RE: "43 died of heroin overdoses in New Orleans in 2015, coroner says." Metro. January 29. The spike in heroin overdoses in Orleans and Jefferson parishes is alarming. Also alarming is the lack of resources for people who are battling opioid addiction. Until the barriers to treatment are addressed and access to care is available, opioid abuse and the corresponding overdoses will not decrease. The quickest and most efficient way to address the current opioid crisis is to make sure that substance abuse treatment services, including detox, are readily available to the community. Treatment beds are severely limited in both Orleans and Jefferson parishes, leading to long wait lists at most substance abuse treatment facilities. This uptick in opioid overdoses should be recognized as a public health issue. Without readily available treatment options, an addict will continue to use until, inevitably, that person is met with deadly results. [continues 62 words]
Last fall, I listened as a mother named Cary Dixon told her family's story at a forum I convened in West Virginia. It was heartbreaking. Cary's adult son has struggled with a substance use disorder for years, and she described the pain that families like hers have gone through. "We dread the next phone call," she said. "We don't take vacations for fear of the next crisis. We come back from vacations because there's a crisis." Cary and her family are far from alone. As the use of prescription drugs has increased over the past 15 or 20 years, so has their misuse - -- as well as the wreckage caused by other opioids like heroin. In fact, four in five heroin users started out by misusing prescription drugs, and then switched to heroin. As a consequence, between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related deaths in America nearly quadrupled. More Americans now die of drug overdoses than in motor vehicle crashes. In Alaska, overdoses claimed 124 lives in 2014 alone. [continues 493 words]
The hits just keep coming for Toronto cops. The already low morale among police officers was dealt another blow Thursday with the news that four of their colleagues are charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. "It's definitely having an impact on morale, but the officers who work in this city will keep doing their job to the best of their ability," Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack said. He said cops can't help but be concerned about how the public perceives them in the wake of the criminal charges for allegedly planting heroin during a bust and lying under oath at Nguyen Son Tran's trial. [continues 350 words]
WATERLOO REGION - Drug users who think they are buying cocaine or heroin may be also getting bootleg fentanyl, which is being blamed for overdoses across the country. In Waterloo Region, six overdoses were reported in Cambridge and Kitchener from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26. One person died. Heroin is suspected in five of the overdoses, while fentanyl is suspected in at least one. Bootleg fentanyl is often created in a clandestine lab and could be a mixture of heroin, cocaine and crystal meth laced with fentanyl, said Staff Sgt. Shirley Hilton, head of drugs for Waterloo Regional Police. [continues 252 words]
Suddenly, heroin is hot. Or rather, talking about heroin, addiction, treatment and non-punitive responses is hot, especially among presidential candidates as they canvass for votes in New Hampshire. A standard part of this year's campaigning has been a visit with a family who lost a child to an overdose, or a confessional talk at a drug clinic. That's because the explosion in U.S. heroin use that began about six years ago has hit New England particularly hard. [continues 641 words]
Whether It's A Condition or a Disease, Drug Dependence Is Confusing for Families to Battle HARTFORD, Conn. - Fred Hayden still wonders if closing the door on his daughter one night in 2007 helped put her on the path to heroin addiction. Crystal Hayden's descent started with a new job at a restaurant earlier that year. Then 20, Crystal started hanging out with new friends who, her father said, liked to drink. They were older. She wanted to fit in. [continues 1608 words]
