THE FAMILY AFTERWARDS – August 10, 2021 – The parents of a Vermont woman who died from an opioid overdose in 2019 are holding an open house this weekend at a recovery center created in her memory. Greg and Dawn Tatro will open Jenna’s House in Johnson. The occasion will be marked by an event Saturday featuring food, games, music and tours of the house. The couple’s daughter, Jenna Tatro, died from an opioid overdose two years ago at age 26. The Tatros then founded Jenna’s Promise, an organization with the motto, “A pathway to recovery.” “In that time…
Author: Leonard Buschel
WE’RE ONLY HUMAN – August 14, 2021 – From depression and anxiety to drug and alcohol use, mental health struggles are common. In fact, nearly 44 million Americans are affected by mental health conditions each year. But did you know there is an overlap between addiction and mental illness? It’s true. Approximately 9 million people have co-occurring disorders. Yet most go untreated. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 7 percent of these individuals will get treatment for both conditions. Why? Because of shame, stigma, and misdiagnosis. Many with co-existing conditions suffer in silence. “The…
WHO’S THE TARGET NOW? – August 13, 2021 – The DEA investigation was prompted by multiple reports in February 2020 of suspicious prescriptions issued by Malikian. The indictment alleges specific incidents in which Malikian prescribed controlled substances without a medical purpose after seven telemedicine consultations – including one conducted entirely via text message – starting in April 2020 and continuing through July 2020. None of the consultations involved any physical exam or diagnostic tests, and the appointments lasted as little as 2 minutes and 20 seconds. A federal judge on Thursday unsealed search warrants…
PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION – August 8, 2021 – “You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person, and you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are,” Harington continued. “Getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change.’” The 34-year-old shared some valuable information that helped him transform his way of thinking and make major life changes. “One of my favorite things I learned recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false — that a leopard…
DON’T LET THE DOOR… – August 12, 2021 – “All of us are relieved,” Biz Berthy, a drug policy organizer with VOCAL-NY, told Filter. “Those of us fighting to end overdose in New York have long known the toxicity of his administration. He’s built out a legacy of attacking the most vulnerable among us, especially those susceptible to overdose.” While calls for indictment grow louder, advocates are also now turning their attention to Hochul and the role she’ll play in addressing—or exacerbating—the state’s overdose crisis. For more than three years, Cuomo has stonewalled New York City and Ithaca from…
LIVING (SOBER) OUT LOUD – August 13, 2021 – Macklemore, KT Tunstall, Evvie McKinney, Daphne Willis and The Residency will perform at a concert next month to help raise awareness around addiction and recovery. “Since 2018, iHeart has been at the forefront of addressing the nation’s opioid epidemic—as well as the country’s mental health crisis—with the launch of several public awareness initiatives designed to merge public and private audiences with pop culture influencers to reduce stigma around mental health, addiction, and opioid use disorder,” said Greg Ashlock, CEO of the Multiplatform Group at iHeartMedia. “Our partnership with Recover Out…
MAMA KNOWS BEST? – August 12, 2021 – She would rather see money spent on treatment facilities to improve wait times, which at times can be months. “He needs the support group. He needs people who are in recovery, and that is where you get the treatment,” said Nesbitt. But addiction specialist Dr. Robert McKay says the consumption sites provide a safe place for drug addicts who otherwise aren’t capable of seeking out treatment facilities. “This is reaching those who don’t have much in the way of supports. A lot of them are still injecting downtown in various places,”…
LISTEN – SHOCKED BACK FROM THE DEAD – August 9, 2021 – Dr. P. was an ECT specialist at the institute. Electroconvulsive therapy, once known as shock therapy, sends an electric current to the brain, which produces convulsions that affect the patient’s levels of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. During the procedure, the patient is anesthetized, and paralytic drugs are administered to quiet convulsions in the body. Without paralytics, the patient will twitch and flail on the operating table. ECT is a powerful measure against suicide, and yet it has traditionally been used as a treatment of last resort. Early…
CHEMICALS THINKING – August 8, 2021 – Despite the details, the general theme is the same: someone starts having “psychiatric symptoms,” they are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and prescribed medication. Due to the medication, they experience even more severe psychiatric symptoms and then they are diagnosed with another, and usually more severe, psychiatric disorder. The story continues with more and more medications and diagnoses being added over time. In addition, patients also begin experiencing side effects to the medications, which are often labeled as new symptoms, leading to even more diagnoses and of course even more medications. Once…
THE TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY – August 9, 2021 – “When I say ‘patriarchy,’ I’m not referring to individual men,” says Rein. “I mean a system of inequality and oppression where the power, economic, political and even moral power has belonged to men and excluded women for millennia.” One of the results of this inherited trauma is a fight-or-flight mechanism that’s stuck in hyperdrive and a nervous system that just can’t seem to calm down. Similar to the ways mental health struggles impact how we function, a traumatized brain responds to the world differently. “I refer to PSD as…
LISTEN – BY LISTENING TO THIS ARTICLE – July 29, 2021 – These sensations are generated in places all over the body — in our internal organs, in our muscles, even in our bones — and then travel via multiple pathways to a structure in the brain called the insula. Such internal reports are merged with several other streams of information — our active thoughts and memories, sensory inputs gathered from the external world — and integrated into a single snapshot of our present condition, a sense of “how I feel” in the moment, as well as a sense…
THERE IS A GOD – August 9, 2021 – The research has come with this interesting fact that coffee can help one improve the overall medical condition which may be damaged by the use of liquor. Furthermore, eating dairy and multigrain foods may reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer, according to studies. To investigate the link between cancer and other nutrients, the researchers went through data from 860 reviews of published studies. This research again proves the utility of milk, coffee, and other dairy products for the betterment of human health in the general context. Those who can switch…
WATCH – FENTANYL MADNESS – August 9, 2021 – Gore said he, not a doctor, concluded that Deputy David Faiive suffered an overdose from incidental contact with fentanyl in the July 3 incident featured in the video. It showed Faiive collapsing in a San Marcos parking lot after handling suspected narcotics found in a vehicle. Medical professionals have pushed back, saying there is no evidence that incidental contact — drugs coming in contact with skin or through inhalation — with fentanyl can trigger an overdose. A couple hundred signed an online petition calling for retraction of the video and…
BUT THERE’S PLENTY OF VIAGRA – August 11, 2021 – Unfortunately, drugmakers are seeing a shortage of the medication right now, Filter reports. While there are different types of naloxone available (including nasal sprays and costly auto-injecting devices), vials of injectable medication tend to be the cheapest and therefore are particularly important for activist groups that distribute naloxone for free within their communities. Many of those community organizations get access to low-cost naloxone via the Opioid Safety and Naloxone Network, which has negotiated special pricing schemes with Pfizer, Filter explains. But Pfizer currently lists its supply of single- and…
SHAMEFUL CYCLE OF DESPAIR – August 7, 2021 – “The public just doesn’t know. They’re mad about all the encampments and people on the streets because they don’t understand what it takes to deal with this other than to clear them out,” said Margot Dashiell, In California, a quarter of the 161,000 people experiencing homelessness also have a severe mental illness. An estimated 37,000 people pinball between nonprofits and public agencies, cycling through ERs, jails and the streets, with no one monitoring their overall care in a fractured system that nobody entirely knows how to fix. There aren’t enough…
LETTING IT ALL OUT – August 12, 2021 – In his 2016 photographic autobiography, musician Zayn Malik discussed the disordered eating that plagued him during his time in One Direction. He wrote, “Something I’ve never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder. It wasn’t as though I had any concerns about my weight or anything like that. I’d just go for days — sometimes two or three days straight – without eating anything at all. It got quite serious, although…
WHERE WE CAN ALL GET HEALED – August 13, 2021 – “Here in West Virginia, we’re a family. We help each other through hard times, and when we see a neighbor struggling, we do what we can to help them get back on their feet,” Congresswoman Miller said “That West Virginia value is exemplified at Lotus Recovery Centers. As we work together at the state, local, and federal level to combat the drug crisis and help those in recovery, I know this facility will serve as a beacon of hope for southern West Virginia.” more@12WBOY
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” —Mahatma Gandhi
SICK SOULS SELLING SICKNESS – July 21, 2021 – While Insight executive director Clint Stonebraker did not respond to the allegations of racism and homophobia previously reported by YES! Weekly, he did to this one. “Insight has a duty to report any claims of sexual abuse or rape whether they are brought up in group or individual counseling,” wrote Stonebraker in a May 21 email. “There are no exceptions. No Insight counselor engages in any form of victim shaming.” “Note Clint’s phrasing,” said Nickerson last week. “Yes, they have that legal obligation, but they don’t comply with it. They…
NURSES NOT NIGHT STICKS – July 27, 2021 – New York’s program is modeled after a successful, decades-old program in Eugene, Ore., known as Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, or CAHOOTS. Other similar programs have launched in California, Colorado, Georgia and Montana. In Minneapolis, where police killed Floyd last summer, the city will start sending out civil crisis response teams instead of police to certain mental health calls next month. Mental health-related calls accounted for 22% of cases in which on-duty police used lethal force and killed someone, according to data from 2009 to 2012 from 17 states…
LAUGHING BEHIND THE TEARS – August 2, 2021- You never know what goes on behind closed doors. Kathy Griffin outlined to ABC the dire personal straits she found herself in while on tour in 2017, including battling an addiction to prescription drugs. During the “Laugh Your Head Off” tour following her controversial photoshoot with Tyler Shields that showed her with a severed Donald Trump head, the 60-year-old comedian said she lost “a ton of weight” and was prescribed a number of pills, starting with Provigil, a stimulant meant to treat sleep disorders like narcolepsy. The “My Life on the D-List”…
IT’S A GROWTH INDUSTRY – AUGUST 3, 2021 – From Massachusetts to California, advocates are actively making new strides to reform local laws governing psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca—building on a national movement that has already seen numerous cities decriminalize entheogenic substances. The momentum of the psychedelics decriminalization movement is abundantly clear when one considers the geopolitical landscape that’s being targeted by activists associated with Decriminalize Nature of late. The latest cities where the reform move is generating steam are Easthampton, Massachusetts; Grand Rapids, Michigan and Arcata, California. In Grand Rapids, a local lawmaker who is advising the city’s chapter…
NOT ONE OF THEM IS HAND SANITIZER – July 26, 2021 – Thankfully, you can leverage your living space and what you do in it to feel healthier and happier on the daily, no expensive renos required. Of course, “healthy” means something different to every person, and it can also mean many things to each person. We aimed to find ideas that cover a wide variety of situations, from keeping germs out to avoiding physical injuries to doing things that make you smile. You know your body and what it needs best, so pick your favorites (even one, if…
WHAT A WONDERFUL TOWN – July 29, 2021 – The bill also required that marijuana convictions no longer considered criminal be automatically “vacated and dismissed.” This makes about 160,000 records eligible for expungement. And of course, in April this year the state fully legalized marijuana for adult use. Under the new law, possession of up to three ounces in public (or 24 grams of concentrate) is now legal. The law requires that anyone convicted for possession up to 1 pound of marijuana is eligible to have their record automatically expunged, making an additional 150,000 convictions eligible. These developments are…
PEACE – August 1, 2021 – “Saginaw loved this country and fought in Korea as a Marine. He bore the mark of this service as a proud reminder and had a deep love for bulldogs (the mascot for the US Marines),” the post continued. “Saginaw was always happiest at pow wow sharing the love, energy and tradition of his people. Watching the children grow in the traditions of their ancestors and to share in the spirits of dance to the beat of the drum brought him both joy and peace.” … Grant’s publicist and longtime friend, Lani Carmichael, said the…
EVERY STEP COUNTS – AUGUST 4, 2021 – He learned that once you’ve reached rock bottom, the only way out is up. June 22, 2020, is the day Mathews reclaimed his life. For the past 13 months, Mathews — who lives in Winter Garden and is a lifelong West Orange County resident — has remained sober. He stopped drinking for one day. And then another. And another. Days became weeks, which then became months. He celebrated one year of sobriety June 22, and he wants to tell his story. Or, more accurately, he needs to tell it. The drinking started…
WATCH – WATCH FOR KIDS AT PLAY – August 4, 2021 – “We’ve seen an increase still in ingestion of drugs, and a significant amount, some suicide and some not. And then others increase in eating disorders. So the disordered eating increase has been significant over the past few months,” she said. And be sure to talk to your child openly about their mental well-being. “I think the great part about all of this is it’s brought mental health to the forefront and recognizing that we were in a mental health epidemic before the COVID-19 pandemic and the great…
IF UTAH CAN, SO CAN EVERYONE – August 4, 2021 – Utah Naloxone announced Monday, law enforcement agencies reported saving 500 lives from overdoses since 2016. The group has partnered with agencies to equip them with naloxone kits which reverse the effects of opioid overdoses. The Lehi City Police Department helped the non-profit organization reach the milestone saving seven lives since December 2020. During the pandemic, there was an increase in opioid related deaths nationwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Utah saw a 8.2% jump in drug overdose related deaths from November 2019-2020. Lt. Kenny…
WATCH – YOU CAN TELL HE’S LYING BECAUSE HIS LIPS ARE MOVING – August 4, 2021 – OxyContin, members of the family successfully avoided most attempts to force them to answer questions about their stewardship of Purdue or the multibillion-dollar fortune they amassed as OxyContin became a bestselling pain medicine. They have repeatedly denied acting inappropriately, and the settlement under consideration in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, New York, does not require the Sacklers to admit wrongdoing. Family members would pay $4.5 billion over nine years to resolve civil lawsuits filed by states, cities, insurers and families impacted…
RECOVERY IS GOOD BUSINESS – August 4, 2021 – The evolving epidemic, which is now being fueled largely by illicitly manufactured and adulterated fentanyl and fentanyl analogs and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is believed to have taken the lives of 93,331 people in the U.S. in 2020, compared with 72,151 in the year before. An AMA issue brief outlines steps employers can take to support employees’ access to evidence-based treatment. “Treatment with buprenorphine allows patients with opioid-use disorder to lead satisfying, productive lives,” Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, former AMA president and chair of the AMA Opioid Task…