BIG PHARMA WINDFALL – April 23, 2023 – Accepting millions of dollars from the Sackler family while advising the federal government on pain policy “would be considered a conflict of interest under almost any conflict-of-interest policy I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Bero said. Lawmakers and others have issued investigations into the business practices of members of the Sackler family and lavish spending by Purdue that amplified the voices of doctors and medical organizations wanting more opioid prescriptions despite soaring overdose deaths. Yet aside from an article in a medical journal in 2019, the National Academies has not drawn public attention. After…
Author: Leonard Buschel
DRUGS – April 23, 2023 – He was Peter Pan in the community play. Poured himself into original folk-rock songs that detailed a painful, but hopeful, journey. Volunteered with the church youth group. He was an incurable romantic, always had a girlfriend, and consulted his parents on the most thoughtful gifts to bestow upon his paramours. Taylor, of Oregon, was found unresponsive in his closet shortly after the morning therapy session at a Lighthouse facility on Pearl Street. The official cause of death was “acute polydrug intoxication,” due to the combined toxic effects of fentanyl, narcotic analgesics and anti-depressants, according…
GET BACK UP – April 24, 2023 – One of the stars of Fox’s Call Me Kat is getting candid about his sobriety struggles, hoping his story may be able to help someone navigating a similar situation. “Vulnerable is what I’m feeling today,” Cheyenne Jackson wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. “After nearly a decade of sobriety I fell off the wagon. I’ve been carrying a lot of shame. Scared to share it. But I know it can help someone so here I go. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone who has looked up to me as a sober…
SO IS RECOVERY – April 22, 2023 – A Colorado Springs mom is helping others navigate the heartache of drug abuse. Lisa Smith is a mother to a son who struggled with drugs as a teen. But now she is connecting with other families going through the same fight. Lisa also told 11 News she felt alone and lost for six years and wants families to have the resources she says she didn’t have. “I came to a very clear realization that this was not turning around, and it’s very likely that he would not make it,” Lisa Smith, Founder…
JUST ANOTHER DRUG DEALER – April 23, 2023 – According to court documents, Okafor distributed oxycodone to people outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose from his medical practice in Washington, D.C. The federal indictment said Okafor performed only cursory evaluations of people, and solicited and received cash in the examination rooms of his clinic in exchange for opioid prescriptions. If convicted, Okafor faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count. The Maryland Department of Health issued a news release that Okafor’s arrest may affect healthcare access for Marylanders. When…
THE VISIONARY GETS HELP – April 15, 2023 – It was founded by Charles B. Towns, who was an insurance salesman from Georgia. Towns was a very successful, high-pressure insurance salesman. He had an eighth-grade education and never studied science or medicine. In 1899, he moved to New York City and went into the stock brokering business. Shortly afterwards, he was convicted of embezzling funds from his clients and given a suspended sentence. After that Towns disappears until 1905, when he shows up advertising a cure for the “opium habit,” using a secret formula. Towns partnered with a physician named…
NEWCOMER CHIP? – April 26, 2023 – For several months, the Naltrexone chip is supposed to help people remove their alcohol cravings. Let’s take a closer look. As part of a clinical trial directed by Hao Wei, a former vice-president of the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board, a man with the last name Liu, underwent a five-minute surgery on April 12 at the Hunan Brain Hospital in central China. According to Hao and his coworkers at Central South University’s Second Xiangya Hospital, who are experts in substance misuse and addiction mechanisms, the chip is projected to reduce alcohol cravings…
IT CAN’T HURT – April 26, 2023 – “Exercise has so many benefits for those overcoming an addiction,” Weinstock said. “There is the immediate bump in mood after one’s workout, and, over time, exercise reduces depression and anxiety, which often co-occur with addiction. Exercise also helps the brain heal from the many damaging effects substance use has on our brains.” In animal studies, for instance, heavy usage of drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine or alcohol weakens or kills brain cells and reduces neurogenesis, the process by which brains create new neurons. Exercise, on the other hand, increases neurogenesis, and bolsters…
VIDEO – DON’T DROP HOPE – March 9, 2023 – In 2018, Hines told his story to ABC News, recalling the feeling he had the moment that he jumped. “Instant regret, powerful, overwhelming,” he remembers feeling. “As I fell, all I wanted to do was reach back to the rail, but it was gone. The thoughts in those four seconds, it was ‘What have I just done? I don’t want to die.’” Luckily for Hines, he turned around in mid-air and hit the water in a seated position. While he shattered three vertebrae in the fall, he was still alive.…
VIDEO – UBER EATS – April 26, 2023 – Signs of food addiction can include intense cravings, having trouble cutting down on how much you’re eating, and experiencing withdrawal. Registered dietitians say there is also no one direct cause for food addiction. For example, someone might be triggered by an event or use food to help cope with their emotions. Researchers say doctors should ask their patients about food addictions, which can help them get the right treatment and improve their overall physical and mental health. Click@WNYT
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus, 1913-1960
SAVING LIVES – April, 24, 2023 – Passage of California’s CARE Court law to reform California’s Mental Health Services Act, efforts in the State of Washington, and possibly in New York City, promise help for the tragic number of unhoused among us. California’s law may be a decent start in funding, hiring therapists and providing beds in facilities for the many tens of thousands who need it. What I would like to see more of, though, is recognition of the tens of millions of people afflicted with substance use disorders as a significant part of the same mental health conversation.…
ONLY TO GET INDOORS – April 15, 2023 – Los Angeles’ recently initiated “Mansion Tax,” for instance, specifically raises funds to combat homelessness. But those funds cannot be used for immediate solutions like emergency shelters or the treatment programs needed to help folks who are both homeless and addicted to drugs. And as I can personally attest, there are many, many such folks. So the money must be spent on longer-term efforts, such as the homeless apartment units known as permanent supportive housing (PSHs). Advocates are keen on PSHs, pointing to Houston, for instance, which reduced its homeless population by…
Ya’Think? – April 10, 2023 – Jeremiah Tower is, by all accounts, a culinary legend. The chef is perhaps most well known for his pioneering approach to Northern California cuisine while at Alice Waters’ famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse and his work both there and at his celebrity-packed restaurant Stars in the ’80s gained him an outsized reputation cloaked in mythos and mystery. Over the years, Tower’s ego, charm and romantic life have all been covered with equal fervor. Though he may now be mostly retired (and living in Mexico), he’s cemented his position as one of America’s earliest and…
VIDEO – MORE FAMOUS NPW THAN EVER – April 16, 2023 – The 63-year-old California man became famous as a six-year-old curly-haired redhead when he was cast in the 1960s TV series “Family Affair,” which ran on CBS for five seasons. He later appeared in multiple Disney films throughout the 1970s and gave Jody Foster her first onscreen kiss in the film adaptation of “Tom Sawyer.” The 1973 film celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. With a documentary and film project in the works, Whitaker is back in show business again. His memoir is slated for release sometime next year.…
VIDEO – CAN DRUGS CAUSE SOCIALISM? – April 17, 2023 – “I think it would be nice to have better training for how to deal with situations that come up from the opioid epidemic and just the unhoused community around here. I think sometimes we are just thrown into stressful situations and expected to think on our feet and that can be a little scary,” said Josie Clark, a shift manager at Ben and Jerry’s. “It was definitely a group decision, and I think everyone is excited to work together along with the managers to make sure we have a…
DON’T TEACH THEM YOUNG – April 13, 2023 – “You might think, ‘Oh, letting them have wine at dinner teaches them to drink responsibly. Or you might say, ‘Kids are gonna drink anyway, it might as well be at home, where they’re safe,” Lahey says. “Studies show — and again, there is data for this — that parents who say, ‘No, you can’t drink until it’s legal for you’ have kids with much lower levels of substance abuse disorder.” The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found that early drinking — not including little sips and tastes —…
VIDEO – STONED AT SCHOOL – April 14, 2023 – The school said a rescue vehicle was immediately dispatched and parents were contacted. The school later learned that three more students had also ingested the substance. Two students were taken to the hospital by ambulance and one student was taken by a parent, according to the post. Right now, investigators believe one of the students may have gotten into an adult’s stash of marijuana edibles and brought them to school. According to the CDC, depending on the amount of the psychoactive extract in marijuana, commonly known as THC, a child…
HIGH ACHIEVERS – April 24, 2023 – Coleridge’s hope was a characteristic expression of the drug culture he belonged to. He was intimately acquainted with how drugs shaped his inner life, and his habit of self-interrogation, the minute attention he paid to his states of mind, was shared by his friends and collaborators. Thomas De Quincey, his former secretary, turned his own, unconquerable opium addiction into a wildly popular autobiography, “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” (1821), in which he mapped the buried palaces of the mind. The young chemist Humphry Davy, whom Coleridge befriended, experimented with the psychoactive properties of…
BIAS IN THE BABY WARD – April 14, 2023 – Hospitals are more likely to give drug tests to Black women delivering babies than white women, regardless of the mother’s history of substance use, suggests a new study of a health system in Pennsylvania. And such excessive testing was unwarranted, the study found: Black women were less likely than white women to test positive for drugs. The study analyzed the electronic medical records of 37,860 patients who delivered a baby at a large health care system in Pennsylvania between March 2018 and June 2021. It was published on Friday in…
SEE WHAT’S IN YOUR PURSE – April 15, 2023 – A rebound effect, which generally comes from medication misuse, is not the same as a true addiction, although there are nonprescription drugs that can be abused or contribute to an addiction relapse. A person who is misusing an OTC drug can develop a physical dependency on the drug, which means their body comes to rely on it for a particular function. That isn’t the same as an addiction to a drug, which results in compulsive behavior to get the drug despite the sometimes devastating and even life-threatening repercussions. Addiction can…
VIDEO – STOP HOLDING BACK – April 13, 2023 -Ken Makimsy Middleton’s mission has been to help others realize alcohol is probably the one thing that is holding them back from realizing all of their dreams. He started the Medium publication, AINYF (Alcohol is NOT Your Friend) in May of 2020 for this reason, and is the author of the book Bamboozled – How Alcohol Lies to Us All, which exposes the subtle tactics and traps of alcohol and the alcohol industry, while also giving the reader the tools to overcome them. Click@YouTube
VIDEO – WATCH AND LEARN – April 16, 2023 – Jesse J. Holland: we are back and we are joined by sam quinones, author. He is here to discuss the fentanyl crisis in the united states and the world. Good morning. Sam Quinones: I have been a journalist for six years now. I started out as a crime reporter in Stockton, California. I lived in Mexico for two years. Came back to work for the Los Angeles times where I worked for 10 years. I have written since, two books, what I am better known for. The first one was…
TECHNOLOGICAL CASTRATION? – April 20, 2023 – Martinez, now 22, is one of a growing number of Gen Z and Millennial males who grew up consuming internet porn from a young age only to experience “porn-induced erectile dysfunction.” Clinical sexologist and psychotherapist Dr. Rob Weiss has watched the phenomenon explode over his 25 years of experience running a Los Angeles-area treatment center for sex addicts. “Porn addiction can lead to desensitization to sexual stimuli, which can decrease arousal and lead to difficulties achieving and maintaining an erection,” Weiss explained. “If my primary source of arousal is constantly looking at 50…
IT’S COMPLICATED – April 20, 2023 – No federal employee holds the title of opioid crisis accountability coordinator. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has not released public statements about the settlements in over a year. And the settlement funds are mentioned just twice in a 150-page national strategy to reduce drug trafficking and overdose deaths. Click@NPR
BOTH OF THEM – April 15, 2023 – “Just because something is safe to consume as food does not mean that it’s safe to inhale. The main message that we want to put out there is for people, especially young adults, who haven’t smoked before. “Switching to e-cigarettes may be a better, safer alternative for someone who is trying to quit smoking regular tobacco products. But it’s important to have full knowledge of e-cigarettes’ risks and benefits before trying them.” Previously, Professor Benam’s team discovered vitamin E acetate, a common additive in cannabinoid e-cigarette liquids, generates more toxic small particles.…
VIDEO – HEIGHTENED FEELINGS ARE NATURAL – April 20, 2023 – “I didn’t know the nasal swab hurt until well after I got sober,” confessed the comedian during his recent appearance on the This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast. John Mulaney is sharing new light on how he embarked on a journey to sobriety at the height of the COVID pandemic. “I got to say, I did not experience the pandemic the same way other people did. I don’t know. I was using a lot,” shared the 40-year-old comedian during the latest episode of This Past Weekend with Theo…
VIDEO – 12 STEPPING AMERICA – April 20, 2023 – “It can create some accountability and a lot of support if you have millions of followers that are joining you and celebrating you along the way,” Wandzilak said of the benefits of a person sharing their sobriety publicly. “And it actually provides a lot of encouragement.” Hadid, who was recently named to Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people list for 2023, is also no stranger to the nonalcoholic beverage trend. The supermodel is a partner and co-founder of the nonalcoholic beverage company Kin Euphorics. Hadid told InStyle that before joining…
AUDIO – COKE ADDS LIFE – March 2, 2023 – The name Coca-Cola is so familiar that, according to Bart Elmore, the author of Citizen Coke, it’s the second most-recognized word in the world (“okay” is the first). But you might not realize that the two conjoined words that make up the brand actually mean something. In fact, they’re the names of two ingredients used in the secret recipe for the famous soda since the late 1800s: cola comes from kola, an African nut known for its caffeine content, and coca comes from the coca leaf — which, of course,…
AUDIO – REAL EDUCATION – April 21, 2023 – More than 50 protesters called on Harvard to remove the Sackler name from all University sites and departments — including the Arthur M. Sackler Building and Arthur M. Sackler Museum. In addition, some protesters urged the school to invest in a more available supply of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. The protest, which started at 12:30 p.m., took place in the atrium of the Harvard Art Museums and included chants such as “Shame on Sackler,” “Take Down the Name,” and “No More Drug War.” Protesters also dropped empty pill bottles…