Smack Down – DECEMBER 4, 2019 – “SPENT SOOOOO MUCH [MONEY] PAYING OTHER PEOPLE BILLS JUST TO BE HIGH AND A FUNCTIONING ADDICT,” LIL MO WROTE. “I WAS HIGH AND THINKING IT WAS OK CUZ I COULD AFFORD IT. I’M LIL MO. I’M FAMOUS. FAMOUS PEOPLE DO DRUGS.” But it wasn’t until she was being physically abused and threatened to be thrown “over this balcony” nine months ago that she decided to get off of drugs, she wrote. Although she didn’t name her abuser, earlier this year she wrote, “this hurts soooo bad,” after rumors swirled that her estranged husband,…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Stick with the Winners! – Domenic Esposito is an artist and activist living in the Boston area. Esposito is the son of immigrant Italian parents and was raised in both Boston and Italy. As an artist and social activist, the purpose of his work is to create haunting, sometimes dark but always memorable sculptures symbolic of injustices to humanity within our society. His goal is to create a deeply visceral disturbance in the soul that calls out for help. Recently embarking on his most ambitious, personal and controversial project with the creation of the Opioid Spoon, an eight hundred pound,…
Population Control? – December 6, 2019 – No one predicted the ferocity of the opioid epidemic,” American Society of Addiction Medicine President Paul Earley told BuzzFeed News. “Ten years ago people did not recognize substance use disorders as a disease,” said drug policy expert Beth Connolly of the Pew Charitable Trusts, who studies public opinion about drug abuse. “A lot of people really thought of it as a moral failure.”That shifted after the opioid epidemic. More than 85% of Americans in urban, suburban, or rural counties see drug addiction as a serious problem in their community, according to a 2018…
OMG WTF? – DEC. 2, 2019 – The inpatient detox units at all 11 city-run hospitals are about to close — steering people struggling with alcohol and drugs back into already busy emergency rooms, THE CITY has learned. The shutdown, expected to occur in the next few weeks, worries some nurses now working the emergency rooms of the city’s Health + Hospital Corp. facilities. The detox units provide a fully-staffed 24-hour-a-day operation where patients can go through the difficult process of weaning themselves off drugs and alcohol under the supervision of doctors and nurses specially trained to deal with withdrawal.…
Demi Does it Again? – December 5, 2019 – In July 2018, the pop star was hospitalized following an overdose. After spending eleven days in the medical facility, she checked herself into rehab. “This illness is not something that disappears or fades with time,” she explained in a now-deleted August 2018 Instagram post. “It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet. I want to thank God for keeping me alive and well. To my fans, I am forever grateful for all of your love and support throughout this past week and beyond.” One year after…
So Focused! or Attachment Disorder? – December 07, 2019 – While many people think of addiction as a behavior driven by things such as drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, the concept of addiction to technology has become a serious reality in recent years, which has caused people to display behavior similar to those with dependence on hard or soft drugs. In their findings, the researchers sought to identify several different features of addiction to smartphone technology, including specific behaviors such as: “having an intense urge to use your phone,” “feeling panicked if it runs out of battery,” “neglecting other more important…
Separate and Unequal – December 8, 2019 – In the late 1980s, the crack epidemic launched a War on Drugs that disproportionately arrested and punished black Americans.But a generation later, when a new drug scourge struck white communities across the country, the response was dramatically different. The focus shifted to saving lives, treatment, and second chances. A year-long investigation by the Asbury Park Press and the USA TODAY Network reveals a glaring double standard that hinges on race. The project examines how the responses to crack and opioids created an unfair justice system; what needs to be done to fix…
OBITUARY: RIP Ron Leibman – Dec. 6, 2019 – Mr. Leibman, red-faced and cackling, is a demon of Shakespearean grandeur, an alternately hilarious and terrifying mixture of chutzpah and megalomania, misguided brilliance and relentless cunning,” Frank Rich wrote in his New York Times review. “He turns the mere act of punching telephone buttons into a grotesque manipulation of the levers of power, and he barks out the most outrageous pronouncements (‘I brought out something tender in him,’ he says of Joe McCarthy) with a shamelessness worthy of history’s most indelible monsters.” Leibman made his big-screen debut in Where’s Poppa? (1970),…
Who Will DO Time? – November 27, 2019 – Teva, for example, reported that it received an April subpoena from the Justice Department for “documents relating to the manufacture, marketing and sale of opioids.” In August 2019, the company received a grand jury subpoena from Brooklyn prosecutors for material on how it distributes opioid medications and prevents narcotics from being diverted for illegal use. Teva said it understands the requests are “part of a broader investigation into manufacturers’ and distributors’ monitoring programs and reporting under the Controlled Substances Act,” the federal law that spells out drug companies’ responsibility to police…
Words of Wisdom – Hear what leading addiction and recovery experts are talking about—addiction trends, topics and challenges as well as research, practices and advances that point the most promising way forward. Author and recovery advocate William C. Moyers serves as host… Full Story @HazeldenBettyFord
Cutting out the wound – December 5, 2019 – Dr. Harris A. Berman, the dean of the Tufts University School of Medicine observed, “They feel the names are incongruous with the mission of the school and what we’re trying to teach them, since the name has become synonymous with the opioid epidemic,” he said. “I think the significance is symbolic, but it’s an important symbolic move.” An attorney for Sackler family members blasted the university’s decision, calling it “particularly disturbing and intellectually dishonest” to “remove the name of a donor who made gifts in good faith starting almost forty years…
Black Death – December 5, 2019 – The source of the heroin is unknown and an investigation is continuing, the county said. Most black-tar heroin is produced in Mexico and sold in the United States west of the Mississippi River, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Wilma Wooten, a county public health official, said people who use black-tar heroin are not only at higher risk of dying from an overdose, but also more prone to developing myonecrosis and wound botulism, a rare but serious illness that attacks the body’s nerves. Symptoms of myonecrosis include severe pain and…
Detoxing the 1% – Dec. 5, 2019 – At the International Conferences on Addiction and Associated Disorders in London in April, Chris Coplans of Narcotics Anonymous told a reporter for Tatler magazine: “The trend is now towards luxury. Rehabs have realised the money’s in luxury, celebs and ultra-high net worth.” Indeed, the luxury rehab industry is cut-throat competitive – so much so that some rehabs have been using dirty tricks to drum up business. Last year, a Times investigation revealed luxury rehabs had been paying psychiatrists six to seven figure kickbacks to refer addicted patients on to them. The rehabs…
Addicted Forever? – Dec. 5, 2019 – One in four U.S. adults is living with at least one chronic disease Preventing chronic disease could help curb the opioid epidemic, according to research from the University of Georgia. The study is the first to examine the relationship between hospitalizations due to opioid misuse and chronic disease. “When we look at the opioid crisis, most of the response has been to treat opioid overdose, making naloxone more available, for example. That’s a good immediate intervention, but in the long run, we need to identify the underlying issues of the epidemic,” said study…
“If your plan is for 1 year, plant rice. If your plan is for 10 years, plant trees. If your plan is for 100 years, educate children.” —Confucius
Stars Align on Sobriety – DEC. 03, 2019 – “I’m realizing as a real act of forgiveness for myself for all the choices that I’ve made that I’m not proud of, that I value those missteps, because they led to some wisdom, which led to something else,” said the 55-year-old Pitt. You can’t have one without the other,” the actor and producer continued. “I see it as something I’m just now getting my arms around at this time in my life.” … The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor first revealed his sobriety and treatment back in 2017. “I…
Medication Assisted Living – Nov. 27, 2019 – From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, a $1.5 million facility in Glasgow that opened on Tuesday will allow a handful of drug users to receive doses of the drug alongside other treatment for their physical and psychological health, according to Glasgow City Council. The pilot project, known as heroin-assisted treatment, is the first such licensed operation in Scotland, a country that has been called the “drug death capital of the world.” It has struggled to cope with high rates of fatal drug overdoses and its worst H.I.V. outbreak…
Children ‘R’ Our Future – November 29, 2019 – Jerry Moe is, in a way, one of Karli’s creators. Moe is national director of Hazelden Betty Ford Children’s Program, and an advisory board member for the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. Last year, while in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, Moe got an unexpected text: “The people at Sesame Street want to talk to you.” Moe — who spoke this month in Anaheim, at the California Community Opioid Crisis — had one thought: “Who’s scamming me?” Nobody, it turned out. Moe has an expertise that Sesame Street wanted to tap.…
Blacking Out the Blackout – NOVEMBER 26, 2019 – For a person with alcohol use disorder, a memory triggered by a simple cue — like walking by a favorite bar or spotting a beer billboard — can drive a desire for a drink. The idea hinges on the rewriting of the memories associated with drinking. Those memories are often associated with environmental cues, like certain friends a person with alcohol use disorder always drank with. By manipulating those memories in a moment when they’re malleable, researchers hope to break the tie between memories and environmental cues — and in turn,…
A Step Backwards – Nov. 26, 2019 – “Granite Pathways called 911 because we believed that residents had used drugs and showed signs of impairment and because of a serious behavioral issue of one of the residents,” Monahan said in a statement. “Two of the four residents involved were released to their parents shortly after transport. The other required monitoring overnight and both have been discharged.” Monahan said one of the residents “appeared to have ingested a significant quantity of his medication after he was detained” by police. The other residents had been attending a community AA meeting and may…
They Don’t Care? – NOVEMBER 25, 2019 – There are several ways to cut through the current obstacles to marijuana research. Certainly, reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug would solve the access problems. substances in this category are available to researchers from several facilities licensed by states or the federal government. Researchers would still be required to register with the DEA and report on purchases, distribution, and destruction of the marijuana used in their studies. If the DEA remains unwilling to reclassify marijuana, one significant advance would be to quickly approve more growers. In…
Medicine Men – Nov. 26, 2019 – MAT utilizes FDA approved medications to treat patients with an opioid addiction. Methadone, one of the medications, changes how the brain and nervous system respond to pain. It lessens the painful symptoms of opiate withdrawal and blocks euphoric effects of opioid drugs such as heroin, morphine and codeine and semi-synthetic opiates like fentanyl, oxycodone, and hydrocodone. Methadone is offered in liquid form at the RCA site and prescribed as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes counseling and participation in social support programs. Another OUD medication, Suboxone, is administered as a film…
Spiritual Solution – Nov. 26, 2019- When Moran was 11, her mother remarried, and the family moved to Indianapolis’ east side. Moran went to Lutheran High School, where she made decent grades and played volleyball. But she found herself choosing between friends: A studious, structured group with strict parents, or a girl whose parents gave her the run of the neighborhood. She chose the latter. “I was trying to find something,” she said, “that made me feel loved.” Moran started smoking weed when she was 15. By the end of her junior year, she was around 7 months pregnant. She…
Half Measures – NOV. 29, 2019 – As detailed in a May 5, 2018 article in the Banner and Manchester Journal, thousands of people visit Wilson’s birthplace in East Dorset each year. Wilson was born in the house in 1895 behind what would ironically become the hotel bar, and returned to his hometown frequently until his death in 1971. It is a registered national historic site. People visit the landmark each year to honor Wilson’s memory and participate in seminars and meetings on recovery. More than 50 educational programs take place at the house annually, as well as events and…
What, no more cheesesteaks? – November 28, 2019 – “And now we’re finding that the drugs are not as safe as we thought. They interact with a bunch of drugs. There are some nutritional concerns. There’s an increased risk of fracture and an increased risk of infection.” High risk The new study, published in JAMA Network Open, analyzed more than 233,000 people taking PPIs continuously and compared them with nearly 627,000 adults who weren’t taking the drug. When they looked at the 2015-16 winter virus season, they noted that people who took PPIs, including Nexium, Prevacid, Protonix and Prilosec, all…
The Unsafe Sex – November 30, 2019 – Sexism was defined in the study, which received responses from nearly 3,000 women aged between 16 and 93, as feeling unsafe, avoiding going to or being in a setting, being insulted and/or threatened, or being physically attacked because of your sex. “What too often is dismissed as young women lacking confidence is in reality a crisis in mental health caused by a sexist society. Sexism is deeply affecting young women’s lives, their economic freedom and their health,” said Sophie Walker of the Young Women’s Trust. More than four in five young women…
Mercy After Dark – November 30, 2019 – They’re a Christian ministry motorcycle gang that has spent seven years feeding the city’s homeless and others in need. The leather-clad, bandanna-wearing group, with its vans and motorcycles, meets at 8:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a McDonald’s at Lomas and Broadway NE every week. Volunteers gather around the bikes and line their cars up behind the vans as the group gets ready to head out. The operation, which the group calls Mercy After Dark, starts with a briefing to volunteers telling them what they should expect in the coming hours.…
UnStuff Yourself – November 30, 2019 – 1. DON’T beat yourself up for “being bad”. • Avoid dwelling on having gone back for seconds (or thirds). • Beating yourself up because you “went off your diet” will only bring on negative feelings of failure, guilt, and frustration which are triggers for emotional eating. 2. DON’T starve yourself or overly restrict your calories to “make up for being bad” or to compensate for the excesses. • Starving yourself, that is, consciously and severely restricting calories, will drive you to want to eat everything in sight and will ignite the cycle of…
Life Extension – November 29, 2019 – Under the new rules, which quietly went into effect on Nov. 12, more facilities — such as LGBTQ centers, local government health departments and sexually transmitted disease clinics — can apply to offer the service. “By providing additional access to sterile syringes in settings in which opioid overdoses can be minimized, this regulation will reduce the number of opioid overdoses and deaths,” the State Health department said in a statement supporting the regulation. “[It will] improve the health of individuals who inject drugs, and their communities.” … But the new regulations make no…
Straight Flush – Nov. 25, 2019 – ReFresh Spot now serves 600 guests a day, providing them with restrooms, showers and laundry services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. HHCLA’s emphasis on access to basic sanitation reflects that harm reduction has imperatives far beyond the facilitation of safer drug use. The organization’s continuum of harm reduction services also includes wound care, naloxone distribution and training, and syringe exchange—to name but a few. “There’s no barriers to entry here,” Campos said. “You don’t have to give up your name or sign up to use the bathroom. There’s a very…