Tag: News

California Aims To Tighten Law That Diverts Suspects To Mental Health Treatment

Prosecutors argue that a new law should restrict the type of suspects who can qualify for mental health treatment in lieu of jail.

California prosecutors are fighting to amend a law aimed at diverting mentally ill suspects to treatment in lieu of the criminal justice system.

The law, signed by Governor Jerry Brown in June as part of a budget bill, gives judges the option to divert a suspect to a mental health treatment program and dismiss charges if it is decided that mental illness “played a significant role” in the crime, NBC News reported.

The diversion program was intended to reduce the backlog of suspects sent to mental hospitals, NBC News reported, because they are judged incompetent to stand trial.

California law already allowed for the diversion of mentally ill suspects, but prosecutors argue that the new law extends the privilege to too many people, namely people charged with serious crimes.

The new law allows the diversion of “any suspect with mental illness”—including bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, but excludes anti-social personality disorders and pedophilia, the LA Times reported.

In response, Governor Brown submitted a proposal on Monday night to limit who can participate in the diversion program. The proposal allows judges to exclude a “much broader range of dangerous suspects,” specifically banning those charged with murder, rape and other sex crimes from participating in the program.

Another part of the proposal prohibits suspects from owning firearms while participating in the program, and they may be required to pay restitution.

El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said the proposal is “a significant improvement from the original language that was passed and signed into law as part of the budget,” according to the Times.

However, not everyone agrees with the proposal. One deputy public defender said the proposed revision “guts mental health diversion and goes far beyond a reasonable compromise,” allowing California counties to “continue to do what they have done for years—send sick people to prison instead of treatment.”

“The end result is higher incarceration rates for ill Californians, lawsuits for ill Californians, lawsuits against counties for mistreatment of the mentally ill and higher recidivism rates for untreated offenders,” said LA County deputy public defender Nick Stewart-Oaten, who is a member of the California Public Defenders Association’s legislative committee.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 August 2018
Restaurant That Gives Second Chances To People In Recovery Gets Rave Reviews

DV8 Kitchen provides a supportive, flexible work environment to ensure employees are “meeting their goals and staying on a good path.”

One restaurant is not only giving people in recovery a second chance—they’re doing it incredibly well.

DV8 Kitchen, which was recently featured in The Fix, opened last September, but it’s already garnered rave reviews and five stars on Yelp.

All 25 employees at DV8 are in recovery from substance use disorder. Co-owner Rob Perez himself has 28 years of recovery. “I was a binge drinker. I didn’t have to drink everyday but when I did, I would frequently get out of control,” he told The Fix.

With his Lexington, Kentucky eatery, Perez has created a workplace that caters to recovery. “Our staff don’t leave programs or meetings or houses and come to a foreign environment 40 hours a week, they come to a place where we all speak the same language, have the same customs, and discussions, so it’s a 24/7 program,” said Perez.

The restaurant functions around the needs of the employees. For example, as Perez explained to the Dayton Daily News, DV8 does not open for dinner service so that employees may attend meetings, and tips are split evenly and added to paychecks instead of giving out cash.

Schedules are flexible and work to fit in mandatory appointments for court or treatment centers, and each Tuesday a guest speaker comes in, covering topics including health and wellness, financial responsibility, teamwork and mindfulness.

The restaurant works in partnership with treatment centers, where most new employees are hired from. “We work in tandem with the sober living houses to ensure the employee is meeting their goals and staying on a good path,” Perez told The Fix.

Perez is well aware that, whether they like it or not, DV8 has something to prove. It’s more than a restaurant, it’s a chance to show people that “second chance” doesn’t mean “second rate.”

Hoping to establish a higher standard for his restaurant, employees are paid 20% more than they would get at similar fast-casual restaurants, resulting in less turnover and better service, Perez told the Daily News.

“I think that the customers see a different face of recovery. It is about helping the folks that work here,” Perez told the Daily News. “But it’s also about helping the general public understand that the recovery community is worth a shot. The recovery community can perform good work.”

Perez believes that with hard work comes self-respect. “When you do a job with quality, you build self respect, self-esteem and pride in a craft you’re developing,” he told The Fix. “In recovery, we need a support system and an accountability system. And the camaraderie you get out of a job when you have common interests, backgrounds and circumstances, is pretty powerful.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 August 2018
AA Meetings Are Thriving In A Country Where Alcohol Is Illegal

A new episode of PBS’s “Frontline” offers a glimpse inside Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Iran.

Alcohol is banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is alive and well in a country where the consequences for drinking are severe.

Many Iranians are starting to believe the true cost of alcohol—everything from brutal lashings to the death penalty—is worth it. At least, that’s the message suggested in an eye-opening new episode of the PBS documentary series Frontline.

“I was arrested [with alcohol] and got 77 lashes,” an AA member said in the episode. “They use leather whips, just like with a horse. That’ll hurt, yeah. My skin was all torn apart.” He’s not alone, Frontline reveals, as the episode explores how AA has increasingly taken root in the country.

The country’s Ministry of Information has allowed the AA Big Book (in which co-founder Bill Wilson outlined the 12-step program) to be printed and shared, with meeting groups rising all over Tehran, Iran’s capital. The results are telling, as one AA group member says he’s celebrated eight years of sobriety while another has another four under his belt.

Alcohol may be highly illegal, but it’s clearly not impossible to find. “You call someone who sells it and they come and deliver it to you,” an AA member explained to Frontline. “They bring it in a paper bag, you pay them, and they’re off again.”

The simplicity of that transaction belies many other stories about Iran’s hidden drinking subculture, which is almost as hidden as the country’s burgeoning AA fellowship.

Despite Iran’s alcohol ban and frequent police raids, “drinking in Iran is widespread, especially among the wealthy,” the Independent reported.

There aren’t any nightclubs, so all of the illegal imbibing occurs behind closed doors. Some of the booze is smuggled in, but much of the wine and beer is made right under the noses of Iranian law enforcement, who are all too eager to mete out punishment.

And while AA meetings reveal that some Iranians are seeking help they desperately need, Iran itself remains a country in denial about its larger alcohol problem.

The Daily Beast published a feature that considered why “cruel penalties [have] not managed to reduce the popularity of drinking alcohol, particularly among young people, or its dramatic abuse by a stunning number of alcoholics.”

Put into context, Iran ranks 166 in alcohol consumption per capita, but that statistic isn’t telling the whole story. If you look at World Health Organization estimates for people who consume 35 liters or more of alcohol over a year, the country actually ranks 19th in the entire world.

“In other words, the number of alcoholics per capita puts Iran ahead of Russia (ranked 30), Germany (83), Britain (95), the United States (104) and Saudi Arabia (184),” The Daily Beast reported.

Still, the Islamic Republic refuses to address its problem, beyond some scattered public ad campaigns that depict the dangers of drinking and driving.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 August 2018
First Fentanyl Execution Carried Out In Nebraska

Fentanyl was one of four drugs used to kill Carey Dean Moore.

Nebraska has become the first state to execute an inmate using the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

On Tuesday, Aug. 15, the state used a lethal injection of fentanyl to execute Carey Dean Moore, a 60-year-old who was given the death penalty for killing two cab drivers, Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland, in 1979.

Fentanyl was one of four drugs used to kill Moore. According to the New York Times, the four-drug cocktail included “diazepam, a tranquilizer; fentanyl citrate, a powerful synthetic opioid that can block breathing and knock out consciousness; cisatracurium besylate, a muscle relaxant; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.”

The first drug was injected at 10:24 a.m., and Moore was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m..

As drug manufacturers increasingly refuse to allow states to use their products for lethal injections, states are looking for alternative execution means. Some people say that this is why states are using fentanyl, a painkiller that has become better known as a dangerous street drug and blamed for a spike in overdose deaths around the nation.

“There’s no particular reason why one would use fentanyl,” Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington nonprofit group, told The Washington Post. “No one has used it before, and we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of executions by injection. That suggests that the state is using fentanyl because it can get its hands on it.”

Scott R. Frakes, director of Nebraska’s Department of Correctional Services, said in a federal affidavit that states were very limited in the drugs they could use for executions.

“Lethal substances used in a lethal injection execution are difficult, if nearly impossible, to obtain,” he wrote.

In July, Nevada was slated to become the first state to use fentanyl as part of a lethal injection. However, the execution was stopped because Alvogen, maker of the sedative midazolam, objected to the drug’s use as part of a lethal injection.

After a judge blocked the execution, the company said that it “does not condone the use of any of its drug products, including midazolam, for use in state-sponsored executions.”

After the court hearing the Nevada execution was put on hold indefinitely.

In a handwritten statement distributed Tuesday, Moore said that he did not wish to delay his execution after spending 38 years on death row. However, he urged people who are against the death penalty to turn their attention to the four individuals on death row in Nebraska who claim to be innocent.

“How might you feel if your loved one were innocent and on death row or if you were the innocent on death row,” he wrote.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 August 2018
How Binge Drinking May Affect Young Adults

Young adults who are heavy drinkers may be heightening their risk for future cardiovascular issues, according to a new study.

In addition to the obvious effects of excessive drinking, young adults who binge drink may also be at risk of heart disease and stroke as they age.

Authors of a new study published in Journal of the American Heart Association suggest that the one-in-five college students who binge drink have reason to be concerned for their health.

In the study, researchers examined the responses of 4,710 individuals between 18 and 45 years old who had taken part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between the years 2011 and 2012, and 2013 and 2014.

Those individuals were then broken into three categories: those who did not drink, those who binge drank 12 or fewer times per year, and those who binge drank 12 or more times per year.

Of the individuals involved, about 25% of men and about 11% of women binge drank “frequently.” For those who binge drank 12 or fewer times per year, 29% of men and 25% of women fell into the category.

Researchers found that those who binge drank frequently seemed more likely to exhibit risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which could lead to cardiovascular issues and strokes later in life.

Researchers also looked at the effects of alcohol consumption on young men versus young women. They concluded that men who binge drank often had higher blood pressure and higher cholesterol than those who did not binge drink often. When compared to low frequency drinkers, women who binge drank had higher blood sugar levels.

Mariann Piano, an author of the study and professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing, tells Newsweek that a main takeaway from this study is that risky behavior can be changed.

“Implementing lifestyle interventions to reduce blood pressure in early adulthood may be an important strategy to prevent cardiovascular disease later in life,” she said to Newsweek. “As part of this intervention pattern, young adults should be screened and counseled about alcohol misuse, including binge drinking, and advised on how binge drinking may affect their cardiovascular health.”

This study is only one of a few recent studies focusing on how unhealthy lifestyles in youth can affect them later in life.

In July, researchers in England published a study that found that being overweight as a teen could change the heart’s shape and affect the manner in which it functions.

Like Mariann Piano, Ashleigh Doggett, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, also told Newsweek that habits can be changed at a young age to avoid such dangers later in life.

“It can be a common misconception that heart-related issues only affect an older demographic, which we know isn’t the case,” she said. “This study highlights the importance of endorsing a healthy lifestyle from a young age—the earlier we reinforce healthier habits, the greater impact it can have.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 August 2018
"Methadone Pope" Dr. Robert Newman Dies At 80

The doctor famously commissioned an unused ferry boat to serve as a temporary methadone clinic when a private clinic shut down in 1972.

The “methadone pope” passed away this month, sparking a conversation about his groundbreaking contributions to the worlds of harm reduction and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for substance use disorder.

Dr. Robert Newman spent his career advocating for methadone access and defending patients’ rights.

As a young public health doctor in New York City, Newman was instrumental in expanding the city’s methadone program. In its first year, it served 20,000 people.

“He was on the front lines of advocating for methadone, when no one else was talking about it, when it was taboo and unwelcome,” said Kasia Malinowska, of the Open Society Foundations. “He thought that methadone was an effective, easy, cheap public health intervention; that it’s insane to deny it to people who are so deeply in need.”

Newman believed in methadone’s ability to help people trying to quit heroin live normal lives. He further defended patients who did not wish to taper off the medication.

“There’s no moral judgment as to how much penicillin one uses to treat gonorrhea, and there shouldn’t be any moral judgment as to how much methadone a patient is receiving if the result is satisfactory,” he said in 2011, according to the Huffington Post.

The doctor famously commissioned an unused ferry boat to serve as a temporary methadone clinic when a private clinic shut down in 1972; and Newman would transport methadone from the makeshift clinic using his son’s stroller.

Newman defended NYC’s methadone program when Mayor Rudy Giuliani tried shutting it down in 1998. The mayor believed that methadone maintenance was just substituting one substance use disorder for another.

Newman also defended patients’ right to privacy when the government ordered that he relinquish patients’ methadone records to law enforcement—and won.

“Not only was he passionate about this, but he was courageous. He was totally willing and prepared to go to jail,” said his nephew Tony Newman, director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance.

The doctor’s advocacy did not end with methadone. As president of Beth Israel Medical Center, Newman advocated needle exchanges for drug users “long before the AIDS outbreak generated broader support for such controversial programs,” the New York Times reported.

Under his leadership, the hospital became the world’s largest provider of methadone, serving about 8,000 patients by 2001, according to the Times.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
Vets Believe That Some Pet Owners Injure Their Animals To Get Opioids

A new study reveals that 13% of veterinarians believed a client had intentionally injured a pet or made them ill in order to be prescribed a drug.

A small research study in Colorado had disturbing results: the study found that 13% of veterinarians believe that people are using their pets to obtain opioids—by making them appear to be injured, or by actually injuring the animal.

Gizmodo interviewed the author of the study, Liliana Tenney, a public health researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Tenney is concerned about the lack of training and education for veterinarians regarding their responsibilities in the opioid crisis.

“In conversations with these doctors, they often ask: ‘Well, what do we do? We need to treat pets who are in pain but we also need to know how to identify and handle suspicious behavior,’” she said. “But there’s not a lot of resources or training right now to direct these veterinarians.”

According to Gizmodo, almost three-quarters of vets reported that their veterinary medical school training on opioids was mediocre, poor, or non-existent. Sixty-four percent said that following veterinarian school, they had no further training on the issue.

Newsweek reported that in the survey of 189 vets; 13% reported that they believed a client had intentionally injured a pet, made them ill, or made them appear unwell, in order to be prescribed a drug. Tramadol is the most common opioid stocked by veterinary practices.

The emailed survey also revealed that 45% of the vets knew of someone at work or a client who was abusing opioids, and 12% said they knew of a staff member that was giving out opioids.

Lee Newman, director of the Center for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health, told Newsweek, “There were also reports of diversion of drugs within the veterinary practices. Doctors [of animals] can prescribe the full range of opioids that are prescribed and administered to humans.

“In fact, veterinarians have the ability to prescribe, administer, carry, stock, and dispense narcotics in clinics, depending on the pain needs of their animal patients.”

The survey results indicate that veterinarians have been dramatically undereducated about their role in drug monitoring. Sixty-two percent believed they had a role in preventing opioid abuse, and 40% were unsure if opioid abuse was an issue in their communities.

To address this gap, Liliana Tenney, along with her team, has built an online education course for veterinary providers. Tenney and others are also working on building a better surveillance program within Colorado, where the survey was conducted.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
Does Having A Marijuana Dispensary Nearby Increase Teen Drug Use?

A new study explored how factors like proximity, price and product variety might influence adolescents to use marijuana.

Despite the increased availability of marijuana dispensaries, teens aren’t any more likely to smoke weed, a new study revealed. According to High Times, researchers from the University of California San Diego Department of Family Medicine and Public Health examined how factors like proximity, price and product variety might influence adolescents to use marijuana.

“There was no evidence supporting the associations of medical marijuana availability, price, or product variety around school with adolescents’ marijuana use and susceptibility to use,” the study’s authors wrote.

The number of dispensaries in any given neighborhood, nor a dispensary’s proximity to a school appeared to be contributing factors to teen marijuana use, the report indicated.

“Neither the product price nor the product variety in the dispensary nearest to school was associated with marijuana use or susceptibility to use,” the report added. “The results were robust to different specifications of medical marijuana measures.”

Little to no research has been conducted on the possible connection between marijuana dispensaries and cannabis use, the researchers said, which makes their study as necessary as it is unique.

By contrast, there exists a significant amount of research in regards to the link between drug and alcohol availability, and teenagers’ choices to smoke or drink.

“Despite the strong relationship between retail outlets and alcohol and tobacco use documented by a number of studies, examination of the associations of medical marijuana dispensaries with marijuana use remains limited,” they wrote.

The study’s authors examined the responses of more than 46,000 8th, 10th and 12th graders (across 117 schools) who participated in the 2015-16 California Student Tobacco Survey.

“For now, there appears to be no basis for the argument that legalizing medical marijuana has increased teens’ use of the drug,” Deborah Hasin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, concluded earlier this year.

Hasin cited a report that examined teen marijuana use between 1991 and 2014, which compared teen pot use before and after medical marijuana was legalized in a given state.

Still, not everyone is convinced, PBS reported: a chorus of counselors, parents, physicians, and public health experts continue to sound off about the threat that legal marijuana poses for teenagers.

“Colorado and other states where marijuana is legal have crafted regulations holding dispensaries accountable for selling their products to minors, and sent out educational messages aimed at preventing kids from gaining access to marijuana,” PBS noted.

Colorado pediatrician Christian Thurstone says that he’s observed a steadily growing marijuana addiction rate among teenagers ever since 2010, when private companies were given the green light to market and sell medical marijuana.

In fact, even if the number of teenagers using pot remained flat year over year in Colorado, Thurstone said, the rate of teenagers seeking addiction treatment would climb no matter what.

Unfortunately, not enough recovery resources exist for teenagers, PBS noted, claiming that only one in 10 people with an addiction ever seek treatment.

“We just need more [treatment options],” Thurstone said. “We’re just scratching the surface, but we may be doing better than one in 10.”

You can read more about the impact of medicinal cannabis and why “Big Pharma” is panicking because of it over at cbdoilroom.com in their article “Why Big Pharma Is Panicking Over CBD Oil’s Proliferation“.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
Norway Announces Free Heroin Program For People With Addiction

The program is intended to give a “better quality of life” to those battling heroin addiction, according to the country’s health minister.

In an effort to curb a rising drug overdose mortality rate, Norway will test a program that will prescribe free heroin to individuals with serious dependency issues.

The country’s health minister, Bente Hoie, said that the program is intended to give a “better quality of life” to those for whom current programs do not provide enough relief.

The Norwegian program echoes similar initiatives in neighboring Denmark and the Netherlands, which supporters said has helped to reduce overdose and crime rates, as well as the costs associated with both.

In 2014, Norway’s Country Drug report revealed that 266 residents succumbed to drug-related deaths that year. Rather than adopting punitive measures to curb drug use, it became the first Scandinavian country to decriminalize drugs in 2017.

The current initiative appears to extend to what Sveinung Stensland, deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, said in 2014 was a “changed vision—those who have a substance abuse problem should be treated as ill, and not as criminals with classical sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.”

The Norwegian government tasked its Directorate for Health and Social Affairs to develop the initiative, which is slated to begin in 2020. “We want to help those who are difficult to reach, those who are not part of drug-assisted rehabilitation and who are difficult to treat,” said Hoie.

The pilot program will prescribe heroin for up to 400 patients; how the patients will be selected and how much of the drug they will receive has not been announced.

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Norway has one of the highest rates of death from drug-related overdoses in Europe, with 81 deaths per million as of 2015. Neighboring Estonia has 132 deaths per million, and Sweden has 22 deaths per million.

Programs like the proposed initiative in Norway have shown promise in reducing overdose rates and improving the quality of life for those with heroin dependency.

The Netherlands established its program in 1998 and treats patients who have used heroin on a regular basis for five or more years and found no relief from other forms of treatment, including methadone-maintenance therapy.

In 2016, the country reported just 235 opioid overdose deaths, a substantially lower number than the rates reported by the state of Ohio, which saw 4,050 deaths that same year.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
Taraji P Henson Launches Mental Health Foundation

The “Empire” star launched the foundation in honor of her late father who battled mental health issues.

Actress Taraji P. Henson has launched a foundation to promote mental health support for the African American community, in honor of her late father Boris Lawrence Henson, who she said struggled with mental health issues.

According to its official website, the three main goals of the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation (BLHF) are to provide mental health support in urban schools, increase the number of African American therapists, and to reduce the prison recidivism rate.

Through her foundation, Henson is targeting the African American community specifically to eradicate the stigma around mental health issues, hoping to break the silence and encourage the community to be open about their struggles.

“African Americans have regarded such communication as a sign of weakness and our vision is to change that perception,” said Tracie Jenkins, executive director of BLHF, according to People.

“One in five Americans suffer from mental illness. African Americans are the least likely population to seek treatment,” according to the BLHF website. “We are taught to hold our problems close to the vest out of fear of being labeled and further demonized as inapt, weak, and/or inadequate.”

Henson launched the foundation in honor of her father, Boris Lawrence Henson, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 58 after battling liver cancer.

“I named the organization after my father because of his complete and unconditional love for me; his unabashed, unashamed ability to tell the truth, even if it hurt; and his strength to push through his own battles with mental health issues,” said the Empire actress.

“My dad fought in the Vietnam War for our country, returned broken, and received little to no physical and emotional support. I stand now in his absence, committed to offering support to African Americans who face trauma daily, simply because they are black.”

The foundation will provide scholarships for African American students majoring in mental health, and work with urban school districts to support mental health therapists, social workers and counselors for African American children in need.

“African American youth in this country are exposed to trauma daily. Issues like poverty, mass incarceration and violence plague the lives of many of our children, leaving them scarred and anxious,” according to the BLHF website. “Yet many of the children facing these problems rarely get the therapeutic help they need, carrying the effects of these issues into adulthood.”

The website continues, “Instead of stigmatizing mental health issues, we must normalize the issue. We must learn to equate the importance of emotional health with the importance of physical health. Needing help is not a shame, the shame is in the inability and fear to do so.”

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018