Vancouver comic Mark Hughes interviews fentanyl dealer as part of recently launched podcast Death has been a constant in Kyle's life for 25 years. It's a narrative that goes hand in hand with his lifestyle, and shows no signs of abating. Kyle - not his real name - is a fentanyl dealer. He says he's killed people with his own hands, and by extension, through his line of work. Kyle spoke to Vancouver comedian Mark Hughes as part of Hughes' recently-launched podcast called Pulling the Trigger. The Courier attempted to speak with Kyle, but he declined on more than one occasion. [continues 806 words]
Just six days after her 28-year-old son died from a heroin overdose, the president of the Pennsbury school board wept as she thanked her colleagues for unanimously approving an ambitious new $149,000 antidrug program aimed at fighting an opioid epidemic that has ravaged young grads in their Lower Bucks County community. "Thank you all for doing this - now more than ever it means the world to me," a tearful Jacqueline Redner said immediately after the vote. After a decadelong battle with addiction, her son Josh was found dead in a motel room on Sept. 13. [continues 690 words]
US: Connelly: Lawsuit seeks to block King County vote on safe injection sites - seattlepi.com Found: Tue Aug 22 14:21:02 2017 PDT Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2017 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Website: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408 Author: Joel Connelly A lawsuit was filed Monday, challenging and seeking to block a public vote on Initiative 27, which seeks to outlaw the opening of supervised consumption spaces, health facilities where people use drugs in a safe environment with access to treatment. [continues 661 words]
School districts on Long Island and statewide are stocking naloxone onsite in school buildings to have the opioid antidote at the ready because of the growing issue of abuse of the deadly drugs, educators and health officials said. At least 340 schools across the state, including dozens on Long Island, have provided training for school nurses or other personnel about how to administer naloxone, according to the state Education Department. The Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, based in Westbury, also has seen interest grow in instructing school personnel about the antidote, said Reisa Berg, director of education and prevention. [continues 1060 words]
Chicago, I'm told, has a morality problem. That's what White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the other day when asked if violence in our city is related to easy access to guns. "I think that the problem there is pretty clear that it's a crime problem," she said. "I think crime is probably driven more by morality than anything else." That's an interesting statement, given the reason the question was posed: The administration had just announced that 20 federal gun agents were being dispatched to Chicago to help with a task force focused on the flow of illegal guns into the city. [continues 1083 words]
WASHINGTON - The Republican drive to roll back Barack Obama's health care law is on a collision course with a national opioid epidemic that's not letting up. Medicaid cuts resulting from the GOP legislation would hit hard in states deeply affected by the addiction crisis and struggling to turn the corner, according to state data and concerned lawmakers in both parties. The House health care bill would phase out expanded Medicaid, which allows states to provide federally backed insurance to low-income adults previously not eligible. Many people in that demographic are in their 20s and 30s and dealing with opioid addiction. Dollars from Washington have allowed states to boost their response to the crisis, paying for medication, counseling, therapy and other services. [continues 820 words]
The man was still, mouth open, head back in a white Crown Victoria stalled in the middle of a neighborhood street. A paramedic pushed a flexible tube in the man's vein to pump in lifesaving naloxone to block the effects of whatever opioid he had taken and, if all worked well, revive him. Routine work. A little girl stopped her bicycle, clutching a melting red ice pop as she watched. "This is just normal for her," said David Geiger, director of Covington Emergency Medical Services, nodding toward the child. [continues 1477 words]
A pilot project operated by Vancouver Coastal Health has found success with a simple detection strip for the notorious opioid Drug users who test their drugs and discover fentanyl are 10 times more likely to reduce their dose, raising the possibility that making such tests widely available could reduce overdoses. That is one finding of a drug checking pilot project at Insite, Vancouver's supervised-injection site, operated by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). Launched last July, the initiative offers drug users the option of testing their drugs for fentanyl using a simple test strip, which produces results in seconds. [continues 504 words]
Maybe it was the ski masks that did it. Or it could have been the steely look in the eyes of Lake County, Fla., Sheriff Peyton Grinnell as he deadpanned: "We are coming for you. Run." Perhaps it was the muted background music: an eerie melody that wouldn't have been out of place in a Batman movie. In the end, what could have been an unremarkable public service announcement about opioid abuse in Lake County spread widely on the internet, garnering about a million views on the Facebook page of the sheriff's office, where it was first posted Friday. It sparked concerns about police militarization and drew more than a few comparisons to Islamic State recruitment videos. [continues 915 words]
Paramedics say naloxone doesn't reverse damage done to the brain from lack of oxygen in an overdose While a lot of emphasis is being put on the statistics relating to overdose deaths, paramedics working on the West Shore are struggling to help the patients they save, but are still ultimately lost. "One of the issues we have is that naloxone has been touted as a great drug, and it is (But) it's not the magic pill everyone thinks (it is)," said Brad Cameron, B.C. Emergency Health Services district manager for Victoria. "They depend too much on naloxone as the fix-all." [continues 696 words]
The overdose crisis, especially in British Columbia, has become an issue of moral panic, and everyone is paying attention. The B.C. Coroner's Report for 2016 revealed a shocking number of deaths from overdose - 914, which far surpassed previous records and is nearly three times the number of deaths from automobile collisions. This crisis impacts us all and it requires a radical shift in the ways all provinces provide health care. Unfortunately, the human and financial toll continues to rise because we continue to view illicit substance use as a moral and criminal issue rather than the healthcare issue it is. As a health-care social worker on the front line, I am lending my voice to those with substance-use disorders, the ostracized and overlooked. [continues 555 words]
All first responders in the Fernie area are now equipped to take on a potential opioid crisis. Fernie Fire and Rescue were the last group in the area to become trained in opioid overdose situations by BC Emergency Health Services. The main area of focus for training was on Naloxone, the antidote for opioid overdoses. Unable to give any numbers at this time, Elk Valley RCMP Corporal Bob Wright did state that, "We have responded to Fentanyl drug use in the Elk Valley. It has resulted in overdose-type situations." [continues 623 words]
Prescribing medicinal heroin to prevent overdose deaths might appear to clash with common sense, but the provincial health officer in B.C. is backing the idea because he says European-style drug treatment programs work. The arrival of the powerful opioid fentanyl drove B.C.'s death toll to a new peak last year of 914 overdose deaths, almost 80 per cent higher than the 510 deaths recorded by the provincial coroner in 2015. Dr. Perry Kendall said he wants support from colleagues in health care and law enforcement to push the province to create treatment programs that prescribe a pharmaceutical-grade version of heroin, called diacetylmorphine. "It may be counterintuitive for people, but they have been shown to improve functioning, improve physical health, improve mental health," said Kendall. "They certainly get people out of illegal drug markets and many of those people have gone on to have relatively stable lives." [continues 312 words]
Like most of small town America, Southern Indiana was unprepared for the opioid crisis. That's what Sam Quinones said, who is an expert on the roots of America's heroin and prescription drug crisis. "It's bad all over the country, but I would say it's probably particularly unkempt in areas such as Southern Indiana," he said. Smaller towns "never had to deal with the issues that come along with opiate addiction like how hard it is to kick, all the ancillary effects of having an addict in the family, aE& the lying, the destruction of family savings." [continues 820 words]
Governor Hogan announces heroin crisis initiatives Governor Larry Hogan announces a number of new initiatives to combat the statewide heroin crisis at a press conference at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. (Joshua McKerrow / Capital Gazette) Governor Larry Hogan announces a number of new initiatives to combat the statewide heroin crisis at a press conference at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. (Joshua McKerrow / Capital Gazette) Gov. Larry Hogan and Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford came to Anne Arundel Medical Center Tuesday to announce new initiatives aimed at combating a rising tide of heroin abuse across the state. [continues 444 words]
West Milford police revived a 31-year-old Hewitt woman suffering from a heroin overdose on Jan. 21. [photo] A West Milford police car sits idle behind town hall on Dec. 31, 2016.(Photo: Joe Sarno/NorthJersey.com) WEST MILFORD -- Local police revived a 31-year-old Hewitt woman suffering from an apparent heroin overdose on Saturday afternoon. West Milford police officers administered the opioid-blocking medication naloxone to the resident after finding her unresponsive at approximately 2:12 p.m. on Jan. 21, according a Jan. 24 press release from the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office. [continues 66 words]
[photo] In this Aug. 9, 2016, photo, a vial containing 2mg of fentanyl, which will kill a human if ingested into the body, is displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Testing and Research Laboratory in Sterling, Va. A 2mg dose of fentanyl is fatal to 99 percent of humans. A novel class of deadly drugs is exploding across the country, with many manufactured in China for export around the world. The drugs, synthetic opioids, are fueling the deadliest addiction crisis the U.S. has ever seen. (Cliff Owen / AP) [continues 760 words]
[photo] The state senator wants more drug disposal sites and access to medication to treat addiction. NEW CITY - Opioid deaths, including fatal heroin overdoses, are on the rise in Rockland County, where state Sen. David Carlucci is pushing a pair of proposals to help addicts. There were 37 opioid deaths in Rockland last year, up from 25 in 2015, according to a report from the Rockland County Medical Examiner's Office. That's compared to 36 opioid deaths in total between 2003 and 2009 in Rockland, according to Carlucci's office. [continues 192 words]
Anti-drug advocates hailed Gov. Chris Christie's pledge Tuesday to make New Jersey's addiction crisis a top job in the final year of his term in office, but there were worries about funding and follow through. Using soaring rhetoric, heartfelt personal stories of loss and unmistakable zeal, the governor used his State of the State address to outline a series of new initiatives to battle the opioid epidemic that has devastated New Jersey. Paul Ressler, who lost his son Corey to a heroin overdose and now runs an organization that informs the public about the use of the opioid overdose antidote naloxone, praised the goal of getting more teenagers into treatment. Christie promised to change state regulations that exclude 18 and 19 year olds from treatment facilities for children. [continues 1053 words]
At four in the morning, the hospital's emergency department lights fluoresce directly into your brain. Everyone, everything looks green, especially the midnight heroin users. They are always shivering. Partly the withdrawal, partly the cold, damp Connecticut weather. They tend not to have proper jackets. On a stretcher in the hallway, a 25-year-old "opioid withdrawal" is curled up with three hospital blankets pulled over his head. I gently shake his leg, but nothing is really gentle here. I introduce myself and whisper a question about what brought him in. No response. [continues 693 words]
