Tag: News

Mike Tyson To Star In Sitcom Based On His Marijuana Business

Tyson stars in the series along with his real-life bodyguard and comedian Russell Peters who’ll play Tyson’s “useless best friend.”

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has begun production on a television sitcom based on his new career in the cannabis industry.

Tyson will star as a retired boxer who grows marijuana in Rolling with the Punches, which is filming at Tyson Ranch in El Segundo, California.

The series, which the boxer compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm, echoes Tyson’s own interest in cannabis cultivation and technology, which he plans to oversee from his 40-acre Tyson Ranch.

Tyson’s business partner, film producer and entrepreneur Rob Hickman, said that a demo reel has been delivered to the major networks. The series is expected to air within five months.

Tyson stars alongside his real-life bodyguard, Chuck Zito—himself an actor on Oz and Sons of Anarchy—and comedian Russell Peters as Tyson’s “useless best friend.” According to the New York Post, the series will also feature Tyson Ranch merchandise.

“It’s simple. I’m playing a retired boxer who is growing marijuana,” said Tyson. “It’s basically me acting like me, so people can get a look at what my life could be like in different scenarios.”

Tyson, who said that he is a both a proponent for medical cannabis and a frequent user—”I smoke it all day, every day,” he told the New York Post—has been making inroads into the cannabis industry in recent years.

A groundbreaking ceremony for Tyson Ranch, which is located about 60 miles southwest of Death Valley National Park, took place in late 2017.

The property—which is operated by Tyson Holistic, a company staffed largely by military veterans—would serve as both a resort and cultivation facility, with areas designated for growing cannabis and learning about the industry, as well as a hydroponic feed and supply store and edibles factory.

Additionally, cabins, camping grounds and an amphitheater will accommodate tourists. Tyson and his partners envision the ranch as a means of giving back to the region through the creation of new jobs.

Tyson Ranch will also serve as one part of a larger brand that will be devoted to cannabis culture and business; High Times reported that an entity called “Iron Mike Genetics” was trademarked for the ranch’s branding and marketing prospects.

View the original article at thefix.com

7 November 2018
Runners In Recovery Conquer The NYC Marathon

“It’s a miracle story. This group, last year, some were in prison, now they are in the program running the New York City Marathon.”

More than 50,000 people ran in this year’s New York City Marathon on Sunday (Nov. 4). Among them was team Odyssey House, a small group of people in recovery.

The team of 45 runners included 19 current clients, alumni and supporters, ranging in age from 25 to 72 years old.

“It’s a miracle story. This group, last year, some were in prison, now they are in the program running the New York City Marathon,” said Odyssey House CEO John Tavolacci, who has run 22 marathons. “I always tell people, society gave up on this group, I tell them everyone has given up on you. This is your opportunity to prove them wrong. This is part of their recovery.”

Since 2001, the program has seen 500 clients compete in 19 marathons.

John Kane of Long Island, 47, is in recovery from painkillers and heroin. He has been sober for 1 year and 7 months. “Through hard work with counselors and joining the running team, I’ve overcome my addiction. Running has become my passion. I help train new clients as a volunteer and hopefully they have the same experience I did,” he said.

Kane says the demand of running the 26.2-mile trek requires skills that are “transferable” to any part of life.

“The hard work, the perseverance, the dedication it takes to run a marathon can cross over into your everyday life—as far as setting a goal, working toward that goal and achieving that goal,” he said to the New York Times.

Running, and exercise in general, are popular among people in recovery. An exercise routine can provide structure in early recovery—not to mention the health benefits of improving one’s fitness and a natural feeling of euphoria that come with it.

“I like the way I feel after a run. I may not want to start running. At the beginning I’m like, ‘I really don’t want to go for this run,’ to be honest. But then I know how I’m going to feel afterward. It replaces the adrenaline that I was looking for when I was using drugs,” says 36-year-old Ryan Stevens, an Odyssey House alumni. Stevens ran her fourth marathon this year.

This was the 21st marathon for Andre Matthews of the Bronx, 58, who coaches the Odyssey House runners. “I find that when you stay connected in recovery, it’s one addict helping another. It’s a parallel process as you grow and mature in recovery and continue to be a part of people in their recovery, it also benefits you,” said Matthews, who has 20 years of sobriety.

Matthews’ sister and assistant coach, Sylvia Hyman, has run for the last 10 years to support her brother. “It’s absolutely incredible,” she said. “I was on the sideline watching Andre for so many years… These guys are athletes. It’s like a blessing, they’re like family, it’s inspiring… if they can do it, anyone can do it.”

View the original article at thefix.com

7 November 2018
Mac Miller’s Official Cause Of Death Revealed

The 28-year-old rapper passed away in early August.

A coroner has confirmed Mac Miller’s cause of death. The 26-year-old rapper and music producer (born Malcolm McCormick) died at home in Studio City, California on Sept. 7. Given his history of substance use, early reports pointed to drugs.

On Monday (Nov. 7), the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed that McCormick had died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol due to mixed drug toxicity.

The rapper, who had a tour planned for October following the Aug. 3rd release of his album Swimming, was discovered by his personal assistant in his bedroom. McCormick “struggles with sobriety and when he ‘slips’ he consumes them in excess,” his assistant said, adding that he’d had “several recent ‘slips’” including one three days prior to his death.

In a 2015 interview with Billboard, the rapper said he was in a good place. “I’m not doing as many drugs. It just eats at your mind, doing drugs every single day, every second. It’s rough on your body,” he said.

Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid painkiller said to be 50 times stronger than heroin, has also been cited in the deaths of Prince (April 2016) and Tom Petty (October 2017). According to the National Center on Health Statistics, fentanyl was involved in 60% of opioid-related deaths in 2017, an 11% increase from five years prior.

While fentanyl was created for cancer pain, it is now fueling rising rates of drug overdose deaths. This has prompted the need for a stronger opioid overdose “antidote” to match the strength of increasingly potent fentanyl analogs.

And this month, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new, more powerful opioid painkiller called Dsuvia. This new drug is said to be 10 times stronger than fentanyl and 1,000 times stronger than morphine.

While Dsuvia is intended for restricted use only in health care settings—the FDA promised to place “very tight restrictions” on the drug—critics worry that it will only worsen the opioid crisis.

“We have worked very diligently over the last three or four years to try to improve the public health, to reduce the number of potent opioids on the street,” said Dr. Raeford Brown, who chairs the FDA advisory committee that voted to approve Dsuvia, despite his opposition. “I don’t think this is going to help us in any way.”

View the original article at thefix.com

7 November 2018
How Much Do College Students Know About Heavy Drinking & Blackouts?

A new study revealed that a lot of students are unaware of the consequences of risky drinking.

With some statistics showing that nearly half of all college students who drink alcohol regularly also experience a memory blackout, researchers have launched a series of studies to determine exactly what this demographic understands about alcohol and blackouts, as well as the toll that it takes on their health.

Their research underscored that while students are aware that hard drinking can lead to blackouts, they were unclear about how to avoid them. They were also unclear about the difference between a full blackout and a “brownout” (a shorter period of fuzzy memory).

The researchers hoped to use the information gleaned from their studies to provide more detailed information to students about the risks of high-volume drinking.

The research, published in the October 2018 edition of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, was drawn from single-gender focus groups comprised of 50 students (28 women and 22 men) from four-year colleges and universities in the Providence, Rhode Island area.

The researchers analyzed the data and composed three reports, the first of which looked at students’ understanding of the cause of blackouts.

As Science Daily noted, the students were aware that drinking large quantities of liquor or drinking very quickly could produce a blackout; however, they were less aware of other factors—including mixing drugs with alcohol, gender and genetics—which could be contributing factors.

The second study looked at how students viewed the experience of blackouts. The results showed a mixed reaction, with many reporting them as “scary” or “embarrassing,” with others describing them as “exciting.”

External factors, such as friends’ perceptions of blackouts, who they were with at the time of the blackout, and what happened during the blackout, were also determining factors in how the experience was recalled.

The third report sought to determine if the students understood the exact nature of a blackout. Most respondents described a blackout experience as a period of heavy drinking, though a blackout is defined as a period of complete memory loss lasting one hour or more. Shorter periods of memory loss were described as “brownouts.”

Forty-nine percent of college students surveyed reported experiencing both blackouts and brownouts in the past month, while 32% only had brownouts and just 5% reported only blackouts.

Respondents also claimed that brownouts were less troubling than full blackouts, which study co-author Kate Carey from the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown’s School of Public Health noted as “discounting the earlier signs of memory loss, suggesting that they weren’t serving as red flags or even yellow flags.”

Carey and her fellow researchers hope to use the information culled from the study to create education modules for alcohol prevention programs that target high-volume, high-speed drinking or other behaviors that could lead to blackouts.

These behaviors include “pre-gaming”—in which alcohol is consumed prior to an event where more alcohol will be available—drinking games or “chugging” were all cited as behaviors that could lead to blackouts.

Reframing how students view these experiences as outside the norm could also serve as helpful prevention, Carey noted.

View the original article at thefix.com

7 November 2018
Francis Ford Coppola Enters The Cannabis Business

Coppola is launching a “cannabis lifestyle brand” in partnership with a sustainable cannabis farm in the Emerald Triangle.

Francis Ford Coppola is best known as the director of the Godfather series and Apocalypse Now. But in recent years, Coppola has launched a lucrative wine business and also owns hotels in Italy, Guatemala, Belize and Argentina.

Now, Coppola is getting into the cannabis business, which is shaping up to be a big growth industry. As Forbes reports, Coppola’s new cannabis business is called Sána Company LLC, and it will be independent from his Family Coppola enterprises. Sana is a sanskrit term for marijuana.

In a statement, the company announced that it wants to “give life to a progressive vision for pioneering the highest-quality, sun-grown cannabis products through sustainable farming.”

Coppola is launching The Grower’s Series, which he’s calling a “cannabis lifestyle brand.” The company is working in conjunction with Humboldt Brothers, a cannabis farm located in the Emerald Triangle, “the Napa Valley of cannabis.”

As the famed director declared in a statement, “Wine and cannabis are two ancient and bounteous gifts of Mother Nature, linked by great care, terroir [a Northern California fog that gives cannabis a special flavor] and temperateness. Expertise making one applies to the other. As with growing grapes, location matters, and The Grower’s Series reflects California agricultural expertise creating a true blend of art and science.”

Coppola’s Grower’s Series will include sativa, indica and hybrid strains that will come in one-gram packages that are shaped like wine bottles. Each package will go for $99, complete with a pipe and rolling papers.

Corey Beck, an executive at Coppola Winery, told The Drinks Business, “This is another avenue we’ve created for a tasting experience. We need to be able to market to our consumers, wherever they may be. If they are in a dispensary, they can see that bottle and it may resonate with them the next time they see that bottle when they’re in a Safeway or Kroger.”

The Herb Somm, another cannabis lifestyle brand, will help promote The Grower’s Series. Like Coppola, Somm founder Jamie Evans worked in the wine industry.

Evans told Forbes, “I think it’s incredible to see such an iconic family get into the space. There are so many synergies that exist between the two industries, especially in Northern California. The more support we can get from leaders like Francis Ford Coppola, the closer we get to breaking the stigma of cannabis nationwide.”

View the original article at thefix.com

7 November 2018
How The Situation's Wife Helped During His Journey To Sobriety

“She’s definitely my better half and the reason why I strive to be the best version of myself and to fight for our future,” the reality star says.

With the popularity of Jersey Shore, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has become a reality TV fixture. He battled a painkiller addiction in the public eye, and now he is a recovery advocate, speaking candidly about his own experience.

Now Sorrentino’s wife, Lauren Pesce, has been credited with helping Sorrentino stay sober, even as he’s preparing to serve an eight-month jail sentence for tax evasion, which is set to begin on January 15.

As People reports, Sorrentino and Pesce met in junior college and dated for about four years. The couple took a break from each other during the Jersey Shore heyday, then got back together once the show had ended.

Pesce has had to endure a lot as Sorrentino’s significant other, including witnessing his fight for sobriety. Having battled an addiction to painkillers, Sorrentino is reportedly nearly three years sober after two visits to rehab—the first in 2012 and the second in 2015.

As a practicing Catholic, Pesce said she relied on her faith when Sorrentino needed help.

“It’s not so much just going to church,” she says. “It’s finding my belief, that God has a reason for everything, and knowing you’re able to overcome anything as long as you have your faith and trust in God. That’s what I did, and Mike really came into that as well and found his own spirituality.”

Pesce adds, “What I dreamed of, the expectations I had set for him, him getting healthy and sober—I didn’t know that our relationship would survive had those miracles not happened, and they did. He put in the hard work and thanks to the faith in God that we have, we’re in the position we’re in today.”

Sorrentino called Pesce “my better half and the reason why I strive to be the best version of myself and to fight for our future.” Sorrentino also wants to be “a good example to her, her family and everyone watching—because my life has been under a microscope. I have a lot to prove.”

Right before Jersey Shore returned to MTV in April, Sorrentino hit a 28-month sober milestone the month before.

He told Entertainment Tonight, “I’m very proud, it’s one of my finest accomplishments and it was a huge challenge. It’s a ‘one day at a time’ thing and [I’m] just showing people that it’s very possible.”

Sorrentino also showed off his two-year Narcotics Anonymous medallion in an Instagram post: “28 months clean and sober. We do recover.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
Michelle Williams Talks Depression, Getting Treatment In New Interview

“For months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up.”

This past spring, Michelle Williams reunited with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland for a Destiny’s Child reunion at Coachella. Not long after, Williams checked into the hospital to deal with her depression.

Williams sat down with Good Morning America to give the world an update on her mental health.

Williams appeared on the show with her fiancé, Chad Johnson. She told Robin Roberts, “I am just sitting here and fighting back tears. I’m just thankful to be here to tell this story.”

Williams fought her depression as hard as she could, but she eventually realized she couldn’t do it without help.

“I was like, ‘Just fight it, you’ve been here before. I’m identifying it… I just didn’t do enough,” she said. “So for months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up like, ‘Am I really here again?’ And I suffered by myself. I didn’t want to tell anybody.”

Williams had struggled with depression since she was 13. “I didn’t want anyone to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, here we go again. I thought you were over it.’”

Johnson knew something was wrong, but he confessed that he didn’t understand what was going on with Williams at first. “The relationship just seemed to be slipping out of my hands. I could see [her] spiraling, but I had no idea that it was depression.”

Once Williams decided to get help, she announced on Instagram, “I recently listened to the same advice I have given to thousands around the world and sought help from a great team of healthcare professionals.” She also vowed to “always lead by example as I tirelessly advocate for the betterment of those in need.”

As a celebrity in the public eye, Williams also wants to help reduce the stigma many have with mental health that often prevents them from getting treatment.

“When I was in the mental health facility, I didn’t see anybody that looked crazy,” she says. “I didn’t see anybody strapped up, I didn’t see anybody doing crazy behavior. And literally since then, I watch my mouth. I don’t call people crazy anymore. Some people… they just need help.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
A Medication For Postpartum Depression?

Currently, there are no FDA-approved drugs specifically to treat postpartum depression.

The FDA is considering the approval of a new medication that would treat severe postpartum depression.

While most women experience “baby blues” after childbirth, some experience more severe, longer-lasting symptoms, known as postpartum depression (PPD).

Currently there are no FDA-approved drugs specifically to treat PPD. And data on the efficacy of existing antidepressants on PPD is limited.

Brexanolone (brand name Zulresso) may change that, Fortune reports.

How does brexanolone differ from existing antidepressants?

Brexanolone mimics the functioning of the human hormone known as allopregnanolone. Allopregnanolone increases in a woman’s body during pregnancy and peaks during the third trimester. After delivery, however, levels of allopregnanolone fall abruptly, the FDA explains.

Brexanolone, an injection, works to return women to pre-delivery levels of allopregnanolone.

Postpartum depression is considered a life-threatening condition because of the risk of suicide, the FDA says. “It also has profound negative effects on the maternal-infant bond and later infant development.”

According to the FDA, suicide is the most common cause of maternal death after childbirth in the developed world. Approximately 12% of births are affected by PPD in the United States.

Despite how many women experience PPD, some say it is not talked about enough.

“I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of the pregnancy,” said tennis champ Serena Williams, while sharing her own experience with PPD.

“How can I feel this way when everything is so great? I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, and I hesitated to even talk about this,” said TV personality Chrissy Teigen.

“I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,’” the Lip Sync Battle host said.

Symptoms of postpartum depression can arise within the first few weeks after giving birth. Some may begin earlier (during pregnancy) or later (up to a year after birth), according to Mayo Clinic.

An FDA advisory committee voted 18-0 that Zulresso is effective in treating PPD—however, they mentioned “some reservations about the safety of home infusion,” Seeking Alpha reports.

A decision by the FDA is expected by December 19.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
New Subtypes Of Depression Discovered

For a new study, researchers set out to identify the subtypes of depression using “life history and MRI data.”

New research sheds some light on why not all depression can be treated with medication, according to Medical News Today.

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan have identified three new depression subtypes.

According to Professor Kenji Doya of the Neural Computation Unit, there has always been speculation about different subtypes of depression, but it had never been proven.

A research team led by Doya studied data from 134 participants, half of which had recently been diagnosed with depression. Through questionnaires and blood tests, the research team gathered information about each individual’s life history, mental health, sleep pattern and other potential stressors in their life.

The team utilized functional MRI scanners to gather information about each person’s brain activity. In doing so, they mapped 78 brain regions and the various connections between them.

First study author Tomoki Tokuda, a statistician at OIST, says the challenge in this research was developing the right tool.

“The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together,” he said, according to Medical News Today.

Tokuda was able to create a new statistical method from which researchers could categorize more than 3,000 “measurable features”—such as childhood trauma and level of depressive episode—into five data clusters.

In doing so, researchers found that three of the five data clusters connected to different subtypes of depression. Additionally, the brain imaging shed light on the “functional connectivity” of brain areas connected to the angular gyrus, which is the region of the brain that has to do with procession language, numbers, spatial cognition and attention.

The connection could predict whether or not SSRIs—the most common type of antidepressant—could effectively treat depression.

According to the researchers, one of the subtypes that did not respond to medication correlated with “high functional connectivity as well as with childhood trauma.”

The other two subtypes of depression did respond to medication. Researchers found that this subtype had low brain connectivity and no instance of childhood trauma.

The results of this study could help doctors predict how effective certain medications and treatments may be for a patient, according to Doya.

“This is the first study to identify depression subtypes from life history and MRI data,” said Doya, according to Medical News Today. “It provides scientists studying neurobiological aspects of depression a promising direction in which to pursue their research.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
Oregon Tries To Break Cycle Of Jailing People With Mental Health Issues

A new initiative was created to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system in Oregon.

There’s been more attention given to the fact that a significant percentage of incarcerated Americans suffer from mental illness.

“The vast majority of the individuals are not violent criminals,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Once in jail, many individuals don’t receive the treatment they need and end up getting worse, not better.”

They also tend to remain in jail longer and are at a higher risk of victimization than the non-mentally ill.

Officials in Oregon are trying to break this cycle with a new initiative: the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

A new committee of 28 officials from state law enforcement, justice and health care, government officials and more—named the Behavioral Health Justice Reinvestment Steering Committee—will submit policy recommendations for how to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system.

The committee is planning to submit a plan for the 2019 legislative session.

“The criminal justice system was designed to prevent, protect against and prosecute criminal offenses. It was not designed to treat mental illness or substance addiction,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, who is on the committee.

Instead of cycling this population in and out of jails, where they will receive no support, Allen says there needs to be a long-term solution. “The best way to support people with behavioral health needs is to connect them to treatment in their local communities. The Justice Reinvestment process will allow us to develop solutions that better promote individual recovery while preserving community safety.”

Senate Republican Leader Jackie Winters is also on the committee. “It’s not appropriate for the jail to be the place for the mentally ill,” she said, according to the Statesman Journal. It is for the committee to figure out: “how do we treat the individual without sending them into the criminal justice system?”

The committee has begun reviewing jails across Oregon and gauging the needs of counties. They will work in concert with state health and criminal justice officials, who will contribute data to the initiative.

“We know that when we make meaningful change in behavioral health treatment and addiction recovery, we lift a burden off of our prisons, our hospitals, and our law enforcement,” said Governor Kate Brown.

“Oregon successfully used justice reinvestment to slow prison growth and expand programs that help people succeed outside of prison. By focusing on the intersection of the behavioral health and criminal justice systems in this new model of reinvestment, we can continue to improve both health and public safety,” the governor said.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018