen depression, so this had to be an every-now-and-again smoke. I stored that information in my brain for future reference, noting that if I ever experienced an intense depression that didn’t abate I could give it a try since I’m fortunate enough to live in Los Angeles (pot shops on nearly every major street).

About two months after I read about the study, I got stuck in a morass of negativity and self-deprecation and self-doubt for about a week. Everything was out of alignment, and no matter how much meditation I did, I just couldn’t snap out of it. Sure, I have bipolar II, but because I take meds, 90% of the time the symptoms are manageable. Still, there are those days when stress or neurochemistry or hormones or a bad fight with a boyfriend can throw me off.

Sometimes I find relief in jogging or dancing, calling my therapist or going to a meeting, but there are times where I don’t have the energy or ability to do the very things I know will help (Depression 101). Since I’ve dealt with the condition for so long, I know when I’m dealing with a chemical imbalance and when I’m dealing with a psychological imbalance.

This time it felt like both.

I was curious to see how the weed would work, especially since I’d heard so much about the benefits of microdosing on psychedelics from friends. Because the CBD succeeded in quieting my anxiety and smoothing out my thoughts, I figured why not try something with a bit of THC.

Anyone who smokes pot can tell you that it triggers euphoria, thereby alleviating depression; you don’t need a study to tell you that. But I’ve never been a huge fan of weed, for several reasons.

For starters, my sister smoked way too much of it when she was 18, and she wound up with a permanent case of acute paranoid schizophrenia right after a three-month-long binge. Her doctor said the weed probably triggered a dormant case of the illness inherited from my schizophrenic grandfather, one that would have emerged with or without the pot, it was just a matter of time. So, that instilled in me a well-warranted dose of fear.

After staying far away from weed until my early 20s, I started smoking it every now and then, but not very often, and I certainly never purchased any or had it around. You’re probably wondering why I’d even risk smoking pot at all given my sister’s condition. Well, the doc also pointed out that she displayed many early signs of the disorder from childhood, and that my emotional and expressive–albeit mood-disordered–personality was opposite of what you’d typically see in a child predisposed for schizophrenia.

I also had passed adolescence by the time I started smoking, and the science says adolescents are the ones most at risk. Strength and frequency also play a huge role, and my sister admitted that she holed herself up in her dorm room smoking bowl after bowl after bowl all day long for months until she literally couldn’t think anymore. I had no intention of smoking more than a hit or two off a blunt.

My highs were a total mixed bag: Sometimes they relaxed me, sometimes they brought on unstoppable fits of giggles; one time I had waking dreams about dancing tortilla chips, and a few times I found myself in the midst of very uncomfortable paranoia. The one and only time I smoked way more than two hits, I wound up with full-blown psychosis that ruined an entire Halloween for multiple people. Even when smoking did bring on an enjoyable high, I still had to endure those moments of not remembering the last word I spoke, which I found, and still find, utterly horrifying. Plus my head felt like it weighed 100 pounds and my face felt like it was going to burn off.

Pot just didn’t provide an alluring buzz. I never developed a craving for or addiction to it.

If the weed I smoked had had even a small percentage of CBD, those episodes of paranoia would likely have not occurred since CBD actually curbs the anxiety-inducing effects of THC. In fact, in a bizarre twist of irony, studies have shown CBD effectively treats schizophrenia.

Sadly, whoever bred weed in the 90s and early 2000s grew strains that had little or no CBD because it decreases the psychoactive effect. (Remember chronic?) Now, CBD is making a comeback among health-conscious, microdosing millennials who are sensible enough to want a more balanced high. This is good news for a paranoid Gen Xer.

Now, you can walk into the local dispensary and see a smorgasbord of pot goodies that include CBD, from all-CBD vanilla bean cookies to 1:1 taffies to 100% CBD oil cartridges. There are salves and gums and pre-rolls and mints and a white CBD dust that looks just like cocaine, and all of them are labeled with the milligrams and the percentages of THC and CBD. This is heaven for someone like me who might want to try some pot without getting paranoid or stoned.

I have to say, I love budtenders. Mitch, who manned the shop by my house, was extremely sympathetic to my terror of coming down with pot-induced paranoia. He emphasized that dosing, strain, and CBD content made a world of difference when trying to avoid it and pointed me in the direction of 1:1 taffies. Each taffy had 5 mg of CBD and THC, which sounds low, but it’s no microdose for someone like me. According to Mitch, 5 mg of CBD and THC can lead to a strong high for someone with zero pot tolerance, and I wasn’t looking to get stoned — I just wanted that mild euphoria, for the bell jar to lift.

I ended up buying the taffies and slicing them into thirds, which Mitch suggested. In the end, I was ingesting about 1.5 mg of THC and 1.5 mg of CBD, which a lot of doctors would consider an ineffective dose, but not for me! My brain is super sensitive. After two hours, I ended up feeling a very small effect, but of course it grew.

Ultimately, the high — if you’d call it that — was a powerful feeling of ease and positivity. My thoughts quieted, and yes, a mild euphoria fell over me. It was, without a doubt, a nice buzz, but a buzz no more intense than a glass of wine sipped slowly and on a reasonably full stomach. Despite this buzz, I had no craving for more pot. I was so pleased to not be paranoid or forgetting my thoughts as they spilled out of my head, the last thing I wanted was more. More might have induced those adverse effects. (Oh, the benefits of legalization!)

I am not ashamed of that pot buzz nor do I think it nulls my sobriety in any way. My sobriety is just that — my sobriety, and it’s not some stringent moral code that demands I never feel any psychoactive pleasure whatsoever just because I used to drink myself into rages, sobs, and blackouts. If the pot buzz was harmless and actually beneficial for my mental health, why not embrace it? One of the main reasons I got off the booze is because how seriously destabilizing it is for my mood given my bipolar diagnosis. When I drank too much, it sent me crashing down into suicidal depressions.

Normal drinkers get a slight buzz — if not a big buzz — from their drinks, and they’ll admit it. It’s a social lubricant and a relaxant that well-adjusted and healthy folks leverage all the time to take the edge off and have fun. When they manage to leverage these positive aspects of alcohol without destroying their lives, we tip our hats to them.

Being out of AA for nearly three years no doubt helped me take the microdosing plunge with zero guilt.

Now, if I wanted to gorge myself on those taffies after this experience, that would be problematic, at least for me. Someone else might not care if they engage that behavior, but I’m not in the mood to pick up any new addictions.

I’m still very wary of using weed on the regular given my familial history of schizophrenia, though at this age my chances of developing the illness are low. Some studies have shown that heavy and regular use can fry your short-term memory, and I’m not down for that either: I need all the synapses I can get as I push 40. So, I don’t plan on using it very often.

After having the weed, the positive mood lasted for a few days without ingesting any more taffies. I basically just returned to baseline. I didn’t eat any for weeks after that episode. Since then, I’ve probably had two or three, each time cutting them in thirds or halves. After a while, the package just sat there in the fridge, and eventually I ended up tossing them when I moved out of the apartment.

So, now I have no taffies, and I could frankly care less. If I feel like one might help me in the future, I’ll take it. If I go out to the desert, maybe I’ll take some for recreational use. Either way, I know my limitations, and I know I don’t want to do it often. Because I don’t experience a craving, I doubt this will be a problem. I experienced a craving for alcohol from Day One. From the very beginning, I needed more.

“Marijuana maintenance,” or smoking pot in recovery, is generally frowned upon by your standard AA member. Historically referred to (incorrectly) as “the gateway drug,” 12-step philosophy looks at it in the same way, cautioning that if you start smoking it in recovery it will open up the floodgates toward drinking again.

The problem with this thinking is that it doesn’t take into account the vast differences that exist between all of us, be they physiological or psychological, or, hell, even spiritual. After reading much about recovery, from Lance Dodes to Marc Lewis to Gabrielle Glaser to Bill Wilson and all the stories in the rest of the Big Book, I feel that it’s unconscionable to argue that we are not unique, as so many people do in 12-step programs. We are highly unique, and observing this and tailoring treatment plans for each individual will increase success at recovery. One-size-fits-all recovery modalities are, according to my research, quite dangerous.

Imagine if a woman with breast cancer walked into a doctor’s office and the doctor said, “Well, there’s no reason to take any additional imaging because all breast cancer patients are the same. You’re not unique. Mastectomy it is!”

Even in the dark ages medicine was probably more sophisticated than this. So why are we in the dark ages when it comes to addiction treatment? If our bodies are this unique, then so are our minds. The field of psychiatry also takes our differences into account, with medication and other treatment prescribed according to individual circumstances.

I am not encouraging anyone to microdose, but I am trying to encourage the sober community to keep an open mind about new psychotherapeutic treatments and to accept the fact that some people can stay away from their drug of choice while indulging in a substance that wasn’t and isn’t problematic. Studies have shown that marijuana can benefit our mental health; let’s continue to study this promising medicine instead of closing ourselves off to it out of fear.

Microdosing on anything while in recovery is a very nuanced topic, and drawing blanket conclusions won’t do anyone a bit of good. But in order to make room for these conversations, we have to be open and accepting. We have to be willing to say, “Okay, she can take a little THC every now and then and enjoy it. I know it’s not a good idea for me since I smoked too much pot in the past, so I won’t do it.” We all need to be in touch with our own limits and accept them while not imposing them on others; otherwise, we resort to reductive fear-mongering that has no basis in reality.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
NYPD Gears Up To Address Pot Legalization Downside

The city’s police commissioner is sending NYPD officials to other pot-legal states to gauge what the city is in for when marijuana becomes legal.

The New York Police Department is gearing up for the effects of legal marijuana without knowing exactly what those effects will be. The top of the NYPD chain has some specific concerns for the future of pot in New York: underage consumption and dangerous marijuana grow houses.

As reported in The New York Post, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill told radio host John Catsimatidis’ AM 970 show, The Cats Roundtable, “We have to make sure that we’re able to address people that are under 21 that are using marijuana to make sure there are sanctions for that and also to keep young people safe.”

Colorado has made pot smoking legal, and data from possible changes in use is beginning to be compiled and distributed. The CDPHE Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey reported that underage marijuana use did not increase after pot was made legal. However, Colorado kids felt their peers were using much more marijuana than before the law passed.

Commissioner O’Neill is taking the reigns in investigating the possible ramifications for legal pot in New York. “I’m concerned about the gray and the black markets for marijuana,” O’Neill said. “We sent people from the NYPD out to Colorado and Washington and [California] to take a look at what’s happening out there.”

Governor Cuomo has said he still has questions and concerns about legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Cuomo is putting his trust in the process of working with a panel of experts, including law enforcement and health officials who have determined that legalization can be safe for the city. Governor Cuomo’s position on legalized pot has been colored by watching the neighboring states of Massachusetts and New Jersey legalize marijuana or begin the process.

O’Neill remains concerned. “There’s a proposal out there that people are going to be able to grow their own marijuana in their houses,” he said. “We really really have to get this right.”

O’Neill noted the 2016 explosion of a marijuana grow house in the Bronx that killed a fire chief when he was hit in the head with debris from the explosion. Commissioner O’Neill cited this house fire and subsequent death as a factor “that makes people unsafe.”

O’Neill also worried about the need to retire marijuana-trained drug dogs and the concurrent difficulty of detecting THC among stoned drivers. “I’m concerned about driving while under the influence of marijuana,” the New York Post reported the commissioner saying. “Right now there is no instant test.”

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
Iggy Azalea Talks Anxiety

The Aussie rapper opened up about anxiety on social media.

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea is one of many celebrities who talks about her anxiety on social media.

In the last several months, she’s made several confessions about being antsy, and in the new year, she’s opened up about her struggles again, this time with a good combination of humor and optimism.

In the new year, Azalea revealed on Twitter that she’s moving as well as wrapping up her new album, “[which] is giving me anxiety. But; the good kind? Sorta.”

Yet as she also tweeted, “All my life I’ve never been scared to fall in heels because I know I have cankles & you can’t break me.”

Like many celebrities, social media can be a double-edged sword for Azalea. Several months ago she explained on her Instagram story that public scrutiny of her love life “gives me crazy anxiety and makes me feel like I can’t have normal in passing conversations with people because everything ends up being some ‘story’ for the internet.”

At the same time, Azalea has also used social media as a way to deal with anxiety. Earlier this year she posted on Twitter, “Say what you want about me posting pictures on instagram but honestly, it gives me something else creative i can focus on . . . when sometimes im in a dark place or i feel stagnant . . . and maybe it’s silly, but it really has been helping me lately to feel more positive and just keep my mind in a creative space constantly thinking of new visual things and color palates. Im really glad ive got something i can do without needing permission.”

Azalea has been open with the public about her mental health struggles in the past, telling Billboard that she was inspired by Demi Lovato to get help. She’s also written a song about her mental challenges, “Savior,” which she performed live as a duet with Lovato.

Yet as she heads into the new year, Azalea feels a lot more optimistic about her future and is “excited” because she signed “my new deal/partnership! 2.7 mil, can sign others, own my masters + 100% independent – I’m feeling like such a bossy grown ass b***h today!”

Her last tweet can be interpreted in several different ways, but perhaps it’s a message that she wants to concentrate on her mental wellness: “Time to get back to ME.”

View the original article at thefix.com

11 January 2019
Are Young People Who Self-Harm More Likely To Commit Violent Crimes?

A new study examined whether adolescents who self-harm have a higher risk of hurting others.

New research has determined that a predilection for self-harm in adolescence and early adulthood may also foretell a risk for harming others. Data culled from a long-term study on twins from preschool age until their early 20s suggested that individuals who reported harming themselves were three times more likely to commit violent crimes than those that did not.

Negative experiences during childhood, including mistreatment and low self-control, appeared to increase the odds of a self-harmer becoming a “dual harmer,” as the study labeled such individuals, as well as developing a dependency on alcohol and/or drugs.

“We know that some individuals who self-harm also inflict harm on others,” said study author Leah Richmond-Rakerd of Duke University. “What has not been clear is whether there are early-life characteristics or experiences that increase the risk of violent offending among individuals who self-harm.”

The results of the study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, examined data compiled on more than 2,200 twins born in the United Kingdom between 1994 and 1995 who took part in the Environmental (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, which examined childhood behavior disorders in its subjects between the ages of five and 18.

Beginning at age 18, the E-Risk study asked participants to report any experience with self-harm since the age of 12 as well as violent behaviors and any criminal records accrued between the ages of 10 and 22. Additional childhood experiences, including family psychiatry, maltreatment and low self-control, were also reviewed for the study.

Of the 2,049 participants in the study, 13.4% met the criteria for self-harm, while 19.4% matched criteria for violent crime. Among the individuals who presented as dual harmers, there were higher incidents of low self-control and maltreatment; as US News and World Report noted, genetics and family history did not appear to impact the likelihood of self-harm or dual harm.

“Our study suggests that dual-harming adolescents have experienced self-control difficulties and been victims of violence from a young age,” said Richmond-Rakerd. Other clinical characteristics exhibited by dual harmers included “higher lethality behaviors,” such as hanging or drowning, and acts of self-aggression, such as hitting themselves with objects or banging their heads against a wall and aggression towards others. Self-harmers, by comparison, appeared to engage in lower-lethality methods like cutting.

Dual harmers also appeared to have a greater chance of exhibiting psychotic symptoms and meeting criteria for drug or alcohol dependency. As Richmond-Rakerd noted, early determination of the chance of dual harm behavior among self-harming young people through a “treatment-oriented, rather than punishment-oriented approach” could “guide interventions that prevent and reduce interpersonal violence.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 January 2019
New York Times Apologizes For "Demonizing" Moms With Crack Addiction

In their apology, the Times’ editorial board acknowledged the negative impact of their stigmatizing coverage of black mothers with crack addiction during the crack epidemic.

When Suzanne Sellers gave birth to her son in 1995, she tested positive for drugs, having become addicted to the crack cocaine that was an epidemic in poor black communities. Despite getting clean, Sellers was coerced into signing away her parental rights, she said.

“I had been sober for over two years at the time I was coerced to sign away my parental rights, despite numerous accomplishments and evidence of a rehabilitated life,” Sellers wrote in an opinion column for The New York Times. “Being black was used against me. Yet there were other factors that compounded the racism and unjust treatment, including my being a woman who was poor, with an unstable living situation, unmarried and, of course, a drug user.”

Sellers was writing about her experience after being featured in an opinion piece in which the Times’ editorial board detailed the ways that the coverage of mothers addicted to cocaine —particularly crack cocaine — contributed to the erosion of a woman’s right to choose and stigmatized a generation of mostly black babies born to mothers who were using drugs.

“Americans were told on the nightly news that crack exposure in the womb destroyed the unique brain functions that distinguish human beings from animals — an observation that no one had ever connected to the chemically identical powdered form of the drug that affluent whites were shoveling up their noses,” the editorial board wrote.

“News organizations shoulder much of the blame for the moral panic that cast mothers with crack addictions as irretrievably depraved and the worst enemies of their children,” the board wrote. “The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and others further demonized black women ‘addicts’ by wrongly reporting that they were giving birth to a generation of neurologically damaged children who were less than fully human and who would bankrupt the schools and social service agencies once they came of age.”

Sellers said that the paper’s recognition of the dangers of this type of coverage was appreciated.

“I want to thank The New York Times for its apology for how it demonized mothers like me,” Sellers wrote. “The apology is welcomed, and it gives me hope.”

Sellers called on society to do better today, especially in regards to dealing with mothers and children affected by opioid addiction.

“In 2019, no longer should weak science, poorly informed crusaders and racist attitudes continue to shape public policy,” she wrote.

“American citizens, including drug users, have rights. My rights were violated numerous times during my child welfare case, and my family was wrongfully torn apart. When families are wrongfully torn apart, the results are devastating. When the fundamental relationship of every human being — the relationship of a child with his or her mother — is severed, the effects can be irreversible.”

Today, Sellers has resumed contact with both her children, who are now adults. She leads her own consulting firm and a nonprofit, Families Organizing for Child Welfare Justice, and is a homeowner with three master’s degrees.

“I list my accomplishments not to ‘toot my own horn’ but to show that people can and do recover from drug addiction,” she wrote.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 January 2019
Josh Brolin Shares Drunk Photo To Celebrate Sobriety

The Avengers actor described a harrowing, alcohol-fueled night on Instagram to celebrate a major sober milestone.

Actor Josh Brolin, who has starred in movies ranging from The Goonies to No Country for Old Men to Deadpool 2, took to Instagram this week to celebrate five years of sobriety in an unusual way: sharing a photo from a drunk night out.

Brolin posted the photo, along with a lengthy caption.

“Drunk: when you think you’re having a rip roaring time and the next morning you wake up and your brain has broken into a frenzied beehive and your body is shattered shards of sharp glass desperately searching for what fits where and your spirit is being eaten by worms with great white bloodied teeth and your heart has shriveled into a black prune churning your intestines to the point where dysentery feels attractive,” he wrote.

Brolin continued, “And you can’t remember anything you did so you roll out of bed over last night’s urine and you dial your best friend’s phone number because you recall him lifting you over his head, your whole self, before you hit and broke through the drywall and, you think, a large aquarium and the phone on the other end rings and he picks it up, that clambering for a phone, the clumsiness of a hardline, and you say: ‘What did I do last night?!’ and he answers, after a great pause: ‘…Dude…’. #5years.”

Brolin quit drinking and smoking five years ago. He had just had enough, he told The New York Times last summer.

“There’s something that happens to me when I drink that all moral code disappears,” he said. “So it’s like if I were to take that drink . . . after about halfway through, I would start thinking about jumping out that window . . . not to kill myself, but just because there must be somebody down there to catch me, and I wonder if I can pull it off or if I could land on that van. It just seemed like fun.”

Despite the fact that he is more in control now that he is sober, he still tries to channel some of the spontaneity and levity that drinking brought to him, he said.

“I want to live more drunk. I want to live drunkenly. I just don’t want to take the drink.”

Brolin told the Times that in recovery he’s also trying to overcome the codependent patterns in his love life. His past relationships, he said, had an unhealthy focus, which he described: “I’m going to find out all your needs and all your insecurities, and all that, and then I’m going to play on that. Like, you need a daddy? I’ll be your daddy. I’ll be your hero.”

His dynamic with his current wife, Kathryn, is much healthier, he said.

“She doesn’t need me. She never needed me.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 January 2019
Kamala Harris Pushes For Marijuana Legalization In New Book

The California senator discusses her stance on prohibition, de-scheduling and the need for the war on drugs to be dismantled in her new book.

More and more democratic politicians are getting on board with marijuana legalization, according to Forbes.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is one of them, as she discusses the topic in her new book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

“Something else it’s past time we get done is dismantling the failed war on drugs—starting with legalizing marijuana,” Harris writes in the book.

“We need to legalize marijuana and regulate it,” she adds. “And we need to expunge nonviolent marijuana-related offenses from the records of millions of people who have been arrested and incarcerated so they can get on with their lives.”

Though she is for marijuana legalization, Harris says that legalization should be done with caution. Because of the Schedule I status of the drug, she states, there has not been enough research on the effects. She also states that some solution needs to be put in place when it comes to driving under the influence of marijuana.

Harris also touches on other drugs as a whole, writing, “”We also need to stop treating drug addiction like a public safety crisis instead of what it is: a public health crisis.”

“When someone is suffering from addiction, their situation is made worse, not better, by involvement in the criminal justice system,” she adds.

Despite her support now, Harris has not always been supportive of marijuana legalization. According to Forbes, Harris laughed during a 2014 interview when a journalist raised a question about legalization.

Two years later, in 2016, she also refused to support California’s cannabis legalization ballot measure.

However, with a possible presidential run on the horizon, Harris has gotten behind legalization. In May 2018, according to Forbes, Harris agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act as well as withhold federal funding from states with “discriminatory cannabis enforcement.”

“Right now in this country people are being arrested, being prosecuted, and end up spending time in jail or prison all because of their use of a drug that otherwise should be considered legal,” she said at that point.

According to The Washington Examiner, at that time she also added that race plays a role when it comes to consequences of marijuana use.

“It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. And I know this as a former prosecutor. I know it as a senator,” Harris said. “The fact is marijuana laws are not applied and enforced the same way for all people. African-Americans use marijuana at roughly the same rate as whites, but are approximately four times more likely to be arrested for possession. That’s just not fair.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 January 2019