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Tag: synthetic opioids

  • Opioid Crisis Has Peaked, Former Cleveland Clinic CEO Suggests

    Opioid Crisis Has Peaked, Former Cleveland Clinic CEO Suggests

    The doctor says that while opioid prescribing is down, synthetic opioids are now driving the opioid epidemic.  

    The former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic said that the opioid epidemic has peaked now that more healthcare providers and laypeople are aware of the dangers of opioid painkillers.

    “I think we’ve peaked,” Dr. Toby Cosgrove said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “I think we’re starting to see the understanding of the problem, and getting to the point where people are certainly prescribing fewer drugs and people are recognizing how serious this is.”

    However, he said that synthetic opioids are continuing to drive opioid deaths. 

    “The other issue is that drugs are now being laced with fentanyl and carfentanil, which are highly potent,” said Cosgrove, a cardiac surgeon who led the Cleveland Clinic hospital for 13 years before stepping down in 2017.

    “Carfentanil is 10,000 times as potent as morphine. We just had an outbreak of deaths in Ohio from drugs being laced with very potent carfentanil and fentanyl,” Cosgrove noted.

    Cosgrove now works as an executive advisor to Google Cloud Healthcare and Life Sciences team, and is a proponent for healthcare reform. During his CNBC appearance he talked about ways to reduce healthcare costs.

    He noted that while the United States has the highest healthcare costs in the world, the country is about average in the amount spent on healthcare and social programs combined. He said that this shows that investing in social programs can help alleviate the burden of healthcare costs. 

    “Social programs, frankly, are driving down the healthcare costs” in other countries, he said. 

    Although there has been some leveling of opioid overdose rates in certain areas, the national overdose rate climbed in many places between 2016 and 2017. In fact, 45 states saw opioid overdoses increase 30% between July 2016 and September 2017, according to federal data.

    During that time period, the Midwest—including the area served by the Cleveland Clinic—saw opioid overdose rates increase 70%, driven largely by an influx of synthetic opioids. In fact, fentanyl is a factor in nearly half of opioid-related deaths. 

    As Cosgrove suggested, opioid prescribing is down. However, this isn’t necessarily linked to a reduction in overdose deaths. In fact, West Virginia decreased the amount of opioids prescribed by 12% between 2016 and 2017, but still saw opioid-related overdose deaths rise. Because of this, some medical experts warn that the opioid crisis could continue to get worse before improving. 

    “I think we have to realize that we’re on a trajectory that may get a lot worse before it gets better,” said Donald S. Burke, dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • First Fentanyl Execution Carried Out In Nebraska

    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

  • Chinese National Pleads Guilty To Importing Opioids

    Chinese National Pleads Guilty To Importing Opioids

    The businessman would receive large shipments of opioids from China and mail them out domestically.

    A Chinese businessman living in Massachusetts has pled guilty to charges of importing opioids. 

    Bin Wang, 42, was arrested in July and charged with importing shipments of carfentanil, fentanyl and other opioids. Wang would receive large shipments of opioids from China and mail them domestically, including to buyers in Ohio, according to a press release by the Ohio U.S. Attorney’s office.

    On Tuesday, Wang pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to importing and distributing opioids. He will be sentenced on November 13.

    Opioids, particularly powerful synthetics, are reportedly made in China and shipped into the U.S. using couriers like FedEx and even the U.S. Postal Service.

    “Increasingly, the opioids that are killing our friends and neighbors are being sent here from China,” said Acting U.S. Attorney David Sierleja. “Shutting down this pipeline will help in our efforts to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic. We will focus on prevention, education, and aggressive law enforcement, both here and around the world.”

    This requires a new approach to intercepting drugs.

    “The importation of opioids and other synthetic drugs from China has played a significant role in America’s current drug use epidemic. Over 60,000 people a year die from drug overdoses in this country, and halting all methods of drug trafficking—including by way of the Internet—is a top priority of the DEA,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. Plancon. “This investigation makes clear that geographic and technological hurdles will not stop DEA and our partners from bringing to justice those responsible for the illegal distribution of drugs in the U.S.”

    Despite that tough stance, it is reportedly very difficult to catch opioids coming into the country from China. In part, that is because the shipments are small, and the volume of mail coming into the country makes it difficult to pinpoint suspicious packages. In addition, prosecuting Chinese manufacturers can be difficult.

    Officials first started investigating the drugs that led to Wang in 2016, after a series of fatal overdoses in Ohio. They determined that the drugs were bought online through a Chinese website, and that a Chinese man known as “Gordon Jin” was shipping the drugs to Wang in Massachusetts, who then distributed them domestically.

    Undercover agents purchase opioids from Jin, and were able to track the shipments to Wang, who was operating companies from a warehouse in Woburn, Massachusetts.

    “This investigation is a great example of a collaborative effort of federal agencies and a local drug task force working together to identify and track down people and organizations that are responsible for the ever-increasing shipments of very powerful synthetic opiates into Ohio,” said Don Hall, director of the MEDWAY Drug Enforcement Agency.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Police Chief Allegedly Overdosed On Drugs Stolen From Evidence Room

    Police Chief Allegedly Overdosed On Drugs Stolen From Evidence Room

    The 35-year-old died two months after being appointed part-time police chief.

    An Ohio police chief who died in May of a fentanyl overdose allegedly swiped the drugs from his own department’s evidence room, according to local reports. 

    Kirkersville Police Chief James Hughes had only been on the job two months when he was found unresponsive in the bathroom of his Reynoldsburg home. Nearby, officials said, were three syringes—one empty and two filled with fentanyl. Authorities also recovered a bag that tested positive for cocaine. 

    The part-time police chief died a short time later, and in July the coroner officially deemed the cause of death a fentanyl overdose, according to the Newark Advocate.

    The larger Reynoldsburg Police Department investigated the fatality, and last week Lt. Ron Wright revealed where he apparently got the fatal dose: the village police evidence room. 

    “There was packaging that indicated that he was taking controlled substances from there,” said Wright, according to the Advocate. It’s not clear if that could impact any ongoing cases. 

    The 35-year-old was appointed to the 500-person village’s 20-hour-per-week job as top cop on March 13, during a two-minute council meeting. Almost a year earlier, then-chief Eric DiSario was shot to death in the line of duty during an incident at a local nursing home, according to WSYX. His replacement, Jeff Finley, resigned abruptly in early March, citing disagreements with the mayor. 

    Though village council members didn’t offer any comment to the local media on it, Hughes had a troubled past before his appointment as chief. 

    During the 14 months he previously worked at the local sheriff’s office, internal affairs investigated him three times. Once, he resigned after six months, though he was later rehired working at the jail. 

    “I believe that Deputy Hughes needs to think before he acts,” one supervisor wrote in a 2012 performance evaluation, according to the Newark paper. “Deputy Hughes is known to make bad decisions on and off duty.”

    A few months later, Hughes notched up a misdemeanor conviction for a drunken incident at a nearby fast food restaurant when he spit at a drive-through worker and called her a “bitch.” 

    Once Reynoldsburg police wrap up their investigation of the chief’s death, they’ll likely forward the case to state authorities, Wright said. 

    “It’s kind of gone beyond our level. You’re talking about another agency’s property room,” he said. “We think the state should probably intervene.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Fentanyl from Hospital

    Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Fentanyl from Hospital

    According to police, the nurse admitted that she had initially stolen the fentanyl for her husband before she started using it herself.

    A North Carolina nurse has admitted that she stole fentanyl from the hospital where she worked, first for her husband and later for personal use. 

    Hayley Lammon Brown, 29, was working at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when the theft occurred, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

    This week, Brown entered a guilty plea in Forsyth Superior Court to one count of embezzlement of a controlled substance by an employee, and was given a suspended sentence of eight to 19 months and placed on three years of supervised probation. She was also charged with assault of a police officer after an officer was exposed to the drug, and she is appealing her guilty plea in that case. 

    During sentencing, Judge Ed Wilson said that Brown needs to get treatment, although it was not court-ordered. “You’re either going to spend the rest of your life in prison or you’re going to die if you don’t do something about this,” he said.

    Authorities first came into contact with Brown in April 2017 when they responded to an overdose at Brown’s home. At the time she told police that her husband had bought the medication online.

    However, officers found two vials of hospital-grade fentanyl at the home. At that point, the local police department asked for assistance from the FBI. 

    John Keane, special agent in charge with the State Bureau of Investigation, interviewed Brown, and she admitted that she had been stealing fentanyl from the hospital beginning in 2016. She said that she first took the drugs for her husband, before she started using them herself. 

    When the hospital learned of Brown’s alleged theft, it did a three-month audit of her use of medications and found discrepancies in how she handled fentanyl. The hospital fired her and the North Carolina Board of Nursing suspended her nursing license. Brown later voluntarily gave up her license for a year, but after that she will be eligible to have her license reinstated. 

    Although fentanyl is at the center of the opioid epidemic and has become a popular street drug, it does have legitimate medical use.

    However, because of its potential for abuse it is carefully regulated in hospitals. Novant Health, which owns the hospital where Brown worked, has policies in place to avoid abuse, the company said. 

    “Novant Health has detailed policies that demand strict adherence to all federal, state and local regulatory requirements as well as the organization’s ethical standards and policies,” the health care network said in a written statement.

    “We take very seriously any allegation that the organization or any individual team member has not fully complied with or in some way violated regulatory requirements, including the mishandling of controlled substances.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Chad Sabora performed the experiment to reassure first responders that may be reluctant to perform CPR in the early moments of an overdose.

    Harm reduction experts are pushing back on what they believe is a dangerous myth circulating among emergency responders and the general public.

    Illicit fentanyl and its analogues are increasingly contaminating batches of heroin sold on the street, and contributing to skyrocketing overdose rates. Thanks to naloxone, people experiencing an opioid-related overdose have a fighting chance—if first responders get to them in time.

    There is a growing belief, however, that risk of exposure to these powerful synthetic opioids is so high that mere contact with an overdose victim’s sweat—or even inhaling a small amount of powder—is enough for a potentially fatal amount of the drug to get into the bloodstream.

    If true, first responders fearing exposure might be reluctant to perform CPR during the critical early moments of an overdose, so Chad Sabora, Executive Director of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Advocacy (Mo Networks), decided to perform an experiment to reassure them.

    Sabora, in a video he posted on Facebook, took a bag of street heroin that he confirmed through a strip test contained acetyl fentanyl and carfentanil, poured the powder in his hand and waited.

    Moments later, the naloxone standing nearby stayed in its box, unused, and Sabora appeared to be exhibiting no signs of an overdose.

    “[This is] the same dope that has caused ‘overdoses’ in first responders,” Sabora told The Fix. He obtained the tainted batch from one of the participants of Mo Network’s syringe exchange and naloxone distribution programs, known as a “second-tier exchange,” where an active heroin user brings sterile needles and overdose reversal kits to hand out on the street.

    Sabora is the first person to attempt to deliberately overdose in order to show that the risk to first responders may be an overblown and even dangerous myth. As a former prosecutor and someone in long term recovery himself, Sabora brings a unique perspective to his work in advocacy.

    “This belief is validating people that don’t want to rescue users. I used to be in law enforcement, I know it’s a very difficult job, but we have to bring balance through education and awareness while still respecting the job they’re doing,” he said.

    Last spring, journalist and The Fix contributor Zachary Siegel, dedicated the entire first episode of Narcotica, a podcast he co-hosts, to dispelling the myth that fentanyl or its analogues can cause an overdose through skin absorption.

    “I spent weeks researching this phenomenon for [the episode]. Every toxicologist, pharmacist, physician, and researcher I spoke with said hands down, illicit powdered fentanyl is not skin-soluble,” Siegel tweeted.

    A lethal dose for fentanyl in humans is around 3 milligrams, so appropriate precautions are certainly recommended for anyone who may come in contact with the drug.

    But in a position statement published in the journal Clinical Toxicology by the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, the task force authors concluded that for inhalation exposure risk, “At the highest airborne concentration… an unprotected individual would require nearly 200 minutes of exposure to reach a dose of 100 mcg of fentanyl.”

    And for dermal exposure risk, “it is very unlikely that small, unintentional skin exposures to… [fentanyl] powder would cause significant opioid toxicity…”

    Sabora hopes the video will make an impact, but he admits, “there’s not much more I can do, but between myself, writers like [Siegel], and a lot of others out there, we’ll keep doing our best to hammer the truth home.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Maryland Hit With Record Number Of Fentanyl Deaths

    Maryland Hit With Record Number Of Fentanyl Deaths

    “It’s terrifying that we’re at a point where the numbers escalate every year. We don’t even know where the peak is,” said Baltimore’s health commissioner.

    Maryland hit a sobering new milestone last year: The state saw more fentanyl deaths than ever before. And this year, it turns out, is already on track to set another disquieting record. 

    Of the state’s more than 2,200 intoxication deaths last year, roughly 90% were opioid-related and more than 1,500 involved fentanyl, according to health department data. 

    “It’s terrifying that we’re at a point where the numbers escalate every year. We don’t even know where the peak is,” Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner, told the Associated Press. 

    But that’s not true across the board. While fentanyl fatalities soared from 1,119 in 2016 to 1,594 last year in a more than 40% jump, heroin deaths are down 11% in the same period.

    Prescription opioid fatalities are down a bit too, though cocaine deaths have jumped up some 49%. Most of that is likely due to the increasing appearance of fentanyl mixed in with coke, state officials said, according to the Washington Post.

    Overall, the “large majority” of the fentanyl deaths occurred in Baltimore, the notoriously drug-riddled Charm City. There, 573 people died of fentanyl overdoses. Four years earlier, the city saw just 12 such fatalities. “That’s a 5,000% increase in four years,” Wen said. 

    The new data comes just over a year after Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency in light of the ongoing opioid epidemic.

    “We need to treat this crisis the exact same way we treat any other state emergency,” he said in a press conference at the time, while announcing an influx of roughly $50 million in funding to combat the problem. “As this crisis evolves, so must our response to it.”

    The crisis in Maryland mirrors struggles playing out in states across the country as overdose deaths are driven up by the prevalence of dangerously strong synthetic opioids like fentanyl and the even stronger carfentanil.

    So far, the problem doesn’t seem poised to improve in 2018. The first three months of the year notched up 653 accidental drug deaths in the state—and 500 of them involved fentanyl, state data showed.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • DEA Agents Who Helped Bring Down Escobar To Tackle Opioids In New Series

    DEA Agents Who Helped Bring Down Escobar To Tackle Opioids In New Series

    The docu-series will reportedly give viewers unprecedented access to how the DEA plans and executes drug busts.

    Steve Murphy and Javier Peña are the former DEA agents who brought down cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The Netflix show Narcos is based on their true experiences fighting the drug trade.

    Now Murphy and Peña are behind a new show about the opioid crisis and the DEA’s efforts to fight it.

    As The Wrap reports, this new docu-series will cover several different angles of the current drug war including what happened to the international drug cartels after the fall of Escobar.

    The show hopes to capture “controlled busts,” where smaller dealers can still continue their deliveries in exchange for giving up bigger dealers.

    The show will also feature doctors getting arrested for overprescribing opioids and pharmacists who are making fentanyl with their own pill presses.

    Murphy and Peña plan to film in China, where you can buy opioids off the web and get them delivered through U.S. mail. Murphy and Peña also plan to travel with DEA agents through Europe on drug busts.

    “What we want to do is show people what’s being done and what could be done,” Murphy says. “[The opioid epidemic] is now the leading cause of overdose deaths in the country.”

    Murphy says the DEA is “onboard” with this series, and it promises to give viewers unprecedented access to how the DEA plans and executes drug busts.

    “The DEA sees the seriousness of this epidemic,” says Murphy. “One of the things they agreed to do is take us to their Chinese counterparts and show us where fentanyl comes from, how it’s produced and how the pill press works.”

    The timing couldn’t be better for a series that will tackle the opioid crisis head on.

    Murphy told Fox Business, “The one thing that we’re finding out is that these new traffickers, like the ones we chased in the 1980s 1990s, are getting smarter at hiding their drugs. Now, most of them are coming through as counterfeit medications, and they are getting people sick, and they are dying.”

    Peña added, “Today’s [drug crisis] is worse than it was in the 1980s because of how smart these drug dealers are getting in smuggling these drugs into the country in the most modern and efficient ways possible.”

    The new Murphy and Peña show is currently being shopped around by powerhouse talent agency UTA. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Relapse During Probation Grounds For More Jail Time, MA Court Decides

    Relapse During Probation Grounds For More Jail Time, MA Court Decides

    Eleven days after her probation began, Julie Eldred tested positive for the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

    Individuals on probation can face great consequences if they relapse, according to a Massachusetts court. The decision was made Monday, July 16 by the top court in Massachusetts, the New York Times reported. 

    The case that this decision stemmed from was one that had been being monitored closely by “prosecutors, drug courts and addiction medicine specialists.”

    The case was brought forward by 30-year-old Julie Eldred, who, in 2016, was convicted of larceny for stealing jewelry. She was given a year of probation with up to 30 months in jail if she violated conditions, two of which were to enroll in treatment and stay drug-free.  

    According to the Times, Eldred did enroll in an outpatient program, where she began taking Suboxone, a medication which can decrease opioid cravings and curb symptoms of withdrawal. Soon after, Eldred asked her doctor for a stronger dose. 

    Then, 11 days after her probation began, she tested positive for fentanyl, the Times notes. Because no inpatient treatment placement could be found and Eldred’s parents were out of town, the judge decided to send Eldred to a medium-security prison for 10 days. There, she did not receive Suboxone and went through withdrawals.

    “The judge was faced with either releasing the defendant and risking that she would suffer an overdose and die or holding her in custody until a placement at an inpatient treatment facility became available,” Justice David Lowy wrote in the court’s decision. 

    During the case proceedings, the defense made the argument that because substance use disorder is a “chronic, relapsing brain disease,” making it difficult for a person to simply stop using drugs.

    The prosecution countered that substance use disorder varies by individual in terms of intensity. They also argued that many people can overcome the disorder and that consequences and rewards, such as jail time or a clear criminal record, can motivate individuals to stop using.

    The seven justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated that Eldred should have brought up the potential issues with her probation conditions earlier in the circumstances, when the argument could have been made in front of a trial judge instead.

    Lowy stated that judges have the responsibility of determining probation requirements while keeping the goals of rehabilitation and public safety in mind. He wrote that judges “stand on the front lines of the opioid epidemic” and are “faced with difficult decisions that are especially unpalatable.”

    According to Eldred’s lawyer, Lisa Newman-Polk, the court “rubber-stamped the status quo, dysfunctional way in which our criminal justice system treats people suffering from addiction.”

    The Massachusetts attorney general’s office agreed with the court’s ruling.  

    “We are pleased the Supreme Judicial Court today affirmed a court’s ability to take an individualized approach to probation that encourages recovery and rehabilitation to help probationers avoid further incarceration,” said a spokesperson for Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, according to the Times.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Nation's First-Ever Execution Using Fentanyl Halted

    Nation's First-Ever Execution Using Fentanyl Halted

    A New Jersey drug company filed a lawsuit claiming the state had tricked a drug distributor into selling one of the drugs to be used in the execution. 

    What could have been the nation’s first-ever execution using fentanyl was called off Wednesday, after a New Jersey-based drug company filed suit over the planned use of one of its drugs in the Nevada death house.

    After months of begging for death and waiving appeals, double murderer Scott Dozier was scheduled to die by lethal injection using an untested three-drug cocktail in what would have been the state’s first execution in more than a decade. 

    “I think it’s awesome. I mean, it’s killing people all over the place,” he told VICE News before his unwanted last-minute reprieve. “You guys get pharmaceutical grade fentanyl and just bang me up man.”

    But the courts intervened, after drugmaker Alvogen accused the state of using “subterfuge” to secure one of the drugs in spite of the company’s insistence that it didn’t want its product used in “botched” executions.

    It appears to be the first time a pharmaceutical company has successfully stopped an execution, experts told the Associated Press. 

    The challenge comes as death penalty states across the nation have struggled in finding ways to carry out their most severe punishment, sometimes switching methods or drugs as pharmaceutical companies become increasingly reluctant to see their drugs used in executions. 

    The current Nevada execution protocol—newly implemented after previous drug stocks expired—includes the controversial sedative midazolam, the opioid fentanyl and the paralytic cisatracurium. Midazolam has been linked to allegedly botched executions in Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama and elsewhere.

    In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Alvogen said the state had tricked drug distributor Cardinal Health into selling them midazolam by having it sent to a pharmacy in Las Vegas instead of to the prison, according to CBS News.

    “While Alvogen takes no position on the death penalty itself,” the company wrote in court filings, “Alvogen’s products were developed to save and improve patients’ lives and their use in executions is fundamentally contrary to this purpose.”

    A state solicitor general pushed back against the lawsuit, saying Nevada didn’t do anything wrong and regularly has its drugs shipped to Las Vegas. 

    This wasn’t the first controversy Nevada faced over its execution drugs. Last year, Pfizer asked the state to return any drugs it planned using to kill prisoners—but prison officials refused. And this year, another pharmaceutical company voiced objections to the use of its drugs in lethal injections, though they didn’t take the step of filing a legal claim. 

    Dozier’s death sentence stems from a 2002 slaying when he lured 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller to the Las Vegas strip in order to rob him of $12,000 that he planned to buy ephedrine with, one of the ingredients needed for making meth. After shooting Miller in the head, police say Dozier let him bleed out in a bathtub before dismembering him, stuffing his torso and some limbs into a suitcase, then tossing it in a dumpster. 

    Afterward, Dozier’s friends started coming forward with tips about the case. One even told police he’d spotted a body holding its own head inside Dozier’s hotel room. A jailhouse snitch alleged that he’d helped Dozier bury a man in the middle of the Arizona desert in 2001—and he led investigators to a dismembered body. Dozier was convicted in the Copper State case before he was transferred back to Nevada to stand trial for the would-be meth-maker’s slaying.

    While in jail for the Arizona murder—one in which he still maintains his innocence—Dozier tried killing himself by overdosing on antidepressants, which landed him in a coma for two weeks.

    “I’m not looking for mercy,” he told the Marshall Project. “Nevada said stop behaving this way or we will kill you, and I kept behaving that way.”

    So, in 2016, he penned a letter to the judge, waiving his appeals and begging for execution. So-called “volunteers” are a death row rarity, and Dozier’s gregarious pursuit of death attracted national attention. 

    Now, it’s not clear when he might face another death date, though a Clark County judge this week scheduled a hearing for September.

    View the original article at thefix.com