Can This Man Help Solve The Prescription Opioid Epidemic?
In October 2011, Mendell’s son Brian took his own life because of Brian could no longer cope with the stigma of opioid addiction. Mendell expresses the gumption to see the process through and the humility and adaptability to learn. As he explains, “Working in this area has taught me more empathy. There’s nothing like meeting families who had to bury their child.” He also recognizes that the “vast majority of people are well meaning,” which suggests that he won’t try to storm in and tell others that they are wrong, stupid or bad, mistakes that other attempted champions have made in various public health arenas.
Amy Winehouse charity sets up home for female recovering addicts
The Amy Winehouse Foundation has partnered with a housing provider to open a home for women recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, on the fifth anniversary of the singer’s death. Known as Amy’s Place, the recovery house, which will be in operation from Monday … aims to help recovering female addicts … Jane Winehouse of the Amy Winehouse Foundation said: “This project will make such a profound difference to so many young women, enabling them to have a safe environment in which to rebuild their lives and put into practice all the learning they have acquired through their treatment journey
In fight against addiction, dentists turn away from opioids
Most people who get their wisdom teeth removed go home with a prescription for Vicodin, a commonly prescribed painkiller that for many likely provided their first experience with an opioid. As opioids fuel a national addiction crisis, some dentists are rethinking how they prescribe the drugs, aiming to curtail new addictions and reduce the number of pills waiting unused in medicine cabinets.
Michael Botticelli calls RI a leader in treating drug-addicted inmates
The White House drug czar on Tuesday toured Rhode Island’s women’s prison and heard from inmates about a program that he described as a national leader in providing medication-assisted treatment for addiction.” Under Governor Raimondo’s leadership, Rhode Island has been a leader in providing this life-saving treatment to incarcerated individuals to help them recover and successfully reenter society,” Michael Botticelli, who is himself a recovering alcoholic, said during his visit to the Gloria McDonald women’s facility.
Heath Ledger’s Dad Says What Everyone Should Know About Drug-Related Deaths
The father of Heath Ledger-the Australian movie star who died from what was generally described as a drug “overdose” at age 28-has a simple-but-vital message: Be careful about mixing. Kim Ledger told Australia News that the night before his son’s death, Heath’s sister had warned him about the risks of combining different drugs. “You can’t mix drugs that you don’t know anything about,” she apparently told her brother … As drug scientist and Influence contributor Dr. Carl Hart pointed out to The New York Times: While it is possible to die from an overdose of an opioid alone, this is rare…
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‘It’s about helping others in my brother’s memory’ – Dublin star Philly McMahon on new drug addiction charity VIDEO
The three-time All-Ireland winner, who recently helped the Dubs to a fifth consecutive Leinster title, has often spoke about losing his brother to drug addiction in 2012 and seeing those he grew up with in Ballymun endure similar problems. After taking tentative steps in reaching out to people suffering with addiction some years ago, McMahon has now wholly committed to the undertaking. “From a young age I’ve been exposed to seeing people in my family and in my area that were on drugs and, in a way, it has shaped who I am and what I want to do. “I actually get a really good buzz out of trying to help people so it’s something that has developed over the last year and a half.
John F. Pontius, who counseled fellow recovering alcoholics, dies at 81
John F. Pontius, a Washington tour guide, Air Force security specialist, archives technician and a recovering alcoholic who made it a major mission of his life to help other alcoholics get sober in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, died July 16 at his home in the District. He was 81…At the age of 43 in March 1978, Mr. Pontius quit drinking and – at the order of his doctor – entered a 28-day alcoholic rehabilitation program … Mr. Pontius drove a car with the license tag “AA 78,” commemorating the year in which he had his last drink.
Largest Addiction Caucus Ever to Take Place During a DNC Draws Hundreds in Philadelphia VIDEO
This is not a Democrat or Republican disease,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said. “This disease doesn’t care what side you’re on.” “The threats to our streets are not in Aleppo or Fallujah,” U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told the crowd early in the caucus. “The terrorism that could come into peoples lives is this drug epidemic.” … Most of the speeches and panels centered on reforms for the criminal justice and health care reforms including establishing strong drug-treatment programs in jails, ending incarceration as a way to handle addiction, overhauling the insurance industry to require coverage for addiction treatment…
July 28, 2016 – Drug use among women in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level in at least 20 years, figures suggest. One in 20 women (5%) aged between 16 and 59 reported using an illicit substance in the past year, the Crime Survey for England and Wales found. This was the lowest level since the records started in 1996. It had peaked at 8.8% in 2000 and 2003-04. Among men, 11.8% reported using drugs over the past year – a figure which has also fallen in recent years.
Marijuana legalization might be fix to nation’s opioid problems
Separate data reported by the RAND Corporation in 2015 drew a similar conclusion, determining, “states permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not.”…Of course, a small percentage of cannabis consumers do go on to use other illicit drugs. But in these instances experts generally identify ‘environmental circumstances,’ not the preceding use of cannabis, as the primary reason why some people transition to other drugs. As acknowledged by the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction:
Testing a Prospective Medication to Help People Avoid Relapse ANIMATED VIDEO
This NIDA Notes animation describes a basic experiment that researchers use to test whether a prospective new medication can prevent relapse to drug addiction. The experiment is conducted with a frequently used laboratory animal, the rat, and has three phases: self-administration of the drug (cocaine) together with a sound and light cue accompanying a single dose of the drug…
The agency also reported an 11 percent decrease in the number of people registered as suffering from alcoholism at hospitals and health clinics, and a 25 percent decrease in mortality related to alcohol consumption … The sale of alcohol per capita has also decreased by nine percent since 2009, the group reported, heralding the drop as the result of successful government policy. Current laws ban alcohol sales in children’s, educational, medical, sports and cultural facilities, and limits the hours when alcohol can be bought in shops.
‘Hold onto Jesus’ says priest and recovering alcoholic in video published after his death VIDEO
He finally entered St Charles Seminary in Philadelphia. “I never wanted to be anything else than a Catholic priest and it’s still there after 63 years.” In the video, published this month, Father Ed Thompson, a friend of the late Fulton Sheen, a popular Catholic bishop and broadcaster who many are hoping will be canonised, describes his six decades in the priesthood, including his recovery from alcoholism after years battling the disease … In the video, Father Ed continues: “Alcoholics when they are drinking cannot tell the truth. They can’t survive telling the truth.” So he joined Alcoholics Anonymous but it took him a few years to get properly sober.
Surgeon General: We Have to ‘Change How Our Country Sees Addiction’ VIDEO
With nearly 2 million people in America addicted to prescription opioids, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is calling the epidemic one of the most “important public health challenges of our time.” In a conversation with The Huffington Post’s Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington, Murthy discussed key ways to address the crisis on both a governmental and individual level.
James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an African-American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable tensions.
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Narcan saves opioid overdose victims, but many keep using VIDEO
Administered in recent years by first responders and ordinary Long Islanders alike, it’s credited with saving thousands of lives in a region that continues to grapple with an opioid epidemic – one that killed 442 people in Nassau and Suffolk last year alone. Those rescued by Narcan have awakened in their mom’s house, in a friend’s kitchen, on the roadside, or in a KFC restroom after emergency responders kicked in the door.
Program helps pregnant women struggling with drug addiction VIDEO
The Good Samaritan Shelter’s Project P.R.E.M.I.E. is showing success in helping mothers deliver drug free babies in Santa Maria. The program is designed for pregnant and parenting women with drug abuse issues. The goal of this program is to not only deliver drug-free babies but assist in the healing process for women and their children affected by substance abuse. Cassandra Romano, a Project P.R.E.M.I.E. mother said, “I was slamming meth and heroin and it’s kind of been on & off my whole life and just progressively kept getting worse.”
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American Nightmare
Family seeks answers in Army vet’s overdose death
Last fall, Cole Schuler, a 26-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger from the Fox Valley, checked himself into the inpatient drug rehabilitation unit of the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs facility in Milwaukee. He was trying to kick an addiction to opioids. Instead, 11 days into his stay, he died of a heroin overdose at the center. “There was just a lot of shock and anger,” said Schuler’s older brother, Wyatt. “We thought he was somewhere safe. It was like, ‘How does that even happen?'”
Woman Jumps From Hilton For Shatterproof Addiction Event
The event was organized by Shatterproof, a nonprofit, national organization working to end addiction in children and adults; the Waterford Hotel Group; and Cigna, Shatterproof’s national partner. Gary Mendell founded Shatterproof in 2013 after his son Brian, who had struggled with addiction, committed suicide in 2011.
E-cigs create toxic vapors from harmless e-liquids
Some people think electronic cigarettes, which don’t contain tobacco, are a safer alternative to true cigarettes. But smoking e-cigarettes, or vaping, exposes people to toxic gases that can harm the lungs and cause other health problems. Now, a new study shows that the hotter an e-cig gets – and the more it’s used – the more toxic compounds it gives off. Hugo Destaillats is a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. His team has just turned up a host of toxic chemicals in the vapors generated by electronic cigarettes. Some have never before been seen in vaping emissions.
Supermarket Heiress Donates $800,000 to Fight Medical Marijuana in Florida
Florida loves Publix, the supermarket chain routinely ranked the most valuable and beloved company in the whole state thanks in no small part to its fantastically salty sub sandwiches. So it’s sure to jar a few hard-core Publix fans to learn that the family that founded the chain just donated $800,000 to a conservative-led campaign fighting medical marijuana legalization.
Can an Addiction Memoir Help Us Understand Wall Street?
Now Polk has expanded his confession into a book, “For the Love of Money.” Though it glosses at first as a trading-desk memoir, the volume is in fact an account of addiction and recovery, similar in structure to classics of the genre such as Jerry Stahl’s “Permanent Midnight” or Caroline Knapp’s “Drinking: A Love Story.” … But, thanks to his substance abuse-in the course of the memoir, he ingests or inhales alcohol, marijuana, Ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, Ritalin, Valium, and NyQuil-he nearly flunks out. Suspended for stealing (a marijuana-resin ball, no less), he tries to make the most of his time off by taking an entry-level position at a startup in San Francisco-a lucrative job that ends in a bloody fistfight.
City Puts Sober Living Lawsuits on Pause while Waiting for Evidence
One of the defendants in the case with Sobertec LLC is Sovereign Health Group. Seth Zajac, General Counsel for Sovereign Health, said the city’s legal actions are unjustified. “Unwarranted legal actions, like the one initiated by the City of Dana Point, leave Sovereign Health with no choice but to take any and all legal actions to defend our patients’ rights to receive care,” Zajac said. “What is worse is that the resources Sovereign Health must use to defend these rights in court could be put to far better use to treat our patients.”
An Open Letter to Gary Mendell & SHATTERPROOF from Burl Barer
Dear Shatterproof, We recently received your latest fund-raising promotion titled, “Stay Dry in July.” After reading it with great interest, we would appreciate clarification on a few key points. Your literature states: “Every dollar you raise will help us provide evidence-based resources, work with elected officials to strengthen laws, and support all Americans who’ve been touched by this disease.”
Michael Douglas’ son released from prison after serving nearly 7 years for drug addiction
The beleaguered son of actor Michael Douglas has been released early from prison after nearly seven years of confinement. Cameron Douglas, the eldest child of the Hollywood star, was moved to a halfway house in Brooklyn after originally being slated for a 2018 release, People magazine reports. The 37-year-old year was locked up in 2010 on charges of heroin possession and selling methamphetamine
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