Answer Addiction

Tag: News

  • Lawmakers, Healthcare Facility Clash Over Treating Inmates With Addiction

    Lawmakers, Healthcare Facility Clash Over Treating Inmates With Addiction

    Is the risk of overdose higher in prison or upon release?

    A fight is underway in the state of Vermont over the execution of legislation designed to provide treatment for prison inmates with addiction.

    S.166, which was signed into law in May 2018, provides treatment with buprenorphine to inmates with the approval of a doctor—but legislators were dismayed to find that the medication was only being provided to inmates who were within weeks of their release dates.

    At the heart of the argument is the determination of medical necessity for treatment. 

    State Senator Tim Ashe, who was the bill’s main sponsor, told the Burlington Press that holding back treatment until a release date is counterintuitive. “For people who are serving relatively brief sentences, those who suffer from addiction should be getting the treatment and not having arbitrary deadlines,” he said.

    Centurion Managed Care, the state-contracted company assigned to provide health care for Vermont inmates, said the deadlines are in place to avoid increased risk of overdose after release.

    Risk of overdose is low in prison, according to Annie Ramniceanu, director of mental health and addiction services for the state Department of Corrections (DOC)—and therefore buprenorphine is not medically necessary until the risk is higher upon the inmate’s release. “Just because you want it doesn’t necessarily mean you meet that medical necessity,” she said.

    Ramniceanu’s position has health care advocates and criminal justice reform groups up in arms.

    Tom Dalton, executive director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, filed a complaint with the Department of Health’s Board of Medical Practice against Centurion’s medical director, Dr. Steven Fisher, that claimed that inmates are suffering due to the company’s directives and have taken to using buprenorphine smuggled into prisons.

    “Many high-risk incarcerated patients who are self-identifying as struggling with addiction and asking for help are unable to access treatment,” wrote Dalton in the complaint. “Some are being released back into our communities untreated.”

    Dalton’s stance is echoed by other public figures, including Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo, who in a Facebook post from October 17 wrote, “Treat every prisoner who needs it with buprenorphine, methadone or Vivitrol as best fits them (Vermont is at least trying)”—as part of a list of strategies to combat the regional opioid epidemic that has gained national attention.

    DOC Commissioner Lisa Menard told the Burlington Press that the department is working to fully implement S.166 in the prison system, including a recent expansion of treatment to inmates who have reached their minimum release date, and treating inmates with longer sentences with other forms of medication-assisted treatment (MAT). 

    For Dalton, however, it’s the core issue that needs changing. “Their ignorance is killing people,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Despite Legalization, Canada’s Pot Black Market Continues To Thrive

    Despite Legalization, Canada’s Pot Black Market Continues To Thrive

    Officials are hoping that dealers on the illegal market will be priced out.

    Last week Canada became only the second country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana, but the black market for pot is continuing to thrive as customers seek out products that they can’t buy legally, including edibles, and sellers push back on government intervention in their industry. 

    “We’ll keep selling what we are selling,” Don Briere, the owner of an illegal Vancouver pot shop, told The New York Times. Briere sells edibles and other products that are currently illegal under the national law, which only allows for the sale of fresh or dried cannabis, seeds, plants and oil. 

    Canada—especially Vancouver—has long had a thriving illicit marijuana industry, worth an estimated 5.3 billion Canadian dollars each year.

    One of the aims of legalization was to close the illegal shops that are common in cities like Vancouver. 

    However, Briere and other industry insiders object on principle. “The government taking over the cannabis trade is like asking a farmer to build airplanes,” he said. He’s not alone. In Vancouver, hundreds of illegal shops remain open.

    At a lower level, street dealers try to entice customers by offering services like delivery and selling joints at a two-for-one price. Some customers who were frustrated that legal stores ran out of product went back to their illicit contacts. 

    “Definitely going to use my dealer from now on his business is going way up because of your crappy service,” one frustrated customer wrote on Twitter.

    Despite the disregard for the law, Canadian law enforcement isn’t likely to step up consequences for people who are selling illegally. They have their hands full dealing with more pressing issues, including fentanyl overdoses, said Chief Constable Del Manak, police chief of Victoria and president of the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police.

    However, this doesn’t mean that authorities are oblivious to the fact that the illegal market still exists. “It is naïve to think that just because cannabis is legalized, the criminal will walk away from a highly lucrative industry,” said Del Manak. 

    Mike Farnworth, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said that the government is hoping that over time the legal market will undermine the demand for illegal sales. “It’s a very Canadian way of doing things,” he said. “It won’t happen overnight.”

    Farnworth added that there won’t be any police raids with “guns and head-bashing.”

    However, in Toronto, police raided five illegal pot shops after the legalization law was passed. Others have voluntarily closed, showing that the government’s approach might be working. Even Briere has shuttered some of his stores across the country and is applying for licenses for the remaining stores. 

    Officials are also hoping that dealers on the illegal market will be priced out. Today, marijuana on the street costs about one-third of what it did five years ago, making it less lucrative for dealers.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Michael Phelps Speaks Out About Battling Depression, Anxiety

    Michael Phelps Speaks Out About Battling Depression, Anxiety

    “I was so down on myself. I didn’t have any self-love and, quite honestly, I just didn’t want to be alive.” 

    Michael Phelps has won 28 Olympic medals, but despite his incredible history as a swimmer he’s also had serious bouts with depression, anxiety and alcoholism.

    Since getting help, Phelps has been very open with the public about what he went through, but he recently admitted on Today that he’s “struggling weekly” with his mental health.

    “From time to time, I’ll have bad days where I do go into a depression state,” Phelps said. “Being an athlete, you’re supposed to be strong and be able to push through anything. My struggles carried on through my career and I hid them well. There are so many people who struggle from very similar things that I go through and still go through… At times, it was a little scary and challenging to go through, but I found a way to get through it and I’m addressing these issues that I have.”

    Phelps has certainly come a long way since he hit his personal bottom in October 2014. Phelps said he was so engulfed in despair, he couldn’t leave the house for five days and felt suicidal.

    He admitted that he had “at least half a dozen depression spells” before this one. He recalled, “I was so down on myself. I didn’t have any self-love and quite honestly, I just didn’t want to be alive. It was a really, really, really crazy time for me and I didn’t want to see anybody. I saw myself as letting so many people down—and myself in particular. That’s hard to carry.”

    Finally something in Phelps clicked, and he “realized that I can ask for help and it’s going to be okay. For me, that’s what changed my life. I never asked for help really ever in my career. That was the first time that I really did that. I was basically on my knees, crying for help.”

    Since that dark time, Phelps has been very involved in getting help for others. He’s on the board of TalkSpace, a teletherapy company, and he was also interviewed for a documentary, Angst, where he discussed his anxiety.

    “I’m lucky to be able to sit down with a therapist and chat and talk and open up,” Phelps says. “It’s challenging for people to do… It’s something that continues to teach me more and more about myself.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Heroin Spoon" Art Exhibit Re-Emerges In Boston

    "Heroin Spoon" Art Exhibit Re-Emerges In Boston

    The artwork was placed as a “gift” to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey outside of the State House.

    The massive, 800-pound “heroin spoon” sculpture has re-emerged.

    This past June, the guerrilla art exhibit sat in front of Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, for about two hours before it was hauled away by city workers.

    The spoon appears burnt and bent at the handle. The artist, Domenic Esposito, said the purpose of the massive symbol is to “protest and hold accountable the people who in our minds have created this epidemic that has killed close to 300,000 people.” Purdue Pharma is the maker of OxyContin.

    Gallery owner Fernando Louis Alvarez was arrested and charged with obstruction of free passage, a criminal misdemeanor. But a judge has since agreed to erase the charge from his record upon completion of one year’s probation.

    Last Friday (Oct. 26), the 10.5-foot-long sculpture re-appeared in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston. But this time, the artwork was placed as a “gift” to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey for her efforts in holding Big Pharma accountable for its part in fueling the opioid crisis.

    In June, the state of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, accusing the company of recklessly promoting its opioid painkillers “without regard to the very real risks of addiction, overdose and death.”

    The lawsuit is the first in the U.S. to name company executives. Many other states, cities and counties have sued Purdue Pharma as well.

    “Purdue peddled falsehoods to keep patients away from safer alternatives,” Healey stated in her complaint. “Even when Purdue knew people were addicted and dying, Purdue treated the patients and their doctors as ‘targets’ to sell more drugs.”

    A group of mothers who have lost children to drug overdose peacefully rallied beside the spoon sculpture on Friday.

    The artist Esposito has personally been affected by the opioid crisis. He described the toll that his brother Danny’s nearly 14-year addiction to heroin, which began with OxyContin and Percocet, had on his family.

    “My mom would call me in a panic… screaming she found another burnt spoon. This is a story thousands of families go through. He’s lucky to be alive,” he said according to the Hartford Courant.

    “The spoon has always been an albatross for my family,” he added. “It’s kind of an emotional symbol, a dark symbol for me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Lovato’s Mom Says Singer Is 90 Days Sober

    Demi Lovato’s Mom Says Singer Is 90 Days Sober

    Lovato’s mother, Dianna De La Garza, discussed the singer’s early recovery in a recent interview.

    Demi Lovato has been very open with the public about her struggles with sobriety and mental health, and on July 24, she raised serious concern among her fans when she was taken to the hospital for a suspected overdose.

    Now, Lovato’s mother, Dianna De La Garza, has announced that her daughter has been sober for 90 days.

    As De La Garza said on Maria Menounos’ Sirius XM show, “She has 90 days. I couldn’t be more thankful or more proud of her because addiction being a disease, it’s work. It’s very hard. It’s not easy, and there are no shortcuts.”

    Menounos asked De La Garza if she knew what triggered her daughter’s relapse. She said, “I can’t really say for sure. I really don’t know. It can be any number of reasons.”

    Before her overdose, Lovato released the single “Sober” in June, where she apologized for falling off the wagon. De La Garza admitted, “I knew that she wasn’t sober. I didn’t know what she was doing because she doesn’t live with me and she’s 26.”

    De La Garza found out about her daughter’s overdose when she received a text that said, “I just saw on TMZ and I’m sorry.”

    “Before I could get to TMZ, I got the phone call from her assistant and she said, ‘We’re at the hospital.’ So then I knew, OK, she’s not gone. She’s here. And I said, ‘What’s going on?’ And the words that I heard are just a nightmare for any parent: ‘Demi overdosed.’”

    When she got a call from her daughter’s assistant confirming the news, “I said, ‘Is she okay?’ And she stopped for a second and said, ‘She’s conscious, but she’s not talking.’ I knew at that point that we were in trouble,” De La Garza told Newsmax TV.

    On August 5, 12 days after her overdose, Lovato released a statement on Instagram telling the public:

    “I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction. What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time. It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet… I now need time to heal and focus on my sobriety and road to recovery. The love you have all shown me will never be forgotten and I look forward to the day where I can say that I came out on the other side. I will keep fighting.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Boy George On Sobriety: I’m A Work In Progress

    Boy George On Sobriety: I’m A Work In Progress

     “I think that you never really get there, but you definitely get better at being alone and observing yourself.”

    Singer Boy George is soon releasing a new album with Culture Club for the first time in two decades, but he might not have made it this far if he were still focused on the drugs, he says.

    The singer and style icon (born George Alan O’Dowd) recounted the positive impact that sobriety has had on his life in an interview with USA Today.

    “You have more time. Your life is not centered around one obsession. But it takes time. I’ve always regarded myself as a work in progress,” he said. “I think that you never really get there, but you definitely get better at being alone and observing yourself.”

    The singer has had a long, public battle with drugs and has lost several friends and colleagues over the years to drug overdoses. Reflecting on what inspired him to try and get sober, the singer spoke frankly.

    “I think it’s all quite well-documented. Some of it’s true, some of it’s not. When you’re in the eye of the storm, you don’t see a way out of it. For me, it was really just a series of events that led me to an AA meeting,” he recounted. “As much as I didn’t want to be there, I also knew that’s where I needed to be. So you could call it a point of realization.”

    He also says that there was no one dramatic moment in which he suddenly realized he needed to turn his life around, but rather a spark of realization that he needed to get better.

    “So many bad things happen to people when they’re in throes of addiction and it’s almost impossible to say what is the ‘rock bottom’ that makes you stop. Sometimes it’s just a chance encounter or a moment of clarity,” he said. “For me, I was just brought to a place where I was able to stop and go, ‘OK, this is not my life. This is not what I want to be or where I want to go.’”

    When asked how he felt about the new generation of LGBTQ artists who haven’t felt the need to hide themselves, he answered that he was glad that they could come out to a world more accepting of them.

    “It’s interesting. Without people like me, (David) Bowie, Oscar Wilde, and whoever came before taking the kinds of risk that we took however we took them, maybe there wouldn’t be a situation where you didn’t have to think about your sexuality—that you can just factor it into what you do. I suppose, in a way, that’s what I always wanted,” Boy George answered.

    “So I guess the answer would be I’m delighted for those people, because I’ve always wanted to live in a world where your sexuality, your race and your age weren’t important.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Weed The People" Doc Follows Kids Treating Cancer With Marijuana

    "Weed The People" Doc Follows Kids Treating Cancer With Marijuana

    More than half of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. But for some kids, it’s a life-changing treatment.

    While the federal government sits on the fence regarding marijuana, more than half of Americans support legalizing it. But for the families featured in Weed the People, marijuana is medicine for their children.

    The documentary follows five kids whose parents have chosen to treat their child’s cancer with cannabis oil, either as a supplement alongside other treatments or as an entirely new avenue of treatment after others have failed.

    Despite their non-recreational use of marijuana, the families have to overcome legal and regulatory obstacles to get the medicine they believe their children need.

    Weed the People is produced by former talk show host Ricki Lake, who was introduced to cannabidiol (CBD) when her late ex-husband was seeking relief for his chronic pain and ADHD. CBD does not induce the high associated with THC, but does deliver the therapeutic and medicinal effects of cannabis.

    “I want to get people seeing it as medicine, seeing what it was able to do for these children, and fight for this medicine to be available to everyone who needs it,” Lake said. “It’s a human rights issue.”

    Some of the families in the documentary saw their children’s tumors shrink, or even disappear, when using CBD—even if they were using CBD in place of other treatments, such as chemotherapy, entirely.

    “You can’t say the ‘cure’ word, but how else do you explain it?” questioned Lake.

    However, some professionals warn against treating cancers with CBD alone and expecting miraculous results. “Relying on marijuana alone as treatment while avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer may have serious health consequences,” cautioned the American Cancer Society (ACS).

    So far, the ACS says, CBD and other such compounds in marijuana have been found to slow the growth of or destroy tumor cells in test animals or tissue samples in dishes, but not humans.

    However, some pediatric cancer treatment providers do advocate for allowing the use of marijuana compounds in treatment, especially in the case of pain relief or end-of-life care.

    Despite growing support for legalization coming from both health experts and everyday Americans, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which is defined as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

    However, one CBD-based drug, Epidolex, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—which is a substantial, if narrow, first step towards legalization.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • County Pays Millions Over Teen’s Heroin Withdrawal Death In Jail

    County Pays Millions Over Teen’s Heroin Withdrawal Death In Jail

    “Anyone who looked at her would have known that she was very sick and that she needed attention,” said the family’s lawyer.

    A Pennsylvania county has agreed to pay nearly $5 million as part of a settlement in the case of a teenager who died in jail after guards ignored her worsening medical condition during four brutal days of heroin withdrawal. 

    Despite the costly payout, it’s not clear whether the Lebanon County Correctional Facility death will lead to any policy change—but attorneys say it sends a message that even small lock-ups need to take care of inmates who are physically dependent on drugs.

    “The days of viewing people addicted to drugs as junkies unworthy of sympathy and care, are long past,” Jonathan Feinberg, a civil rights attorney representing the family, told the Associated Press. “It’s a very short chain of events that leads to death.”

    When 18-year-old Victoria Herr was arrested in March 2015, she had a 10-bag-a-day heroin habit. She’d been picked up when police looking for her boyfriend found drugs in their apartment. It was her first time in jail, and she warned staff about the amount of drugs she’d been doing and told her cellmate she was worried about how bad the withdrawal would be. 

    For four days, the teen was vomiting and had diarrhea. But the jail only gave her Ensure, water and adult diapers. She couldn’t keep down any liquids and became severely dehydrated. The day before she collapsed, Herr begged for lemonade during a phone call home to her mother.

    “Anyone who looked at her would have known that she was very sick and that she needed attention,” Feinberg said. “There was a complete disregard for her needs, which can only be tied back to the fact that she was addicted to drugs.”

    On March 31—four days after her arrest—she collapsed in the jail and was rushed to the hospital. She went into cardiac arrest, according to the Lebanon Daily News, but lingered for days on a ventilator before finally dying on April 5.

    The fatality, her lawyers said, could have been prevented if jailers had simply taken her to the hospital sooner for intravenous fluids. 

    Although opioid withdrawal does not always lead to death, it can be fatal in cases of severe dehydration. That possibility has prompted some jails to begin offering medications—like buprenorphine—to ease withdrawal, and sometimes continue use for long-term treatment.

    Despite the hefty size of the agreed-upon payout in Herr’s case, an attorney for the jailers stressed that no one actually copped to doing anything wrong as any part of the settlement.

    “The case was resolved amicably,” the attorney, Hugh O’Neill, told the Associated Press. He declined to say whether the county had changed any policies since the teen’s death. The county administrator, Jamie Wolgemuth, issued a statement to the local news highlighting the fact that state police and the Lehigh County Coroner did not send the case to prosecutors for “further inquiry.”

    Regardless, lawyers for Herr’s family framed the settlement as a win for correctional accountability.

    “It’s certainly one of the largest settlements in at least the last 10 years involving the death of a prisoner in civil rights litigation,” Feinberg told the Lebanon paper. “When there are breakdowns in the way a prison is run, and when those breakdowns cause harm like the unimaginable harm that was caused to Tori Herr, this suit shows that prisons and staff will be held accountable.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Unsuspecting Driver Turned Into "Blind Mule" For Drug Operation

    Unsuspecting Driver Turned Into "Blind Mule" For Drug Operation

    Deputies found 5 pounds of yet unidentified drugs stuffed into four packages secreted away underneath the man’s pickup truck.

    A Mexican worker crossing the border for his job flagged authorities after he discovered a cache of drugs stuck to the bottom of his truck.

    The unidentified driver—who lives in Tijuana but works in California—called the San Diego Sheriff’s Office Thursday morning after spotting something unusual apparently magnetized to his fender, according to ABC affiliate KGTV.

    When deputies showed up, they found 5 pounds of drugs stuffed into four packages secreted away underneath the pickup. 

    Afterward, the man’s neighbor told authorities he’d seen some men messing with the truck the night before. 

    “It’s our feeling that someone targeted this car because he could cross the border every day with the SENTRI pass and they were probably waiting to collect the narcotics later today,” Sgt. Tim Chantler told the TV station.

    The SENTRI pass allows for quicker border-crossing in separate commuter lanes, which could make SENTRI users more tempting targets. 

    The driver is not suspected in the botched drug-running operation because he alerted authorities to the packages. 

    “I would be checking my vehicle every day before I cross the border,” Chantler said, “because if you get caught at the border you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

    Police are awaiting test results before specifying what drug they found in the hidden packages. 

    The use of unsuspecting drivers as so-called “blind mules” has become more common in recent years—though until relatively recently, the government denied such things ever happened, according to the San Diego Tribune. 

    Until 2011, federal prosecutors routinely put DEA agents on stand to testify that “blind mules” were a fantasy made up by desperate defense lawyers hoping to spring their clients. 

    But that year, feds changed their tune after the FBI recorded a conversation between drug traffickers talking about a blind mule operation involving a fourth grade teacher. 

    Though that find forced feds to admit blind mules were real, it’s still not clear how common they are.

    “Over the course of my 31-and-a-half years, I say it is rare—I’m talking very rare—to find somebody who doesn’t have some knowledge or isn’t implicated in some way of having narcotics in their vehicle,” Joe Garcia of Homeland Security Investigations told the California paper in 2015. “It’s just uncommon.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Couple’s Lawsuit "To Block Legalization Of Marijuana" Goes To Trial

    Couple’s Lawsuit "To Block Legalization Of Marijuana" Goes To Trial

    The Colorado couple say they have been “injured by a conspiracy to cultivate recreational marijuana near their land,” according to the lawsuit.

    A couple of disgruntled property owners in Colorado are taking their neighbor to court over growing cannabis, which they claim has brought down the value of their property.

    According to the original lawsuit filed on behalf of Hope and Michael Reilly, “growing recreational marijuana is ‘noxious, annoying or offensive activity’ by virtually any definition because marijuana plants are highly odorous, and their offensive smell travels long distances.”

    The lawsuit, filed in 2015, saw its first day in Denver federal court on Monday (Oct. 29). Colorado has had a legal market for cannabis for adults 21 and older since January 2014.

    The Reillys, who own a little over 100 acres of rural property in Rye, Colorado, say they have been “injured by a conspiracy to cultivate recreational marijuana near their land,” according to the lawsuit.

    It’s now up to a jury to decide if the Reillys have a case. Similar lawsuits against state-legal cannabis operations have been filed in California, Massachusetts and Oregon, according to the Associated Press.

    The neighbor targeted in the Reillys’ lawsuit is Parker Walton, who purchased 40 acres in Rye in 2014. Since then, he has built a 5,000-square-foot indoor cannabis growing and harvesting facility on his land, to sell his product to retailers.

    The defense says it can prove that the Reillys’ property value has not been harmed. In fact, according to the AP, the defense will argue that tax valuations of the couple’s property have gone up over time.

    Lawyers for the Reillys are suing under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), federal anti-racketeering laws established to target the Mafia in the 1970s. In this case, RICO allows private parties to sue claiming their business or property has been damaged by a criminal enterprise, AP explains.

    If they can prove their case, they may be financially compensated for three times the damages plus attorneys’ fees.

    According to the Safe Streets Alliance, which filed the Reillys’ lawsuit, the lawsuit could impact the future of other state-legal cannabis operations.

    “In addition to shutting down the operations targeted in its suit, Safe Streets hopes that its use of the federal racketeering laws will serve as a model for other businesses and property owners who have been injured by the rise of the commercial marijuana industry,” reads its website.

    View the original article at thefix.com