A new year brings new laws in New York, including stronger treatment options for opioid addiction and increasing the state's minimum wage. New York's minimum wage increases Dec. 31, 2016. ALBANY -- A new year brings new laws in New York, including stronger treatment options for opioid addiction and increasing the state's minimum wage. Many of the state's new laws each year are pegged to the start of the calendar year, and in the case of the higher minimum wage, it starts Saturday, Dec. 31. [continues 286 words]
Several dozen people who lost loved ones to heroin and opiate addiction gathered at Canalside Saturday to mourn and to raise awareness. (Maki Becker/Buffalo News) Kelly Taylor couldn't talk publicly about the fact that two of her sons died of heroin overdoses. It wasn't just grief. She knew people judged her. Self-doubt silenced her. But Taylor and others who have endured the agony of losing loved ones to the opiate epidemic say there is no longer room for shame and silence. [continues 714 words]
On Nov. 8, 2016 voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada approved ballot measures to legalize recreational cannabis. It is now legal in a total of eight states. And this creates potential problems for road safety. How do we determine who's impaired and who's not? The effects of alcohol vary based on a person's size and weight, metabolism rate, related food intake and the type and amount of beverage consumed. Even so, alcohol consumption produces fairly straightforward results: The more you drink, the worse you drive. Factors like body size and drinking experience can shift the correlation slightly, but the relationship is still pretty linear, enough to be able to confidently develop a blood alcohol content scale for legally determining drunk driving. Not so with marijuana. [continues 833 words]
NEW YORK - Health officials say the synthetic opioid fentanyl has surpassed heroin as the leading cause of overdose deaths on Long Island. The New York Times reports that fentanyl killed at least 220 people on Long Island in 2016. Fentanyl can be 100 times as potent as heroin and is much cheaper because it can be made in a lab. The numbers from Long Island are part of a national pattern. Fentanyl fatalities have surpassed those from heroin in other parts of the country including New England. The medical examiners of Long Island's two counties, Nassau and Suffolk, compiled the overdose statistics there. Suffolk County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Caplan said the influx of illegally manufactured fentanyl from overseas requires "a multidisciplinary intervention from all levels of government." [end]
There is a place in city of Rochester where people from all walks of life have been gathering. About half of them come from the city, the other half drive in from the suburbs, or even farther, to get here every day. It is a hub of diversity, unlike any other in the Finger Lakes region. Men and women, young and old, business executives, soccer moms, students. They drive shiny BMWs, family minivans, and pickup trucks with antlers mounted on the hood. [continues 505 words]
The state Department of Health has proposed amending its regulations to allow hospitals to develop procedures under which patients could take medical marijuana and other medications brought from home. While not specifically outlawed now by department regulations, the amendment would give explicit permission for hospitals to formulate their own rules about patient use of medical marijuana, Jill Montag, a Health Department spokeswoman, said in an email. Hospitals that want to permit self-administration of medical marijuana or other medications "must develop and follow policies and procedures to ensure the safe self-administration and security of the medication," according to the Health Department's proposed amendment to the state's Medical Marijuana Program. [continues 501 words]
Arrests for possessing small amounts of marijuana exceeded those for all violent crimes last year, a new study has found, even as social attitudes toward the drug have changed and a number of cities and states have legalized its use or decriminalized small quantities. And a disproportionate number of those arrested are African-Americans, who smoke marijuana at rates similar to whites but are arrested and prosecuted far more often for having small amounts for personal use, according to the study. The arrests can overwhelm court systems. [continues 831 words]
They are not like other mourners. They are raw. "Hysterical crying," said Jackie Berger, a florist. Some arrive at the other extreme, showing quiet resignation, even relief. "They knew this day was coming," said Frank Lettera, a funeral director. They are the parents and relatives of young men and women who died on Staten Island after overdosing on heroin. The grieving families are passing through the rituals of death in numbers never seen before: a record 72 suspected overdoses so far this year. That number far surpasses the previous record of 41, in 2014. [continues 805 words]
The man entered the Red Robin restaurant inside the Staten Island Mall two minutes after 6 p.m. on a Friday. He walked straight past the booths and tables and entered the men's room. A manager would find him there seven minutes later, lying on the floor with a needle and foaming at the mouth. His name was Jonathan Ayers, 27, and he was declared dead within the hour that evening, Sept. 9, apparently of a heroin overdose. Mr. Ayers's fatal overdose was the latest addition to a body count without precedent. So far in 2016, there have been 71 deaths that appear to be from heroin overdoses on the island, the Richmond County district attorney's office said, already on pace to more than double the record set two years ago. Nine people died of heroin overdoses in a recent 10-day period, prosecutors said. [continues 1789 words]
To the Editor: Re "Safer Alternatives to Opioids" (editorial, Aug. 30): As an anesthesiologist and president of the American Society for Enhanced Recovery, I applaud the surgeon general's campaign addressing the overprescribing and misuse of opioids. While I agree that minimizing opioid use will take a concerted effort by all those involved in the health care system, hospitals, in particular, have a critical role. Although often overlooked in the opioid discussion, hospitals have become an inadvertent gateway to opioid use in America. A recent survey found that one in 10 patients became addicted or dependent on opioids following a surgical procedure, and 91 percent of surgeons felt pressure to prescribe more opioids than a patient needed, in part because of the need to score well on patient satisfaction evaluations. [continues 86 words]
To the Editor: As a physician who specializes in pain management, I agree that we are overusing opioids and underusing other treatments. Certainly, the lack of insurance coverage for many of these other treatments is a significant problem. There is an even more important factor, however, that hinders patient access to them. Most physicians receive little education on pain management in medical school and in postgraduate training. It is unrealistic to expect physicians to recommend treatments about which they possess little knowledge. If the surgeon general really wants to have an impact on how we treat pain in this country, he needs to address this. Philadelphia [end]
About half of opioid overdose deaths involve prescription drugs. With that stark fact in mind, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, sent an unusually direct plea last week to 2.3 million doctors and other health care workers to help fight the opioid epidemic by treating pain "safely and effectively." A website for his "Turn the Tide" campaign highlights alternative, nonaddictive treatments for pain. Not only doctors but also policy makers, insurance companies and other players in the health care system should pay attention. [continues 334 words]
ALBANY - Moving to address complaints about New York's new medical marijuana program, the state's Health Department is making substantial changes to expand access to the drug, including allowing home delivery, quite likely by the end of September. The program, which saw its first dispensaries open in January, has struggled to gain broad traction in the medical community and with potential patients. Advocates for the medical use of marijuana have said the program, allowed by a 2014 law signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, was too restrictive, and its regulations too cumbersome to fulfill its mandate. [continues 972 words]
On a Sunday morning in late July, in a small town in southwest Alabama, Barbara Moore Knight gave her fellow church members news that brought spontaneous applause and murmurs of "Amen!" She told them that her son, James LaRon Knight, was among the drug felons whose sentences had been commuted by President Barack Obama the week before. In 2004, Knight was convicted of conspiracy to sell cocaine. Although the crime was nonviolent, he was sentenced to more than 24 years in a federal prison. The sentence was a travesty, an unduly harsh punishment for a family man never accused of running a substantial criminal enterprise. [continues 507 words]
Washington - As a college student in Virginia, Corey Jacobs started selling drugs with the help of a group of friends to make some extra money. A Bronx native, Mr. Jacobs was no kingpin, and no aspect of their drug conspiracy involved violence. Now age 46, Mr. Jacobs has served 16 years of a sentence of life without parole in the federal system. No question, Corey Jacobs should have gone to prison for his felony. But does he deserve to die there? [continues 1176 words]
Supporters of a saner marijuana policy scored a small victory this week when the Obama administration said it would authorize more institutions to grow marijuana for medical research. But the government passed up an opportunity to make a more significant change. The Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday turned down two petitions - one from the governors of Rhode Island and Washington and the other from a resident of New Mexico - requesting that marijuana be removed from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Drugs on that list, which include heroin and LSD, are deemed to have no medical use; possession is illegal under federal law, and researchers have to jump through many hoops to obtain permission to study them and obtain samples to study. Having marijuana on that list is deeply misguided since many scientists and President Obama have said that it is no more dangerous than alcohol. [continues 485 words]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: In an effort to be balanced, the article notes that critics' opposition to naloxone is based on the premise that it gives drug users a safety net, allowing them to take more risks and seek higher highs, resulting in multiple overdoses. These claims are refuted by studies in New York, San Francisco and here in Connecticut of overdose risks, undertaken before widespread availability of naloxone, in which a strong predictor of an overdose was a previous nonfatal overdose. To date, no evidence has been presented that naloxone availability or use in response to overdoses increases risk-taking or overdose frequency. Instead, there is plenty of evidence that it saves lives and provides those individuals an opportunity to seek treatment. The critics' disparaging of the lifesaving benefits of naloxone is just another example of the stigmatization of those with the chronic disorder of opioid abuse that brands such individuals as unworthy of efforts to reduce their mortality. New Haven The writer is a professor at the Yale University School of Public Health. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: The same arguments about encouraging more risk taking were made earlier about needle exchange programs to fight H.I.V., delaying their implementation by years. But when New York State stopped heeding the naysayers and did expand access to clean needles, H.I.V. infection rates in drug users, which had stood at 54 percent in 1990, fell to only 3 percent by 2012. Now state health officials call the formerly contentious practice "the one intervention which could be described as the gold standard of H.I.V. prevention." Let's not make the same mistake by spreading similarly baseless fears about naloxone. New York The writer is the author of "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction." [end]
President Obama last week commuted the prison terms of 214 federal inmates who were sent to prison under draconian, '80s-era laws that have since been revised. Among them were 67 people serving life sentences, nearly all of them for nonviolent drug offenses. Mercy was granted in these cases. But the federal clemency system - which moves far too slowly and is too often blocked by politics in both the Justice Department and the White House - was never intended to manage miscarriages of justice that happen on a vast scale, as was the case when so many Americans were sent to prison under the "tough on crime" policies of the 1980s. [continues 378 words]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: You say naloxone "carries no health risk; it cannot be abused and, if given mistakenly to someone who has not overdosed on opioids, does no harm." In fact, like most drugs, naloxone can have adverse effects, most of which are mild, but some, such as severe hypertension, decreased platelet function, coma and death, are very significant. Severe hypertension and tachycardia can likely be exacerbated in patients who have taken amphetamines or cocaine in addition to opioids, causing heart attack or stroke. Fortunately, most overdoses treated with naloxone occur in young patients who tolerate side effects. However, I am concerned about propagating the myth that this drug is completely safe and thereby inadvertently adding a new game to the highs of addiction - get high, push the experience to near death, make sure naloxone is handy for reversal, and repeat. We may indeed see more complications if patients are using multiple rounds of opioids and naloxone. Milford, Conn. The writer is an anesthesiologist. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: Re "A Lifesaver for Heroin Users, but No Cure for an Epidemic" (news article, July 31): As an emergency physician, I have personally administered naloxone and seen patients who would otherwise die from an opioid overdose be revived within seconds. Those who say that saving someone's life with naloxone will only foster addiction are being unscientific, inhumane and ill informed. We would never refuse an EpiPen to someone experiencing a peanut allergy for fear that it would encourage him to eat peanut butter. In Baltimore, we believe that naloxone should be part of everyone's medicine cabinet and everyone's first aid kit. That is why I issued a standing order that has made this medication available to all of the 620,000 residents in our city. We must make policy decisions based on science, not stigma. Addiction is a disease. We must treat it with the same urgency, humanity and compassion as we treat all diseases. Baltimore The writer is the Baltimore city health commissioner. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: Some of those you interview make the case that people use naloxone to continue their pattern of pleasure-seeking behaviors, even to their own detriment. However, abuse of opioids is not an act of free will; it is an agonizing compulsion. A person with a substance abuse disorder is compelled to use even when he or she no longer feels pleasure from the act. I volunteer with the Needle Exchange Emergency Distribution to distribute naloxone, clean syringes and other harm reduction supplies to clients in the East Bay area. Tellingly, the article quotes Gov. Paul LePage of Maine saying that "naloxone does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose." Perhaps if Governor LePage met our clients he would see that people with substance abuse disorders are as worthy of compassionate care as anyone with a chronic disease. Berkeley, Calif. The writer is pursuing a master's of public health degree at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: Your article discusses two interpretations of the effect of Narcan, the brand name of naloxone. The moral hazard interpretation is that Narcan gives drug users a safety net, allowing some to overdose numerous times in safety. Advocates of Narcan, on the other hand, say it allows people to get into treatment, and there is no evidence that Narcan increases opiate use. Given this uncertainty, I find it difficult to understand how you can write: "There is no question that the nation's death toll from heroin and prescription opioids would be significantly higher without naloxone." It is at least logically possible that Narcan will eventually be seen to have been a wholesale mistake. WILLIAM VAUGHAN Jr. Chebeague Island, Me. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: How could naloxone ever be considered a "cure for an epidemic"? Putting out a fire is not a cure for causes of fires. Sorry, there are no quick solutions to the addiction problem. But there are some steps we should take. Help addicts get services for the addiction and underlying mental health issues. Access to clinics is key. Yet clinics are fewer and fewer and access harder and harder. And, yes, give Narcan to first responders and addicts' families. Norwood, Mass. The writer is a psychiatrist. [end]
Naloxone saves lives after a heroin overdose, but does it also encourage addiction? To the Editor: Your article profiles a 44-year-old woman who has been revived seven times using the lifesaving drug Narcan. At what point does her own personal responsibility make her accountable for her own life? Our society and our health care system need to recognize that we can't solve everyone's problems all the time. Providence, R.I. [end]
The police raids around a gritty Brooklyn intersection were meant to show that city officials were taking charge after 33 people had been stricken by suspected overdoses of K2. But the spectacle, captured by a crush of news media, came up all but empty, without a single packet of the drug seized. The outcome of the attempted crackdown underscored the challenges the authorities face in combating K2, a potent substance that is easy to distribute and hard to regulate. Its low price and powerful high have made it popular among some homeless people, and its effects have periodically transformed patches of the city - like the one on the border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant where the raids were carried out - into theaters of public drug use. [continues 873 words]
Almost as soon as the young man crouching on a trash-strewed street in Brooklyn pulled out a crumpled dollar bill from his pocket and emptied its contents of dried leaves into a wrapper, he had company. A half-dozen disheveled men and women walked swiftly to where the young man was rolling a cigarette of a synthetic drug known as K2 to wait for a chance to share. The drug has been the source of an alarming and sudden surge in overdoses - over three days this week, 130 people across New York City were treated in hospital emergency rooms after overdosing on K2, almost equaling the total for the entire month of June, according to the city's health department. About one-fourth of the overdoses, 33, took place on Tuesday along the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, the same Brooklyn neighborhoods where, despite a heightened presence of police officers, people were again openly smoking the drug on Thursday. [continues 918 words]
The legalization of marijuana is inevitable. The most we can hope for is that people are educated about the potential downsides of the so-called weed. We can hope that pot smoking will not give rise to the kind of alcohol fueled traffic fatalities we see now. Of course, we all know that people have been known to smoke and drive and have been involved in accidents but once it is legalized, there will doubtless be more pot users who will drive "under the influence." [continues 571 words]
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that drugs seized from a man charged in a narcotics case could not be used as evidence, because agents had not obtained a warrant for a covert cellphone tracking device that led them to his Washington Heights apartment, where the drugs were found. The portable device, known as a cell-site simulator and often referred to as a Stingray, has been used widely by federal and local law enforcement officials around the country, including in New York, to solve crimes and locate missing people. [continues 521 words]
There is a word that local residents and workers use to describe a group of drug users whose presence they say has grown around a busy Brooklyn transit hub: zombies. What was once a few familiar faces has turned into a tribe of strangers, walking around, staggering and looking lost, in the throes, it is believed, of the ill effects of K2, a synthetic drug that officials in New York have been working hard to eradicate. The problem in the neighborhood has gotten to be such that a manager of an urban farm nearby, tired of the smoke wafting onto the property, posted two hand-painted wooden signs with a simple message: "No Smoking K2." [continues 774 words]
Congress is about to pass a bill meant to deal with the nation's opioid epidemic. It contains some good ideas. It will also be far less effective at saving lives than it should be. The Senate is expected to vote soon on the measure, approved by the House on Friday by an overwhelming 407-to-5 majority. It would authorize addiction treatment and prevention programs to stem what has become a scourge and a disgrace - more than 28,600 overdose deaths in 2014. But it contains not a penny to support those initiatives. [continues 506 words]
The clear conclusion of The News' ongoing reporting and opinion on the opiate crisis is there is no single solution. One proven approach to reducing deaths has been missing from the discussion. Studies have shown that in states with effective medical marijuana programs including chronic pain as a qualifying condition, opioid deaths are 25 percent to one-third less than those, like New York, without. Cannabis is not a treatment for opioid addiction, but a proven treatment for many pain conditions. Many patients are able to reduce or cease use of addictive and potentially fatal drugs, including opioids, anti-depressants and anti-seizure medications, most commonly prescribed for pain. [continues 92 words]
I SHOT heroin and cocaine while attending Columbia in the 1980s, sometimes injecting many times a day and leaving scars that are still visible. I kept using, even after I was suspended from school, after I overdosed and even after I was arrested for dealing, despite knowing that this could reduce my chances of staying out of prison. My parents were devastated: They couldn't understand what had happened to their "gifted" child who had always excelled academically. They kept hoping I would just somehow stop, even though every time I tried to quit, I relapsed within months. [continues 1180 words]
There are rabbits with silken pelts and guinea pigs with curly hair, a flock of chickens, crops of eggplant, corn, apples and even a banana tree - all thriving in one of the grittiest neighborhoods in New York City. James McCrae and a group of volunteers have spent two decades cultivating this once-barren stretch of Glenmore Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, making it one of the city's most resplendent community gardens, raising a grassy lawn to replace broken pavement and planting herbs for cooking. Shady benches sit under flowering bowers inside the garden, where the gardeners used to sit, reaching up occasionally to pluck wine grapes overhead. But today, they spend their days hunkered on folding chairs on the sidewalk outside the gates, watching the flowers wither and the blueberries rot. [continues 951 words]
NEW YORK (AP) - Men and women in business suits mixed with hippies sporting blazers printed with marijuana leaf patterns Friday during the last day of the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition. The three-day conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was a gathering of professionals and advocates from nearly every facet of the emerging marijuana industry. Even though restrictions on the drug remain tight in New York, the community gathered to exchange ideas and explore business opportunities. "We are here showcasing the cannabis industry and showing what they do," said Dan Humiston, president of the International Cannabis Association, which organized the conference. [continues 231 words]
As a provider of addiction treatment, mostly to teens, it is frustrating to watch as the problem worsens. No family is immune. The federal government has mandated a 100-patient limit for physicians who treat opiate addiction with buprenorphine (Suboxone, Zubsolve). Physicians are not limited in treating any other medical problem. The number of physicians certified to treat opiate addiction with buprenorphine is not enough to serve even a minority of addicted patients. The addiction problem has several root causes. The proliferation and mass use of social media has accelerated addiction. Teens no longer accept what parents say about the dangers of drugs. Instead they use social media to get answers that downplay the dangers, and instruct impressionable teens on how to obtain drugs and how to modify drugs for intravenous use. Technology has been a contributor to the problem. [continues 283 words]
Prosecutors are the most powerful players in the American criminal justice system. Their decisions - like whom to charge with a crime, and what sentence to seek - have profound consequences. So why is it so hard to keep them from breaking the law or violating the Constitution? The short answer is that they are almost never held accountable for misconduct, even when it results in wrongful convictions. It is time for a new approach to ending this behavior: federal oversight of prosecutors' offices that repeatedly ignore defendants' legal and constitutional rights. There is a successful model for this in the Justice Department's monitoring of police departments with histories of misconduct. [continues 538 words]
ONE of the most painful experiences of being a psychiatrist is having a patient for whom none of the available therapies or medications work. A while back, I was asked to do a consultation on just such a patient. This person had been a heroin addict in her early 20s. She had quit the opioid five years earlier, but her life was plagued with anxiety, apathy and self-doubt that prior treatments had not helped. At the end of the session, almost as an afterthought, she noted with irony that the only time in her adult life when she had been able to socialize easily and function at work was when she had been hooked on heroin. [continues 1128 words]
Michael R. Moffett, a Buffalo police officer on suspension without pay, overdosed on opioids Tuesday morning the second time in recent months and on-duty police officers administered three doses of Narcan to revive him, according to police sources. Moffett, 26, was found unconscious at his South Buffalo residence by his girlfriend, and a 911 call for help was made, the police sources said. The officer's Dorrance Avenue home was later searched after police obtained a warrant. The findings of the search have not been revealed. [continues 244 words]
As a former member of the U.S. Navy, I've seen the pain that lingers after our men and women in uniform return home. It's our country's responsibility to provide veterans with any medical treatment that has proven to be effective. More and more states are recognizing the overwhelming data about medical cannabis. With 24 states and the District of Columbia now operating medical cannabis programs, many Americans now have a viable alternative to opioid pain medication. In the current state of addiction and overdose in our country - a tragedy our state knows too well, as more than 1,000 New Yorkers die a year from opioid-related deaths - we should welcome any alternative with open arms. This situation is even more dire for veterans, as the opioid overdose rate for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs patients is almost double the national average. [continues 359 words]
In New Jersey, voters and lawmakers gave judges more power to release low-risk defendants who can't afford bail, letting them go home rather than sit in jail while they await trial. In Idaho, a new law created 24-hour crisis centers to help keep people with mental health issues from being locked up unnecessarily. Georgia and Louisiana established courts for military veterans accused of crimes. Hawaii funded programs to help reunify children with parents who are behind bars. These are just a few of the hundreds of criminal-justice reforms that states around the country have put in place over the last two years, according to a new report by the Vera Institute of Justice. [continues 418 words]
TOWN OF WALLKILL, N.Y. - A Massachusetts police chief made headlines and created a social media stir last year when he declared the 50-year "war on drugs" a failure and turned his department away from criminal penalties and toward treatment. That initiative by Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello has picked up traction in other departments across the nation. As the New York Times reported in January, "56 police departments in 17 states have started programs modeled on or inspired by Gloucester's, with 110 more preparing to do so." [continues 230 words]
Lebanon, Va. - LATE on Christmas night 2013, April Hileman was summoned for a drug test. She had broken the curfew imposed on her by a drug court and relapsed with the opioid pills she'd been hooked on for six years. Earlier that day, Ms. Hileman had driven to a neighbor's house here in far southwestern Virginia to buy a handful of Suboxone pills, or "Box," as the drug is sometimes called. After she tested positive, Judge Michael Moore of Russell County ordered her to jail, and her 3-year-old daughter spent the rest of the holidays with relatives. [continues 1888 words]
To the Editor: Re "Legal Pot, Free Trade" (Op-Ed, May 21): Ioan Grillo's proposal for a Nafta-style market in legal marijuana mistakes a symptom of the organized-crime epidemic in Mexico - the illegal drug trade - for an underlying cause. Rather, the major driver appears to be the corruption infecting all levels of the Mexican state and economy. Otherwise, it is hard to explain the Mexican government's chronic inability to keep organized crime from dominating so many legal businesses, like casino gambling, cigarettes and even something as banal as mining. [continues 134 words]
Mexico City - WHEN the Mexican Army actually allows journalists to watch its soldiers in action, it's often to see them burning marijuana crops. It's strictly for show, but it's fun. You get to fly in a military helicopter over the Sierra Madre, then touch down to see troops posing with their rifles as they walk into green marijuana fields. And the highlight: You watch hundreds of pounds of grass go up in flames. Mexican soldiers have been conducting this ritual for decades, and the photos have come to define the country's war on drugs. But amid a wave of drug policy reform, those photos may soon disappear from news pages and be relegated to historical archives. [continues 777 words]
Undercover Narcotics Detective Kept Accident Under The Official Radar An unmarked sheriff's car slammed last month into the back of a parked SUV. The hood of the county-issued Impala folded like a gum wrapper, and the engine compartment crunched inward, yet the impact pushed the two-ton Dodge Nitro into a utility pole 100 feet away. The pole was just feet from Gene McCarthy's pub at Hamburg and Republic streets in Buffalo's Old First Ward. When the pub's lights flickered, the handful of patrons inside at 1:37 a.m. April 2 ventured out to find littered car parts, the SUV pressed against the pole, and a tall man in his 30s emerging unhurt from the Impala. [continues 1783 words]
Regarding the May 9 front-page story about insurers balking at addiction costs, I have empathy for the people who are addicted and their families, but not sympathy. These people must know going in that these strong medications could be addicting. The families of the addicted say they are frustrated and angry because the health insurance companies don't continue paying for the treatment costs that are incurred, yet families of the addicted admit that their children have been inpatients multiple times, evidently with failing results. [continues 66 words]
The opioid epidemic is now a leading cause of death in the United States, ravaging communities across the country. At last, Congress has snapped to attention. But its recent flurry of legislation will be of little help unless lawmakers are willing to fund treatment and prevention programs. The House last week passed 18 bills related to opioids, and the Senate approved a comprehensive bill in March. The bills, which will be reconciled in a conference committee, are overdue. Opioids, a category of drugs that includes heroin and prescription painkillers like oxycodone, killed more than 28,000 people in 2014, and the rate of overdoses has tripled since 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost two million Americans abused or were dependent on these drugs in 2014. [continues 547 words]
The issue of addiction is now being brought to the forefront of public consciousness, and rightly so. This problem is not new, but has escalated to a point where it is affecting people who may not have been previously exposed to the illness. What needs to be brought home is the fact that addiction, no matter what the substance, is an illness, not a problem brought about by a lack of character. When medical professionals, psychiatric providers and patient family members approach the addicted individual with a judgmental attitude, it only reinforces to that person what he already feels - a lack of self-worth and guilt - which only serves to put up another barrier to the process of recovery. As providers, family members and neighbors, it is in our best interest to put judgment aside and treat addicted individuals with empathy and compassion. To do otherwise is simply counterproductive. Williamsville [end]
Death is one of the greatest personifications there is. It visits all of us and gets very personal. Continually we are inundated with statistics of all kinds of deaths. These include the horrors of terrorism, shootings, suicides, abortions, plane crashes and cancer. These stats seem to keep death at a comfortable bay, deluding us into thinking we will never be part of the masses. In fact, at times we reluctantly find ourselves viewing with morbid fascination the demise of others. Somehow we can stay detached because "the visitor" has not yet come to our door. [continues 353 words]
Inside New York
