Answer Addiction

Tag: News

  • Vine Co-Creator Colin Kroll Dies Of Suspected Overdose At 34

    Vine Co-Creator Colin Kroll Dies Of Suspected Overdose At 34

    Those close to Colin Kroll took to social media to memorialize the Vine/HQ Trivia co-founder.

    Colin Kroll, the creator of well-known apps Vine and HQ Trivia, was found dead of a suspected overdose in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday. 

    According to People, a New York City Police Department spokesperson has confirmed that an unresponsive Kroll was found in his home Sunday, Dec. 16 and was later pronounced dead at the scene.

    Although preliminary results point to an overdose, the NYPD spokesperson said the medical examiner will determine the official cause of death. There was no report as to what substance Kroll potentially overdosed on. 

    Those close to Kroll responded to the news with sadness. 

    An HQ Trivia spokeswoman released a statement to People and wrote, “We learned today of the passing of our friend and founder, Colin Kroll, and it’s with deep sadness that we say goodbye. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.”

    Rus Yusupov, Kroll’s Vine and HQ Trivia co-founder, tweeted about how Kroll had made the world a better place. 

    “So sad to hear about the passing of my friend and co-founder Colin Kroll,” he wrote. “My thoughts & prayers go out to his loved ones. I will forever remember him for his kind soul and big heart. He made the world and internet a better place. Rest in peace, brother.”

    Kroll and his co-founders launched video app Vine in 2013, Time reports. But in 2014, Kroll left Vine to co-found HQ Trivia, which launched in August 2017. 

    Various complaints had been filed against Kroll over the years, including from an HQ Trivia employee claiming Kroll had an “aggressive management style,” People reported. Recode has also reported that Kroll was let go from Twitter, which acquired Vine, for similar complaints. 

    In March, Kroll spoke to Axios about the allegations, saying he had learned from the circumstances and changed for the better.  

    “As reported in the media, I was let go from Vine four years ago for poor management,” he said. “It was a painful experience, but an eye-opening one that served as a catalyst for professional development and greater awareness in the office.”

    “I now realize that there are things I said and did that made some feel unappreciated or uncomfortable,” he added. “I apologize to those people. Today, I’m committed to building HQ Trivia into a culture-defining product and supporting the dedicated team that makes it all possible.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artie Lange Admits To Using Cocaine Post-Rehab

    Artie Lange Admits To Using Cocaine Post-Rehab

    After being tested in court, Artie Lange revealed that he has relapsed but is currently 10 days clean.

    Troubled comedian Artie Lange has had a well-known and lengthy history with substance abuse. Lange has been very open about his struggles throughout his life, and while he celebrated “18 days clean” on social media last month, he’s now confessing that he’s used cocaine since leaving rehab.

    A year ago, Lange pleaded guilty to possessing 81 bags of heroin, and he received four years probation. (After sentencing, Lange tweeted, “4 yrs [sic] probation is a long time.”)

    On December 14, Lange tweeted, “Today in court they drug tested me. For the last decade or more they’d have found both Heroin and Cocaine. With the help of in my eyes a miracle legal medication called Suboxen [sic] I tested negative for Heroin. I haven’t used Heroin in 41 days. . . . That’s a prison that for now I’m out of. It’s also the reason I’m not in jail.” Yet he added, “10 days ago when I left rehab I had to touch the flame. I used Cocaine. . . .”

    Lange added that the cocaine “should’ve left my system. But a higher power wouldn’t let [it]. I’m a bad addict. I had to see if I could get high. It was awful.”

    While Lange tweeted that “the judge and prosecutor were unbelievably compassionate,” and “they wanna save my life,” he said they are also making him “apply for a very strict rehab type program called Drug Court.”

    As he’s realized before, Lange knows he’s got a long road ahead of him. “I have work to do. I feel now I can also stop Cocaine. But that’s arrogance and addiction. I’m accepting help. If I fail now I will go to jail. Jail is not for addicts. But I’d be giving them no choice. When I use illegal drugs I have to score them. That’s breaking the law.”

    As his tweetstorm started winding down, Lange grew even more serious and asked his fans to “pray for me. So no lies. I have 10 days clean . . . But know that though I made progress & got rid of Heroin I still have not hit a homerun. But guys I got on base. I moved ahead. I wanna help ppl . . . Hopefully I survive to help others . . . But I’m working on me too. It’s the only thing worth while now.”

     

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • HopCat Renames Crack Fries: "Addiction Is Not Funny"

    HopCat Renames Crack Fries: "Addiction Is Not Funny"

    “We chose the name more than 11 years ago as a reference to the addictive quality of the fries and their cracked pepper seasoning, without consideration for those the drug negatively affected,” said HopCat’s CEO in a blog post.

    HopCat, a bar that has locations in nine states, announced this week it will rename a favorite menu item: crack fries. 

    “We chose the name more than 11 years ago as a reference to the addictive quality of the fries and their cracked pepper seasoning, without consideration for those the drug negatively affected. We were wrong,” company CEO Mark Gray said in a blog post from Monday Dec. 10. 

    “The crack epidemic and the lasting impact on those it affects is not funny and never was,” Gray wrote. “As we grow as a company we have come to realize that to make light of this drug and of addiction contradicts our values of inclusion and community. We want to thank our guests, employees and community members who have helped us come to this realization and apologize for the pain the name brought to others.”

    This isn’t the first time the fries have been in the spotlight. In 2015, Dean Dauphinais, a writer for The Fix, reached out to HopCat on Twitter about the name of the beer-battered fries. 

    “When we started we honestly didn’t think about offending. We just thought it was a good name…” HopCat said to Dauphinais via Twitter. 

    “This might be a dumb question, but how ’bout just changing the name? There’s NOTHING funny about crack or #addiction,” Dauphinais replied. However, he was a few years too early. 

    “Not a dumb question, but we have no plans to change the name,” HopCat tweeted. “We hope we can do some good by helping those in need.”

    The chain pointed out that they had donated $1,000 from the sale of the fries to a center in Detroit that provides shelter and treatment for people who are homeless. 

    The name change has been controversial, with some people saying that it represents political correctness gone too far.

    “We’ve heard from a lot of people thanking us, and that’s gratifying,” HopCat spokesman Chris Knape told The Chicago Tribune. “And we’ve heard from a lot of people who are not happy, and they’re entitled to that opinion as well. In some ways, it’s flattering that people care that much about the name of a french fry.”

    Knape said that while the joke may never have been funny, it falls particularly flat with the nation during an overdose epidemic. 

    “Times change, we’ve changed and we decided to make a change,” he said. “It’s not a reflection of us wanting to be politically correct as much as wanting to present an image to the world that’s inclusive and recognizes that what may have been funny 11 years ago never really was.”

    A new name has not been announced, but HopCat insists that only the name — not the recipe — is changing. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Heartbreaking Billboard Aims To Raise Awareness About Addiction

    Heartbreaking Billboard Aims To Raise Awareness About Addiction

    The billboard spotlights a brief, powerful message: “Tim Hatley: Addiction Can Lead to Death.”

    Amidst the pre-fab buildings and snow of northern Michigan sits a stark reminder for the Hatley family.

    It’s a roadside billboard with a simple message: “Tim Hatley: Addiction Can Lead to Death.” 

    On a rural road outside the town of Grayling – population 1,800 – the signage is aimed at raising awareness about addiction, using the story of a former high school football player who died by suicide last year after struggling with addiction. 

    “When he turned 19 he moved out of my house and moved down the street with a friend and that’s kind of when it all started that he started snorting Norcos,” his mother Karen told CBS affiliate WWTV. “He had a huge addiction with the Norcos, went through three withdrawals with him.”

    It started after he was prescribed painkillers for a sports injury. Afterward, he kept using the pills and pain management gave way to a larger problem. After more than a decade of drug misuse, he turned from opioids to meth, his mother said. 

    A month before his death, he had a psychotic episode. On Dec. 30 of last year he killed himself.

    “His fiancé had called me and said ‘he’s gone’ and hung up on me. And I was like ‘what is she’s talking about?’” Hatley told the TV station. “I called my husband and said ‘you need to come home now.’ So, he came home, and when he walked in he was crying, and just shook his head and I fell to the ground.”

    So this year, she paired up with the Crawford County Partnership for Substance Abuse Prevention to put up a billboard reminding passersby of her son’s story and offering a solution. “If you need help, recovery starts here. Call 1-800-834-3393,” the sign says.

    “I chose the billboard going towards the high school because I want kids on a bus to see that every single day, and I want parents to get the message that you know, you’re [sic] kid doesn’t have to be a troubled kid to end up this way,” Hatley said. “This loss is the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through, and I don’t want anyone else to go through this.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Do Graphic Images On Cigarette Packaging Keep Non-Smokers Away?

    Do Graphic Images On Cigarette Packaging Keep Non-Smokers Away?

    A new study examined whether graphic warnings on cigarette packs worked to deter smoking. 

    A new study has found that cigarette advertising featuring graphic images associated with smoking – cancerous lesions and bleeding – might be as effective in influencing young people and adults to stay away from smoking as text-based labels on cigarette packs.

    As Science Daily reported, researchers presented nearly 1,000 adult smokers and middle schoolers with randomly selected advertisements, some featuring upbeat images and scaled down warnings and others showing combinations of graphic warnings and the Surgeon General’s warnings about cigarette use.

    Participants reported feeling more negatively towards cigarettes after viewing the graphic warning in either text or image form, regardless of size, than text-only warnings, which suggested to the researchers that employing such warnings may be useful in countering the more positive imagery used by the cigarette industry.

    The study, conducted primarily by researchers from Cornell University and funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was carried out using 451 adults who smoked and 474 middle school-aged students, all from rural or urban low-income communities in the Northeastern United States. Each participant was randomly provided with a set of six advertisements for cigarettes with different presentations.

    Some featured “positive” images – a group of happy people taking a selfie – in combination with a graphic warning label that covered 20% of the ad, while others were given ads that featured combinations of text-only warnings and more graphic warning images, as well as brand images and socially attuned imagery like the other set of ads.

    Researchers asked participants to report whether they felt any negative emotions while viewing the images, while also tracking their eye movements to determine which part of the ad they viewed and for what duration of time. What resulted was the more graphic warnings – both text and image – drew more attention from participants than text-only warnings, including the Surgeon General’s warning.

    The graphic warnings also produced more negative feelings than the text-only warnings and helped to dampen the younger participants’ opinions about the appeal of cigarettes.

    “That’s important, because there’s pretty good evidence that the visceral reactions to these warnings are a main driver of their effectiveness,” said lead author Jeff Niederdeppe, associate professor of communication at Cornell. “These ads are trying to create a positive brand image, and the graphic warnings help suppress that.”

    Niederdeppe also reported the researchers’ surprise at finding that participants felt the same degree of negative feelings towards a graphic warning that covered a small (20%) portion of a full-page advertisement as they did towards a similar ad that covered 50% of a cigarette pack. “It suggests that 20 percent coverage on an advertisement is a high enough threshold to create the negative emotion,” he explained.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Apprentice" Contestant Claims Trump Snorted Adderall On Set

    "Apprentice" Contestant Claims Trump Snorted Adderall On Set

    Actor Tom Arnold took to Twitter to back up Celebrity Apprentice contestant Noel Casler’s allegations about Trump’s Adderall use.

    During a stand-up set earlier this month, comedian Noel Casler claimed President Donald Trump used to snort Adderall on the set of The Celebrity Apprentice.

    It’s not immediately clear that the comic actually worked on the show, but other comics – mostly ardent Trump opponents – quickly came to Casler’s defense on Twitter, calling him “professional” and “discreet.”

    The six-minute routine at the Gotham Comedy Club drew plenty of laughs on Dec. 1, but it didn’t start going viral until a few days later.

    “He’s a speed freak,” Casler told the crowd. “He crushes up his Adderall and he sniffs it, ’cause he can’t read, so he gets really nervous when he has to read cue cards. I’m not kidding. This is true.”

    He went on to describe a “24-page nondisclosure agreement” – then apparently dismiss it.

    “I didn’t know then he was becoming president,” he continued. “Now it’s, no way, dumbass. I’m telling you everything I know. So he gets nervous and he crushes up these pills, and that’s why he’s sniffing when you see him in debates and when you see him reading. It’s why he’s tweeting, you know, it’s like he’s out of his mind.”

    Riffing on the allegations, he continued.

    “It makes sense if you think about it,” he said, “methamphetamine was invented by the Nazis to keep the fighter pilots up all night on bombing runs, so it makes sense that Trump would use it to hate-tweet.”

    When HillReporter.com followed up to ask whether Casler was serious, he reportedly said he wouldn’t discuss his work off-stage or on the record.

    But actor Tom Arnold took to Twitter both to declare the statement accurate and to imply that the whole skit may have been a way to get around the alleged NDA.

    “Because First Amendment Mark Burnett MGM & Donald Trump cannot hold a stand up comic performing onstage in public to their BS 10 year $5 million NDA,” he wrote. “Finally figured out a way to tell these true stories. Tapes too. Noel Casler, American Hero. Funnyman with impeccable credentials.”

    It’s not the first time a comment about Trump’s alleged drug use has drawn widespread attention. Back before the 2016 election, former presidential candidate Howard Dean dinged Trump for sniffling his way through his first face-off with Hillary Clinton.

    “Notice Trump sniffing all the time. Coke user?” he tweeted. A few days later, Dean apologized.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Fentanyl Officially The Deadliest Drug In America

    Fentanyl Officially The Deadliest Drug In America

    According to a new report, fentanyl is responsible for more US deaths than any other drug.

    Fentanyl has become the most deadly drug in the nation, involved in more overdose deaths than any other illicit substance, according to a new report. 

    According to the National Center for Health Statistics’ “Drugs Most Frequently Involved in Drug Overdose Deaths: United States, 2011–2016” report, fentanyl was involved in 18,335 overdose deaths last year, far surpassing heroin, the second most deadly drug, which was involved in 15,961 deaths.

    Overall, fentanyl was present in 28.8% of overdose deaths in 2016, the report found. 

    Often, fentanyl was present alongside other drugs, including opioids and cocaine. The prevalence of fentanyl in the opioid supply and now the cocaine supply across the country is striking fear into health care workers and drug users alike, since the powerful synthetic opioid can cause an overdose in tiny amounts. In 69% of the deaths that involved fentanyl, another drug was also found, according to the report. 

    “We’ve had a tendency to think of these drugs in isolation. It’s not really what’s happening,” Dr. Holly Hedegaard, lead author of the report and injury epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics told The Huffington Post.

    Oftentimes, drug users don’t even know they’re being exposed to the drug. This can be particularly problematic for people who don’t typically use opioids and therefore don’t have a tolerance built up. That can leave them more vulnerable to overdose, but participants in one Rhode Island survey said the drug is nearly impossible to avoid.  

    “It’s like you notice that there’s fentanyl and it’s not the drug you’re going for. It’s like, what’s the point, unless you have a little lab kit or something. That’s the only way you can tell,” a user said.  

    “I don’t think you can avoid it now,” another user said.

    The government report examined overdoses between 2011 and 2016 by looking at the data on death certificates to see which drugs were present in the most deaths. In 2011, fentanyl was the 10th most deadly drug in the country, present in just 1,662 deaths. In 2012 and 2013 it was the ninth most deadly, before moving to the fifth spot in 2014, when it was involved in 4,223 deaths.

    By 2015 it was the second most deadly drug, involved in 8,251 deaths, before its impact grew massively in 2016. 

    “Fentanyl is so deadly, in the geographic regions where it’s been flooding in, deaths soared like we’ve never seen before,” Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, told CNN.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Confetti Company Gives Work To Women In Recovery

    Confetti Company Gives Work To Women In Recovery

    “I want it to do some good because everything gets chucked at the end. My confetti is disposable, but it is made by women to help improve their lives,” said the owner of Leonetti Confetti.

    Kylee Leonetti was inspired to start her confetti-making company after the overdose and near-death of her beloved brother. After a weeklong coma, he awoke. To his family’s great relief, he has been sober ever since. Leonetti was full of gratitude for her family’s good luck, and she wanted to give back to the addiction recovery community.

    “I wanted to spread it around,” Leonetti told MINNPOST. “I wanted to be there for people at a time in their lives when they aren’t experiencing all that much happiness.”

    When Leonetti looked around for a way to contribute, she was struck by how difficult finding and maintaining employment was for so many people in recovery from addiction. Leonetti’s husband, Christian Jensen, saw that potential employers weren’t sure if they could trust someone who had a known past of addiction.

    Even for people without a known history, those who have been in the throes of addiction often have spotty or non-existent work histories. The emotional and physical challenges of early recovery can also make consistency with attendance and production a challenge.

    Leonetti had already been considering starting a confetti-making company, and she realized that cutting confetti – something that could be done at home – could be the perfect job for someone newly clean.

    Jensen and Leonetti already had a business and income and were able to make the confetti company a non-profit, dedicated to giving back. Only the confetti cutters make money.

    After pinpointing women recovering from addiction as the most financially vulnerable population, Leonetti Confetti was born.

    “Empowering women in recovery” is the company slogan, as the company hires and pays only women recovering from addiction. Leonetti Confetti is partnered with Wayside Recovery Center, a comprehensive addiction treatment program for women, and primarily hires women from this center.

    The women confetti cutters work from wherever they can, and when they can, and make $10 an hour.

    Teresa Evans, Wayside’s senior director of development and communications, offers, “Not all of our women are employable. They are all working on building relationships and trust. This is a huge thing for our women to overcome because of the trauma they’ve all experienced. . . . Kylee is a very passionate and compassionate business owner who is willing to put up the right kind of boundaries, help educate them on soft skills and be understanding when they struggle.”

    Leonetti works closely with her non-profit company and the women they employ. “I want it to do some good because everything gets chucked at the end,” Leonetti told MINNPOST. “My confetti is disposable, but it is made by women to help improve their lives.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cocaine Deaths Are On The Rise

    Cocaine Deaths Are On The Rise

    “From 2014 through 2016, the number of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine nearly doubled from 5,892 to 11,316,” states a recent report on cocaine-related deaths.

    Overdoses caused by cocaine have increasingly been in the news cycle, and a new report released this week shows just how dangerous cocaine abuse has become, with overdose deaths linked to the drug rising almost 18% each year between 2011 and 2016. 

    According to the National Center for Health Statistics’ “Drugs Most Frequently Involved in Drug Overdose Deaths: United States, 2011–2016” report, cocaine-related overdoses have been increasing sharply.

    “Throughout the study period, cocaine ranked second or third among the top 15 drugs,” the report authors wrote. “From 2014 through 2016, the number of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine nearly doubled from 5,892 to 11,316.”

    Of course, that still pales in comparison to the number of people killed by opioids. Deaths involving fentanyl, for example, rose from 1,662 in 2011 to 18,335 in 2016, when 29% of fatal overdoses involved the drug. 

    Still, researchers found that cocaine was a significant danger, involved in nearly 18% of overdose deaths in 2016. That could be due in part to the fact that fentanyl is increasingly being found in the cocaine supply. 

    “Drug combinations often involved drugs of different drug classes,” study authors wrote. “For example, the opioid fentanyl and the stimulant cocaine were mentioned concomitantly in nearly 4,600 deaths.”

    In those cases, authors counted the deaths in both categories. 

    The report also showcased how the opioid epidemic has changed over time. In 2011, the prescription opioid oxycodone was present in the most deaths (5,587). By the next year, heroin was the most deadly drug in the country, present in 6,155 overdoses. Heroin remained the most deadly drug for 2013 (8,418 deaths), 2014 (10,882 deaths) and 2015 (13,318 deaths).

    In 2016, fentanyl was the most deadly drug in the country, present in 18,335 deaths. This data mirrors the progression that researchers have talked about: The opioid crisis started with prescription drugs, and when those were too expensive, users turned to heroin. When fentanyl entered the drug scene, providing a cheaper and more powerful hit, it was widely used. 

    However, cocaine has consistently been causing overdose deaths, either as the second or third most deadly drug each year for the time period researchers measured. 

    Meth — another stimulant whose use has been increasing — has gradually become involved in more deaths. In 2011 and 2012 it was the eighth most deadly drug; in 2013 and 2014 it was the seventh. In 2015 it rose to the fifth spot when it was involved in 5,092 overdoses, and in 2016 it was the fourth most deadly drug, involved in 6,762 deaths.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New York Should Use Marijuana Taxes to Repair Subways, Report Says

    New York Should Use Marijuana Taxes to Repair Subways, Report Says

    One NYU professor makes the case for why the state should use marijuana tax revenue to fund the MTA’s Fast Forward plan to fix the popular transportation system.

    For New York City residents, the simple act of taking the subway can come with a host of problems: long delays in crowded, poorly ventilated and aging cars, and stations without basic elements of accessibility, such as elevators.

    Delays can impact the schedules of the more than 1.7 billion individuals that use the subway each year, and late employees can cost businesses more than $380 million per year. The Metropolitan Transit Authority announced a “Fast Forward” plan to address these concerns, but the project is expected to take a decade and cost more than $40 billion.

    New York University (NYU) professor Mitchell L. Moss has a possible solution; use the tax revenue from legalized marijuana sales to fund the subway project.

    Moss’s plan, outlined in a report published by the NYU/Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, suggests that legalizing marijuana could add between $110 and $428 million in annual tax revenue to Empire State coffers. That figure is lower than a projection by New York State’s health department, which suggested that taxes from legal marijuana could yield $670 million per year. 

    Figures like those – as well as growing dismay over the subway system’s woes by the public – have generated interest from city officials, including the Metropolitan Transportation Sustainability Advisory Workgroup, a panel assembled by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to conceptualize ways to pay for the subway project.

    Some members of the panel, including former City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, as well as current City Council speaker Corey Johnson, have voiced their support for the plan.

    With Democrats currently in control of the state Senate, Governor Cuomo suggesting that a legalization bill is in the draft stage, and subway riders voicing support for the plan in an informal New York Times poll, Moss’s proposal appears to be gaining traction.

    But as Vox pointed out, exactly how much marijuana tax revenue can be diverted to transportation remains unclear. 

    Colorado, which has earned $862 million in total revenue from legal marijuana since 2014, is one of the few states that use those funds for transportation issues. According to the Denver Office of Marijuana Policy, the city will put $9 million into “mobility projects,” like sidewalk repair and the creation of bike lines, in 2019. But the majority of tax funds will go towards regulation of the city’s marijuana sales, as well as education and safety.

    The $9 million is just part of the remaining funds left after those issues are paid.

    Eric Escudero, who serves as director of communication for the Office, said that the funds are welcome, but “it’s not going to solve every issue that needs financial or taxpayer support.”

    He noted that changes to the marijuana market – specifically, when new states initiate legalization – might impact how much tax revenue can be earned. As a result, Denver does not look at their marijuana tax as a silver bullet.

    “It’s important that you don’t promise the streets are going to be paved with gold because of marijuana, because that won’t happen,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com