Old Lyme - As speakers at a community forum Thursday evening shared their or their loved ones' stories of recovering from heroin addiction, they were met with a standing ovation by more than 100 attendees. The forum at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, organized by the Community Action for Substance Free Youth under the Lymes' Youth Service Bureau, focused on treatment and prevention of opioid addiction. Parker Rodriguez told the audience that he grew up with a loving family in Lyme. At age 12, he had his first drink and went on to experiment with drugs. [continues 582 words]
Thanks, all of you spirited online commenters and phone-callers, for your varied and assertive messages reacting to my column last week in which I endorsed a proposed state law to legalize marijuana in the Nutmeg state. Somebody called me a "liberal" (ouch!) and hung up. Another person branded me "a well-known leftist" (I plead guilty to that, too) who has "a false regard for mankind, coupled with the usual cynical disregard for what your proposed policies would do to real living and breathing people." [continues 769 words]
HARTFORD (AP) - A lawyer for a labor union urged the Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday to rule that firing a state worker caught smoking marijuana in a state-owned vehicle while on the job was too harsh a punishment. Gregory Linhoff was fired from his maintenance job at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington in 2012 after a police officer caught him smoking pot. He had no previous disciplinary problems since being hired in 1998 and had received favorable job evaluations, according to his union. He was arrested, but the charges were later dismissed. [continues 122 words]
In the April Harper's Monthly, author Dan Baum argues convincingly for legalizing all drugs. He reveals that the "War on Drugs" was a sham from the start. The late, disgraced John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief counsel, told him its real purpose was to discredit and harass enemies: antiwar hippies (marijuana) and blacks (heroin). Nixon's cynical war isn't merely an abject failure; it's created violent illegal trafficking, cost billions, and destroyed countless lives. Almost everyone, including new "drug czar" Michael Botticelli, knows criminalizing drugs hasn't worked. The only sensible solution is to legalize, shifting the billions saved from enforcement and incarceration to regulation and treatment. Now-nonexistent taxes gained by legalizing could boost overstressed municipal, state and federal budgets. [continues 89 words]
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut marijuana bust has turned into a potential precedent-setting case on whether apartment and condo dwellers have the same rights as house owners when it comes to police using drug-sniffing dogs outside their homes. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday is scheduled to hear arguments in the case of Dennis Kono, who was arrested in 2012 after a police dog deployed without a warrant in a condo building hallway in Berlin smelled marijuana near his door. Berlin police then obtained a search warrant for Kono's condo and found several small marijuana plants, seeds, growing equipment and firearms. [continues 165 words]
As two of our forward-thinking state legislators have noted, it's high time we considered legalizing marijuana in Connecticut. State Rep. Roland Lemar and state Rep. Juan Candelaria, both New Haven-based Democrats, are co-sponsoring a bill that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. Although a Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 63 percent of Connecticut voters support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational purposes, the bill's chance of passage is not deemed likely this time around. This is still, after all, the "Land of Steady Habits." [continues 805 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 609 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 607 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 605 words]
Conn. Bill Would Limit Opioid Prescriptions Hartford (AP) - Connecticut lawmakers are seeking to place new limits on opioid prescriptions to help address the problem of deadly overdoses. The General Assembly's Public Health Committee forwarded a bill on Monday that would limit doctors to writing only seven-day prescriptions for first-time adult patients. Those patients would have to return to their physician to have a prescription refilled, possibly for a longer period. Democratic Sen. Terry Gerrantana, the committee's co-chairman, says lawmakers "realize what is happening in our communities" with the large number of deadly drug overdoses in Connecticut. The bill would also allow "standing orders" for pharmacists to prescribe opioid antagonists, such as Narcan, to friends and family of someone at risk of overdosing. The bill has received bipartisan support. It now awaits action in the state Senate. [end]
The state legislature should pass a law legalizing the use of marijuana for patients under 18. Children who have no other options should not be denied this medicine. The worst pain a parent can imagine is the loss of a child. Almost as devastating is to watch a child suffer. If the suffering continues for a long time, or repeats over and over again, the helplessness is agonizing for parents, who would do anything to stop it. Parents of children who suffer multiple seizures a day, and with those episodes, a constant risk of further disability and death, are asking the Connecticut General Assembly to legalize the use of marijuana for patients under 18. For some children it offers relief from the brutal cycle of seizures that make school and play impossible and may steal the ability even to walk and talk. [continues 475 words]
Slowly but surely, like the proverbial aircraft carrier, the U.S. government is changing to a new and better course on the long-neglected issue of opioid abuse and addiction. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an emphatic stand against the loose prescribing norms that have fueled the growth of opioid consumption for non-cancer pain, with the terrible result that 16,000 people a year die from overdoses. Labeling the drugs "dangerous," and noting that evidence did not support their long-term efficacy for most cases of chronic pain, CDC Director Thomas Frieden urged physicians to follow more-cautious new CDC guidelines that emphasize alternative pain management techniques. Dr. Frieden and his colleagues deserve credit for incorporating a range of views in the guidelines while resisting pressure to weaken them from interest groups that support the status quo. [continues 393 words]
New Dispensaries Expected to Open This Summer The number of Connecticut's medical marijuana patients is likely to grow more quickly with the addition Monday of six new conditions that can be treated with cannabis. "I would expect there would be additional people," said state Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan Harris on Tuesday. "We're pleased that more people with serious diseases will have access to medicine that can help them with pain, with symptoms and their underlying disease conditions." The new conditions eligible for the program are sickle cell disease, postlaminectomy syndrome with chronic radiculopathy, severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), ulcerative colitis and complex regional pain syndrome. [continues 306 words]
New Dispensaries Expected to Open This Summer The number of Connecticut's medical marijuana patients is likely to grow more quickly with the addition Monday of six new conditions that can be treated with cannabis. "I would expect there would be additional people," said state Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan Harris on Tuesday. "We're pleased that more people with serious diseases will have access to medicine that can help them with pain, with symptoms and their underlying disease conditions." The new conditions eligible for the program are sickle cell disease, post-laminectomy syndrome with chronic radiculopathy, severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), ulcerative colitis and complex regional pain syndrome. [continues 306 words]
Montville Girl Had Moved to Maine for Access to Drug Montville - Just last week, Susan Meehan was in Hartford telling legislators that she left Connecticut to give her daughter, Cyndimae, a better life. But Cyndimae Meehan's life ended Sunday as she napped in her father's arms in Augusta, Maine. She was 13. The former Montville resident moved to Maine with her mother two years ago, as part of the family's fight for access to medical cannabis. Medical marijuana is not approved for pediatric use in Connecticut, but Cyndimae needed it to treat her Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. "She was a happy kid, she really was," Susan Meehan said Tuesday. "In between seizures, she had a smile on her face." [continues 732 words]
I'm sure the Connecticut Association of Prevention Professionals means well ("Marijuana Bill Draws Criticism, March 3"), however opposing cannabis (marijuana) legalization increases hard drug addiction rates, which is what Connecticut is experiencing. Selling cannabis in a regulated market removes sales from people who may also sell hard drugs. Some citizens who legitimately use opioids for medical conditions may choose cannabis if it is available over the counter like in Colorado. That could lower hard drug addiction rates. The plant hasn't killed anyone in over 5,000 years of documented use; that's safety on a Biblical scale. [continues 122 words]
This letter is in response to the Feb. 15 headline about state Rep. Matthew Lesser backing legalizing pot for recreational use. Adults, especially our leaders, have to know that marijuana use only leads to heavier usage of other drugs. I do not feel anyone needs more recreational toys and habits in this category and am really shocked that any adult feels this is a contribution to one's life. Please wake up and say no to drugs of any kind. From a concerned mother, grandmother and neighbor. - - Betty Meyer, Higganum [end]
Linda Lloyd doesn't want to leave her home in Pawcatuck, where her 6-year-old son, Henry, attends "the best school ... he could possibly attend" and has a support network of family and friends close by. "Please don't force me to move out of state and leave my home in order to give my son a fighting chance," Lloyd told the state legislature's Public Health Committee during a hearing earlier this month. Lloyd, testifying for the first time at the General Assembly, was among eight parents and more than 20 others supporting legalization of medical marijuana for their children and others with debilitating seizure disorders and other conditions that have not responded to traditional pharmaceuticals. [continues 1031 words]
Norwich - If they're still breathing, there's hope. When somebody overdoses on heroin and is treated in the emergency room at The William W. Backus Hospital, they speak to an outreach worker before they leave. It's one of the steps members the Norwich Heroin Task Force, comprising social services agencies, health care providers, police and others are taking as they try to get a handle on the growing number of heroin- and opiate- addicted residents in the region. More than 120 people attended a forum on the growing public health crisis Thursday, with presentations from social workers, doctors, addiction specialists and parents of addicted children. [continues 869 words]
Inside Connecticut
